Seven of Bottles

Reading tarot for me is a way to meditate on an idea and a tool to help focus my thoughts. I have an amazing deck called "the collective tarot" that is made by a group of witchy artists in Portland Oregon. The deck was created by people who seem to see the world and think about things in similar ways to me. They've taken the traditional themes in tarot and adapted them to be queer, feminist, activist, artist focused. I love them so much! Anyways, the reading I did that day really helped me with the anger and resentment I was feeling. The spread I most often do is three cards representing the present, the best path, and the future. Sometime the cards that turn up make sense in this frame work and sometimes they seem to want to be interpreted in some other way. First I make my bed so that I have a comfortable smooth place to work, I light some candles and turn down the lights, I sit eyes closed and take a few deep breaths and try to get a clear, non-distracted question in my mind. I unwrap my deck, first the soft doeskin bag my friend max sent me, then a silk scarf that I lay out in front of me, next the ornate black and gold silk screened sleeve that encases the deck. I spread the cards out across the scarf, close my eyes and hover my hands over the spead sensing for the gentle pull of the cards that want to be chosen. That day I asked the cards for help deciding if I could be a donor for my Mom. The first card I pulled was the 10 of Feathers which show Icarus falling from the sky. It's about the fall, about feeling crazy, scared, depressed loosing control -shit! The next card is the the seven of bottles. It has an image of a person with an octopus on their head, blinding and confusing them. In every arm there is a bottle as if the octopus is offering many choices, but actually all the bottles are the same. I realized that this perfectly illustrated the situation with my mom. I was feeling like I had this huge decision to make but when it came down to it, my choices were to do what I could to help save my mom's life or not. Not really such a hard choice to make. The third card, representing the future was The Star. The Star is a good card - it is about hope, trusting your intuition and being supported and protected in the world.

So on October 30th 2012, in the midst of preparing for a beautiful public Samhain ritual the following evening. I get a call from my Mom, she wants to tell me (first before she emails the family) that she has to give up her trucking license and stop working. She's started to have some bouts of confusion (encephalopathy)which is one of the definitive symptoms of end stage liver disease. It's also time for her to be reassessed for the liver transplant list. This is the ball we've been waiting to drop for a decade, I need to start thinking again about that big scary question. That evening on the phone with my Mom she asked me if I'd thought anymore about being her living liver donor and I honestly told her " I've been thinking about it for 10 years and I still don't know." This is true, for years I had been unable to access any emotion around the thought of having that surgery for my mom, I could think about it and come up with reasons why it was a good or bad decision, but I knew as long as I couldn't feel anything I couldn't know what to do. Her response was, "I just trust that when the situation gets serious enough, you'll decide to do it." Oh! Was I ever mad at her for that! I felt like she was laying a big guilt trip on me! I felt like she was saying I didn't really have a choice - to be a good daughter that's what I would have to do. I felt furious and I stewed about it for days. Finally I decided to do a tarot reading and ask the cards what I should do.

gotta start some where

I guess this is how the story begins; before I am born, when my mom was young, she makes

a reckless and unusual choice to shoot up with some friends...probably my dad. I can't judge her for this, I know could have easily made the same kind of mistake. That's one place the story starts; another is 10 years ago or so, when my mom has liver failure and learns that the hep C she contracted so many years ago has started to deteriorate her liver. I am living in Vancouver BC and my mom is in rural Ontario. At that time I was working as a nanny, and I was with, my now ex, and good friend Soula. This was the first time I heard mention of Mom needing a liver transplant and the possibility of a living donor. It was a huge question to be faced with, would I consider being a living donor for my Mom? I first had to find out if I was a blood type match, so I went to the blood donor clinic and found out that I am O +.Yes a match. Now I had to get serious about thinking about it. I remember having lots of intense conversations with Soula and other friends about it. It all seemed really scary and complicated and inside myself I had no fucking idea what I should do or feel. Luckily, before long, My mom's health stabilized, she was assessed for a liver transplant and was told she was too healthy. Phew, I didn't have to make a decision yet. Last summer (Aug 2012) I came to visit, as I have most summers, but I was shocked to see my mom was very frail, fatigued and sick. She had quite suddenly started loosing muscle mass and stamina. I was very worried and so were other family members.