away, you squirmy little bastard, away!

I woke up the other morning and decided that I needed to shift my thinking.
I had spent a long day walking the day before and was running the fear tape in my head..all day long.
So enough is enough with that.

Several years ago, gwen gifted me with a deck of Motherpeace Tarot Cards and I've been using them ever since for divination comfort. I got introduced to the Tarot back in high school, but had been working with the Morgan-Greer deck..which is pretty patriarchal, but its what I was given, so that's what I knew.

So I figured I would do a little three-card spread to try and see where all this fear was coming from, and why I was having such a difficult time shaking it. (Psychologically I know the answer...drama and fear can be oddly comforting if that's what we're used to..and me, being a Libra, am all about comfort. Even if I'm miserable.)

So I drew three cards for Past, Present and Future and damn if the friggin Hierophant showed up in the Present position.

The Hierophant is essentially the patriarch's patriarch. An oppressor of women in particular, but also symbolic of oppressing anything that doesn't fit into his line of thinking, his rules. When this card comes up in a reading I can look around and see if there is something going on outside of me that is squashing my spirit. Most of the time though, that squasher is me...telling me stories...riddling me with untruths, keeping me scared and immobile. So..that was telling, and validating and so I've been working the past couple of days to rid those tapes from my head.

And it's pretty much working as I'm starting to get excited about this journey and leaving the melancholy behind, which is a welcome change.

In other news:
I've been gifted the opportunity to be one of the people who will be regularly blogging on the Longest Walk website. There are 5 of us at the moment who will be adding content and pictures as often as we can so that people who are interested can "be there" with us as we travel across the country. I spoke with the websteward this morning and he gave me a tutorial on how to post to the site...so between that and this little blog and my Street Roots column, it looks like I'll get to do quite a bit of writing along the way.

If you guys want to check out the website (it's chock full of info), go to:
www.longestwalk.org and navigate around in there. The "Forum" tab will take you to a fun little page where other walkers are starting to talk to each other. The "Voices" tab will take you to the blog site. Also there is "route itinerary" tab that will give you a day-by-day look at where we will be.

So..things are well. I'm off to Southern Oregon tomorrow for a couple of days of hanging with my buddy Corbs. I'll be out of cellphone and computer range, which will be a nice respite I think!