Blooming Truth Into View

Blooming Truth Into View

Shears in hand, my face sidled by sun-bleached puffs of Crown Princess Margareta Roses, a most cherished time of year arrives joyful to the eye. This little garden patch was built out with my love, from a jungle of unruly weeds abound with more spiders than I've ever seen in my life and one sweet little garden snake, who seemed to transform before me from the sliver of an Iris leaf into a moving dream lost in the shadowy corners of the garden. This small yet somehow endless space is where I find a boundless stream of inspiration, where I learn from and with the plants, where the Pythia Botanica was born nearly five years ago, the Ophidia Rosa four years ago, and the Maiden three. I come here to create, to read cards, to sit, to greet the day's emotions, to process the catharsis that only inhabiting a garden may bring.

Boundless Growth Within Bounds

Though merely a wee feat, this has felt so profound for me: Transforming my small patch of NYC into a magical oasis carrying a bounty of English Roses, Bearded Iris, Hibiscus, Dahlias and a rotating selection of annuals. Having a space to read my botanical Tarot and Oracle decks with the very blooms lovingly illustrated years ago, makes this one of the most boundless places for me to be. Within limitation and even perhaps in spite of it, the garden sprawls out with flowers signs from these decks — an act of magical defiance to fates left cloaked in the space between iron spokes.

Cards & Blooms, Read & Seen

Behold the English Rose in bloom, aka Ophidia Rosa's High Priestess! As a bud this Rose is The Hermit, while two crossed stems of this flower conjure the II of Swords. A Bearded Iris has come into full form in my garden, a sign of the Maiden's "Below the Robe" explored in last week's newsletter. See that Dahlia peeking out of the soil from its tuber? This is a sign to read the Ophidia Rosa's VIII of Pentacles. Meanwhile, an Anemone flowering with a crown of leaves is Ophidia's Death card, a key nexus in our need for transformation. A tuft of Lily of the Valley shimmies betwixt sworded leaves as the Maiden's "First Green," with a sister in the Pythia Botanica's Nasturtium flowering mere inches away. Potted Viola, popping up with their budded heads, offers a friendly reminder that all previous healing begets the ability to heal again, forever new upon the future's hues. Clematis winds the fence, a sign from the garden to the cards to dismantle institutions from the ground up. Passiflora's stunning appearance, climbing while it blooms offers the strength to "Endure" in the Pythia Botanica. And finally, in a sign so befitting of my thoughts this week, Queen Anne's Lace is Pythia's "Sanctuary," perhaps this garden itself, though wherever one might seek safe space in their ever-growing world.