Abracadabra Tarot: TRAPPED: Like a Fat Ballerina in a SNOW GLOBE

Tiny Tiara

That's how I felt in January and February when even a roaring fire failed to warm the bones. Not much "Funification." The world was icepick sharp, murky with mist and fog. Crystalline spiderwebs appeared each morning outside my bedroom window.

The webs were a spun phenomenon of "Rime" frost in which cloud & fog droplets smaller than rain droplets fasten upon objects like spiderwebs on cold and foggy nights, rapidly freezing if the temp goes below 0 degrees C (which Oy Vey, Les Saints de Glaces! it certainly did), forming a glaze. As more cold fog droplets hit the windward side of the web they build up a mass of porous ice or "rime", with air spaces between the solidified droplets. Because of the air spaces, it appears white in contrast to glazed frost, which is clear solid ice with little or no trapped air. Oh why couldn't it be Window Frost, or Fern Frost or Ice Flowers?

But then the thought that it could be "Hoar Frost" filled me with Horror. The name hoar comes from an Old English adjective for showing signs of old age, in this context referring to frost which makes trees and bushes and Lord Tennyson look like he has hoary white hair all over him. It is also associated with the hawthorn tree when it is covered in white spring blossoms, but frankly I don't see that resemblance.

Because then it might have looked something like this:

Lord Tennyson - Tower of Lincoln Cathedral

"Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers" - Alfred Lord Tennyson

Tiny Pink Tiara

So what's a girl to do, but to eat MORE cream puffs???

Fevrier/February was especially tough. The second month of the Gregorian Calendar takes its name from the Latin word "Februa", which was a purification festival in ancient Rome at that time of the year. The Hermit, The Moon and The Hanged Man popped up quite a few times in the readings I did for clients in February. The Three of Swords made guest appearances too with its gloomy clouds of doubt, obsession, isolation, self-defeat, confusion. People felt like they were in limbo and désorienté. Which way to go? Hard to read the the signs or to see past the brouillard, the brume, the banc de brume--the foggy haze, miasma, sea mist, fog bank, pea soup. I had to turn on my phares antibrouillard = the fog lights.

The way the trees looked in Villebois-Lavalette

Mistletoe in the Mist - Bouex

Snow kept falling and melting and turning to ice. Lots of things got canceled. Life was on hold...what can you do when you can't see where you are going? Squint harder? Get a miner's light?

The Cows in Ronsenac


Villebois looking like a watercolor through the mist

Villebois half-mist and stone

On February 23rd, Mecury went retrograde in Pisces; a time that challenges old patterns, limiting beliefs. We've got three weeks of Mercury messing with our heads and hearts till the Celtic Tiger rushes in on March 17th. Be alert to amplification/magnification of old wounds or crab pots of pity. It's a good time for some psyche spring cleaning. The Romans had it right with their purification festival. What free radicals need to be burned off? Sweep out the old cobwebs and be cautious around signing contracts. This can be a cycle of growth. When there is a traffic jam in the outer world, get out of your car and walk. March is a good time for personal journeys to be mapped out. Shape your future. Get yourself a compass, a hula hoop and a slinky.

The dreamy go with the flow, mystical qualities of Pisces are intensified. You might find it tricky to articulate your thoughts, or you could feel like you are in a Lina Wertmuller film, "Swept Away by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August", or by tides of emotion that seem to have no external trigger.

Lina Wertmuller

Pour moi, I've had a flooding of visions and accelerated psychic activity accompanied by feelings of euphoria and boundarylessness. A desire to merge with the sacred "All That Is". There is a pull to dive down deeper and deeper, to explore previously uncharted territory--the danger (the bends, The Martini Effect) lying not in the descent, but in the ascent. The deeper a diver descends, the more slowly he/she must ascend in order to avoid nitrogen narcosis. Quelquefois, I don't want to return to Kansas or OZ. I want to find the pearl: where does the soul reside when it isn't tap dancing around the ego?