Tarot with Lady Saoirse: Celebrate Your Unexpected Blessings
Celebrate Your Unexpected Blessings
By Lady Saoirse
Bright Blessings,
The Autumnal Equinox season is upon us, which has never been a big Sabbat for me…and I know why. Back in the times of our ancestors, it was a type of thanksgiving celebration. In the United States, Thanksgiving comes after Samhain, so after so many years of doing a thankfulness holiday that late in the year, why would I start having one in September? Well, my husband is a Christian, and LOVES turkey day as much as his Christmas, so I’m not rerouting that holiday- but in the past few years, a true thankfulness holiday means so much more to me than it ever did.
Being thankful isn’t about the things American Thanksgiving teaches us it is. American Thanksgiving is about blood relatives and their expectations. I found myself thankful for the years I could get out of having to participate in that. I would beg supervisors to FORCE me to work on every holiday- and since nobody else wanted to, I always got my wish. I became thankful for the fact I avoided Thanksgiving entirely, but over the years, as I ran from Thanksgiving, a part of me became empty and sad.
Something in me needed a meaningful harvest holiday where I could reflect on the goodness I had in my life. The child in me needed to celebrate it with the people I loved. I needed a warm, supportive circle of people I could share the past year’s victories and blessings with. I needed their love, and I needed to give them mine. The longer I practiced Paganism, the more I realized that thankfulness holiday was provided in the Autumnal Equinox already. Our people had just lost that meaning to Christianization, commercialism, and an emphasis on overeating.
Like Gerald Gardner and other early Pagan elders reclaimed our religions, it would be up to me to reclaim the thankfulness emphasis of the Equinox. It took me years to find out how, especially since the open to the public potlucks don’t cut it. My kin are scattered around, and don’t get to gather in person altogether like we used to before having kids, working “real jobs” and moving farther away and having “real bills “ like mortgages and car repairs. Does that make it more difficult? Not especially.
That’s because thankfulness isn’t just limited to saying something nice over a table laden with tons of food surrounded by people you only see a few times a year. The true meaning of the Autumnal Equinox’s thankfulness is much more personal. That’s why you won’t necessarily experience the deepest meaning in Circle, Grove, or at any non-spiritual gathering where eating a big meal is the focus. You get the deep meaning by going within.
For an Autumnal Equinox thankfulness celebration, you don’t need an alter table, decorations, offerings, or anything else. You just need to think. I want you to think back over the past year since the last Autumnal Equinox. During this complete turning of the Wheel from last year’s Sabbat to this year’s Sabbat, I want you to think of something that you are deeply thankful for. I’m not talking about something like your job, your family, your health, or your best friends. I’m talking about something you’re not normally thankful for.
What painful lesson did you learn during the turning of the Wheel this time that helped you to improve? Did you lose a toxic relationship because you realized how bad things are? Instead of grieving the loss of the relationship, be thankful that you have been liberated from such a toxic situation. Did you finally come to the realization that you genuinely hate the job that you work, and you’re desperately searching for a way out? That type of epiphany is a good thing even though it’s extremely inconvenient and means that you have to make drastic changes. Did you look in the mirror and hate what you see, and now you’re trying to completely reinvent yourself?
This is a time to pull out your Tarot cards. Explore every last avenue of your past year since the last Autumnal Equinox. What has happened that went wrong? How did it make other things go right? What changes did it cause, and how are you worse off and better off because of these changes? Every last thing that changes anything at all in our lives brings curses and blessings. I don’t want you to mourn losses or decry the injustice of the curses. I want you to focus on the good things the changes you did not want and feel you could do without brought.
These types of things annoy us to no extent. They are murderously unfair and change our lives in ways we had not planned for. These things can also be the best things that could ever happen to us. It’s fabulous when everything goes exactly the way that we expect it to, and we don’t have to make any sudden changes that we don’t like. However, life is full of unexpected and unwanted surprises. Many of those tend to be blessings in disguise. For me, I got one of the ugliest wake-up calls that turned out to be the best thing for my mental health.
