Raecine Ardis Wilkinson

And I with my too tall trees,

with my greys and greens,

I peer back at you,

across a long distance,

behind the fear of fields

and followings

There are no angels in this ether realm.

No dancing, no song .

Just my eyes with your skyline,

With your stormy sea,

and the visions inside, the tearing apart inside,

the fear in the inside space,

the cavern,

where a heart lived, back when you were 5 before the haze settled in.

I know you.

I see you.

I don’t know you, not really.

I know your goose, your ghost shape.

And the sun on your forehead, your shoulders shadows above me.

and the mounds, the life, the peaks, the depths of you.

My vision?

Yours?

An amalgam? A finding?

And is this dying; swimming in this deep honey with you?

Or, resurrection.

-Raecine Ardis Wilkinson

August is an interesting month. In northern New England it signifies the end of Summer, and for me, it is always a month of reflection, and the yellows and ochres of a Van Gogh painting, the burnishing and waning of haystacks highlighted by an vibrant vermillion setting sun.

This year, the end of summer musings have taken me back to the beginning of my journey with Tarot herself.

I think primarily as I look back, what I recall is the feel of the Tarot of Vampyres deck in my hands. Although she was not my first tarot deck, she was the first deck that from first touch felt like home, as if I already knew her well, and would continue to get to know her as my lifetime passed us by. She smelled like the woods and the ocean and damp earth, like sunrise and the full moon, and caramel and patchouli and nag champa, and secrets and sex. All truths were contained within her, and I have been in love with her ever since that moment and nine years later, here we are together still, sharing the journey daily.

What is it about Tarot that we card readers love? The occult symbolism? The structure? The amplification of access to our intuition? The beautiful and provoking artwork? There are infinite possibilities as far as what inspires us when it comes to working with tarot. Yet, it is also indefinable. How many times have we found ourselves smitten with a deck whose artwork we can’t stand outside of the deck itself? Or felt nonplussed when faced with a deck featuring artwork by an artist that we typically adore?

The cards call us deeply into ourselves, and the human psyche.

The cards are a perfect tool for so many of us to begin to understand our own intuitive gifts and abilities, and to develop a language, often occult symbolism based, to help us translate the messages we receive and move about in the world with greater awareness and intention.

Then for some of us, myself included, there is the awareness that the cards themselves contain within them a consciousness, an energy, that we can commune with and that can assist us at a very personal level on our journey.  This relationship grows exponentially with time, becoming something sweeter, deeper, more profound as years pass us by.

The connection with the Tarot for me, is infinite, unending, exciting and reliable. Ten years in, I am more in love with her than ever, more willing than ever for her to strip me bare, and to reveal to me aspects of myself, and humankind, that I was not able to understand fully before her.

We are never alone. In nearly every blog I will remind you, my dear reader, of this. It is because it is true. Consciousness exists in all things, connection is always possible and available to us. We need only to reach out for it, and give ourselves over fully to the experience.

Happy August peeps. May you feel the flame within you burning brightly.

Blessings and Love,

Raecine Ardis