In this episode I speak with Vicki Noble, co-creator of the Motherpeace Tarot Deck, a set of cards for divination that incorporates images of the sacred feminine from mythology and folklore. The creation of the Motherpeace Tarot in the late 1970s in Berkley California helped to kickstart the so-called Goddess movement, whose influence endures today.
We are asked here to embrace pain as a friend, or more like a teacher. For example, when we experience pain we have arrived at a limitation, here we can expose the limitation and work with it. To embark knowingly on a path that may bring discomfort and challenge before producing the benefits.
I hope you are feeling lovely this sweet Tuesday. Last week during Savasana I had a hit of joy. It was really incredible. Of course I have experienced joy before, in many forms. But this was really something. I was just lying there, in my peacefulness and I had this sudden all over body reaction to just how incredible life is. I started smiling and couldn't stop all day.
In contemporary American culture, we often use the term “nature” to encapsulate a realm that doesn’t necessarily include humans, so it can be easy to forget that we are “nature”, and that just like snakes, chickens, and trees, we must undergo periods of shedding and rest to make way for germination and new growth.
Seeds lie in wait in the dry dirt of the chaparral ecosystem, sometimes for more than 100 years. They hold within a secret, a key to rebirth adapted to the nature of their surroundings: many of these seeds germinate in fire. Phoenix-like, the foliage and plants of the chaparral has evolved beautifully to the regions where it grows. These Mediterranean-like climates allow for evergreen scrub brush landscapes dominated by species of stalwart plants and herbs that stabilize otherwise barren hillsides and provide shelter for the fauna in their midst. I recently had the chance to witness firsthand how this remarkable ecosystem regrows with the energy the wildfires bring, forces we tend to see as only frightening and destructive. It wasn’t...