happy
A few days ago I have pulled the White Hart (the Lovers) from the Arthurian Tarot in my exploration of Maria as a divine mother in relation to me, an important theme for me as a woman without having many images in my protestant tradition to relate to. What my eye fell on is the big distance between the woman (me) and the white deer (Maria). I have interpreted this distance as resistance, a difficulty in me to relate to Maria as a mother. During the last few days I have explored this distance. This exploration has brought me contact with my vulnerability, my sorrow and fear for loss of identity.
Although there is resistance in me, there is also a longing to some sort of a relationship, because in the card of the White Hart (the Lovers) is much longing, that belongs to the character of the card.
This entry is about the longing for a relationship with Maria as a divine mother. My question is: “What am I longing for in Maria as a divine mother?”
Looking at the Lovers-card just after I had pulled it, I felt especially drawn to the image of the white deer at the background, a divine animal, just as Maria is a divine image. It stems from the so-called ‘Otherworld’.
A powerful tarot-technique (originally belonging to dream-work) is to relax and visualize the landscape, the objects, the figures in the card and to go ‘in the card’ yourself in order to communicate with something in it. Since I teach the Tarot and Dreams course at the moment I am very aware of the benefits of this technique, so I used it.
I went into the landscape of the card with the question: “What am longing for in Maria as a divine mother?” When I was in the landscape of the card I went directly to the white deer in the back. To my surprise it was not an ethereal animal, as I thought it would be, coming from the Other-world, it was not ethereal at all, just the opposite. It was sturdy, soft and warm, and above all reliable. It showed me what I seek and long for in a divine mother: reliability.
This fits nicely in with the card of Guardian Angel from the Inner Child Cards, the card that I have pulled yesterday, although the theme yesterday was not Maria, but ‘my true identity’. The Guardian Angel is a female protective figure, just as Maria in her motherhood, and just as the sturdy deer. Recommendation yesterday was to find that protective motherhood in myself.
Still I like a divine mother. Being able to relate to a divine mother on the outside, in art, or texts, stimulates the awareness of a mother living on the inside
