Tarot Blog Hop Yule 2013: Turning Darkness into Light

You may have hopped forward from my friend  Joanne's blog, or perhaps have gone widdershins and arrived backwards from my friend Chloe's TABI blog: craftmaker-type people, bear with me - perhaps you might even glance through today's ramblings ....

In the Northern Hemisphere, Yule is known as the Winter Solstice while in the southern hemisphere Yule is known as the Summer Solstice.  No matter where you are located and whichever religion or traditions you follow, Yule is always a magical time filled with excitement and steeped in traditions.  Yule sees the triumph of light over darkness.  As Celtic Yule lore goes, Yule is celebrated as the rebirth of the Sun when the Oak King who ruled over the light part of the year, defeated the Holly King who ruled over the dark part of the year. So Yule brings with it the opportunity to be reborn with new light.

As the wrangler for this Yule 2013 Blog Hop, the season offered me a time to think about rebirth.  You see, it's been just over a year that I had been part of this Tarot Blog Hop community.  In more ways than one, the Tarot Blog Hop community had been responsible for lighting my path throughout my spiritual journey with the cards. 

So for this Yule Blog Hop, the theme  our wrangler Joanna Ash thought most appropriate is "TURNING DARKNESS INTO LIGHT”.

Yule night or Winter Solstice sees the longest night of the year.  When the sun rises the next morning, we celebrate light with the rebirth of the sun as the dark half of the year makes way for the lighter half.  In the spirit of welcoming back the light, do unleash your creativity with this topic.  For example:

• Use your Tarot cards to guide you on how you could bring light to the people around you.
• Share your experience on finding light at the end of a period of darkness
• Use your Tarot to guide you on re-charging yourselves with strength
• Use your Tarot to guide you on how you are going to imbibe vitality to your endeavors
• Share how you celebrate light with Yuletide traditions

In a nutshell, use this Yule Tarot Blog Hop to celebrate light together with me in your own way.


Well, once I started to think about the topic, it struck me that there are quite a few different types of darkness and light: literal, emotional, psychological, spiritual. There's probably more, but it's late and I haven't drunk quite enough red wine to get truly philosophical. Which means I won't be talking about any of those.

I heaved a great big sigh of relief right then, even if you don't fully realize the magnitude of your escape.

Instead I shall talk about a down-to-earth, everyday way of turning darkness into light: attitude.

Let's illustrate that, shall we, and seeing as how Tarot is a visual medium full of symbols and colorful imagery. At least I will find it interesting, even if no-one else does.

Phantomwise Tarot

 Not only is this my astrological card, its meaning of calm optimism and hope typifies my normal attitude to life. I am so sorry, but one can really nearly always make lemonade from lemons; sometimes, it may seem like it's a bit of a long-haul search for the sugar, though. 

In tarot terms, it means that the 'problem' cards also contain within them the solution to the problem.

Shadowscapes Tarot

Sometimes it isn't as simple as lighting a torch. Sometimes it is a question of crawling around on your hands and knees in the dark with all the creepy things ...

RWS Tarot

 ... until you remember that you are being overly fussy demanding that the light be bright: the moon will do quite nicely for the while, thank you. At least now I can see the creepy things rather than finding them by their oozing touch and hairy skitterings.

Gilded Tarot

In this way, I think the reflective light of the moon is more valuable than that of the destructive lightning flash, which only allows you a glimpse of your fast-approaching doom, not a clear enough look or time to take any saving action. Here is the dilemma of telling the future: do you really want to know ?

And so anyway. Three main approaches can be summed up using the same card from 3 different decks:

Barbara Walker Tarot

  


This is Marvin the Paranoid Android. Why am I even bothering with life, it's pointless.

RWS Tarot

 




Hmm. Things might not be so bad. Look, there's the sun coming up over there. Let's get out of all this squelchy mess anyway.

Hello Kitty Tarot

OH MY GOSH ! IT'S SO FLUFFY I'M GONNA DIE !

It is also invaluable to maintain one's sense of humor, which can remind us of what's really important:

At worst, just keep saying ''this too shall pass'':

Bohemian Cats Tarot

Don't forget, you can read Joanne's Yule blogpost here, Chloe's TABI blogpost here, and the masterlist of all participating blogs can be found here.