I’m sure every Tarot reader has that one question that gives them the world-weary silent sigh of …oh… please… no… please… not again…
Mine is…
Is there hope?
This irks me on several levels… it brings back the homespun mantra from my childhood that was rolled out as an ad hoc response to pretty much every request…
Shit in one hand, wish in the other and see which fills first!
I was raised by cynics and it forged in me a pragmatic soul… a soul which often feels out of place in my chosen profession as I find myself surrounded by popular woo and mumbo jumbo manifestations and purveyors of love and light platitudes… Believe hard enough! Wish hard enough! Set your intention clearly and miracles are yours!
Now I don’t doubt that miracles do happen… though I do doubt that they arise by closing your eyes and chanting – I do believe in fairies… I do … I DO!
But I’m often filled with despair when I’m asked about the H word… it’s often accompanied by a train wreck of a story which makes me silently ponder very many things which my sense of tact tells me are probably kindest not to mention…
Yes… hope… you filthy four lettered word… you shiny little bubble of hot air wrapped in flimsy wet surface tension… I hear you… and this is what I hear…
But then I think… you know… sometimes… hope can be noble…
I think back to a couple of years ago and a small funeral that took place in my garden… sobbing children gathered around laying daisies over a tiny grave…
The day before, the air had been filled with shrieks and screams! The cat, cold blooded serial killer that he his, had gotten hold of a baby mouse and my daughter had wrestled the terrified shaking creature out of the jaws of death and brought him into the house…
Help me save him!
I looked at the fragile body and as much as I’d have like to offer hope, I felt that I could only try and prepare her for disappointment…
It’s nature sweetheart, it’s red in tooth and claw and cats are cats and mice are mice… what do you want to do?
I want to try!!
I said – you can try but you may not get what you want…
So, she borrowed a cage from one of the local kids and fashioned a bed and she gave him water and sat with him through the night and in the morning her sobs were fierce…
I felt sad, I felt her sadness and I felt world-weary that hope had expired…
I watched as she led the little funeral service…
Then I heard her say words, that told me that hope had served her well…
I listened to her eulogy
We are here today to say goodbye to a tiny life…
A tiny life is still a life…
And even if only lived briefly…
To have been loved in that tiny short life…
That! That is something to be remembered and celebrated…
The pure and blessed way 