Tag: Wisdom

Chapter Sixty-Two – King of Swords

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide, Finding Balance, Memoir, Someone Else’s Life

I was once again by the fire.

This was one of the last nights at the Kaleidoscope gathering. I had attended more rituals and gotten to know so many people, more than I thought that my world could hold. As I sat there watching the fire, a thought occurred to me. I knew why I had been holding myself back. I had assumed that everyone would hate me after what had happened with Francis. He was an elder in the Ottawa Pagan community. I had thought that when he had ended things, my connection to this world would also be over.

I had felt like an imposter here, as if people were staring at me all the time. Over the week that I’d been living on this small island, I had come to realize that people weren’t staring at me, but genuinely happy to see me. I had put myself in kind of a self-exile. I had placed so much value on what Francis thought of me that I had thought that the magic would be gone when he left.

I hadn’t realized that it was just beginning.

The fire was bright as the sky began to darken. We were all around the fire, waiting for the darkness so that we could be truly free from our bodies and minds so that we could let our spirits dance freely. It was as I was looking for the stars that I saw him.

Francis had come to the circle.

I had spent almost the whole week without seeing him. The sight of him was enough to make my heart stop, but only for a moment. A million word ran through my head, speeches that I thought I would say to him if I ever saw him again, conversations that I had imagined, the words as real as if they had truly happened. Scenes that I had imagined went through my mind, bringing up all the thoughts that I had been carrying within me. I wanted to rage at him, scream at him for the weight he had left me with. I was angry with the fierceness of young love when it is still bright and true.

When a spark from the fire landed near my foot, I had an idea.

I got up from the log I was sitting on and instead of heading towards Francis so that we could have one of the conversations that I had imagined in my mind, I turned towards the fire. I had left my things safely hidden in my tent, so I didn’t have my journal with me. Instead, I turned to face the fire, and I plucked what I had wanted to say to him out of my mind, imagining the words writing themselves in a loopy cursive script:

I will always be hurt by what you have done to me.

You have shaped what I think of men.

You showed me that love hurts more than it helps.

You took everything and it still wasn’t good enough.

I will never be able to love again.

One by one, I plucked those phrases from my mind, the pieces of paper brown with age, and tossed them in the fire so that they were no longer true. With each scrap of paper I threw into the fire, I reclaimed a little more of myself each time, gathering up the light and leaving the shadow on the page. As the flames took the words, my mind became clearer as I watched each piece turn to smoke.

When I turned back, Francis was gone.

The fire was so bright when the darkness finally came that I was blinded for a moment. All I could see were shadows dancing with the flames and hear the call of the drum song. I let the music pull me forward and the fire pull me inward. I let go and danced, gave up any reason that was left in my mind and lost myself to magic.

I was free.

Chapter Sixty-One – Queen of Swords

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide, Finding Balance, Memoir, Someone Else’s Life

After the magic circle, I ran into Soph and his friend Katie. They walked towards me and I my spirit was buoyed by the fact he smiled as he looked at me. When I got closer to him, Katie smiled and gave him a nudge in the ribs.

“Hi,” he said to me.

I found it amazing the amount of meaning that one small word could have. I could feel the blush starting in my cheeks and I gave him what I was sure was a wobbly smile. “Hi,” I said back. “Um, how are you?”

“Soph has been talking about nothing but you,” Katie said.

My blush deepened. “Really?”

“Yeah, nothing x rated or anything, but he’s into you.”

“Really?” I wished my brain would think of something else to say.

“Really.” Soph said. I could see a yearning in his eyes, and I wanted to give into that emotion. Soph had seen me naked and had not run from me. He wanted me, I could feel that from where I stood. It would be so easy and still, I held myself back.

I heard someone walking up behind me and I watched as Soph and Katie kind of snapped to attention. The look of lust in Soph’s gaze was gone, replaced with what looked like fear. I hear a voice behind me.

“Jamieson are you done with your bath?” I turned to find Sophie at my side. “Excellent, come and walk with me.” She looped an arm around one of mine. “Good morning Soph, Katie.”

They nodded and smiled at her and stood stock still as if afraid to move. I gave Soph one last glance until Sophie snapped her fingers in my face. “Focus on me, please.”

“Sorry,”

“It’s okay. I’m all for a sure thing, Jamieson. But too much of a good thing can be harmful.”

“It depends on what it is.”

“Yes and no. I mean, far be it from me to tell you not to go after a sure thing, but shouldn’t you work on loving yourself instead for now?”

