Start with the Side Pieces

From the Bonefire Tarot, the Star; from the Day of the Dead Lenormand, the 'Tree:'

          The stars are best seen in complete darkness, which is a good analogy for those times in life when things seem hopeless. Where do we turn when our spirits are crushed, intuition has disappeared and the truths we believed in are turned to dust? Yet it may be that such darkness is what gets our attention and opens our mind to the tiny, flickering light we wouldn't have noticed otherwise. It gets us past the idea that life should be a certain way so that we can deal with it at ground level. We gain enough light to see the next step, but not enough to see the whole path. The Tree card from the Lenormand deck shows a skeleton whose bones make up the roots, trunk, and branches of a tree. It represents health - both mental and physical. Taking care of one's health when life has been turned upside down may seem unhelpful. But such a focus is like beginning a jigsaw puzzle by putting together the side pieces first; it gives us a framework that can help us heal before we jump into the thick of things.