Life Lessons: The Star
I’ll let you into a secret – in April I should be sailing around the tropical paradise of Thailand and her islands, so I’m pulling this card a little early since I hopefully won’t be spending much time online now as you’re reading this! It’s March as I’m writing the Card of the Month, and I’m anticipating the trip with pleasure. I love sailing, and for those of you who don’t know, I lived for several years on our yacht, which we sailed out of Kuwait, with my husband and two dogs.
We first stopped in Oman for four months, then India for five, then Thailand for eight. You can’t imagine how amazing it all was! Then my mum got cancer and I came home to look after her. We ended up spending a few years here, renovating the house so that we could rent it out and have a little income. Not a lot, but enough to make the house self-supporting and be able to eat a humble diet on an Asian budget. That project is almost done now. We have lodgers. The house only has little bits that still need doing. They probably won’t get done. And we are back on the road. We travel a lot. But still the house in England is our base. We’d like to change that. We both want to move back to the boat and sail. It’s our dream.
All this was in my mind as I was shuffling the Oceanic Tarot to pull this month’s card. I chose it because I had the Sea on my mind. And the card that popped out was The Star. The card of dreams come true. The card that advises me to reach for the stars, and keep hope in my heart. The card which reassures me that it will all be wonderful. The card which never fails to make my heart leap for joy.
As I gaze at this mermaid with her beautiful long hair, she gazes up at the brightest star I have ever seen in any deck, reaching towards it longingly. It isn’t subject to light distortion, but somehow integrates with the surface of the Ocean as it shines through. As though the barrier between above and below is no more than a pretty sheen, which we can reach right through if we want to. I feel I want to reach up and just poke my fingers through the surface, just to see if this star is right there, as it appears to be. There is something amazing about lying beneath the surface and gazing up at the ripples. And I feel as though I am right there.
Now, you should understand that this deck is a very shallow deck. As in without depth. The symbolism contained in the images is minimal. The characters are two dimensional on the whole. The minor arcana cards are pips (no scenic illustration). There is not a lot in them which reaches out to communicate with me. And yet I love this deck for some reason.
I think the reason is the colours. And how it makes me feel – that feeling of being immersed in that warm, welcoming sea. It gives me the same sort of feeling I remember having had when I read The Water Babies some years ago. It gives me the same feeling I get when I SCUBA dive in warm waters. The feeling of weightlessness and timelessness. The conviction that it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters enough to worry about. If we just relax and enjoy this moment, what we see right now, then we will be happy. For after all, we can only be happy in the moment. We can THINK about happiness we felt yesterday, and anticipate being happy tomorrow, but we can only BE happy in the Now. And for some reason, this card makes me happy when I gaze at it and find myself swimming into its depths. I find myself letting go of any worries I might have carried here, just leaving them behind me, and reaching out for better things, and yet wondering how things can possibly get better. We are living the dream as it is.
We have far too many blessings to count – it would be like trying to count the stars. Today I feel this card is urging me to count those blessings anyway. I have much to be grateful for, and as long as I have gratitude in my heart, how can I fail to be happy? So maybe I’ll just start, right now, with just one star at a time…
Today I am grateful that I can swim and enjoy this beautiful world. Thank you God. x
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