I use tarot and oracle cards as tools for reflection and contemplation. Rather than divining the future, they are a way for me to look more deeply at the "now."
"The goal isn't to arrive, but to meander, to saunter, to make your life a holy wandering." ~ Rami Shapiro

Showing posts with label supernova. Show all posts
Showing posts with label supernova. Show all posts

Monday, January 4, 2021

Creative Accountability

From the Tabula Mundi Tarot, the Three of Wands; from the Universe Cards, Supernova:


          The two outer staves on this card, each topped with a pine cone, are known as thrysus wands (symbols of fertility). Yet fertility does not mean one should sow seeds of creativity unless there is someone who is dependable to nurture them. Thankfully the caduceus wand (said to wake the sleeping) is topped by a pair of ram's horns (strength of intellect and creativity). The fiery Wands suit now begins to understand its responsibilities - thus its keyword of Virtue. A Supernova occurs when a star draws off matter from a companion star and accumulates too much or when a star runs out of nuclear fuel and its mass flows into its core. The result from either situation causes a massive explosion. The elements from the supernova travel on to form new stars, planets and everything else in the universe. Sometimes we mature into responsible humans naturally; at other times, life gives us a head-slap that wakes us up and helps us develop accountability. Either way, the lessons are not wasted.


Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Tipping Points

The card pulled today from the Quantum Tarot is the Six of Pentacles:
Unlike leptons (see Dec. 10), quarks cannot exist independently but only in groups called hadrons.  Stopforth and Butler associate this card with the hadron - a composite particle made of quarks and held together by the strong force.  There are two groups of hadrons, baryons (made of three quarks) and mesons (made of one quark and one antiquark).  Because mesons contain both matter and antimatter, they are unstable and don't last long.  The baryons and mesons show the balance in nature, having the qualities of change and stability, just as we experience both abundance and lack.  Like quarks, humans were made to exist in groups and form an interdependence on each other.  When one person is experiencing a crisis in health or finances, another person who is not can help them to keep things in balance.  Giving and receiving are both on the same continuum, and I must be open to both in order to maintain a sense of equilibrium.

     From the Universe Cards this morning comes the "Supernova - culmination:"
A supernova is a star that explodes, but to get to this point we have to rewind.  Normally stars maintain an equilibrium, with the gravity that tries to compress it being balanced by the nuclear reactions in their cores trying to expand them.  The fusion that occurs by turning the star's hydrogen into helium eventually creates a problem - the helium sinks to the core of the star because it is more dense than hydrogen.  Without enough hydrogen in the core, the star begins to collapse, creating a pressure and temperature that creates carbon.  At first the star expands, and begins creating many internal layers until the core becomes iron.  When iron becomes its center, the star collapses in a tremendous explosion called the supernova.  Nature has a way of rebalancing itself, whether in the stars of the universe or the routine of my day.  The unexpected is often just the pendulum swinging back the other way.