“1+3=4...The meaning of 13 is very much like number 4, but it can also have elements of numbers 1 and 3 involved as well...The number 1 in 13 is symbolic of the individual, while the number 3 symbolizes the power of unbridled creativity..the number 13...symbolic of a transformational process that brings the individual to their perfected state.It is also important to note that the number 4 is the number of mastery over the material sphere and the ability to lay solid foundations for the successful completion of projects.” ~https://thesecretofthetarot.com/numerology-number-13/
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
13 - Death/Rebirth - is a perfect card to symbolize the rising of brand new year out of the powerful transformation & endings of the last year. We are beginning anew, old father time has been replaced by the infant baby of the new year which happens over and over and over again, year after year. New life inherently rises from the death of the old, the image for this card is of a phoenix rising from the ashes holding a woman. Life comes from death, spring comes forth out of winter, the fallen trees in the great forests give rise to the new saplings...fields must sit fallow for a time to regain their capacity to hold new crops. 2018 began here in Santa Barbara with a tragic mudslide that brought death and destruction and then brought the rebirth of powerful community; rallying together to help clean up the mess and support each other through the aftermath.This new year is also symbolized by the rising sun behind the seated Emperor (LINKED to Emperor article) - 1+3=4 (LINKED to #4 Article) - the passive, solid, grounded quality of the masculine aspect in all of us - holding the structure- leading with the hard earned wisdom of the heart - this is the healthy masculine aspect whether we are male, female or non-binary, supporting the foundation for the healthy feminine in us; both and at the same time being called forth by the divine feminine, We reach out for each other, calling each other out to create the new world together. As an aquarius and a very creative, forward thinking, and often seen as impractical, I have longed for a partner who is grounded and stable in order to assist me in flying as high as I can go and always having a place to land. This feels like the year that will be mamafested, and it has already begun because for the first time in my life I have been able to ground myself materially and really provide for myself. It feel practically miraculous...It is such an incredibly beautiful balance, the two of these cards together. The masculine holds, grounds, keeps safe, while the feminine rises from the ashes of the old and flies into the new world we create together as the sun rises behind the emperor. (LINKED)(LINKED)For the last 3 years I have been part of a show of singing, dancing, acting and cultural sharing with the Santa Barbara Revels at the winter Solstice. We begin in September and for almost 4 months we sing and block and practice and get ready to give 4 shows over the Solstice weekend. We sing in four parts, bass, tenor alto and soprano and all parts are needed. In order for the sopranos to soar high, the basses must hold the low as the altos and tenors harmonize and bring the incredible fullness to the sound. My favorite songs are those where the men are asked to powerfully anchor the bass line, there is just something about that anchor; without it, the music lacks depth and beauty.In this time of apocalypse (the literal translation of which is “lifting of the veil”), with the veil being pulled from the Unhealthy Masculine symbolized by Hollywood and especially represented in the Military Industrial Complex (by the gift of the hubris, audacity, privilege and pomp of Donald Trump) and in response, the divine feminine is rising from the ashes of a fallen system of the acknowledged unhealthy and ill male dominance represented by record numbers of women elected to political office (not to mention the CA law requiring one women to be on corporate Boards).I see clearly the shift in the balance of power that validates a woman’s capacity to say no, and rather than keep ourselves and each other down out of fear and unhealthy feminine submissiveness, to call some badly behaved men (and women) into better behavior. We are the change we want to see in the world and it is rising and it is now, no matter how hard the old paradigm fights it. The dying breaths of those outdated dinosaurs of racism, sexism, greed and power that are no longer tolerated and will be obliterated, with love and justice for all...it is a new dawn and a new day and even though are just beginning, it is happening. We are transforming our grief and rage into change: The Parkland Ground Game.I played a monster in the “Mummer’s Play”, the play within the play of the Revels performance this year. I was one of 5 players in this small comedic aspect of the play and the only female. All four of the men were wonderful comedic actors and this was my first actual acting role in a stage performance (unless you count the 5th or 6th grade play where I was Mrs. Bumble in Oliver). The monster was created by baskets and natural material built upon a backpack and she was beautiful, she was also female. Something was unleashed in me as I raged and yelled from underneath that backpack and then died an increasingly dramatic/comedic death each time, as we made our way through the weekend. It felt incredibly symbolic, this death and rebirth enactment, especially in regards to the angry feminine calling out the masculine, scaring him to death, fighting him, dying and then rising again in civility...and the freedom it gave me to really express myself and be applauded for it was phenomenal. Something powerful was unleashed in my own psyche that weekend, I look forward to witnessing and participation in what unfolds as I move forward. Not to mention I was the star of the show to all the 10 year old boys in the audiences, including my godson!
