The Faeries’ Oracle – A Gloomy Reading

The Topsy Turvies card back. (Photo credit: Brian Froud)

“What do I have to say to you today?” I asked the Fairies’ Oracle the other day. I listened to the words come out of my mouth and I knew I wasn’t putting enough feeling and excitement in it. Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of enthusiasm for exploring this deck, but I’m not at 100% constantly. Some days, I feel like I’m running around 75% or lower. That’s how I felt the other day. My mind and body were present, ready for the tasks at hand and anticipating any challenges or surprises the day might hold. My heart, however, was still tucked away, not wanting to put that extra, vital “oomph” into everything.

It may be the fact that winter takes all the green away or that it’s cold, which means less outdoor activities, but there’s something about this season that I struggle with. I love winter, I love the snow and the scenery. It’s not a question of hating winter or cowering at home with the furnace on just to avoid the mild discomfort of being cold. It’s more of a matter that has to do with gloomy weather. A rainstorm is nice, but experience it for five days and you’ll be hoping tomorrow will be sunny. It’s the same with winter, especially in Colorado. During every season of the year, we have random bouts of fickle weather.

We might have a ten-minute snow storm in June. Hail in August. 80-degree weather in October. A couple years ago, we had a record-breaking rain storm that flooded three entire counties and cut off roads for months as we scrambled to repair the damage from the prolonged rain. That lasted for nearly the entire month of September. Colorado and its people are used to strange weather, but some people feel it the most during winter. If it snows for three days in a row, we go a little stir-crazy. That’s for the normal office and business people who get stuck digging their cars out of driveways, sitting in traffic for an extra hour and staring out of a window with all the same colors as your plain, white office. For a writer or anyone who works from home, being confined inside with nothing to do and nowhere to really go, it can be almost as maddening as a struggling novelist trapped in a haunted hotel during a blizzard.

So the other day, after experiencing days of snow with no outside chores to do other than shoveling, I asked my deck my question. What I revealed explained a lot about myself…