Medusa

My Medusa 2013

Every January, I choose a card from a beautiful Goddess deck  that I have owned for nearly a decade.  The paintings are utterly beautiful- and the Goddesses include everyone from Hera and Mary to Tlazolteotl and Changing Woman.  I close my eyes, and shuffle the cards in my hand until a card feels right.  I then read the corresponding myth associated with the goddess that I have chosen- and listen for what wisdom the myth might have in my current life.  Okay- hopefully I haven't lost any of you yet.  I know it isn't exactly conventional.  I was raised Catholic- and I am sure that this kind of practice would be frowned upon... but no one has ever described me as conventional.  I love a good story and I am a believer in archetypes- those ancient images that are passed down through the collective unconscious from one generation to the next.  I find it both beautiful and comforting how a story could bring enlightenment to me in the same way it did to someone a thousand years ago.  And so back to my card...

This year, I pulled Medusa.  At first, this frightened me.  Medusa, after all, was a hideous gorgon with snakes for hair that would turn anyone who looked at her face into stone.  And she had her head lopped off by Perseus - not a great ending.  She is considered to be symbolic of fear.  The way fear shuts off parts of the brain- causing many to feel paralyzed or turned to stone.  But the wonderful thing is that once Perseus killed Medusa, Pegasus, the winged horse, sprang from her blood.  Pegasus was the image on the front of the Medusa card.   Pegasus is a symbol of wisdom, imagination, life force, and intuitive understanding.  So when fear is slain, wisdom is born.  When I think about it in this way, the card seemed more than appropriate. 

My surgery is in 17 days.  To be honest, I have tried very hard to pull the blankets over my head and not think about it at all.  I have important decisions to make at a time where I don't even know what I want for dinner.  Decisions that can not be changed.  It would be so easy to allow these feelings of paralysis to envelop me - but the 20th will still come whether I am ready or not.  So, I am doing what I can to face this fear.  To learn from others' experiences, to prepare my hospital packing list, my return from the hospital shopping list, to allow friends and family to come and be with me,  to educate myself on my choices, to cry when necessary, and to remember that I am strong.  I got this.