Lodestone
This card is numbered zero. It is hard to imagine zero – a void, emptiness, absence. But say we could achieve the absence of everything – is that a starting point? How? How can some-thing come from no-thing? Physically that is impossible….. But can that happen within me? In my spirit? Now that concept in itself is food for thought and meditation for some considerable time…… Is this card everywhere at the same time? Do flashes of this card come into every aspect of our lives, constantly?
The first time I looked at this card I had to google “Lodestone” – and this is what I found out (thanks to Wikipedia)
A lodestone or loadstone is a naturally magnetized piece of the mineral magnetite. They are naturally occurring magnets, that attract pieces of iron. Ancient people first discovered the property of magnetism in lodestone. Pieces of lodestone, suspended so they could turn, were the first magnetic compasses, and their importance to early navigation is indicated by the name lodestone, which in Middle English means 'course stone' or 'leading stone'. Lodestone is one of only two minerals that is found naturally magnetized; the other, pyrrhotite, is only weakly magnetic. Magnetite is black or brownish-black with a metallic luster, has a Mohs hardness of 5.5-6.5 and a black streak.
The process by which lodestone is created has long been an open question in geology. Only a small amount of the magnetite on Earth is found magnetized as lodestone. Ordinary magnetite is attracted to a magnetic field like iron and steel is, but does not tend to become magnetized itself. Recent research has found that only a variety of magnetite with a particular crystalline structure, a mixture of magnetite and maghemite, has sufficient coercivity to be magnetized and become a permanent magnet. One theory suggests that lodestones are magnetized by the strong magnetic fields surrounding lightning bolts. This is supported by the observation that they are mostly found at the surface of the Earth; not buried at great depth.
This gave me an instant starting point. Why Lodestone? I mean – why the name Lodestone for this particular card? Lodestone was used in compasses; it points in one constant direction. This seems to indicate that the girl shown in the card is to go in a particular direction – she is not to wander off down interesting looking lanes, or be diverted by fancy toys. Having been shown her path she is jolly well supposed to stick to it. However, since she is only human we must suppose that she’ll go astray several times and when she does, Lodestone will guide her back to the true path. Now I say “the true path” but of course what I meant was “her” true path – we are all given our own maps when we start out journey and there is no point whatsoever in trying to use someone else’s map.
The girl holds her hands up – it’s like she’s a conductor, about to bring all of the instruments together and produce a coherent orchestra. The magic flares from her fingertips. Or – each finger light shows a possible path but she must remain true to Lodestone’s pointer. Will she succeed? She was standing carefully on the fingertips of the hands cradling the lodestone but look – she has jumped clear, out into the void.
There are hands held up in her future as if to bar the way. Two of them hold Lodestones of their own. Will she be deflected from her apparent true path by these other lodestones? And if she is, will it actually matter? Can she only learn a life’s lessons by sticking strictly to a particular path? If I am here this time around to learn, say, gentleness, does which path I choose matter? None of us know which lesson we are meant to be learning – surely the school in which we learn isn’t important?
I remember a teacher once telling me that an unwilling student won’t learn even in the best possible school. On the other hand a keen student will learn in the most deprived of schools. So – if I jump out of the hands and get taken by the breeze in unexpected directions, will it actually matter at all? Maybe that’s the whole point of it. The leap of faith – the jumping clear of the protective embrace. Like the child walking down the path alone, free to experience her own adventures for the first time.
So there I am – floating free of the hands. With no particular direction to go in (for I am ignoring the lodestone as a stone for the moment)… my growing really starts now doesn’t it? No-one to think for me, no-one to tell me how to deal with all the upraised hands that seem to be blocking the path. Looking at the hands that hold other lodestones my immediate thought is “Hah, fake lodestones designed to lure me in!” My second is – well, if I did get ensnared by one of those hands, which direction does it’s lodestone point to? The same, or is it utterly different (for now I am thinking spiritually of course and the laws of physics have flown out of the window). Maybe they point to different stages of my journey? Is life a series of desperate leaps into the void – heart thumping hard enough to make you feel faint – followed by soft landings in upturned hands?
