To Know, To Live

From the Tarot of the Hidden Realm, the Hermit; from the Heart of Faerie, the Green Woman:

 I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

~ Henry D. Thoreau

          Living in nature with only the bare essentials has a way of clearing away the cobwebs. We learn that things are born and things die, that life is always moving and in flux. Actions have consequences; what we plant will grow and produce fruit, whether it is welcomed or not. It's easy to follow an old path through the woods, but more difficult to make a new one - just as it is with behaviors we repeat or try to change. Yet the soulsearching of the Hermit is not meant to depress or shame us, but to encourage us to live more skillfully and compassionately. The gentle, creative energy of the Green Woman would recognize Thoreau's longing. She reminds us that while we are all creatures subject to the laws of nature, today is a good day to LIVE.