Ten of Pentacles reversed/Two of Cups. The Ten of Pentacles in an upright position tells of a successful accumulation of physical world wealth, but it also warns of the danger of the weight of that wealth and the inertia that comes along with the weight. Because it is reversed, I am being told that I have not yet accumulated so many physical resources that I am weighed down beyond escape. Perhaps one reason that I am not giving in to the lure of physical wealth is that I have something with value beyond any coin of any realm: love! What I see about myself reflected in the eyes of those who love me is a valuable counterbalance to the opium-like inertia created by physical possessions.

My Thoth card is the Five of Swords. I have had the “Defeat” card show up before, over the past few days. This card is warning me that the period of calm is over, and battle is resuming. This is a card of the element of Air, so I don’t think there is a big potential for the battles to be of the physical world, at least directly; rather they will be more of an intellectual nature.

My Legacy card is the Eight of Wands reversed. In an upright position, this card tells of rising above the clouds with only clear vision ahead and advises us to put the pedal to the metal. Because it is reversed, I am being told that there are still some dark clouds ahead, blocking my vision of the straightaway yet to come. I can’t forge ahead just yet.

Horoscope: “An emotional phone call could come to you from a close friend or love partner, dear Sagittarius. This person has a lot of worries and is apt to lay them all on you if you allow it to happen. You won't, however, want to drop everything that you have put aside to work on today. Tell your friend that the two of you should get together for dinner or coffee and you'll talk about it then. Then finish your tasks as quickly as possible.”

Apparently, despite the fact that I notified the Tribunal of the Diocese of Paterson that I had no desire to take part in the ecclesiastical annulment of my first marriage that my former husband is seeking, the Tribunal is still giving me the opportunity to go on the record as far as my first marriage is concerned. My first instinct was annoyance that the Tribunal contacted me again even though I stated that I was not interested in participating in the process, but after allowing that annoyance to flare and then die away, I realized that the Priests are merely covering all bases and attempting to give everyone a chance to be heard.

And so, I am asking myself again: do I want to be a part of this? My first instinct was that I needed to get my side of the story out, but then I asked myself why this was so important? I realized with dismay that this all could end up being about revenge, about telling the truth about why my marriage failed and ended, and thus ending my former husband’s annulment attempt and in doing so, receive some kind of validation that I was right and he was wrong. Not good; I do not want to taint my life with any kind of karma related to the seeking of revenge.

I then did a little research about the concept of annulment. I found that most of the scriptures cited in the descriptions of divorce and marriage nullification dealt with the adultery of the woman. Sheesh, wasn’t the adultery of the husband considered a deal-breaker by the Catholic Church? More distaste about this whole thing. I continued looking, trying to find some list of possible reasons for attaining an annulment, and found none. Apparently the Church sticks to its guns as far as divorce/annulment is concerned. Finally, in a newspaper article about Sarah Palin’s daughter’s possible shot-gun marriage, of all things, I found what I was seeking: a description of why one would choose to annul a marriage:

“Now, some will claim that annulment is a form of Catholic divorce. On the surface, this is a plausible statement. Theologically, however, an annulment is not the dissolution of the bonds of matrimony, but rather a judgment that the basic requisites for the sacrament were lacking from the start. The obligations of marriage are ended because the contract intended by the sacrament was never valid. In the case of a shotgun wedding, this would likely mean that the young man and woman were pressured by family into a decision that they did not understand and were not capable of accepting. Without the promise of freely-given love pledged for a lifetime, there is no substance for the sacrament. Yes, the formal exchange of words in church may have appeared to be a marriage, but there was no underlying reality to the empty words.” [my emphasis added]

Okay, that makes sense to me. My first marriage happened when it did because my parents pressured me to end the relationship. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place because my former husband was not going to allow his chosen bride to be taken from him. In the end, my former husband was the stronger-willed person, and I ran away to get married. The concept of a shotgun wedding does apply to my first marriage, but it was more of an “anti-shotgun” wedding, for we got married not because our parents were forcing us to marry, but because they were trying to prevent us from marrying. Of course, this has absolutely no bearing upon why I asked for a divorce. In my opinion, the marriage did not fail because we ran away to get married at a young age.

Okay, now I understand what is happening here, and why my former husband thinks he can get the annulment. The next step is to decide what I could gain and what I could lose by participating in this process, and what I could gain and what I could lose by not participating.

By not participating in this procedure, I have no say as far as what goes on record as being the reason that this marriage was flawed from its beginning. My former husband will be able to say anything that he wants, anything that he believes will further his case, no matter how ugly or untrue his testimony will be. I will not be able to present the facts as I remember them or the reasons for the events as I have come to understand them. However, by not participating, I will prevent the opening of new wounds, I will not have to deal with the Tribunal and the Catholic Church (for which I feel no ill will by any means), and most importantly, I will prevent the continuation of connections to my former husband, of which I want absolutely none.

By participating, I will be given the opportunity to affect what ends up as the “official record” of this procedure and of my first marriage. I will be able to prevent or at least lessen any “stain” on my family that could be created in the eyes of the Catholic Church due to the testimony of my former husband. And I will be able to at last shout out loud to a judging body that is held in high esteem by my former husband the events perpetuated upon me by him that caused me to end our marriage. However, by participating I will open myself to the continuation of and perhaps the intensifying of my interaction with my former husband, particularly if my testimony ends up in the Tribunal finding against annulment. And here I must state that I am not afraid of angering him, rather I am loathe to have his ugliness staining my energy field in any way.

It comes down to weighing the opportunity to state my case against the reinsertion of my former husband’s dark sickness into my life once again. I am still trying to eradicate his dark, selfish, harmful energy from my life after all these years with no contact with him; Goddess only knows what kinds of setbacks I will experience by choosing, for whatever reason, to revisit this whole time in my life that I have struggled to put behind me. Do I gain anything by choosing to participate and prove to the world what I already know: that he is nothing to fear? Or do the risks far outweigh the benefits?

I think I know the answer, but as a final validation I will throw some Tarot cards for myself tonight and ask Danu for her help, and then sleep on the entire subject. Tomorrow, once I am 100% certain that my actions are correct for **me**, I will respond to the Tribunal’s letter.

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