Cards, Plants and Praxis
Card of the Week, Recharging + Reconnecting and Slowing Down
A new week is approaching and June is moving fast! Let’s shuffle some cards and talk about nature!
Card of the Week: 7 of Cups
I’m really enjoying the Mushroom Tarot right now and have been drawn to working with it a lot lately. For the week ahead I pulled the 7 of Cups.
The cups suit in the deck contains Pezizales (Cup Fungus), which I think is brilliant. This imagery in general reminds me a lot of choices or options available this week, some are out of reach but others are near and convenient. Not all choices or cups are good for you though, it’s key to see past the cups that won’t fulfill you.
This week, pay attention to the options you’re being offered. Which ones are beneficial and realistic? Which ones are just trying to trick you and lure you to take a sip?
Recharging and Reconnecting
On Saturday morning I did a native plant walk with our local NPS chapter here in the White Mountains. We all met up at Los Burros Campground in McNary, Az for a two hour nature hike. The weather was absolutely beautiful and the native plants were giving us a show.
While walking along the trail I thought about how much I needed to get out in the forest that morning, it just melts the stress away. Anytime I go on a trail hike I use it as a way to recharge and reconnect to my surroundings. I always come home with a crazy amount of inspiration and feel a little more connected to my Atheopagan praxis. Nature is pure medicine, and I think the reason why we feel so good in it is because we’re part of it. It’s like we can sense this feels like home to us but we’re not quite sure why.
Sometimes, if I can’t get my nature high on a trail, I’ll hangout in my garden or even go visit the Home Depot garden center… seriously, if there’s plants I’m there.
Slowing Down
The one big thing nature has taught me is to slow down. Plants invite me to take my time on trails and even walks around the neighborhood. They remind me to take notice of what’s going on at that moment.
Something that Lupa Greenwolf wrote in her book Nature Spirituality is to take a moment of pause (even if you’re at work in an office) and list the following:
5 things you see
5 things you hear
5 things you can touch
Doing this helps you quickly tap into your surroundings and ground yourself back to the present moment. I tried this while in the garden and it really made me stop and pay attention. I now do this anytime I’m out in nature or even in the house when I feel a little disconnected. It snaps me back into the present and urges me to slow down, even just for a moment.
I’ll be posting a full review of this book when I finish it, I’m obsessed. It’s exactly the type of book that I’ve been hoping to find. I just did another exercise from it and shared it on my main Atheopagan blog here. I use that blog for my longer posts on one topic. I’m currently obsessed with bioregionalism and learning everything I can about my own.