Rhiannon - Doubt

The following is excerpted exactly from The Goddess Oracle by Amy Sophia Marashinsky and the illustrations are by Hrana Janto. For more information on their work, please visit the following websites:

Amy Sophia Marashinsky: http://www.amysophia.com/
You can download the meditations included in the ritual suggestions at http://deepspiritualnourishment.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=2

Hrana Janto: http://www.hranajanto.com/

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I wasn’t certain
after all, my face had blood on it
all fingers pointed to me
could I have killed him?
my infant son
my own
in my sleep
I was accused
and found guilty
and I doubted myself
for seven long years
I played horse to my lord husband Pwyll’s guests
carrying them into court
carrying them out again
and the times were many when I doubted myself
doubted along with all the other humans
that because I was from the Other World
anything was possible

Mythology:

The Wels horse Goddess of the Underworld – Rigatona, or Great Queen – Was Rhiannon’s (pronounced ree-ah’nin) original name. Her story was reduced to something of a fairytale, just as her name was changed from Great Queen. Though not human, she married Pwyll, a mortal, and bore him a son who disappeared at birth. The attendant maids smeared the blood of a puppy on Rhannon’s face and accused her of eating her child. Rhiannon was sentenced to carry all her husband’s guests on her back. When her son reappeared after seven years, all lived happily ever after.

Meaning of the Card:

Rhiannon gallops into your life to tell you how to work with doubt. To doubt someone or something when your instincts are giving you warning signals is healthy. To spend time doubting yourself is self-negating and not very helpful. The best way of working with self-doubt is to turn it into self-questioning. Self-doubt leads you nowhere. Self-questioning gives you answers. Do you get stuck in doubt and let it turn your optimism into despair, your confidence into low self-esteem, your vitality into sluggishness and procrastination? Does doubt align itself with your fears to keep you from succeeding? Do the doubts of others shipwreck your dreamboat? Perhaps when the outside world is concerned you need to exercise a bit more skepticism, rather than trusting blindly. Rhiannon tells you not to let doubt erode your sacred self. Allow yourself to question rather than doubt so that you can gain the answers you need to continue on your path to wholeness.

Ritual Suggestion: Doubt Alchemy
You can download this meditation at the following site for $3.50

http://deepspiritualnourishment.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=59

Find a time and a place when and where you will not be disturbed. Sit or lie comfortably with your spine straight and close your eyes. Take a deep breath and release it slowly. Take another deep breath and exhale all your stress and tension through your nose, as if you were a whale spouting water. Take another deep breath and, as you release it see, sense, or feel a tree. It can be a tree you are familiar with or one that exists only in your imagination. Take a deep breath and, as you release it, stand in front of the tree. Reach out and feel the bark of the tree. What do the leaves look like? Now allow your body to turn to water and let yourself rain into the earth. Feel yourself being absorbed into the roots of your tree.

Now you are traveling down, down, down, deeper and deeper and deeper. It feels safe and comfortable, warm and cozy, as you go down, down, down. Feeling more and more relaxed as you go deeper and deeper and deeper. You see a rider on a white horse. It is Rhiannon and you ask her to stop. She stops, dismounts, and walks up to you. You tell her you need her help to transform your doubts and she agrees to help you. You tell her your first doubt and she puts it into the form of a question. You answer the question, then tell her your second doubt and so on until you have given Rhiannon all your doubts and she has transformed them all into questions, which you have answered. You thank her for her help and she asks you for a gift. You give her what she asks for with an open heart. Rhiannon then mounts her horse and gallops away as you return to the tree root.

Entering the root you travel up, up, up, feeling confident, secure and clear. Up, up, up, feeling energized, refreshed, balanced. Your each the trunk of the tree and pop out of a branch, landing on the ground in front of the tree. Take a deep breath and, as you exhale, come back into your body. Take another deep breath and, as you exhale, open your eyes. Welcome back!