This is a card I made years ago and I am deeply in love with all of the images here.  Even though I’ve journaled with this card several times, its meaning and message has always been unclear.

Then Karen Mann came to visit me from Australia last fall, and she led a workshop where we took one of our cards and wrote an Alphabet Poem in the voice of the card. Every line begins with the next letter of the alphabet.  Sounded like a good challenge to me, so I chose this mystery card because I wanted to go deeper into its meaning.

Here’s what I wrote… or rather, here’s what wrote itself through me, somehow:

Absolutely
Benign am I.
Can you
Decide to trust that
Everything
Falls
Gorgeously where it lands?
Hear my heated breath
If you dare.
Just
Keep
Listening and loving and leaning back.
My
Name is wildness.  I am
One who
Protects you from Ice
Queens and
Ragamuffin warriors.
Stop and
Take time to
Understand that my wish is
Virtuious and clearn, not violent and deadly.
Will you come close to your wildness?
eXactly now. I will show you how!
Yes.

It is very interesting because all the other times I journaled with this card, I was speaking from the voice of the woman. This time, the wild animal was the one speaking!

Since listening to Seena Frost’s commitment to adding more humor to our Decks, I am always on the lookout for images that amuse me, that make me laugh out loud when I first come upon them, that tickle my funny-bone.

So when I came across this cool dude in a martini glass last year, I happily glued him onto this card. He’s never showed up in a reading until recently, and wowee, he had a lot to say:

Who are you?

I am the one who has nothing better to do than sit here in my shorts and eat the olives out of martini glasses.  I am the one who is relaxed and enjoying myself. I am the one who does not have a care in the world, nor do I give a damn what other people think of me.  I am the one who is comfortable doing things that are out of the ordinary.

What do you have to give me?

I give you permission to strip down to your shorts and RELAX.  I give you permission to do whatever the hell you want.  So- you don’t like olives or martinis?  Try marguaritas and bathing in salt. Or sugar.  Or take a bath in a rainbow.  I give you permission to do what makes you say ahhhhh….

What do you want from me?

Not a whole lot, that is the point!  I want you to lean back more often and just enjoy the moment.  I NEED you to quiet down Gabriella (your overachiever) again so I can have more space and more of your time.

Is there anything else you’d like to say to me today?

You don’t always have to be doing three things at once.  Lighten up!  Participate in your life.

I made this card intuitively at last year’s KaleidoSoul Retreat.  I just loved the sumptuous and lusciousness of all the images and the colors and could almost feel the textures.  I put it in my Deck and it hasn’t shown up yet in the last whole year in any readings whatsoever. But it did show up recently, and here is what it said to me:

I am the one who is ladling long strings of pearls from a shiny silver pot.  i am the one who is raising the ladle, which is dripping with pearls, to my mouth.

I am the one who is about to dine on these pearls.  i am the one who is sitting in front of a red red curtain of luscious lips and rose petals.  I am the one who is leaning into this sumptuous feast. 

This is a divine meal, divine nourishment.

My message for you today is this: Lean into the jewels that life is offering you.  Pay attention to them as they come to your Table.

I made this card for my good friend, Lis Gordon, who died July 2, 2011 after 18 months of pas de deux with a rare form of cancer.  She had been doing really well, for several months, and then wham! She was gone.

That’s her in the center of the card in her white Lay Eucharistic Minister robe of the Episcopal Church. Lis was a wonderful friend and our journey together started at St. Peter’s in Beverly MA when I moved there in 1992.  She was in my EFM class (as a 4th year when I was just starting) and she was my stepdaughter Amanda’s sponsor for confirmation in 1993 (or thereabouts).

She was a writer herself and was very good at reading rough drafts of my work- nonfiction and fiction both, and gave me excellent feedback and good criticisms that always made my work much better.

When I became a SoulCollage Facilitator in 2005, Lis was the first one to sign up for my beginning workshops. She took to SoulCollage like the proverbial duck taking to water!  She attended many of my workshops, participated in our monthly Soul Sisters card making group, and her enthusiasm for this process and for my KaleidoSoul work kept me going on even the most discouraging days.

Today, I drew Lis’s card from my deck in my every–other-daily reading. Here is what she had to say to me. I must say, it fills me with a deep sadness and at the same time, a deep joy, to know that she is not here physically but “sitting” right next to me on this sofa in spirit!

I am the one who is celebrating new life even tho I am no longer there with you. I am the one who is in the midst of divine transformation and new growth on many levels, I can’t wait to see you again to tell you all about it.

Time is immaterial here and you will love it here.

I am all things at once here- happy child, laughing crone, white sacred buffalo woman. 

I am here and I am there, and you will understand this if you close your eyes and listen inside.

My message for you today is this- I am sorry we didn’t get to say good-bye when it was time for me to leave my physical body. But I don’t feel like we have left each other. I am with you in spirit, as close as when our bodies enjoyed lunch together across my kitchen table, or as close as when we made SoulCollage cards together at your dining room table.