Dark Moon, Cards, and Shadow Work

I've mentioned before that the 23rd of each month is a date that carries meaning in my practices. I consult the Temple of Abzu cards much more often than I talk about here, and I make sure I do so as part of these practices.

A strange group of things came together for the 23rd of this month. The date came just a few nights after the peak of this year's Orionids meteor shower, a night before the dark moon, and during the time of year that is often described as being one of the times "the Veil is thinnest". I don't think of that Veil as being like a curtain, but more like a liminal space that cannot clearly be defined and is a boundary between worlds. A very real boundary...but not one that cannot be crossed, or that crossing it would be as simple as taking a step to go from one side to the other. It's much more than that.

The Ancient Abyss

An Ancestral Stargate

To Stand Alone Before Eternity

The Darkness Seems Light

Blood Flows From The Dark Eye

Dreaming In Darkness

I don't see in these cards what I've noticed before about cards coming together to make a larger picture. These pictures give me a feeling of looking at the same thing from three different angles, or three points in time. That the ancient abyss is the ancestral stargate that stands alone in eternity. That to stand before that ancestral gate is to stand before eternity.

The line "The Darkness Seems Light" teases and tugs at me. Is it that darkness doesn't seem like much to carry here? Is it that the darkness becomes its own form of illumination, a different kind of light? Do darkness and light combine in a way that destroys them both as they become something else at this point? It can be all of those things, and many others. It can be all of them simultaneously.

As long as we're looking at oracle cards...

I've mentioned my use of the Southern Gothic Oracle cards before. There is also a Southern Botanic Oracle deck from the same creator. I'm participating this week in a project that uses these cards for shadow work. The work is difficult and healing, as shadow work is meant to be. Shadow work is like having to break a bone again so that now it can be set to heal properly. It isn't just done once and then everything is good forever. When it comes to needing to be done multiple times, I would compare it to cleaning house. For me, there is something especially healing about doing this work with cards that show beautiful paintings of plants that grow in the same area of the world that I'm from. 

The Hellebore card has been turning up in my readings in ways that lead me deeper into examining certain aspects of myself. Things that I already know about myself, but now I'm thinking about those things in new ways. Something I keep going back to is just looking at the plant itself. So beautiful!

Humans are odd animals. Other animals see the beautiful colors of a plant and know they should probably stay away because it's likely to be dangerous. Humans say, "Oh, look at the beautiful colors! We should plant some of this in the yard!"

We do it with many things. We dance with dangers, usually as long as we can feel secure that our step won't slip. We try to take away any real threat of danger while holding onto the illusion of it. Some people reject anything outside of their own culture. Many people commit cultural appropriation and label elements of other cultures as being "exotic", as if only their own culture could be "normal", and then embrace it only on the surface...scraping away anything that gives it meaning while holding tightly to the aesthetic, the illusion.

Maybe both groups are afraid of diving deep and being transformed by the experience. Maybe both are afraid of being rejected, so one group rejects first while the other won't admit their fear nor let go.

The Hellebore card holds the meanings of temptation and danger. I often find with these cards that meanings play the "either/or" game in a reading. If one meaning doesn't make sense, the other almost certainly will. Hellebore is one of the few cards that I read as both meanings applying at the same time. Temptation and danger walk together. It is the danger that is so tempting. It transforms. Yes, some dangers are absolutely to be avoided. Some dangers would cost too much, be too lethal. Even that is a transformation, though. Not one to be sought, but that will come in its own time.

It's interesting to imagine Hellebore growing at the shores of the abyss.