Tuesday, August 23, 2011

8/24/11—Triggering the Monsters Within

Today's Draw: The Devil: Sand Dune Monster from the Santa Fe Tarot. Have you ever survived a traumatic event? If so, do you recognize the monsters trapped within from this episode? What kinds of things can trigger these monsters?

The Devil is traditionally a card of bondage, addiction and self destruction. But the book for this tarot added a couple of things that were really appropriate right now—weird experience and shock.

Yesterday the east coast experienced a medium intensity earthquake. Nothing serious. Nothing even fell off the walls at my home or anything. Still, we're not accustomed to this type of occurrence. Hurricane, tornadoes, flooding, snow—yes. But the fact that we hadn't had an earthquake this size since the 1800s tells you that we're really just not used to the earth moving. 

Living in the DC area adds another element to the equation. Among the many considerations about what this "thing" might be—a truck or low-flying plane (though it was bigger than that)—was the possibility that it might be an explosion...a terrorist attack. I'd be lying if I didn't say every time I hear a "pop", feel a shudder or experience some other sort of anomaly, my mind always goes "there". Not like I live in fear of it or anything. Not like I relived it today. But it will now forever be part of my consideration set. I think most people who live here are clear living here carries a greater risk of a terrorist strike than most cities. Personally it's never far from my mind that the terrorists never completed their job here ten years ago.

And DC is unique in that, before we were able to fully recover from 9/11, we were subjected to a sniper who seemed to randomly be hunting people down in the area. For me, those men were more frightening to me than the terrorist attacks. I mean, any terrorist attack is going to happen 7 miles upwind from me. But these guys were everywhere. I know all of that was 9 and 10 years ago. And yes, you heal from stuff like this. It's not something you consciously think about on a daily basis. It doesn't haunt you. But you're never the same...you never feel as safe as you did before. An innocence or oblivion is lost. And you can never forget.

The book for this deck speaks of the Sand Dune Monster as lying in wait for those wanting to cross the mountains. And, as you can see on the card, there are other critters trapped in the mountain. Our fears and traumatic life experiences are like that. They lie in wait, staying dormant until something triggers them. And parts of ourselves, even subconsciously, are held captive by them. In fact, they are like an earthquake itself...the aftershocks continue, even if on an imperceptible level.

For us Baby Boomers, the world we grew up in is gone. Today's teenagers are growing up in a more precarious world than we did. For better and worse, the imprints of war, terrorism and widespread natural destruction are deeper within them than in us. Better because it's more "normal" for them, and therefore they're more calloused to it. Worse because they'll never know the different world we know. This is the monster that lies in wait in our world. These sort of "shocks" seem to be quickening and there are countless theories from geomagnetic reversal, 2012 theories, climate change, armageddon, etc. 

What does this mean for society and our world in the future? We won't know until we start climbing that hill and encountering what's trapped on its slopes. And I think to one degree or another, whether we've experienced trauma in our lives or not, we all have a sense of being trapped by the Sand Dune Monster somewhere deep within. 

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