scrying

i felt like asking for some symbol-based guidance, so i brewed my favorite loose-leaf tea (rosehips, vanilla, chamomile, spearmint, raspberry, lemongrass, hyssop and some other stuff) and tried to focus my mind on a question i have. after it cooled a little, i sipped it down and tried not to get the herbs stuck in my teeth. this is what remained at the bottom of my celadon cup. now i have to peer at it until a shape reveals itself to me, and that abstract form will be some kind of answer to my query.

 i thought it might be easier to decipher (and more silly/interactive) if i made it black and white and upped the contrast. i see.... a girl with her head stuck upside down, in water. or maybe she is looking into a pond, and this is her reflection looking back at her.

at this angle it looks like... a matador waving his cape at a bull. the bull is muscular and dark, and so fast that he is already curving around behind his challenger. the matador seems light and very playful, and unafraid, perhaps foolishly so.

maybe... a continental landmass, like the ukraine and russia and bulgaria around the black sea. this is somewhere that i really want to travel. my family is from belarus and lithuania. ashkenazi.

this one was elusive. my mind finally grasped on a scorpion.

if i synthesize these interpretations, i get water-reflection/bullfighting/ancestral land-travel/scorpion. i associate an amount of fear and danger in each of these images.

• the waters of immersion and reflection are silty and unclear.
• facing an opponent more powerful than yourself is intimidating. but both the fighter and the bull draw on their instincts.
• the ethnic home of my family is a place of prolonged conflict, a place that is always cold and stark in my imagination. a land of tragedy and persecution... but also a place of hidden bravery.
• a scorpion has poison in its stinger, but it kills by nature, not because it is cruel.

these are just the associations that i am making, but it would seem that i am on track to receive some pain. even as i entered onto this path, the signs to be cautious made themselves pretty clear, but my predilection towards introspection enjoys a challenge. i am less afraid of conflict than i am of stagnation. my courage is capable of processing the hurt, and i should also recognize that some sadness/disappointment is not personal, not vicious -- sometimes it is inflicted in self-defense.

one can say anything about tea leaves and it is true, including any (such) contradiction.  what do you see?