Day 9/12

And now we are on the ninth day of the 12 Days of Dreaming.

Day nine belongs to Odin.

Not only the god of war and death, but the god of wisdom, poetry, magic, and relentless seeking. Odin is not comfortable knowledge. He is earned knowledge. He gives up his eye to drink from the Well of Mimir. He hangs himself on Yggdrasil for nine nights to bring the runes to the world. Wisdom, in his story, is never free. It requires sacrifice, endurance, and the willingness to be changed by what you learn.

Odin is also a wanderer. He moves between worlds. He questions. He observes. He is never finished becoming. And that is a part of his teaching.

Today is also aligned with the virtue of Honor.

Honor is the decision to stay true to yourself even when fear, comfort, or old habits attempt to pull you elsewhere.

September arrives with shedding. With the Autumn Equinox. With the invitation to take stock of what has grown and what can no longer come with you into winter.

The first card drawn was the Nine of Swords.

In the Tabula Mundi deck, eight swords are embedded in stone, and the ninth pierces the head of a board. The world Cruelty is emblazoned across the card.

Unlike the other nines, which are positive manifestations, the Nine of Swords is a negative state of mind.

This is not a prison consciously chosen. This is an unconscious pattern that overtakes. Not simply overthinking, but the familiar spiral; catastrophic imagining, anxiety, and mental anguish that can arise after vulnerability.

Coming on the heels of August’s Ace of Cups, this makes perfect sense. When the heart opens, the mind often panics. It reaches for the old armor. Old stories Old defenses. Fear rehearses loss in an attempt to protect.

I immediately felt this card in my body. I recognize this reflex. The Nine of Swords feels like what shows up in my body when I let myself love and be loved. This is the bracing, the analyzing, and the retreat into the mind in preparation for imagined endings.

This isn’t something to be corrected or overcome. September doesn’t ask me to resolve this pattern, but to stay aware within it.

And then Lust arrives.

Lust doesn’t deny the fear. It doesn’t shame it or try to correct it. Lust simply refuses to let fear run the body.

Where the Nine of Swords lives in the mind and ruminating on the future, Lust brings me back to sensation and now. It brings me back to the truth that the body knows even when the mind spirals into what-ifs.

M.M. Meleen writes of Lust:
“Remember all ye that existence is pure joy; that all sorrows are but as shadows; they pass and are done; but there is that which remains.”

Lust doesn’t erase the fear that comes with the Nine of Swords, it outlives it. It is what remains once the fear has been allowed to run its course.

September may bring anxiety and old mental patterns. The work that is offered to me is to stay alive in my body, even when the mind wants to flee.

This is honor, too. Not abandoning myself when things get intense. Not outsourcing my authority to fear. September doesn’t ask me to be fearless. Quite the opposite. It says fear will arise, but it asks me to remain.

This is Odin’s teaching. Wisdom earned by staying.

Affirmation:

“I meet fear with embodiment. I stay present when my mind wants to run. Truth moves me forward.”

Always,
Your Trusted Friend ✨