We walked and I took comfort from the breeze that moved around us, as if it were asking me to choose a path. I noticed that the wind seemed to be even stronger when I was with Sophie, but I didn’t know if that was my imagination or the way she conducted herself. I know that she spoke from a place of wisdom and I tended to take her words to heart.

“I’m going to say this and you’re going to listen and you can decide to do with the words as you wish. Are you listening?

I could hear the sounds of the air whispering in the leaves of the trees and watched as my cigarette smoke was dancing around me, twisted into curls and ribbons by the wind. I stopped walking and turned to face her. “Yes, I am.”

“You’re still broken,” she said, placing a hand on where my heart lay within my chest. “You’re broken, hurting and lost. You had true love, it takes a long time to get over that.”

“Francis didn’t love me.”

“Yes, he did. Anyone looking at the two of you could see that he loved you as much if not more than you loved him. It’s why he pushed you away.”

I snorted. “I’m too young, apparently.”

She took my cigarette out of my hand and dropped it on the dirt path and squashed the ember with her right foot. Then she placed her hands on my shoulders and looked into me, not just at me. “You are young in heart but old in spirit. That’s a good thing. It means that you will always believe in the possibility of love, but don’t you think you need to love yourself, first? I have nothing against a roll in the hay, that should be a requirement for everyone. But you won’t find yourself in the bed of another.”

A tear slid down my cheek, made all the more real because it was such a beautiful day. “Why did he leave me?” I asked.

Sophie took a moment to think before she answered. I could see her choosing her words, trying to convey her words as clearly as she could. “Because he was afraid. When you meet your soulmate, you have two choices, run towards them or run away. Francis made his choice and now you have to make yours.”

We stood there listening to the wind for a moment and I tried to let the thoughts that there was something wrong with me, that Francis left me because I was damaged float away in the wind. I knew that it would take time, those thoughts had hooked themselves deeply in my mind.

“Well, if he was my soulmate, then that’s it. There’s no other love for me,” I said.

Letting out a laugh, Sophie looped her arm through mine again. “Now if you believe that, you are a fool. A person meets as many soulmates in their life as they are ready for. Francis was your first, but there will be others.” She gave me a rare smile. “Now come, take me back to camp. I’d love another cup of coffee and I wouldn’t say no to something else to eat, either.”

Chapter Forty-Nine – King of Cups

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide, Finding Balance, Memoir, Someone Else’s Life

I knew that I had given almost all my heart to Francis.

Some of it remained to love others in my life, but he held so much of me in his hands. Francis had taught me to love completely. I had never done this before and I struggled against it, but the longer we were together, the easier it was to love with my whole heart. We had been together for a few months now and in that time, Francis had helped me to rewrite what I thought love was.

We would talk late at night about what we wanted to do with our lives, the smoke from our cigarettes entwining and dancing between us. In every fantasy, we were together. It was wonderful to have such comfort with someone else and be completely myself.  Francis encouraged me to be my complete self and not hide who I was from anyone. “You’re so easy to love, Jamieson. It would be easier if you let people in.”

I shook my head. “It’s easier this way,” I said. “The less people that see the true me, the less people that will hurt me.”

“I know you were hurt before.” He took my hand in his. I had told him about growing up in an abusive family and how I was always the one to try and keep the peace, so I got hurt the most. I told Francis almost all the things my father had done to me. There were things that I could not tell the man I loved the most. I was completely myself with Francis, but I could not tell him everything that had shaped me. I thought he would look at me with disgust if he knew everything.

“You don’t have to carry it with you,” he said gently. “You can let it go.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think I can. I don’t know how.”

“I can see the pain when I look into your eyes. You’re far too young to be carrying so much pain.”

“I don’t know what to do with it.” I told him. “It’s like it’s all entwined?” I motioned at my head and my heart. “Like the dark seeds that were planted in my head have bloomed dark flowers.” I held my hands upward on either side of my head.  “I’m sorry, that doesn’t make much sense.”

“It does,” he said. “You need to find a way to uproot the dark, Jamieson.”

That sounded ominous, like playing with shadows in the darkness where they could bite. I looked into his eyes at and for the first time in a long time, the sea that was always riling and turbulent within Francis’ eyes was still. The sea looked calm and still. He had been able to overcome the waves.

I wondered what kind of choice Francis had made for himself. I don’t know why that occurred to me, but it seemed like when I looked at him now, Francis seemed like he had been able to shuck off his own sadness. There had always been a light that shone brightly, but now when I looked into hie eyes, I could see the light of dusk as it hit the waves, carrying the glow into the night.

