NINE OF WANDS
The Tangled Ray shows a beautiful ray caught in a fishing net, the inspiration and magic from nine wands lighting up the waters below. The ray is embattled and tired, but not trapped. She’s been tested. The net symbolizes that you’re facing some kind of adversity, pressure or stress, but the wands show that not all is dark. Maybe you’re suffering from an injury or illness, you’re having financial difficulties, you lost a loved one or you’ve gone past a deadline. Now is the time to dig deep. You’ve built up a lot of resilience during your journey, and now is the time to put it the test. You don't need to make excuses; you just need to take accountability, acknowledge your situation and let go of what you can’t control. Write down everything you’re feeling and any silver linings you think of. Feel free to laugh at yourself or to make some jokes; dark humor is sometimes the only way to stay sane in a difficult situation. Being able to laugh when you want to cry or scream, or being able to laugh when you are crying and screaming, is a sign that everything will be okay. The amount of adversity you are currently facing is temporary.
IF YOU’RE FEELING BLOCKED:
It probably feels like life is all work and no play right now, like your routine has gotten away from you or is no longer serving you. Everything feels both mundane and difficult. Now is the time to focus on creating a new healthy habit — something small but satisfying that you must spend 5 to 15 minutes doing every day. Start stretching, buy a new coloring book to have with you during lunch or other times when you should be meditating instead of stressing, invest in an instrument with a sound that soothes you, set some walking step goals for yourself, ride your bike — just something physical or meditative that allows you to get into a healthy routine that works for you even in your current situation. Focus on the small stuff and the larger things will follow. Reward yourself: For each difficult obstacle you tackle, do one thing just for yourself.
CREATIVITY EXERCISES:
Draw the outline of a ray on piece of paper 10 times by drawing a diamond with a dome head on the top and a tail on the bottom. Color each outline using a different color scheme or pattern.
Take a picture of yourself or a portrait of someone and then turn the photo upside down. Recreate the upside down portrait by concentrating on the shapes, shadows and lines.
Take time to see the sunset: zoom in on just the brightest parts of it (especially if the sunset winds up being more unassuming than inspiration) and snap a photo. Recreate what you see in the photograph.
Visit an old bookstore or a thriftshop and find a hardcover book to repurpose: pick a random page and read it. Focus on just a word or sentence and draw something based on the word or sentence you chose, or circle the word that has the most meaning to you and create a new sentence or poem based on that word from all the other words on the page. Gray out the words that no longer matter.