Tarot Blog Hop Samhain 2015: Remember

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This time, our host is Arwen Lynch-Poe, and the topic she has created for the Samhain 2015 Tarot Blog Hop is:


''Samhain is the time of the feast of the dead in many cultures. For our topic, I would like you to post about a loved one or someone you admired/disliked (historical figures are fair game) that ties in with Tarot, Lenormand or an Oracle deck. You can do a Tarot reading for them. You can talk about what they would have thought about you reading the cards (good or bad). You can write a poem to them using a Tarot/Lenormand/Oracle card. You can post their favourite recipe along with thoughts on what Tarot card might represent that meal.

***Commune, Communicate, Commemorate with those who have gone on before us. ***


 My baby sister, as she first appeared to me in 1972:

Known to my regular readers as Auntie Fashion, she has been gone for 1 year and 3 1/2 months.

She was very much a Queen of Pentacles - grounded, practical, no-nonsense, a homemaker, creative and crafty, an excellent cook, proud of her home, a lover of nice things and luxury; she liked things to be just so. She provided an open house for her daughters and their friends. She created and maintained a unique relationship between herself, her ex-husband and her husband, which grew stronger over time and her various periods of illness, so that both men supported each other and the girls when she died, and remain good friends who spend time with each other on a regular basis.

She hated confrontation, so had developed many, many ways of saying 'No' that didn't involve the word. Her mulish and dogged tenacity is what brought her through at least 1 coma and 2 other near-death crises.

my sister on the inside

my sister on the outside

even the breed of dog is right: Hi, Charlie

Her last illness was relatively short, and she faded quickly.

 
And now she is somewhere else watching over us.

And what we remember most is her smile - there is not one photo of her without.

Halcyon Jean     22:04:72 - 18:07:14

Decks used in order: Wizards Tarot, Victorian Romantic Tarot, Witches' Tarot (Dugan), Paulina Tarot, Comparative Tarot







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Armistice Day

For The Fallen

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children

England mourns for her dead across the sea.

Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,

Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is a music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted:
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables at home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end they remain.

-- Laurence Binyon (1869-1943)


The last three World War I veterans living in Britain died this last year: Henry Allingham, Harry Patch and Bill Stone.

I watched the special service to commemorate those who suffered, and those who died, in the Great War. The poppy wreath laid by the Queen was given to her by two Victoria Cross holders, Lance Corporal Johnson Beharry and Trooper Mark Donaldson. I was awed to see two living holders of this rare and usually posthumous award.

I left the house to fetch my DS from kindergarten; we live close to the park, so I heard the church bells tolling, the guns, and the Last Post as I walked up the hill. I was almost in tears, I'm not sure quite why. War is not always pointless or futile. But we do not seem to learn from history.

How Long, O Lord?
by Robert Palmer (killed in action,1916)

How long, O Lord, how long, before the flood
Of crimson-welling carnage shall abate?
From sodden plains in West and East, the blood
Of kindly men steams up in mists of hate,
Polluting Thy clean air; and nations great
In reputation of the arts that bind
The world with hopes of heaven, sink to the state
Of brute barbarians, whose ferocious mind
Gloats o'er the bloody havoc of their kind,
Not knowing love or mercy. Lord, how long
Shall Satan in high places lead the blind
To battle for the passions of the strong?
Oh, touch Thy children's hearts, that they may know
Hate their most hateful, pride their deadliest foe.

Please support the British Legion.

I would like to thank the artist daliscar for his fabulous poppy image.