OBJ

Deva of Spring

Welcome to the Litha edition of the Tarot Blog Hop. This edition is brought to you by the letters J, O and Y, and the numbers 21 and 6, by our wrangler, Olivia, who wants to know what brings us joy.

To read more from our joyful contingent of bloggers, follow the links below, but stop a while and have a read here first 🙂

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Beer aficionados among you may be aware that OBJ is an acronym for Oh Be Joyful! It was  originally a Brakspear’s seasonal offering for Winter (I believe there are others also using the name now), so not entirely appropriate for the time of year. Nonetheless, I’ve always felt that as well as being a jolly nice pint (and good beer is always a joy), it is an excellent philosophy, valid at any time of year 🙂

It must be said that sometimes joy can be hard to find when life seems to thwart your every effort, but there are always little things that help, if we look. Take my daughter, who on discovering that our appeal for her to attend the same secondary school as all her best friends (and her brother) had failed, decided that at least she would get to wear a new colour of jumper. See? Little things.

Dexter

Having a dog is also a source of joy, not to mention entertainment, as I’m sure many who share their lives and hearts with a pet would agree. It’s hard not to be affected by Dexter’s sheer delight in life as you can read here. Joy and sometimes amazement – we are currently trying to work out how he entered a closed room, which was still closed on our return, and ended up on DD’s High Sleeper bed. He has now been dubbed Houdoggie by DH, for his feats of escapism (and whatever the reverse process would be called).

I could go on at some length about all the small splats of joy that litter my life like drops of brightly coloured paint, pushing the dull and grey bits into the background: the scent of my yellow roses, which always smell better than any other colour; enjoying a really good cream tea in the sunshiny garden; completing a corset or embroidery and then seeing it delight a client; watching the sunrise after being up/out all night (not too often these days); doing readings for people who have arrived feeling troubled or sad and seeing them leave smiling. I probably should mention my children, though they are often as likely to be the source of frustration as joy, as is the way of children (anyone who tells you they are a constant source of joy is lying) 😀

Then there is the pleasure of receiving a lovely new yarn, book or deck in the post, which brings me neatly to one of my recent joys. No, not the epically comprehensive tailoring book or the lush yarn, but Cilla Conway’s new self-published deck, the Devas of Creation, which Cilla kindly sent me, which brings me back to the Tarot aspect of this post.

The card at the top of this post is the Deva of Spring from this very deck and, for me, pretty much sums up that joyous feeling that Spring, flowers, sunshine and the banishment of the cold, grey Winter bring into our lives. Yes, in reality, there are still rainy days, annoying bugs and weeds growing where you really don’t want them, but seeing Nature do it’s awesome rebirth thing just floats my boat every time. I am digressing, however, and I would like to rave about this Oracle deck a little.

I must admit that I have seen Cilla using these over many years and have always found them quite evocative. The artwork covers diverse natural themes from the cosmic to the mundane in a vibrant and often slightly abstract way, which leaves plenty of scope for interpretation. The imagery varies from quite clear representations of nature, planets, trees, animals, etc., to depictions of energies I have had occasion to use the Deva cards in readings several times now and find them rather good at tapping into the querent’s subconscious. What emerges is often the seeker’s hopes and fears and by bringing this information into the conscious, the cards allow them to see more clearly through the confusion or distraction of conscious worries and thought. It is also quite fun to discover what people see, especially if the card ends up reversed. As an example, in a recent reading, the querent saw a figure (silhouette) walking into the fog. By putting the “fog” into context of the preceding reading, (without going into too much detail) we arrived at some strategies for dealing with the things that were fogging up the path ahead and perceiving the figure as walking out of the fog.

They don’t work for everyone. Some people simply don’t see anything at first and it would take more than the available time in a single reading to enable them to connect to their subconscious in this way, but on the whole, I have been very encouraged by the results. Aside from anything else, all those for whom I have used them have agreed that they are very beautiful. On a practical note, the cards themselves are good quality and come in a nice hard box together with a 100-page book describing the artist’s insight into the card meanings, (although, I would recommend trusting your own impressions and instincts before looking to the meanings). I do genuinely love this deck and it gives me joy to use it 🙂

I won’t leave you without mentioning cheese, always a source of joy and one of my favourite things. In addition to a good Stilton or Oak smoked Cheddar, I give you this ….

http://youtu.be/E3aBB-J9vhg

Now you can go 🙂

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