When we held each other that night, there was a deeper softness to his touch. I could hear the wind that still made the waves move within him. It took me a moment to realize that I could feel the wind within myself, that every time the breeze from the ocean that was inside Francis pushed the waves, I could feel the air enter me. I had never felt so alive, and I wanted to fly to where the wind wanted to take me. As I fell asleep beside Francis, I could hear the water and the air as they travelled over the water. I tried to hear what they were whispering to me, but the waves soon lulled me to sleep.

When sleep came, I let the wind take me.

Chapter Forty-Eight – Queen of Cups

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide, Finding Balance, Memoir, Personal Growth, Someone Else’s Life, Tarot

There were always people at Lisa’s house.

One of Lisa’s friends was a woman named Darnelle. She had dark hair and a quick wit. She had been the one to introduce Paganism to Lisa and she seemed to resent Lisa for how little respect she showed the Magick. When she was in the house, I knew that I was in the presence of an elder and she made sure to let everyone know that.

“You can’t conduct a ceremony without calling the quarters,”

“Says who?”

“Says the way it’s always been done. You must respect tradition.” Darnelle would say.

“I want to make new traditions,” Lisa would respond.

They had this argument often and it got to the point where I could follow it like a tennis match. “But you have to respect the Gods,” Darnelle would respond.

“What do you think I’m trying to do? The whole ritual is to honour them.”

I didn’t understand the push and pull between them. To me, Magick and Paganism made a lot of things possible because it was so open. There was no right way to find your light. This is what all the people I knew in the community had taught me. They were all Pagan, but how each person had gotten to this point was different, just as their journeys were not the same.

I thought of my own journey that had brought me here and I knew that each step I had taken had been one of choice. Paganism existed in a place beyond choice. It simply was, shaped by a person’s ideals and what they believed. Their spirit told them what kind of things they needed. The fact that Darnelle always insisted that her way was the right way grated a little.

Yet she could be incredibly kind. She would stock Lisa’s fridge and cupboards without asking, showing up with bags of groceries. There were quite a few people living in Lisa’s apartment and all of us were on welfare. Money was thin, and the extra food was always a blessing.  She always had a spare cigarette for me, and I loved Darnelle despite her rigid stance on how the occult should be practiced.

I ended up going to see Darnelle on my own and would travel to her place to see her. My mother had walked away from me, so Darnelle became a kind of stand in for my mom. She had two children of her own and they were in and out of Darnelle’s house often. Even though Darnelle had a rigid sense of what was right and wrong in magic, she was keen to help me develop mine.

“I know you’re a warrior witch right now, but what path are you going to take when the need to fight is gone?” She motioned at me with a cigarette between two fingers. “Warrior magic is strong, but it can wear a person out. You don’t want to be guns blazing all the time.”

“I am strong.” I told her. I looked into her eyes, dark like a cave that invites you in but hides so many wonders not ever seen before.

 I took offense to the idea that she would find me weak. I wanted and needed to prove myself to her. Darnelle had this way of seeing what a person carried within them without them having to tell her anything. It was like she could see right into you and would judge you based on how strongly the rivers flowed within.

She lit another cigarette and looked at me through the smoke. “I never said you weren’t. But aren’t you tired of being strong all the fucking time? I told you that you can’t keep going at that rate, you’ll fucking burn out. Do you think I want that for you?”

I lit my own cigarette and took my time to respond. Darnelle demanded respect. You could speak your mind, but she demanded I take the time to respond and not lash out. She always wanted me to think of what I really wanted to say, what the heart of the matter was. “If I’m not a warrior, what am I?”

She shook her head. “No, you misunderstand me. You will always be a warrior, but practicing warrior Magick all the time will tap you out. Look at what it does to Lisa. She lets it be the excuse for her ignorance, uses it to be the reason for her rudeness.” Tapping her cigarette in the ashtray she left it there to smoke while she got up to put the kettle on. Taking out two earthenware mugs, she popped to orange pekoe bags into them and then came back for her cigarette. “No, you can’t be a warrior all the time. You’ve had to fight so much. You don’t have to be a warrior all the time.”

“I don’t know how to do anything else but fight.” I told her.

“Well, then maybe it’s time you look at magic that will help heal you instead of magic that will aid you for battle, hm?”