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be?You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
~Marianne Williamson
I heard once about an isolated culture, long hidden from modern times, where women, equal to men, their role in their village to tell the men when to stop hunting and when to stop building, the men listened to and respected them. In a healthy world, the active masculine power of creating and providing is perfectly balanced with the feminine power of sight, knowing and intuition, and in this honor and respect and love for each other their village existed in health and peace, flourishing for centuries away from modern “civilization”. When these people were brought into our modern civilization, they were aghast, both men and women cried out, what has happened to your women? Why are they not telling the men to stop building and hunting?As I heard this story I looked back into our own culture’s “civilization” history of the witch-hunts and the denigration for the feminine that essentially shut the mouth of the wise and powerful feminine for centuries and created this mess that we are in now with our planet needing to heal herself from these many centuries of denigration and abuse. And as I look forward I know and see that it is in the coming together of the healthy masculine and healthy feminine, working together, loving and cherishing and respecting each other and our mother earth that we will find our way out of this quagmire of global warming and climate change that we created by indulging too much in hunting and building and not knowing when to stop. Manifest Destiny, in the absence of Mamafest Intensity has been a recipe for disaster. There is no more time to fight each other, to waste our breath on blame and hatred, we just need to get together and get to it!That old dinosaur (in us all) has been right to fear of the number 13, the number of the lunar calendars of ancient china, the native americans and other indigenous cultures that have long followed the cycles of the moon though the year. For it represents the return to balance, the recognition of true and equal power between the bright sun and the dark moon; that call to STOP building and to STOP hunting, so that we can take the time to enjoy and appreciate and share the work in harmony with the earth.
Don’t worry if you’re making waves simply by being yourself. The moon does it all the time.
And so, dear, ones, as I see it, it is time. And we are here to witness it. In one of my favorite fairy tales, Little Sleeping Beauty, we not only have the powerful symbol of 13 represented by the 13 wise women, but also the clear warning about honoring all 13 even if you only have 12 golden plates:Now there were thirteen fairies in the kingdom; but as the king and queen had only twelve golden dishes for them to eat out of, they were forced to leave one of the fairies without asking her...One gave her goodness, another beauty, another riches, and so on till she had all that was good in the world...Just as eleven of them had done blessing her...the thirteenth fairy was come,...as she had not been asked to the feast she was very angry... So cried out, ’The king’s daughter shall, in her fifteenth year, be wounded by a spindle, and fall down dead.’ Then the twelfth of the friendly fairies, who had not yet given her gift...could soften its mischief; so her gift was, that the king’s daughter, when the spindle wounded her, should not really die, but should only fall asleep for a hundred years.http://www.authorama.com/grimms-fairy-tales-7.html By replacing the lunar calendar of 13 with the solar calendar of 12, this tale showed that there were repercussions and yet it also showed that those repercussions can be softened and that in the end it is time that heals and perfect timing that shows the way. For at the end, after the hundred years, regardless of the difficulty of getting into the castle before then, when the time is up, the castle opens and the prince walks right in. In the Disney version there was battle with dragons and the prince had to fight his way in to wake the princess with the kiss. But in the original version, only those who tried to get in before the 100 years ended up failing miserably, often times dying in the thorns that surrounded the castle. On the day the spell ended, the hero of this story, trusting his inner guidance, no matter what had happened to those before or how he was warned away, continued on his journey and arrived in perfect timing:“Now that very day the hundred years were ended; and as the prince came to the thicket he saw nothing but beautiful flowering shrubs, through which he went with ease…”just in time to see the Princess waking up, of her own accord at the end of her time of sleep, and couldn’t resist her beauty and kissed her as she woke. Luckily she didn’t bop him one and instead understood that this was perfect timing! Or so the story goes... And then I imagine she went on to become a queen in her own right.What a perfect segue into looking at the number 13 in the minor arcana of the tarot, the queens:
