Parting the Mists

Here is a card that builds on yesterday’s, I feel. This card represents the both human and animal, spiritual and material. The Ancestor represents the Land but also us – it is here to guide us away from the exploitation and abuse shown in yesterday’s card.

THE ANCESTOR

READING POINTS: You have made the leap and started a new cycle. Your instinctive spirit has felt it necessary to lead you to the gateway and a new path. You may have been reluctant or concerned at first, but whether you realize it or not, a shift has occurred. You may feel wary of the unknown denizens that await you in the forest, but the ancient Ancestor within you will guide and reassure you as you relearn and greet new experiences on the path. Trust your inner voice. Listen to your own instinctive and inquisitive nature. Your own inner Ancestor is strong, patient, and wise. Let them lead you into the forest with new eyes and a joyful heart.

MEANING: The Ancestor greets you as you walk up the path that leads to the forest. She is a creature of myth, half-animal, half-human, but carries the wand of wisdom and the drum that summons all who can hear to gather and watch the sun rise. The Ancestor is blessed by the land, and by the divine knowledge that flows from the stars. Her coat is of white winter fur and evergreen leaves. 

The Ancestors is linked to the part of our soul that is most ancient and most closely related to the archetypes that represent nature. She is a guardian of the sacred heart of the land and summons you by beating the drum to the heartbeat of the Earth. It is the part of you that unconsciously heard the drum and stirred the first desire to walk the path that is artwork here. It is the overpowering strength and patience of nature, it is the awesome and relentless turning of the cycle that brings spring and warmth, and end to hibernation and the reawakening of abundant life.

The Ancestor stands before the gateway of nature that leads into the far forest. This is another beginning. Once you pass through the gateway, you must strive to stain the path and see the journey to the end.

DESCRIPTION: The antlered figure of the Ancestor is clad in reindeer skins and evergreen leaves and stands at the gateway to the Wildwood, framed by silver birch trees, colored the bone white of winter. These trees grew during the Ice Age and are one of the first to regenerate in the spring. The reindeer once roamed vast tracts of forest, the true ancestors of our post-Ice Age oak woodlands, and it is known that they used the same trackways through the landscape. Thus Ice Age hunters would follow their paths year upon year, hunting their major source of food, marking time by their regular and predictable migration. When reindeer retreated north with the melting ice, the white hart, glimpsed in the forest, replaced their older mythology.

The Ancestor’s tracks also lead into the Wildwood. The morning is clear and frosty with the first glimmer of dawn shimmering on the horizon where the new moon hangs with the morning star, representing a new day and a reawakened soul.

The Wildwood Tarot by authors Mark Ryan and John Matthews and artist Will Worthington

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In recent weeks, we have seen how the Covid-19 pandemic can have damaging effects on our economy. What has also been seen is how not participating in that economy is actually helping the environment. I can’t help but think that this card is here to confirm that we must find a better way through life than mass consumption of goods.

As Beltaine nears this week, we will celebrate the beauty of spring and the fertility of the earth. Perhaps we should also take time to consider/meditate on how we can build a better world, one person at a time. While people always say, “Save the Earth,” the fact is that it is ourselves and other living creatures we are saving, not her. She will go on without us.

Blessings!

SIX OF STONES – EXPLOITATION

MEANING: Selfish or foolish overuse of non-sustainable resources implies imbalance in work and business that is damaging to yourself or the environment.

DESCRIPTION: Two ragged and distraught figures, and old man and a girl, stand by a row of damaged and abandoned beehives holding empty bowls. Broken and unused farming tools lie on the ground nearby. Through the leafless trees, we see the surrounding fields, barren and desolate. In the distance, smoke rises from burning piles of spoiled crops.

READING POINTS: The human race’s capacity to exploit planetary resources to our own detriment is motivated by a flawed belief that we have the right to do so. As we begin to come to terms with the profound effects of global climate change and the irreversible effects this will have on our children’s lives, the human race still struggles to deal with the unresolved issues of how to feed the billions of new human beings born every year. How we will resource the education, health, and social service requirements of entire generations to come seems like a question too painful even to think about. With world financial systems and safeguards breaking down and faith in any government’s ability to tell the truth and act with integrity severely damaged, our social moral codes and once-familiar cultural “norms” appear under enormous strain. We all need to be aware of the price our children will pay for our exploitation of the planet’s resources.

The Wildwood Tarot by authors Mark Ryan and John Matthews and artist Will Worthington

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