It’s been three days now since I went into work – my stomach has been really painful and I have been dashing to the loo regularly with extreme cramps and diarrhoea. Which isn’t very pleasant at all.

Yesterday I sat and wondered if this was all in my imagination, that it was psychosomatic. But of course it isn’t, it is all very real. So I wonder why I feel this guilt about being unwell and unable to get to work. realistically it must stem from something somewhere in my childhood; and if I look a little under the surface I know it goes back to when I used to hate going to school and so made ‘the most’ of anything I had wrong with me. The result was my symptoms were constantly doubted by my parents, and even when I was young I used to get these cramps and pain in my abdomen. I can remember a doctor being called out to see me in the middle of the night one time and him saying that there was nothing wrong with me at all. I was made to feel a fraud and somehow a cheat. That memory has always stayed with me, and I suppose it still influences how I feel about being unwell and about any pains or problems my body experiences.

So I have phoned in and am getting Claire to email me some spreadsheets to work on at home. Apart from anything else it will hopefully engage my mind a little, instead of frittering it away doing things that are of no importance or relevance.

Last night I drew a tarot card from the Intuitive Tarot deck, it seems to me that I have been neglecting that part of my repertoire for the other forms of meditation and divination. It was the Queen of Rods. She looks so strong and focused and powerful. Totally confident in herself and her abilities, showing her bear breasts with a sexuality and confidence that shivered through me. Smoke rises in the background from some black shiny stones; coals? Or black diamonds? There is something familiar yet strange about them, something that I can’t quite put my finger on. T her left she holds the rod that symbolises her power. A wooden rod, alive, singing with strength, small shoots coming from the straight wand, and with a fragrant exotic flower head at the top. Here she demonstrated her power over her life and world; creativity and confidence. She is so confident in her abilities, her intellect and her sexuality. She is someone who I would aspire to be!

Ogham stave: Ash
Fairy Oracle: 24 The Piper
Tarot card: Queen of Rods