Oracles Abound

Reminder from Mano: When you arrive at all events bring your energy into total presence. Ask, “How may I serve the people, the angels, nature, Spirit? When you leave say goodbye personally to people. Withdraw your energy from the place and ask for blessings on all people, nature and angels who were there.

After last month’s blog on oracles, particularly Barbara’s experience with learning to use and trust the pendulum, I began to get the itch to reconnect with one of my earlier oracle consultants, the alchemy stones. Back in 2005 I did a course at Rudolf Steiner College that had a big alchemy component, and directly following that course I spent a few months in Hawaii. In a tiny used bookshop on the Big Island I came across this set of alchemy stones, with a guide, and for several years used them regularly. Late one night I tracked them down and very reverently pulled a stone from the bag. As I felt the cool, smooth surface with only one tiny indentation on it, I immediately knew what it was—the one stone I hate but that also makes me laugh at myself. The Puffer. This is the careless naive alchemy-pretender, full of hot air and motivated primarily by the desire to get rich quick. His laboratory is a shambles and he “struggles in chaos, unaware of the clarity of alchemy’s higher path.” In a day or two I tried again, and I had already moved up to the Initiate, following my nature-guided path and trusting my experience to guide me. Both of these signs apply—the Puffer reminding me to live in humility, always, and the Initiate reminding me to stay in my own story and trust each step as it opens itself to me.

Barbara is always quick to laugh at herself and to take responsibility for her part in creating her reality. The oracles she writes about are “signs along the highway” that help her keep her head straight and her heart aligned.

The Tarot Cards
Another Council of Gnomes project that I now see was designed to further my work with oracles—as one more way they could connect, teach, and guide me—involved the Tarot. I first heard of the Tarot cards from my friend Brooks when I lived in La Canada. She once did a short reading for me in which the Fool came up as the one guiding my life. I now associate the Fool card with the cartoon character Mr. Magoo, who was near-sighted and absent-minded but nevertheless always came through unscathed. He might step off of a skyscraper into open space, only to step into the empty spot on a two-seater, open-cockpit airplane that was flying by at just the right moment. I can relate to Mr. Magoo’s adventure when I acknowledge the constant and consistent guidance, opportunities, and people the Council brings into my life.

 I connected with Pamela Eakins’ book Tarot of the Spirit when I was doing research on the four elements. I saw that she was brilliant and had more information than I had seen in any other Tarot book. She offered a year-long course of monthly Tarot classes (called “The Fool’s Journey”), which I very much wanted to take. However, the class was in Half Moon Bay and the commitment seemed impossible during this time when Jim and I were traveling and away from the mountain so much of the time. Two months after Jim died I heard that Pamela was going to do this class in Santa Cruz, the first time in 21 years she offered it away from her home. I enrolled immediately and loved the teachings and the teacher, feeling as if I had come home to a dimension of myself that had been dormant for eons. To be able to involve myself in this amazing, all-encompassing study during the time I was adjusting to Jim’s death was a huge blessing. With my daily homework and meditations, study filled the hours I would have spent with Jim.

 At the end of the year Pamela announced that she would be offering a deeper study of the Tarot at her home near Half Moon Bay. Diana Hobson and I made this journey every month for three years. I loved driving along the barren California coast, watching the seasonal changes, the wildflowers, birds, and storms over the sea, while relishing the magical and marvelous conversations that always developed with Diana. (Adding to the pleasure of the trip was my personal commitment never to drive by the Swanton Strawberry Farm food stand without stopping for fresh strawberry shortcake.) Pamela is an amazing, articulate teacher, and I admired and appreciated the group of women who gathered for her classes. Our theme was “Becoming a Woman of Power”, and by connecting with the energies of each season and developing my artistic abilities through the daily assignments, I was able to focus and articulate much more precisely what I am doing and what my life is about.

 In one of these daily workings I stopped complaining to myself about all the work I had to do now that Jim was gone, and I moved instead into self-empowerment. I am privileged and blessed to live in the heart of the redwood forest where I manage 12 acres of land and a small retreat house. I open my home, studio, and land for people to come live with me for three days and explore creativity and the magic of this place. In the land’s natural amphitheater space I can cross the veil between worlds and receive guidance from angels and elementals who live on this land and involve themselves with my writing, my painting, and my life.

 Oracles Abound
In addition to the two divination tools—pendulum and Tarot—which I use daily, I cherish others. A few years after moving to the mountain I started studying with an amazing mystic and astrologer, Ellias Lonsdale. Every Monday night (when I was home) I drove through the mountains to his little cottage in Bonny Doon. It is only in this writing that I realize I have used my astrological readings with Ellias as an oracle. On each reading, my request for focus has always been the same: “Tell me what the stars are doing in my life right now.” Over and over the information Ellias presented explained what was going on in my inner and outer life. It gave me clarity, comfort, and direction, mostly by reassuring me: You are on the right track, keep going. My connection with Mano, the Council, the angels, and Mother Earth were all seen and named in the stars, and to add to the meaning he could offer, Ellias worked with the conscious beings in the world of Faerie. We have now worked together for more than 20 years and I have done at least 50 readings. I am eternally grateful for the Council’s guiding me to Ellias—the one person I have found who, as a result of his own work with the beings of Faerie, could understand, support, and encourage me to follow my guidance and continue venturing into this other world with confidence and trust in the larger picture. I want to acknowledge with wonder and appreciation how often the Council arranges for things to be so convenient. Imagine the wonder that Ellias only lived a couple of miles from my home in the remote heart of the redwood forest.

 Another revelation came through my studies with Pamela Eakins and served to name and guide the next phase of my life. This awareness made the pieces of my life fall into place and made everything ok. It is ok to be different, to be guided by a gnome, to work with oracles, to work with a household of small elementals, to be me, to let the Real Barbara Thomas step forward.

 Finally I see that one of my most trusted and treasured guidance signs—the “deep involuntary breath—can also be named “oracle”. The Radiant Rose Academy teaches that when a deep involuntary breath moves through my body it is the action of the Holy Spirit bringing awareness that what I have just heard, or thought, is truth. In my notebooks I always designate this occurrence with “.db.”