It is sometimes easy to criticize the people around me.I look at a friend and I think, Look at your behaviour! That is not right; you must change! And I feel at this moment quite full of my own self-righteousness. The King of Cups tells us that we must turn our gaze back to ourselves. At this time of criticism we must look at our own behaviour or our own traits. He thinks we will probably find what we found so offensive in our friend, in ourselves. We all do this. It is a hard pill to swallow but it is true. “We are nature. We are nature seeing nature. The red-winged blackbird flies in us.” - May Sarton
Gracie's One Card at a Time
The Queen of Pentacles says to us, Be protective of all of our resources! We can start with our bodies, our most precious resource, nurturing ourselves, eating and sleeping well and exercising. We can move outward to our closest community and to our homes, then, we can look at our finances, our cars and our neighbourhoods! The queen protects and makes grow. She shows the symbol of resources with her coin. We can see resources as more than just money. We can see it as health, talent, time and our dreams. “Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what people fear most.” Fyodor Dostoyevski
The Moon card is a card of the unconscious. We may think of the unconscious as a dark place where pain, confusion and a lack of vision rules. When our unconscious is in control we are not! But if we flip the coin over and look at the other side, we can see the Moon’s beauty. Don’t forget about the Moon and her link to fertility! Let’s cherish our dark times. We can see our darkness as a time of gestation. We can huddle quietly and wait for a new birth. We need our darkness before we emerge into the sunlight. We are getting ready. Enjoy if you can your huddle time. Accept your lack of vision. Sleep extra, eat well and rent a good video.
When we finally find perfection, we loose it, because it never really was. The World card says, we can’t find perfection, completion or our final destination because we are human and being human means we are in a constant state of flux. Experiencing others in flux can be a painful experience or it can be a path to intimacy. If we keep our view narrow, seeing our fellow humans waver causes pain. When we hold onto every word we hear uttered we can feel very insecure. If we keep our view broad taking in our fellow human’s behaviour not just at this moment but over time, an darker comment does not cause pain. Let your fellow journeyers waver. The less we react to his or her every word, the more safety he or she feels to be truthful. Give our loved ones the safety to express doubt in our presence. The World says the sky is the limit.
We mustn’t let success go to our heads! Sometimes success is fleeting and sometimes it lasts forever. We must plan for more than today taking into account that we cannot see into the future. Sometimes we move ahead faster than our friends. We must be humble seeing that our success is a generosity bestowed on us from the universe and behave in like. Almost always success requires vast quantities of energy. We must not forget the other parts of life: our relationships, the beauty of the earth and fun. The Two of Rods holds the world in his hand. He’s being careful.
The great Tibetan yogi Milarepa spent many years living in isolation in a mountain cave. As part of his spiritual practice, Milarepa began to see the contents of his mind as visual projections. His inner demons of lust, passion and aversion would appear before him as gorgeous seductive women and terrifying wrathful monsters. In the face of these temptations and horrors, rather than being overwhelmed, Milarepa would sing out, “It is wonderful you came today, you should come again tomorrow…. from time to time we should converse.
Through his years of intensive training, Milarepa learns that suffering only comes from being seduced by demons or from trying to fight them. To discover freedom from their presence, he has to experience them directly, and wakefully, as they are.
Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance
We intended to build ourselves a lovely castle to live in but somehow we got stuck in tiny tall tower off in the corner courtyard away from warm and companionship. We sat up there alone and afraid until one day, maybe just yesterday a lightning bolt flashed down blew it all away. We screamed and prepared for death, but instead of doom we found ourselves sitting on a grassy lawn scratching our heads thinking, what just happened? The Tower card can tell us. It says that our castle was built with faulty bricks and we could not have been happy there for very long. It says we can now build ourselves a nice little house with big windows and bright sunshine coming through. We can have friends in and go out shopping.
When it feels like life is crashing down, hold on, hold on through the crash because something good is coming. It may not be spectacular. It may not be lit up with neon lights. But is will be quietly and nicely okay.
Lovers sometimes have trouble making life decisions. They are swayed by passion, deep emotion and logic, each of which can battle the others. Passion can masquerade as emotion. Emotion can step on logic’s toes. But the Lovers card tells us to hold on to our horses. Hold back on all decisions until your mind is clear. If it is real, lover-boy, or -girl will wait for you to decide. And, you both will be a whole lot happier knowing your decisions were made on solid ground. “Learn to wish that everything should come to pass exactly as it does.” Epictetus
Some say the lion shown here in the Strength card is rage. Our own rage, similar to rage witnessed in others, is hard to face. Some of us smother our rage in sadness, busyness or humour until it is barely recognizable. Just like lettuce with too much salad dressing! It is always a puzzle what to do with rage, and most often a puzzle we don’t even know we are working out. The Strength card says, don’t worry, quietness, nature and steadfastness will work it out. Let time be a part too. We will work it through, she says, just let it be. “Lukewarmness I account a sin, As great in love as in religion.” - Abraham Cowley
Our tendency to not act when it is needed holds some of us back in life. The Five of Wands says watch out for regressive inertia; the energy that moves us backwards not forwards. Nobody is perfect. We all have tendencies to act against ourselves, the key is to be aware of what we are doing and then we have the option of correcting ourselves. ET phoned home. If you will recall, he built the phone out of a record player and a fork and he was really, really sick at the time. What do you need to do? “One writes a novel in order to know why one writes. It the same with life - you live not for some end, but in order to know why you live.” - Alberto Moravia
Evolution of Dance 2: Judson Laipply
We can see Judgement at hand when everything finally fits together to create a cohesive picture. What a marvelous moment that can be. But in the days, months or years before that magic moment when we know we are on the right track but are not seeing the tunnel’s end light, that is the time we need faith. When it feels right, it is okay to continue, even when those around you look on with doubt. Tell them, lots of the time the evidence comes late! Your feelings have weight, they just don’t register on the scales. “Thinkers, listen, tell me what you know of that is not inside the soul.” - Kabir
The Beatles, Singing a surprise concert on a rooftop. Thanks Jordyn
Angel seen on video in hospital and a girl gets better.