The Queen of Wands
The queen of wands - has mastered or as I like to say Mystressed the world of the Spiritual, the fiery element - She is a total Badass, and having done her shadow work (remember the princess of wands in the fire with her tiger) she is ready to move forward, she is lighting the way. She is the divine feminine in powerful forward movement and action.When the queen of wands makes her way into a reading it is a reminder to recognize how far we have come and how ready we are to move forward with clarity and light to whatever we need to do next in the world. She is the aspect of the divine feminine that is ready for anything. I am Woman (LINKED)
The Queen of Swords
The queen of swords - has mystressed the airy world of thoughts and thinking. She has, or is in process of cutting through the illusions and “bs” of whatever it is we have been told or have been telling ourselves. When the queen of swords appears in a reading she symbolizes the power of unmasking yourself by cutting away the past and the all the stuff that is no longer useful that we thought we needed to be or do or have. In doing so we not only unmask ourselves to the world, but more importantly to ourselves.The queen of swords gets to the truth of the matter and while she might not always be nice, as the song goes, sometimes the truth hurts and you need to be “cruel to be kind”! (LINKED TO VIDEO)
The Queen of Cups
The queen of cups - comes in too offer oodles of divine compassion. She has mystressed the watery emotional world and understands and embodies Be-ing LOVE - Quan Yin, Mother Mary, Venus carrying her half shell - she is emotional intelligence and the capacity for compassion and grace in every situation.Yes, sometimes love hurts and the truth hurts AND when we open our hearts and stand with ultimate vulnerability and humility in front of those we hurt, we ease that pain and make it more palatable we are in pain and love with them. The queen of cups symbolizes the ability to offer ourselves the divine compassion that wells up from inside us in order to see the world with divine compassion. She is that aspect in each and all of us that overflows with love for ourselves and the other and makes the world go round. What the World Needs now Is Love (LINKED)
The Queen of Pentacles
The queen of pentacles - has mystressed the material world, the earthly realm, she knows, inherently how to connect with the earth and receive whatever it is she needs.She sits back in her power - tapped into the greater magnetism of mama gaia, the receptive power of the feminine on the grand scale - BE-ing is as powerful as do-ing, we must have BOTH for humanity in this world to truly thrive, with each other and with the earth herself.When the queen of pentacle shows up in a reading she reminds us how very powerful we are in our presence alone, that in just BE-ing we are enough. She lets us know it is time to reconnect with the earth and our inherent birthright as her children to receive the gifts she freely offers. Re-member who you are. This is mamafesting at its finest!And so, dear ones, here we are at the beginning for this year, with the reminders that we can rise from the ashes of the past that needed to be burned down in order to get us back to the foundation, and begin again with a healthier solid grounding so that we can move forward in health and love and to build a new world together.What has been burned down was necessary, we had to let go, to cut away from the past and to overflow with love with ourselves and each other, offering great compassion for all that we've been through, are going through and are moving towards (what wasn’t released willingly was forced out of our hands regardless). With this we reconnect with the earth and as her children work with her to create a new world. We don’t need to know how to do it, we just need to be willing, to offer ourselves as tools for the good of all and move forward with our hearts and minds, open to the magic and miracles that are possible, even if it's beyond our imagination!Thank you, for reading all the way to the end! Please come and see me on January 26, the fourth Saturday of this new year, to see what fabulous luck and creation and magic the number 13 may have to offer you!Many Blessings in 2019,Kristine Thandeka Marie
