For me, cattle are a symbol of sacred stewardship.
image: Jim Champion
People often joke about horsewomen, that their barns are tidier than their houses. I suppose that has described me, at times, but it took on a new level of truth after I made a shrine to the goddess Epona in my feed room. Somehow, creating a sacred space there created a desire in me to make things a little more beautiful. Beautiful might only be a well swept floor and tidy corners in a lowly barn, but it feels good to make it so. It feels good, at the full moon, to enter a clean space, to see the concrete floor gleam a little in the moonlight.
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For a variety of reasons, I have had difficulty creating sacred space in my house. I've lived here something like four years now, and haven't been able to figure out where to put an altar. When I lived in Scotland I had a fire (gas) with a nice marble hearth. Without really planning it, that became my altar. It just had a couple of nice statues and candles. In the evenings when I was alone I often sat by the warmth, on the nice rug, and felt close to my gods. Later, when I renovated another room in the house, I made another, similar hearth and did the same.
When I moved back to Colorado I tried hard to find a nice place for an altar in my new house. I really disliked the corner where the wood stove is. I don't have much money to fix it up, and it's very ugly, and although I don't really know anything about Feng Shui - I'm sure that somehow the energy in that corner is very blocked, the heavy stove is at a bad angle, etc. So - no nice alter/hearth anymore. For several years I have tried to figure out where to put the altar, and I can't seem to find it! There is one corner of my bedroom I kept considering, but took no action. So sometimes I just create one somewhere for an hour, and sometimes I go outdoors under some big trees...sometimes I go to the feed room.
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Just recently I began doing a short morning devotion, and I wanted to NOT have to go the the barn. Brrrrrr! Of course, now the corner of the bedroom that I was thinking of had a stack of boxes of books in it. I neatly covered them with a nice cloth and I have been using this as a morning altar. So things have evolved nicely, and I think I can soon graduate to some nice piece of furniture there instead of the boxes!
So what has this got to do with the Cattle card, and it's definition? The other morning, having done my little devotion, I drew a card for meditation, and it was Cattle. Several things connected to sacred space came up for me. I noticed that having created the altar in my bedroom, and using it daily had encouraged me to clean and tidy up in there, and to deal with a long-standing problem of dust blowing in around the old wooden sash windows (which I dearly love). It led me to ponder the questions of sacred space and respect of the sacred self, and if all that I am is connected to all that exists, then in a sense all is sacred and exists in sacred space. This is actually quite hard for me to accept, because I struggle with resistance to my current environment. (Perhaps, in noticing that, I am noticing a key to unlock the thing I am really struggling with!)
When I consciously create a space as sacred, or consciously choose to see all that surrounds me as sacred, I am more likely to be inspired to steward it well. I don't currently have much money to throw at things like this, but when I take a little trouble to clean/repair/paint things that need it - not for the sake of impressing the neighbours, but in an acknowledgement of the sacred - I will always feel better, and those who enter that space will feel better, too. For some readers, I will be stating the obvious, I know. I didn't have the benefit of being raised to think like this, and it doesn't come naturally. For me - it's very exciting to think of it in this way.
Understand that everything is your conspicuous wealth. Your stuff, your health, your family, your friendships. To hold it in sacred space is to steward it. To steward it is a very practical act of honour.
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