Wednesday, March 7, 2012

3/8/12—Being a Feather on the Breath of God

Today's Draw: Two of Pentacles from the Silenus Tarot. Is life feeling a little precarious right now? Do you trust that everything will turn out fine? When has the course of your life ever been anything other than right?

This card depicts Psyche with two cakes she uses to distract Cerberus so she can pass safely in and out of the underworld. Balance and control are needed if she wants to get by.

The thing that stood out most to me in this card is that darned demon reaching out toward her from the dark. Does everyone have that fear or is it me? That some sort of mutant something is under the steps, just waiting to grab your ankle as you walk down? 

So there Psyche is, where she's not supposed to be, hands full, with a three-headed dog catching her scent and a goblin reaching up to grab her ankles. How many times have you felt that way....like you're flying by the seat of your pants? And how many times have you, somehow, emerged victorious and unscathed?

This card is traditionally drawn with a lemniscate (figure 8 or infinity sign) to suggest the infinite flow of energy in the universe...that there is always enough for us to be infinitely funded. Enough grace, enough love, enough guidance, enough healing and, because this is pentacles card after all, enough money. It it our doubt in this that makes us perceive—and receive—any lack. 

So ultimately, the Two of Pentacles comes down to trust—trust that you will keep all balls in the air (or cakes in the air) to accomplish your goals. And, if a ball drops, trust that it was all part of the divine plan.

At one level or another, this entire week has been about our connection with the divine source, whatever that is to you. On Monday we spoke about filling ourselves with gratitude, rather than with stuff. The only thing we really want...the only thing that really fulfills...is that connection to the all that is. And gratitude is one of the paths to get you there. On Tuesday we talked about keeping the energy flowing between ourselves and the universe. Yesterday we talked about how the divine connects with us through signs. And today it's about trust...trusting that since the universe has always been there for us in the past, it will be there for us again. 

If gratitude breeds connection, then trust is what breeds intimacy. It's another step—another pathway—toward the oneness we seek. And even as I write "we seek", I'm thinking, "that's silly. How can we seek something that's already there?" We're already one. We just keep forgetting it.

When things feel chaotic or precarious and we reach out for a hand from above, the hand is already there, guiding us through the cave, past the demon and the three-headed dog. Knowing that is trust. Faith. It's not as much a flow of energy as being the energy itself...being at one with source. Our mistake is ever thinking we're not. It's not something we can unplug from, but it is something we can distrust or ignore. But even then, we're still connected. We're never not.

A quote came to my attention right after I wrote yesterday's entry. I'm going to quote someone who's quoting it, because Lutheran Reverend (or Pastor? Priest?) Richard Bruxvoort Colligan quoted St. Hildegard best when he said: 
"Hildegard of Bingen said a faithful life means 'to be a feather on the breath of God.'
And what does a feather know about wind?
What does a kite have to understand in order to fly?
How much knowledge of meteorology does a sailboat need to feel the strength of full sails?"

We don't need to know or understand why things are happening the way they're happening. We just have to let ourselves be taken away by the breath of that which has always looked after us, whether you call it God or Allah or Yaweh or the Universe. As an illustration of how oddly life works, it took a tarot card based on polytheistic mythology interpreted by a metaphysical mystic to bring you this message from a Christian holy man quoting a saint today. And it's all good.

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