King of Arrows: Kingfisher

This is the first card I’ve drawn from my new Wildwood Tarot.

I’m in Canmore right now, with my sister, working out the logistics for a new collaborative project. I opened my deck last night, looked at all the cards, read the intro. They weren’t ready to shuffle yet, so I left them overnight.

This morning, I journaled and it was a hard process of coming back to the page, bringing my anxiety and fear and shame and overwhelm, writing about how I feel so lost – I wrote, ‘I want to sink deeply into the peace of this moment – this is exactly the kind of thing I want to bring more fully and more often into my life. This moment, this setting. But instead of sinking into this, I am tossing around on the stormy surface of my mind, thinking about everything I need to do, everything I am behind on, everything coming up that I am going to fail at. I am thinking about failure a lot.’

After journaling, I was going to get to work. But I walked past the coffee table and there was that deck. Waiting. Ready now.

First, I divided it up.

The core of me, and then my elements. Air, fire, earth, water.

I split the core of me across the elements. Starting with fire – finding myself in my passions. Then earth. Then water. Then air, last.

I split my earth across the stacks. Bringing grounding into every part of myself.

I split my fire, lending passion to each piece of me.

Then my water.

Last, my air. Finally able to see how this thinking/overthinking self is still a part of each piece of me.

Then I combined them all and shuffled, split the deck, and pulled this card for today.

From the guidebook:

This tiny bird, both sexes covered with the colours of the rainbow, is equally at home in the air or in the water. …

You may need to exercise judgement, power, force of will. …

Finding a way through chaos by calm clarity. Being watchful. The need for good counsel. Discerning the truth of a situation. Finding an impartial standpoint. Being fair/unfair. An urge to buck the system. …

What must you focus upon clearly? Who can give you good advice? What wise words will help this situation? What is your duty to society?

Considering how much I struggled to accept any air this morning, how I was seeing my mind as the stormy surface and the threat, this feels powerful. It is possible to be in my mind and still access my intuition and my heart.

The bird is bright and strong and determined.

The questions are relevant to my day and to this work.

It feels good.