A Monthly Blog
Creating a practice that feels like a companionship with the Painted Oracle cards takes time and focus. Now, in this very public space, I explore the cards intimate meanings for me and how they deepen my personal understanding of self.
Working with one card for the month, I address how it feels in the moment, the ways in which I am aligned with it, the ways I am not and the possible discoveries there in.
Join me offering your insights as they relate to you.
March 2026: Queen
Queen, My Queen.
Say to me what I need to know.
I will broadcast it far while honoring it close.
When the Queen comes round, I know truth telling is imminent. Boundaries must be set or reset, and inner shifts require language for clarity. Interpersonal relationships need a check in. Or perhaps we need some tea and a visit with ourselves. Sometimes we are the Queen and sometimes the Queen arrives for us.
Words are important to the Queen. When to start and stop talking, and how to accentuate with assured meaning is her great skill. She takes no pride in her delivery, for she deeply feels each and every story told and reaches her conclusion despite herself.
In our circles, how the truth telling gets told is anybody’s guess. It need not be angry, vengeful or sarcastic, but it could be. It might be loving, kind and promising, but not necessarily. The message may be a piece of art on the doorstep. A question posed followed by a cry that stretches over an hour.
Every tear and sober word is the queen’s sword. It is the exact air that is needed.
If you have been following my blog journal, you know winter brought woes and weariness too many to recount. I am feeling at little better (the sun through the window warms), and I am working on health and art goals.
Today, though, walking my dog, the Queen spoke loudly and clearly. She reminded me of my vulnerabilities and my fantasties.
She provided two facts. The first came as a text. “The US and Israel just attacked Iran.” The second was an observation; among the tree tops were Great Blue Herons, at least 12 of them, in their rookery.
One made me sick to my stomach. I immediately felt a surge of fear and dread. My pace hurried, and I kept my head down. Later, I found out a girl’s school was hit and dozens young girls were killed. The other stopped me in my tracks. I felt instant pleasure; I had stumbled onto a great treasure. The birds seemed to attend to each other offering nest and food. I breathed in this good fortune, and the air expanded in my body. It was hard to stop looking and walk away.
As I approached home, I nodded to another message meant for me. I am not able command most situations. I can not stop these bombs, and I can not go rest with the Great Blue Heron.
Progress
February 2026: Progress Welcome
A pioneer moment! No need for measuring sticks or external markers of any kind. You know progress because you are fulfilled.
Oh boy!
I am not really feeling this right now. I think I am anti progress, more like a shadow where doubt looms large and reflects an air quite unfinished (Including this post, how will I ever write it?)
I know in my best self that progress can be incremental and often unseen, but this day feels more like a horrendous backslide: the country folding in on itself, the Tarot towers crumbling, the yells and screams-the hideous repeating itself. A nightmare dreaming in community. I see you; I hear you.
Imposter syndrome, and the lack of power assume the shadow of progress.
The tipping point flips it.
Until then, I am in the dark.
(Obviously, the seasons know better–Blessed Imbolc!)
Trust
This is really beautiful to read and I can completely resonate with you on so much of this. Thank you for sharing 💛
Thanks, Tracy! I’m so glad it makes sense to you. I have felt it so keenly each December day since.
The roots of the word Trust are such as confidence, help, protection, make firm, comfort. Such an interesting menagerie. We trust in ourselves or not. We trust outside of ourselves, or not. A connection made firm is bound in trust. It is given and allowed.
Hi Jessie,
Your post reminds me when we trust, we are propelled forward; something is set in motion. Trust requires attention, yet it can also grow on its own. 🙂
Commitment as the readied offering, the prepared for rite, That really resonates as it feels that it is rarely a new thing, but as you say deeply rooted. And, built in, as you also say, is its slightly tarnished underside of not wanting to. I’ve thought lately of the act of willful sacrifice that may accompany commitment. The placing of a loved thing on the altar of a new endeavor as forfeiture and offering for the higher right.
Commitment as the readied offering, the prepared for rite, That really resonates as it feels that it is rarely a new thing, but as you say deeply rooted. And, built in, as you also say, is its slightly tarnished underside of not wanting to. I’ve thought lately of the act of willful sacrifice that may accompany commitment. The placing of a loved thing on the altar of a new endeavor as forfeiture and offering for the higher right.
Progress feels inevitable. Bound into the same gyrating orb are humanity’s complicated, brilliant and devastating expressions. The tools at our behest are small in the world at large and mighty at arm’s length. I sometimes feel that what we think of as progress is not that at all as we are the same creatures we’ve always been just maneuvering in ever shifting surroundings.
Bird totem is powerful for me. They bring immediate levity to me and they are always just themselves, Just reading the words “Great Blue Heron” in your blog feels like an incantation, and immediately brightened in me.
That’s a lovely thougtht.