In pursuit of judgement

By which I mean the tarot connotation, not what we humans do to each other on a daily basis for our life choices.

I have been peeled, beloveds. I come to you in raw skin, with hollow eyes. It's been difficult. If we were speaking in terms of last week, I'd be in the formless ooze phase of the transformation, and for me, it burns and quivers and aches. But that's okay, I'm trying to accept it as part of the process, that quite often, growth requires discomfort.

So it goes, so it goes. the world turns. And maybe, just maybe, I will find myself with the right form this time around.

Aphrodite moves in my life nonetheless, and I am soothed by that, She pulls me along ever so gently through the obscuring mists, She hides what I want to forget even when it's best for me to remember it, She wants me to seek pleasure, She wants me to seek fun. Life is short, have fun.

And so I do tell everyone to do this. And that it is good. But for some reason, I never really get around to actually doing this for myself. I am in a Judgement period. I am being rebuilt, ungently. Is there any time for pleasure in that?

Yes. There has to be. There has to be a place for joy in our unmaking, weeping tears of gold as we are torn apart only to be rebuilt for the new world, coming awake at a trumpet call, becoming aware at that brassy rip, you can feel every wound and every scar and every healing part within you, your pain is manifest as an earthen crust, and so long as even one crumb remains, you will feel your terror and sorrow tenfold.

There has to be a counterbalance to that and it comes in the lessons of the exalted ancestors, who say that when hard times come, it is okay to indulge in things to get through. Keep yourself cared for. Tend yourself well. There will be so much that can come against you, Protect and defend as you see fit. The right is yours in this fragile state.

This is where I call for Aphrodite's hand to guard me as I twist and turn and change beneath the taut surface of the chrysalis. I don't know what the new world has in store for me. I have cut away much. I have opened my heart to more. I have made adjustments beneath the careful eye of Judgement. I have tried to be more accepting of my whole reality.

I have tried to rest in Aphrodite's hands, Still I itch, quiver, twitch. Can't find relief. Can't reach respite. It's a stressful place to be! And I do not like it.

But it is what Judgement is demanding for me - Judgement being the answer to a question I demanded of Aphrodite about where I should look for beauty, and of course it is in the unmaking and rebuilding of the self before entering the portal of the new world. It is in the deep earthen places and the highest airy spires. It calls in the fires that race through our blood; it sings in the waters of our cells. It is part of the total, but what is it that I require? What alchemy do I need?

I am drawn to my Alchemical deck and of course I will explore there, but I still want to bring a card to our little collective, a card about tempestuous times and being called forth fully naked out of our graves, vulnerable before the gods and everyone, screaming as we are rebuilt by fire.

I am here, I have been here before, I will be here again. By the very nature of the spiralic journey, we will move into this cleansing space time and again, whether we think we need it, or not.

Aphrodite said that to help survive - to help us thrive - throughout the process of judgement is to reach back into what was to find the things that soothed you then.

She said, let your inner child run free and wild, uncontested, and let it have control when it is possible, because it is not always possible nor prudent to do so. She said to bring back the flowers of the past, oh, what was so filtered through perfect golden light in your past and is it connected to the ache you feel now? Is it connected to a desire you can't name? Get in there and understand, beneath the eye of Judgement.

Flowers are more important even than life giving water in this image, in this art, in this depiction. They are what stand for all good things in memory, a time we shared with a person we loved that we can't seem to let go of, rides with friends when such things were new, safe, warm memories with needs met. This is what matters. Make the dish that matters. Make the dish that exalts you in its making.

She said give yourself to enjoyment, to pleasure of the body in taste and in touch, give the body what it wants and let it want for nothing. It's all about meeting needs, here naked as we are before the trumpet of Judgement. There is nothing between us. There is nothing between us. All can be known and that flows both ways. Don't neglect your input, listen to your intuition.

Reach back, reach back to a version of you that was simpler but more purely you. Maybe you are a child, maybe you are a teen, maybe you are thirty or forty or fifty. You dream of a better you. You do not yet know that iteration will happen. But you will feel joy when it does. Draw strength and vigor and hope from the you that was this beautiful ineffable creature.

If they hadn't existed, neither would you. Neither would we. We are built on the bones of who we were, each time stronger, closer to self. Take these shreds of what was straight into the future, weaving them into your own unique fabric. In Judgement you get some choice, some. A little. Else our path would be cyclical and the same, each time around.

Aphrodite gives leave to splash around in the past memories that soothe you the best, and if you do not have any such memories, She invites you to call upon Her boundless creativity to make ones on your own.

In Her Sweet Name,

J