Sunday, February 12, 2012

2/13/12—Putting a Barrier Between Ourselves and Happiness

Today's Draw: Eight of Wands from the Steampunk Tarot. Can you see the potential for happiness present in your life right now? Do you ever think you might hold happiness at arm's length? Is it possible you're doing it right now and just don't know it?

The Eight of Wands is a high octane card with the fuel to propel you toward a goal. Often it holds a message of "move quickly" or "strike while the iron is hot". 

A lot of times there's not even a human in this card, but in the Steampunk Tarot there is. The sun is in her eyes and you see just enough of her face to know she's very happy. She has a variety of wands to choose from—umbrellas, a walking stick and a riding crop—but she chooses the parasols, seemingly to shield her from the sun. 

The sun is illuminating and life giving and, in the tarot, can symbolize happiness. But there's a dark side to everything, even the sun. Too much sun can blind us. It can burn us. It can illuminate more than we're ready for.

So why do you suppose this happy woman placing a barrier between herself and this source of happiness? Is she laying low, protecting herself from being seen by the killjoys in her life? Is she afraid of having too much happiness, possibly leading to incurable heartbreak? Downplaying her happiness so as not to make the sad sacks around her sadder? Is there maybe some seedy underbelly to her that she doesn't want illuminated...something that would brand her undeserving of her happiness? Or is she holding happiness at bay, trying to regulate its flow, for some reason?

I'm pretty sure at one point or another I've been guilty of each of those things. And you know what I got out of it? Less happiness. In fact, when you examine all my unhappy times and my "just average" times, most of what was keeping me from being sunnier is myself. I tend to burden my head with thoughts and, when the sun starts trying to peek in the cracks, I hold it back "until I've completed my thought." It's like I want to experience my happiness under ideal conditions. And by the time I arrange those conditions, it's too late!

Sounds crazy, right? But I bet we've all cheated ourselves out of the full spectrum of joy for one reason or another....made it contingent on some person or set of circumstances out of our control.

Happiness, like every emotion, is a temporary state. It comes and goes. So, like the traditional meaning for this card, we've got to strike while the iron is hot. 

If you really think about it, you'll probably see that the potential for happiness is there a good deal of the time. And if we don't fully develop and relish it when we can, then think of the big puddle of this amazing nectar we've cast aside! I mean, if we're going to accept all the blahs and ehs of life, we may as well take all the heehees, too. So if you're feeling kind of eh right now...like you could go either way...what might you be putting between you and the sun?

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