I’m not going to dump a sob story on you, but there was a job that I was doing for the Pagan community that I have completely stepped aside from. I was absolutely hysterical at first, because it was a big part of my identity as both a Pagan in general, and as a High Priestess. I prayed for guidance, and it came to me in the form of resuming musical studies that I laid aside over a decade ago instead of resuming the job I’d had. I realise now that my musical studies happen to be something that I cannot do without because they’re a big part of who I am. Had that nasty situation not come to pass, I would never have started again.
This is the most drastic change I have gone through and a very long time, and it’s probably the best one. I have no idea where it’s going to take me, but that doesn’t matter. I cannot express how thankful I am for this and it all started and the most painful way possible. What blessings in disguise that presented themselves as curses changed your life during the turning of the Wheel this Autumnal Equinox? That’s what I want you to be thankful for. I don’t want you to necessarily give an offering to the earth or to any deity, but I want you to do something different. I want you to allow this to help you to view obstacles, stumbling blocks, setbacks, frustrations, and anything that seems to hold you back from your plans as blessings.
I want you to truly have faith that your gods, guides, ancestors, and guardian spirits have your best interests in mind. I also want you to use this as a way to have faith in yourself. I want you to believe in your own ability to adapt. I want you to open yourself to new experiences that you didn’t necessarily choose. I want you to take this as an opportunity to learn to make the best of something that seemed like the worst thing in the world. If you can do this, your magic is stronger than most people’s will ever be.
A lot of neopagan spell work focuses on trying to control the world around you and there’s very little emphasis on the power of personal transformation. By the time you get to my age- almost 50 years old- you will have learned that there are going to be times that the only thing you can control is your own reaction. I hope and pray that you also come to the realization that it’s all right. Walking an earth-based path has a lot to do with harmonizing and working on yourself instead of trying to control everything.
This Autumnal Equinox, take a look at something that happened to you that upended things and find the silver lining in it. When relationships fail, there’s usually a better relationship right around the corner. When you flunk out of a college program, it’s usually because you were in the wrong course of study. When you fall down miserably on the job, a lot of times it means that it’s time to find a new career. When you keep having falling outs with your best friend, it’s usually because that person is not a friend at all. So, maybe you didn’t meet all the goals that you wanted to, and things didn’t go especially the way that you expected them to. What looks like it went wrong, but was actually right? That’s what I want you to be thankful for this Autumnal Equinox.
May every nightmare that you live through turn out to be the greatest dream fulfilled. May every so-called mistake turn out to be your greatest learning experience. May every heartbreak be a step in the right direction to greater love. May the Autumnal Equinox bless you with great things, much love and thankfulness, and may each perceived failed harvest bring a more abundant bounty than you ever hoped for.
Blessed Autumnal Equinox.
Blessed Be.
Lady Saoirse is a practicing witch, and initiated Wiccan of an Eclectic Tradition.
A recovered Catholic, she was raised to believe in heaven and hell, that there is only one god, and only one way to believe. As she approached her late 20’s, little things started to show her this was all wrong. She was most inspired by the saying “God is too big to fit into one religion” and after a heated exchange with the then associate pastor of the last Xtian church she attended, she finally realized she was in no way Xtian, and decided to move on to see where she could find her spiritual home.
Her homecoming to her Path was after many years of being called to The Old Ways and the Goddess, and happened in Phoenix, Arizona. She really did rise from her own ashes!
Upon returning to Ohio, she thought Chaos Magic was the answer, and soon discovered it was actually Wicca. She was blessed with a marvelous mentor, Lord Shadow, and started a Magical Discussion Group at local Metaphysical Shop Fly by Night. The group was later dubbed A Gathering of Paths. For a few years, this group met, discussed, did rituals, fellowship, and volunteering together, and even marched as a Pagan group with members of other groups at the local gay Pride Parade for eight years.
All the while, she continued studying with her mentor, Lord Shadow, and she became a Third Degree High Priestess in 2022 and is a Priestess of the Temple of the Goddess. She belongs to the Black Dragon Clan. She does readings, Sabbats, and classes in her hometown in Ohio. She has been with PaganPages.org since 2016 and writes for Green Egg Magazine, SpiritualBlossom, and Mysticsense.
