Our beautiful 16 ½ year old Lochi dog passed away yesterday, but before this happened I asked the
Journey Oracle for the wisdom to help her, and me, let go with dignity and grace. First I asked for a dream to show me if this was the right time, and when I received what seemed a clear yes in my dream language, I drew an oracle card for an answer to the question: “How may I help Lochi be with Death?” Unexpectedly, I drew the one card in the deck that stops a reading: the card of fate. This card has no number, phrase, question or story attached to its two sides of black and white images. There is no explanation for its appearance or use in any of the instructions written for how to divine with the oracle cards. It is as if this card is waiting outside the parameters of what is known and described; of what is orderly and predictable in human seeking.
And I drew the card in this orientation. It is the only card in the Journey Oracle deck that allows itself to be read as “upright” or “reversed” because there is no repetition of text on each of the four sides to indicate that all sides are equally correct.
So what does the card of fate mean? Both sides have a reference to the four Journey Oracle suites in a composite image: a full moon, two of the four seasons, trees, and a path upon which to journey. I have personally named the black side “no food here” to indicate that there is no nourishment in the path I am choosing to take, and the white side as “all food here” to indicate that there is nourishment in every direction. Yet this reversed image felt like my question was spoken into a world that was turned upside down by Death, and that I am not able to go there, “because there is no path to walk.”
So I stayed in this present, earthly moment, and Lochi and I leaned against each other, and we breathed together, and I sang
Tibetan seed syllables from my heart to hers, and she relaxed and let go with more simplicity than struggle, and although hardship leaked through with my tears, I felt my accountability to just be, as my loyal companion has always just been—with me in strength and vulnerability—my Lochi girl.