But the little girl in this card is me today. Forever setting out on my journey and finding that the further I travel, the longer the road. Like the card, where we see the vastness of space – infinite – so is our path to the future. How many times before have I lived a life? How many times more will I be here taking the same tentative steps onto my spiritual path and hoping each time to progress a little further? I just thought about the possibility of setting off from one set of those hands as a child, travelling the course shown by its Lodestone, dying and find myself again in the safe hands of the Goddess ready to set out all over again. And thus I progress (hopefully) – each leap teaching me something new. I really enjoy that vision of the Fool’s circular journey.
I love the eye at the bottom of the card – it’s so unexpected, but of course we really do need to keep our eyes open to see our way clearly – in every sense. The eye stares out at me and yet somehow gazes along the path at the same time. I had a quick poignant vision of standing watching my son walk away from me – his eyes intent on his own path, and mine on him. So must every parent watch as their children spend (it feels) their whole lives leaving them. Every step forward is another one away. It sounds so sad but it’s not – there’s a freedom comes with it. A freedom to love (or dislike) each other as people – not just as parents and children.
I was suddenly distracted by the wrists – the ones the eye is set into. The cuffs – so very like the Magician’s cuffs. And the little girl – so very like the little girl inside the Magician. Of course, Lodestone is numbered zero and in effect dances in and out of all of the other cards. Also – that eye on the wrists. Who watches? And why? For me it is the Goddess who starts me on my journey - but does she also watch?
This takes me back to the idea of me watching (terrified and proud) as my son goes off into the world. And I wonder, am I now in part my own Lodestone Girl’s parent? Now that I am a conscious, thinking adult. In one way I most certainly am. If I think of that Girl as (in part) my Inner Child – my inner innocent – should I watch her - is it part of being an adult to be self aware to the extent that I be aware of my inner self (even if understanding proves elusive)? I do think that my lodestone points to my own most needed lessons. As the Inner Child (the hidden, unacknowledged part of myself) I am free to never leave the safety of my adult hands. I don’t really have to keep working on myself, trying to grow, trying to understand myself and integrate every aspect of my personality. Do I? Or does understanding bring obligation? It is difficult; my fearful inner child cowers inside me, scared to go out and play with the big boys and girls. And what is exactly is my personal Inner Child? And why must the poor little thing grow up? Well, I think I need her to grow up and out so that one day my whole persona is integrated and I will finally be a whole, fully adult human being.
And as my subconscious, my poor Lodestone Girl is a trembling mass of worry, fear, desire, anger – you name it and filled with wily cunning. All of which is – usually – kept firmly in check by my conscious self. However, unless I let her out I can’t grow up completely. I will forever be stunted; part of me a child with childish reactions and inner tantrums…. So – I follow the Lodestone. Learn to recognize and understand this usually hidden part of myself. Give her a voice and learn to accept the pure feelings that she expresses.
Two words – pure….. and feeling. Untainted emotion. As in untainted by an consideration for anything but itself. Or pure – a word that has come to mean the essence of goodness when all it really means is that the pure thing is just that thing and no other. On that basis – think of pure lust. Is it wrong, evil? How can it be? We all feel it. Does the wrongness come with attempted gratification? And here we tread the marshy ground of morality – another type of ground to tread in our Fool’s Journey.
Is my Lodestone child to learn to temper her purity with my ego’s learned morality? That’s all well and good, but what about the effect my personal neuroses will already have had on me. What chance does my poor Girl have then? I have no conclusions – just endless questions. Which of course is the joy of tarot – the paths and byways to trip merrily down and find that you can’t get out without some brain bending course of thinking to follow. I do know that within me there is that which has been controlled quite rigidly, and it is only with my spiritual practice that I have come to see how much damage that control has done. I have spent the last eight years busily unlearning emotional control so that a repressed little girl can come out into the daylight and learn to grow up, instead of being pushed into a cupboard in my soul. And my Lodestone Girl is a Fool. She is innocent, inexperienced, trusting, hopeful – very fearful, and no good at speaking up for herself. She finds it hard to make her needs known – all too often she was slapped down. Of course it was me who did the slapping – and thought it right to do so – instead of letting her out so she could learn her own control. I just repressed her.
Your Lodestone Girl is a Fool too – in a totally different way and for different reasons but she’s there inside you. Waiting to be let out, understood and accepted.
