Ironwing study group: Information: minerals, rocks, fossils, creatures, bones, plants

hemera said:

I find many of the symbols in the Shamans rather difficult. Shaman of Spikes is the easiest of them to understand, and I can figure out most of the symbolism in Shaman of Coils. But the remaining two are tougher..

In the not-so-LWB it says of the Shaman of Coils: The manta´s eyes stare into the eyes and tentacles of a giant squid.." I don´t get that..And where are the Spirula cephalopods? And what does the last sentence mean? It doesn´t make much sense to me.

Shaman of Blades:"she burns a piece of reindeer antler under the horned moon.." Where is the horned moon in the card? Is there a moon somewhere?

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Hi Hemera!
I hope i can help a little with what I think I see:
Shaman of Blades: underneath the antler I see instead of a skull a circle within a circle. That to me is the full Reindeer Moon,= Full Moon rising, wearing a reddish hue like the fresh bloody skin that comes off, when the Reindeer antler stop growing. That is the time Siberian shamans as well as Sami Shamans will do ritual, which involves, for the Evenks and many others, to burn = offer precious antler instead the common household Reindeer dung and lichens.

Shaman of coils:
A reason, why I painted my cards is to distinguish the features better.....
What I see: On the top of the card are the inward curling sensory organs of the Manta. Then right and left just below where they merge are his eyes. They look right and left into the eyes of the huge Squid whose tentacles spread outward, loooooking almost like seaweed. The head of the Squid is underneath the head of the Manta.
The HUUUUGE eyes in the center of the drawing are on the back wings of the manta, like eyes on the wings of Butterflies.
The Spirula cephalopods are the round bubbly spheres seen at the lower part of the drawing below the Cedar stumps.
To the last sentence:
I once saw a HUUUUUGE Manta right at the beach in Tulum, Mexico (before all the tourist cabanas were build, we did archaeological excavations of the ruins and I was the field medic)
I almost stepped onto the Manta. and the Mexican workers told me that they sometimes swim out and ride the manta's back in the shallow lagoons.
that must be the ride of a lifetime..... I saw it once on TV in a documentary about Mantas when a scientist held on to the back right and left of the head and raced through the water while the Manta flapped its enormous wings.
It is like riding an Eagle in a vision.
Here the Shaman could imagine riding an under-water Eagle.....

Bdw: I much enjoyed looking at the cards with your eyes and musing about your questions!!!!
Keep them coming!!!
Who knows, what we will discover together!
My card of the day was the 10 of Coils and it is very poignant and significant to what is going on here....especially the last sentence!
Talk to you soon!
M.

Thank you Mi-Shell, this was all very interesting!
But how can you ride a manta! Aren´t they dangerous? Poisonous? Deadly?It´s amazing..

Yes, I saw the full moon in the card but I thought it has to be a moon sickle to be called a "horned" moon?

I have been painting my cards,too, and also cutting some of the white edge off to make them smaller. I think I´ll order another copy soon, before they sell out. This deck is probably the best I´ve ever had. It has powerful and deep symbolism, and some of them have started to come into my dreams, which doesn´t happen with the more ordinary decks..

Hi Hemera!
Mantas are quite tolerant of human hangers-on. Also probably, because they are used to their pilot fish....
We are not on their menue list either.
Good for you to get a second deck!
And how brave to cut the borders!!!!

I had a busy day at work yesterday as I printed out on paper all the info from this thread. In the evening I folded and glued the sheets to my Not-so-LWB of Ironwing. So now I can read all this info whenever I want. Not bad,eh?

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Do you mean that this is eaten!!??! (-Ok, as medicine, but eaten nevertheless..) Incredible!!
I wonder what the poison is (chemically)? It would be interesting to know.
My friend lives in Tanzania,Africa, and they have similar huge centipedes, but she says they are nonaggressive and not poisonous (at least not very much so).

A concoction well known in Mexico among the Mazatecs and Nahua tribes is:
a large brown scaly centipede
put alive into hot rum
then dried for later use.
when someone has recurrent leg cramps
put centipede into fresh pulque,
ad young chopped leaves of La hembra = Coleus blumei
some salt and honey
mix the draught and drink/ chew.......
Salud!
The cramps will go away, I suspect more the alcaloids of the Coleus and the salt(calcium) then the centipede; but I could be mistaken.......

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Well, no, I´m not vegetarian..But after reading this thread I´m begining to consider that as an option

It seems that some centipede venoms are cytotoxins that slow the growth of cancer cells.(Indian Journal of Pharmacology (2006): ´Venom of a hill centipede Scolopendra viridicornis inhibits growth of human breast tumor in mice ...´)
So interesting!! Ah, tarot is such an educational hobby, isn´t it. They should make it compulsory in schools