I have found it less challenging and more enjoyable to maintain our patio garden this summer; and in spite of prior experience, ''hope springs ...'' yaddayadda ... I planted a few types of seeds, mainly bought on sale. Most impactful (apart from the French and Runner beans standing at well over 8 foot high and who belong firmly in Titch's domain) was the amaranthus, a.ka. Love Lies Bleeding. The seeds are tiny, and my record with seeds isn't good, so I threw caution to the wind along with the seeds themselves, and sowed them all. Of course, they all germinated, so I gave some seedlings away, and since I can't be fiddling with teeny stuff, planted some in kind of clumps - I figured, Nature will thin them for me. It worked:
That said little yellow flower in the middle ? That's Thunbergia (Black-Eyed Susie) of which I also had many sprouts, but when planted out refused stubbornly to really go upwards like the voracious climber it claimed to be on the packet.
The clary sage and the cerinthe did not emerge; the nasturtiums looked fabulous draping from my front planter - for about a day until the blackfly found them. I bugsprayed them but I think that just overwhelmed the plants, who crumpled and withered accusingly.
I missed the opportunity to take a photo of my dahlia in its full glory (the pic was taken a month ago when my Asiatics were also beginning to bloom) - it was maybe £2/US$2.62 to buy the tuber, but man, you get some bang for your buck ! It flowers forever ! Well, OK several weeks, anyway. My mother didn't like them - along with gladioli, she thought they were vulgar, but they're a great splash of longlasting color. Now if they were scented ... But my favorite this summer happened accidentally: I had a couple of pelargoniums (which us oldies like to still call geraniums) - including a scented-leaf variety - and a random hardy fuchsia hanging around, so I bunged them all into a pot, and look what happened:
I have very carefully tried to avoid any photos showing the actual patio slabs, because it is in desperate need of weeding, which is Someone Else's job always and forever and ever amen. I'll let you know how that goes ...
Maureen Aisling Duffy-Boose is the hostess for this tarot blog hop, the first one this year in which I have felt drawn to participate:
This Hop celebrates the festival of Lughnassadh, Lammas, Loaf-Mass, and many other names. It has historical lore connected to a tale of Lugh Lámhfhada (Lugh of the Long Arm) or his alternate title, Lugh Samhildánach (Lugh of the Many Skills), who is a primary harvest Deity in Celtic lore. In the oldest Irish lore, the festival is celebrated in honor of the funeral games of Tailtiu, the foster-mother of Lugh, who had died of exhaustion after clearing a huge tract of forestland by hand in order that the crops which were being overrun by the armies of the Tuatha de Danaan and the Fir Bolg might be re-planted, so that the people might not starve. Lugh is a primary God of the Harvest in Ireland, and in Christian times, the first-fruits of the grain, harvested in the month of August, were baked into the sacred bread of which the Holy Communion was made in the churches, giving rise to the name "Loaf-Mass" for the festival celebration. In any case, this feast in all the Celtic lands has a particular relevance to the way we interpret the Tarot, for the reason that it is focused on a "union of opposites", celebrating both the bounty of the land which is yielding the Harvest, and honoring the memory of a beloved Elder who dies in the process of making this Harvest possible.
So, for this "Hop", let's do some exploring of the "union of opposites" and take a look at the cards with this in mind.
I feel like a bit of a cheat - when I sat down to write this post, about 2 cards that represent opposing but necessary parts of a cycle, I realized I had already spoken about this idea, here.
Here is the soundtrack to go with the cards:
So this time, winging it, let's discuss the symbolism in XIII Death that indicates the new growth that comes after ... one of my favorite versions is from the Hudes deck:
The Hudes is a sparse deck, not overloaded with color or images; but it's very starkness means that the symbols that are depicted have more impact - and here the butterfly symbolizing transformation and new life is in addition located in the pelvic region (sex and new life) of Death's skeleton. All these versions contain the signs of new life to follow:
Shadowscapes Tarot New Palladini Tarot Tarot for Cats
AnimismTarot Crystal Tarot
It is more of a challenge to find Marseilles-type decks with imagery of transformation, but it can be done:
Tarot Noir BOTA Tarot Daniloff Tarot
Of course, if you consider those decks which retitle Death to 'Transition' or some such bowdlerized name, there are several 'fluffy bunny' versions to be ignored; in this category instead we seek cards which retain the darkness, and my (not exhaustive) search found only one:
Wildwood Tarot
If you know of any renamed 'Death' cards that are not Happy Squirrel-type cards, please let me know in the comments section.
I imagine it would be an interesting if time-consuming exercise to see how many other tarot cards contain opposites in their imagery - if you have found any, please let me know in the comments section. Now you may fall back to Joanne's blog, or trip forward to Boglarka's blog ... PREVIOUS BLOG | MASTER LIST | NEXT BLOG
