The arrival of the new moon stamps the moonth with an initiating energy that shifts and develops through a cycle of growth, fullness, and descent. Each moonth I look to the Tarot’s astrological correspondences of the new moon to find 3 cards (a Major, a numbered Minor, and a court/people card) to find guidance for soul tending, prompts for personal/spiritual practice, and creating a moonthly reading. The reading can be done any time, but ideally between the new and full moons. Revisit the cards you pull periodically up until the next lunation to gain new insight as the light changes. This new moon arrives on Thursday, the 27th (exact at 7:45 pm ET, time zone converter).

Path of the Moonth: The Moon

The Haindl Tarot’s Moon draws us even more deeply into the dream of this archetype. There’s a lobster here, too, and a path out of the sea. The path is not golden but watery and flows toward a unicorn with an enormous horn.

While unicorns may be based on an actual animal – the extinct aurochs? – they exist today only because of imagination: our human ability to form images and concepts that are actually not present to the senses or exist in physical form. Our imaginations have imbued the unicorn with many meanings over the centuries.

Today pink sparkly ones are ubiquitous in cartoons and on children’s sneakers. But in centuries past the unicorn was a symbol of sacrifice representing Jesus Christ giving his life to protect a maiden embroidered onto tapestries of the nobility. The unicorn as symbol holds both delight and sacrifice, is found in commercial and creative spheres.

The Haindl’s unicorn undertakes an impossible feat: birthing itself out of ancient rock. The powerful horn extends beyond the image’s edge, breaking through into the beyond. When we take this unicorn as our wisdom guide, we are invited to break through to the:

• Impossible. Because most of what now exists was once thought to be impossible from social security to hand-held computers (i.e. our cell phones!); from women’s suffrage to same-sex marriage; from anything you have created to relationships with your chosen beloveds. What is your dream right now? If someone tells you that’s impossible, you can smile because that means it is on the way.
• Invisible. Because there is a realm beyond that we cannot see. We all conceive of, and make our connections to, this realm differently. You may know this as the place of ancestors, beloved dead, spirits, saints, or ley lines. None can be seen, but all offer support to us for walking the paths of our lives.
• Greater Than that goes by many different names: Goddess, God, Holy One, Universal Energy, the One that Holds the Whole.

Breakthroughs of the imagination open the way for the unreal to become real.

Passage and Practice: Eight of Cups

In the Tarot of the Moors’ Eight of Cups, a figure walks along the edge of a desert dune away from eight small cups and toward a deep blue sky filled with a star constellation, the planet Saturn, and a full well of water.

The contents of the eight cups may have once satisfied and in a desert environment the certainty of water is not to be left behind lightly. But the stars are guiding the figure toward the well, a source of new and deeper refreshment. No matter how unrealistic it may seem, we must follow the spark of our imaginations toward that well.

Posture to Take on This Path: Knight of Cups

Yes, these knights are dreamers, but they also take the action necessary to make the dream real through:

• creating art in the form of poems or dance or song;
• offering healing practices to those in the stress of uncertainty; or
• facilitating meetings where all ideas and emotions are expressed, for example.

Yes, they are lovers with a romantic streak, but their love is not limited to a romantic partner. Their watery, expansive selves feel the connection to even those they do not know. They do know that to love is to act for the good of the Whole—and they invite us to follow.

These Knights invites us to follow our path and practices with attitudes that support being in the flow of life while letting go of the need to control what is happening. With them as our guides we come to know that relinquishing control is not a passive activity, but rather a different, more aligned way of engaging with the world as it is.

The poet Rilke describes this approach to life as “no forcing, no holding back.” When we find this right balance between action and surrender, we are better able to ride on the wild waves of our emotions, our daily life, and any chaos that comes toward us. Our trust in self and world is strengthened, not because everything turns out the way we want but because we find we can move through the challenges that come our way.

Reading of the Moonth

These questions are offered for reflection and to spark practice throughout the moonth. Pulling Tarot and oracle cards in connection to these questions is appropriate, but not absolutely necessary. You might carry a question with you on a walk for example and observe what is happening in the natural world as a way to find insight into the answer to the question.

IMAGINATION: What wants to emerge from my imagination?

NEW DIRECTION: What new direction does my imagination invite me to explore?

ACTION: How to embrace the imaginative flow of the moonth?

I do offer this as an e-reading in my collaborative initiative format for $32. Sign up with Pay Pal or contact me about sending a check. When I receive notification, I’ll be in touch to let you know about when to expect to receive your reading by email. I generally have openings to do these readings on Mondays and Saturdays.