Wednesday, April 27, 2011

4/27/11—Practicing Love and Light

Today's Draw: The Sun from Margarete Petersen. What parts of yourself do you hide away in the dark? What aspects of yourself do you place boundaries around? What needs to be transformed in your world today?

The Sun card is welcome in any reading, because it traditionally signifies energy, illumination, breaking through and overall happiness. Margarete Petersen goes further to point out the sun illuminates the "boundary of day and night" and transforms everything it touches. Which is to say that everything you bring out into the light transforms. This is a significant lesson, worthy of its place in the major arcana of the tarot. The Sun appears two cards before "completion" in the 22-card journey of life lessons. And its bright yellow glow aligns with the third chakra, which is the energy center in your body having to do with personal power and self esteem. 

Put it all together and it's telling us this: in order for our dark sides to be transformed, we have to illuminate them, bring them out into the light, and embrace them as we embrace the other aspects of our lives. In the poem that accompanies this card, she writes: 

"Illuminating the dark and light parts of the world, none more attractive than the other."

Until we see that all that we are is made of light—that the dark parts are gifts to guide us on our path and challenge our self acceptance and love—we can only move so far along our evolutionary path. Do you see the couple in the tantric pose beneath the sun? Tantra is all about liberation and rebirth, the coming together of Shakti and Shiva...the masculine and feminine parts of our nature. The way I see the two in this instance is the coming together of our dark and light sides, illuminating them both and fusing them together. 

For many years I pursued a path of illuminating my light side and trying to drown my dark side in the light. To be honest, I'm still doing that to a degree. But over the years, I have illuminated different sides of my personality and transformed them. I used to be much quicker to anger. I was far more confrontational. Well, I still am, but now in a more loving way. And for many years the casual observer probably wouldn't have known about my lifelong struggle with depression. I mean, c'mon, I'm such a bright and cheery sort...haha. But it's true. I do believe that much of my life has been lived beneath that veil. 

In the past six months or so, the gift of dramatic mood swings spurred on by menopause has caused me to address this issue medically. To bring it out into the light. The situation became so painful, destructive and disturbing that I had to seek help. I had to admit to myself that I could no longer handle this situation on my own. So now I take a tiny little pill every day and I am, honestly, transformed. Things that used to send me spinning into darkness no longer affect me that way. This is who I am without the disease of depression. But I never would have arrived here without bringing my issue out into the light. My pride kept it in the dark for many years. "This is something I can manage on my own." And to be fair, I kind of did. I never had suicidal depression. Just persistent low grade depression. But low grade or high test, pretending it didn't exist was denying the "me" of who I am. 

Yeah, so this is personal stuff that people don't talk about in "polite society". But that's exactly the point. In our efforts to be accepted and liked, we resort to NOT accepting and liking ourselves. Which means that we put up a boundary between who we really are and the public facade. Which means no one can ever really like and accept us as we are. Which keeps us caught in a cycle of self rejection and self hate! The Sun comes to us today to illuminate those areas, so we can truly walk in love and light. 

For those of you on "the path", consider this today. Walking in love and light can only occur if we turn the entirety of our being toward the sun. The moon, the card before this in the major arcana, always has a dark side and a light side. We never see its dark side. But as we travel around the sun, it shows us all sides. There is no dark side. Just light. And the same is true for us as well.

2 comments:

  1. My dark side has been coming out lately in the form of the "F" word. Normally I save the "F" word for when I'm losing at cards -- but lately there's been a part of me that really feels like using it in more situations, and I've been letting it out. It feels really good. And although the "positive thinking/Law of Attraction" side of me worries about creating negative karma, I'm trying to put those worries aside to give my dark side some room to play.

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  2. Good for you! Beneath that "F" word is probably a lot of pent up anger and frustration. The f word is kind of like the whistle of the tea kettle...the sound it makes when it releases pressure. I think you're doing yourself a service, rather than a disservice. When I used to blow up more often, it was because I kept stuff in and didn't mind my boundaries. Now I speak up far more quickly and doing so allows you to transmute that energy into something positive quicker.

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