New Moon Reading: Without losing tenderness...

It’s been a while since I shared a New Moon reading, so here it goes. It was done a little late, a couple of days after the February New Moon;

My first impression is that the two bottom cards – Allegra (10♥) and Mardoc (K♠) – together in such dignified positions make quite a pair! For me, they have a bit of a ‘Hades and Persephone’ feel, not so much the mythic kidnapping and marriage part, but rather the idea that a maturing force (Mardoc) erupts from the underworld and forces our innocence and our ideals to contend with reality. Allegra wants to frolic about following her heart, but Mardoc steps in and says the heart has to go somewhere, lest it becomes the home of useless passions.

Here is what I wrote about Mardoc in the Black Ace Academy:

"I like to think of Mardoc as a ‘maturing’ force – that which makes tender stalks harden into wood, milk curdle into cheese etc. By stripping things of a lingering innocence, Mardoc also tempers us to life, by making us face many smaller deaths."

In this spread, the Spades cards are sort of bracketing the inner cards, like earth surrounding a seed, and both cards have a very ‘ending’ feel to them. The 3♠ (The Grave) is all about mourning and letting go of something, whereas Mardoc is the Death King himself. So this cycle will be about pruning, letting go or accepting the end of more immature or naïve aspects of our lives.

Because the K♠ is in a dignified position with the 10♥, there is a softer feel to the whole thing. I think the perspective of an ending leaves the heart a little lost (Allegra wears a blindfold), but it also promises seeds for a new future. Once stripped with any dead weight, the heart can start searching again.

And the 12♦ (Livia) in the throat position, right beneath the 3♠, is also another interesting card – it looks like whatever is being buried in the 3♠ is falling right into her bowl! Since she is a fire card, and fire is the element and transmutation, I’d say that whatever needs to be ‘buried’ in this cycle won’t be completely lost. It will be transformed!

So, this will be a cycle of endings, but not of the sad, despairing sort. Heartfelt ideals will be tested by reality, and "we must be hardened but without losing tenderness", as Che Guevara said. It is, in fact, a chance of transformation. Whatever is buried right now will become the seeds for a new journey. And one must be willing to receive it with an open heart, and a childlike (not childish) disposition, like Allegra.