Queen of Swords

A lovely image of The Quest. . . .

( The 6 of Swords card from The Gilded Tarot )

Only one image lingers from last night's dream. . .

I am sitting in the prow of my dad's 8' fiberglass boat, the one he owned for decades and which was a constant feature of our family's summer excursions. We are in the waters of Puget Sound, near my sacred island. Dad is in the back, his hand on the controls of the outboard motor. We're racing across the water, bouncing over the waves.

It is an image from my life, one repeated many times over the years, one of the special bonding activities my dad and I shared. On the water.

I remember the last time we did this in life, the last time the family went to the island for a vacation. I remember how it felt to be racing both across and with the water, the delight in the bouncing up and down with the wind in my face. It was a sensation of pure joy.

My subconscious seems to be settling down and getting with the program.

My subconscious is reminding me that I have been doing my father the same disservice I have been doing myself in characterizing him primarily as ruler of Swords. He is a life-long fisherman, a life-long boater, a man of deep and intense feeling, even though he has often kept it hidden by the rules of discretion that govern men of his class and generation.

My father is also a man of Water.

Last night's dreams culminated in a sequence in which I tried to prepare a completely novice group of women for a battle. By the end of the dream it was an SCA war, but I can't remember now if it started out that way.

I had a relatively small group, perhaps a dozen or so people to educate, organize, and lead -- and I was utterly unable to do my job. The primary group splintered into little sub-groups, each of which was absorbed in its own conversations, most of which had nothing to do with the preparation for battle. Every time I tried to get them all together, something in our conditions shifted, so we had to move, or someone new came in. . . and everything fell apart again. (Hurm. Sounds like my own mind being unable to focus and constantly getting distracted from my primary goals by irrelevances.)

I think my Ex-husband (with whom I took the field in SCA battles on more than one occasion) was on the other side, but there were at least three parties to the conflict.

The beginning of the battle was soon upon us, and I frantically tried to arm my warriors -- only to realize that many of them had real weapons, not SCA fighter weapons. I was hurrying up and down the line, trying to explain to each woman that she could not actually strike with those weapons.

Finally someone -- I think it was pathdancer -- called to me that the battle was about to start. I hurried to my place in line to find that one of my "fighters" had tried to be helpful and had brought me my sword -- but it was the real sword I bought in the summer of 2007, not an SCA sword, and there was no time to run back and exchange it.

I was about to enter a recreational combat with a real weapon, and I was angry at myself for not being better prepared, angry at the person who'd tried to help me by bringing the wrong weapon, and angry that I was about to fail as a fighter and a leader because I couldn't strike without doing harm.


Which all resonates very strongly with the non-rational fears which I believe are part of the reason why I continue to struggle turning my vocational practice into actual work. Except, as I type this, I realize that when I touch those fears while I'm awake, I perceive that there is a threat of harm to me if I pursue them. The dream suggests that I'm actually afraid that I'm unfit to lead and that if I actually use my gifts I'll bring harm to others.

The last bit immediately brings up memories of 'learning' at a very young age that answering all the questions in class made me a "show-off" and I needed to be considerate of the feelings of others, give them a chance to respond too. As far as I can presently discern, that's the root of my inhibition about stepping up and offering my gifts to the world: that somehow my letting my light shine will intimidate others or make them uncomfortable.

Somehow I need to learn the lesson from the Marianne Williamson quote which a_belletrist posted last week. I always remember the opening line: "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure."

What I forget is the closing lines:

As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

I experience this frequently in the presence of others who have allowed their gifts to shine. But I have not yet internalized it for myself.

My gifts are not a threat to those around me.

And while it is within the realm of possibility that I could cause harm to someone if I made a major error during a spiritual direction session, it's actually unlikely that my mistakes in a session or classroom will actually hurt anyone.

Is that what I need to look at more deeply?

No, I haven't been around very much the last few days. . . or more. It's not that I don't love you all, but I've been riding out a pendulum swing that's carried me way over into a part of my psyche that had gotten a bit rusty, and which I've been expressing (at length) in a blog I keep hermetically sealed away from this one.

Blame it on my P-con class. I've been doing. . . fieldwork. . . and doing a lot of excavation of past experiences and revelations. . . And allowing the rational parts of myself to let go for awhile and stop trying to prepare to teach this class the same way I prepared for the defenses of my theses.

If I can't stand in Wands/Fire and Cups/Water at least as strongly a I do Mind/Air, if I can't teach from body-wisdom as well as intellect, this is not going to work. That's felt backward, even as I've believed it to be true, and I've been going through some mental contortions trying to adjust my processes.

Besides, there hasn't been much to report on in my daily life. Work is the same, Wolfling is fine, I'm going to move in a couple of weeks, I'm enjoying Season Two of Bones via Netflix.

Please leave a comment here if there's a post you really want me to read. I haven't even been reading my Friends page on my gadget during the day because my attention has been diverted to a different site.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go slip back into the Water. . .

For the first time since I started this journal, I'm changing the name.

The title has been "From the Sublime to the Ridiculous" and the subtitle "Because I Can't Be Serious All The Time."

Now it's "Days of Fierce Becoming: The Queen of Swords Picks Up Her Cup."

Okay, I know I still owe some substantive responses to some of the comments on the "Old Time Religion" thread (especially amqu's!) -- and I owe the answers to the movie quiz (has no one both seen and remembered American Dreamer? -- athenian_abroad?!).

BUT. . . .

( I have a new staff from Whidbey Island and a new sword!! And they are beautiful!! )