daturagarden

[daturagarden]

[daturagarden]

“ Temper your passionate instincts with understanding so that you can find a depth of emotional balance. “

this resonates with me and soothes me. I think even in trying to understand the lesson of temperance, I am not applying temperance. Of course I am not being asked to give up my passion and intensity. But to allow space for other ways of being as well??????? for the thoughtful and restful?????

Temperance *** Temper your passionate instincts with understanding so that you can find a depth of emotional balance. *** #tarot #majorarcana #temperance #sagittarius

[daturagarden]

temperance

Ive been getting temperance over and over, as I work though Lindsey Mack’s Tarot for the Wild Soul July prompts, as I try to get into the habit of daily cards. Temperance for what I am growing into, and what I am ready to shed. A truth I am ready to embrace, a message from my body, and how to connect more deeply to my inner hermit.

My deck is basically bludgeoning me over the head with this card. I’ve drawn it upright or reversed, 5 out of the last 9 draws I’ve done. Today I drew it twice.  I know that I haven’t done the work or learnt the lessons yet of this card, and that I need to, and that my deck is being incredibly caring in its insistence that I learn. But I’m really, really stumped and the more I draw it the more frustrated I get.

In a lot of ways temperance is always a hard card for me to hold, even though it is the card of Sagittarius, because I’m so prone to extremities with my heavy fire and workaholic Capricorn influences. I don’t know how to chill. I either do things too hard, or I don’t do them at all. Temperance is not something I am good at.

And that’s where I’m stuck.

I’m so overall bad at doing the middle road, bit of this bit of that, not too extreme style that I associate with temperance, that I don’t know where to start. And I’m being told I need to learn temperance in all parts of my life. I am ready to manifest temperance. I am also ready to begin shedding temperance. I am being asked in the most meta, temperance-y way, to hold both the coming and going of temperance in my life, at once. That’s the most temperance thing I’ve ever heard and I have no idea how to do it???

Honestly, the idea of temperance exhausts me. Because it means I need to slow my ass down, and as soon as I slow my ass down the exhaustion of all the things I’ve put on my plate catch up with me. This very month I decided I wanted to swim every day of July, (on top of pulling a card every day), and while I love it and have been successful so far, (and feel like its a positive in my life), I feel like if I miss even one day it will all fall apart, and I won’t be able to pick up the habit again.

Maybe that’s part of the lesson to be learnt. That it’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok. Maybe that is the bigger challenge, for me -- not to do something every single fucking day, but to let it go for one day and then pick it right back up again. THE IDEA OF THAT TERRIFIES ME. THIS IS PROBABLY WHERE SOME OF THE WORK IS, WHERE MAYBE I SHOULD BEGIN.

fuck

this is scary

i feel like “giving in“ to temperance is throwing away so much of what i’ve built my identity on. i cant even think of it without feeling like i’d be giving something up, or losing a level of dedication and intensity that means im really comitted to something.

i dont know if im on the right path of thinking here. do i really need to give up my intensity? can i even possibly do that? is that really what im being asked to do here?

[daturagarden]

[daturagarden]

datura first bloom dreams

yesterday my datura bloomed for the first time and i fell in love. i cannot believe the ferocity and beauty that this plant emanates. she feels electric and brooding and with a very, very heavy undercurrent of darkness.

as cautious as i would like to be, i’m afraid the spell of this plant is already calling me to work with it in deep ways. i began researching deeper into its uses, and if there are ways that it has been traditionally used that aren’t levelling near the delirium states that i am terrified of/not interested in.

so i spent a very good chunk of last night enthralled and consumed by the beauty of this plant, and learning slowly what i can about her magic, and when i slept i had fiercely vivid, powerful dreams. datura essence dreams.

the entire dream was held on a long strip of street at night. the air was heavy and brooding, cold, but i was wrapped up well. wind whipping at me was a constant feeling throughout. the street was dark, and wide, not abandoned, but still desolate. i was walking steadily along, determined and head down. it was an extremely familiar feeling, of being alone, at night, in a vulnerable situation, but determined to push through and be self sufficient, get where i needed to be. and i did -- the first part of that dream ended with me turning into one of the dilapidated houses, and being welcomed by warmth, flooding yellow light, friends. they were all there, lux, arman, kay, just as we used to be, and were were piles of limbs and hugs, reminiscing.

as i was leaving that first part of the dream, warm and feeling full of love, i saw on my right a person on a catwalk, and went up to them. they were crying, and i hugged them and they held on to me, tightly. they had been going to kill themselves. i brought them down and sat with them and rubbed my friend love all over them, and after a while took them and buried them within my room of friends, where they would be well taken care of. i went back out.

it was then the same time of year, the same howling forboding weather, but years later. i was searching for the same house,but i could not find it. there were less people on the street, and i was followed by an increasing sense of dread. i slowly realized i had definitely gone too far, and that i didn’t know where i was, when the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and my pulse started racing. the entire view of the dream became tunneled, and the wind started rushing even more fiercely. i could not find a place to hide, and there was an overwhelming sense that something bad was coming. the air was sucked out of my lungs and the wind roaring turned into the roar of motorcycles as this parade of ghouls on bikes started driving by.  i was rooted in fear -- something about them was horrifying beyond description, though i can not remember why. it felt like i was going to be tugged into their vortex and pulled along, or pulled apart by the hurricane winds that they were riding with. suddeny though the wind knocked me back and i flew through the doors of a store into the lobby. this shook me out of my stupor, and i saw that many other people were huddled there, terrified. but the sounds and the winds were passing, and after the last of them drove by, i was able to shake myself off and go back out, heading back in the direction i came from, determined to find the house.

as i was walking back, still with my fast stride, a man came up next to me and put his hand around my waist. this time i was not scared and i pushed him off of me and i yelled at him to fuck off, to stay the fuck away from me, and i ran. and as i ran i realised that i had passed the house on the first way because of a construction set up, and was able to duck into the house, and the man was not following me.

but as i went back to the room where my friends had been, i realized that they were all gone, and that there was a completely new set of people, the age we had been but much younger than me now. but they all had glowing faces and looked at each other with as much love as we did back then. and i walked around among them and after some struggle, found strength in me to tell them without shame what had happened, with the ghouls and with the man, and they told me i could stay with them as long as i wanted, that they would shelter me. and so i did, and i learnt their names, and more of them came and i was enveloped in this generous new circle of young folk.

thats as far as i can remember. i may not have adequately described the oppressive, brooding air that ran through out the dream, with the exception of hen i was in that house full of golden light and friends. it was terrifying at times, but did not feel like a regular nightmare that i get, where i am simply horrified. there was an arc of strength, of rallying strength, that built up over the course of the dream. the strength that you need to stand your grand at night against ghosts and men, and the strength to give and ask for help from and to complete strangers, when you really need it. i woke up feeling shaky, but thinking, “you did that you got through“

datura is giving me such heavy vibes of that strength, that ferocity, that darkness and horror that you only find alone, at night, but also the self sufficiency to face it. a cutting through, a traveling, moving strength, wind in a tunnel. dagger heels femine energy, too. knife essence.

i think i might mix the essence of this with something extremely sharp. or a heavy protective stone. something to bring out the golden light too?

ill have to actually spend more time with her but ive just already got such a first impression.