I’d been thinking about this day for the past few days now. Today marks 11 years that I have been living with the residual effects of having an experience with Bell’s Palsy.
Me before my experience with Bell’s Palsy (left)–and after (right).
Bell’s Palsy, if you don’t know, is facial nerve paralysis that affects one side of your face. For me, it was my right side.
I grew up always feeling self-conscious, so having a face that now wouldn’t move on one side, took my self-consciousness to a whole new level.
And it didn’t help when people would appear, and ask, “What’s wrong with your face?”
So, what happened was that I began to avoid having my picture taken, because my smile was now very crooked—oh, and don’t even get me started about being on video…
And when I realized that I would only recover so much (it’s said a small percentage of people who have BP don’t fully recover), I had to come to terms with my new image.
Queen of Wands, from the Robin Wood by Robin Wood.
Which brings me to the Queen of Wands, our Tarot card for today. Wands, in Tarot, for me, is the suit of image and identity; it’s the suit of our public and personal images (because we sometimes put on a “face” for the world to see that is totally different than the “face” we actually have when no one’s looking).
Going with that, I sometimes see the Queen of Wands as an “image consultant.” She is associated with the sign of Aries, and Aries rules the head—and the face.
Having BP got me to reconsider my image by having to face my new face. How would I allow the BP to shape my identity going forward?
The Queen of Wands is asking you to consider the same. Being an approach card, consider the image you are projecting out into your world. Is it one that you want people to really be seeing?
Since our faces are the first things people notice—are you putting your best “face” forward?
life of HIMM 