I watched as she put out her cigarette and went back to her kitchen to get the mugs of tea. I wondered about the idea of actually loving myself and letting myself heal from the scars that I carried not just on my skin, but also within me.

I added some milk and sugar to the tea, and we held up our mugs. “To healing,” Darnelle said.

When we clinked our mugs together, I imagined that I could hear the sound of bells over the whisper of the waves. I tried to listen to what the waves within me were saying and took a sip of my tea.

Chapter Forty-Seven – Princess of Cups

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide, Memoir, Someone Else’s Life, Tarot

I still found myself at a kind of crossroads. I knew that there was a change of some sort coming and I didn’t know what to do.

I felt like I was so many parts of myself and still had to find a way to put myself back together. I had my life on before I ended up on the streets and the life after. I found it difficult to recognize where one part of me ended and where the other part began. When I looked within myself, I could see the sea and trace my path through the waters, but I wondered what I had given up getting here.

I found myself wandering back downtown and saw my street family just where they had always been. I saw Angel drawing on the pavement of the square and she looked up at me when my shadow fell across her drawing. Her face immediately broke into a wide smile and she leaped up to hug me. Her warmth helped pull me out of the water within.

“How are you?” She looked me up and down. “You look lost. Come and sit, write something to go with this piece.”

Pointing at her chalk drawing, I saw a woman that was looking out from behind a forest of trees, a winding river blocking her path forward. “It’s beautiful,” I said.

“Thanks, but your words would help make it shine a bit brighter.”

She handed me a piece of white chalk and I couldn’t resist the chance to write. Taking the chalk from her, I sat beside her drawing and looked at the woman. She seemed to be confronting the water in front of her. She didn’t look at it with hatred for blocking her path, but instead her stare showed awe.

“She’s looking to where the water goes,” Angel said. “Much like you did.”

I let out a laugh. “I didn’t follow a path of water though.”

Shaking her head, Angel gave me a smile. “You did though. You followed your own path to where you are now. We’re all made of water and stardust, so you were just following the path that was already within you.”

“I’m still homeless.” I told her. “I haven’t accomplished anything.”

She stopped drawing and laid a hand on my arm. Her touch pulled me away from myself and when I looked at her, I could see only warmth in her face. “Of course you have. You got out of here. You chose that for yourself the moment you walked away.”

“I walked away from you; from everyone I know.”

“Only because you were strong enough to choose a different path. You knew that you wanted more than this. You inspired me. I still come out here to do my work, but I got myself a small apartment. You can come by after we’re done and check it out. It’s really only two rooms and a bathroom, but it’s mine. You don’t know how much of a difference you make in other people’s lives, Jamieson. You’re just holding on to everything so tightly.”

She motioned at the chalk drawing of the woman standing in front of the river. “Do you think that woman will try to hold on to the water?”

“That’s impossible, no one can hold on to the water except when it’s frozen.”

“Right, so why are you trying to hold onto it?”

“I’m not trying to.”

“Aren’t you though? You just told me that you left behind everyone you knew. You didn’t, you carry us in here.” She touched my chest where my heart was beating. “You have to let the flow of your life take you where it needs to take you. You can’t lament what you’ve already lived.”

She did one final sweep of green with her chalk, giving life to the water that ran in front of the woman. “Be like this woman. You need to honour the flow of water and where it will take you. You didn’t leave anything behind, Jamieson. You’re only just beginning to discover who you are.”

I looked down at the drawing of the woman and I swore I could hear the water as it flowed in front of her. I could hear the words that she wanted to say, and I wrote them beside the drawing, letting the words flow from me, not holding anything back. After the poem was written, I sat back and reflected on what I had just written, all about the feel of the water as it moved past my skin, taking me on a journey that I was brave enough to take.

I realized that I had been trying to remain still when the water had been trying to pull me in a new direction. I had to embrace what the world had in store for me and rather than believe that this was all I would amount to, I had to let the water give me counsel.

I embraced Angel in a hug. “Thank you. How did you get so wise?”

“You should know as well as I do that any kind of creative drive, whether it be art or writing, helps you to see into other worlds. I spend a lot of my time in those other worlds and so do you. You just need to work on pulling yourself out so that you can engage with the life you’re leading.”

When I closed my eyes, I could feel the pull of the wind and could hear the sounds of water as it sluiced around me. I let the water pull me where it needed to and I made the decision to go with it willingly instead of fighting where it wanted me to go. Angel put her arms around me in a hug and we walked onward to her new apartment, the sound of water still loud in my ears.