magpie9
12/9/04 6:23 PM
SACRED CIRCLE DECK INITIATION #16
This may be my favorite card in the deck, but it is also the most difficult for me to understand, and put in words. My soul understands it, but I’m not too sure that my mind does.
Nonetheless, I’m taking a whack at it.
In this decks journey of the fool’s progression, this card comes after the Underworld and after the Tower. The seeker has gone down into the shadowland to confront himself. He has seen his dearly held beliefs destroyed by fire and earthquake, and delt with truths he did not wish to face. He has earned the right to a new birth into his life. He has perhaps, the sense that he no longer has a top layer of skin to protect and shield him from the world. He is ready for rebirth, his old life is gone. The structures have fallen, it is time to rebuild.
I am talking about 2 kinds of initiation here. There is the ritual initiation, in which a seeker is initiated into a mystery religion, or a particular lodge or circle within a mystery religion. This is generally preceded by a year or more of serious study, under the tutelage of an “older” member of the group. The other is the spontaneous initiatory process that shamans go through as the final process of becoming a shaman. It can take place over a period of years. It is a terrible ordeal, and some do not survive it. Sometimes the pre-shaman has sought out and studied with a shaman prior to this, and sometimes it comes on them unaware, out of the blue, and unprepared for.
In many mystery traditions, initiation is re-birth. The inititiate has gone through many trials and struggles to get to the place and moment of initiation, he is naked, blind, restrained, sometimes on mind-altering drugs and has nothing to live on but his trust in the mystery he is engaged in. He has undergone ritual death and re-birth. Frequently, he will take a new name after this, to mark and honor his new start in life.
So. The Labyrinth represents the convoluted path he has taken to get here. The cauldron is that of death and re-birth, the fire is the burning away of the old self, the leap of creation and inspiration in the birth of the new.
The Woodpecker circles above guarding this place from any who do not have the right to be here.
The hazel nuts are for concentrated wisdom, and the chervil is an herb of initiation, about which I know practically nothing! I hope someone can shed some light on the chervil—and also Springwort, witch the book mentions as well.
So what does it mean when it comes up in a reading? In it’s purest form, I think, as a life-altering experience, after which you are never the same. You are profoundly changed from how you were. On a more everyday level, perhaps it is seeing the way to the heart of truth, beyond all the veils we put in our own way. And in that moment, having the ability to consciously alter your path. It is a time of achieving, however briefly, perfection of balance.
The book says that this card is in the place of “Temperance”, and to me that would mean in the place of Alchemy or Art, where one thing is made into another.
SACRED CIRCLE DECK INITIATION #16
This may be my favorite card in the deck, but it is also the most difficult for me to understand, and put in words. My soul understands it, but I’m not too sure that my mind does.
Nonetheless, I’m taking a whack at it.
In this decks journey of the fool’s progression, this card comes after the Underworld and after the Tower. The seeker has gone down into the shadowland to confront himself. He has seen his dearly held beliefs destroyed by fire and earthquake, and delt with truths he did not wish to face. He has earned the right to a new birth into his life. He has perhaps, the sense that he no longer has a top layer of skin to protect and shield him from the world. He is ready for rebirth, his old life is gone. The structures have fallen, it is time to rebuild.
I am talking about 2 kinds of initiation here. There is the ritual initiation, in which a seeker is initiated into a mystery religion, or a particular lodge or circle within a mystery religion. This is generally preceded by a year or more of serious study, under the tutelage of an “older” member of the group. The other is the spontaneous initiatory process that shamans go through as the final process of becoming a shaman. It can take place over a period of years. It is a terrible ordeal, and some do not survive it. Sometimes the pre-shaman has sought out and studied with a shaman prior to this, and sometimes it comes on them unaware, out of the blue, and unprepared for.
In many mystery traditions, initiation is re-birth. The inititiate has gone through many trials and struggles to get to the place and moment of initiation, he is naked, blind, restrained, sometimes on mind-altering drugs and has nothing to live on but his trust in the mystery he is engaged in. He has undergone ritual death and re-birth. Frequently, he will take a new name after this, to mark and honor his new start in life.
So. The Labyrinth represents the convoluted path he has taken to get here. The cauldron is that of death and re-birth, the fire is the burning away of the old self, the leap of creation and inspiration in the birth of the new.
The Woodpecker circles above guarding this place from any who do not have the right to be here.
The hazel nuts are for concentrated wisdom, and the chervil is an herb of initiation, about which I know practically nothing! I hope someone can shed some light on the chervil—and also Springwort, witch the book mentions as well.
So what does it mean when it comes up in a reading? In it’s purest form, I think, as a life-altering experience, after which you are never the same. You are profoundly changed from how you were. On a more everyday level, perhaps it is seeing the way to the heart of truth, beyond all the veils we put in our own way. And in that moment, having the ability to consciously alter your path. It is a time of achieving, however briefly, perfection of balance.
The book says that this card is in the place of “Temperance”, and to me that would mean in the place of Alchemy or Art, where one thing is made into another.