Today's Draw: Nine of Swords—The Black Hole—from the Science Tarot. Do you often feel that something's missing in your life? Is there a bad habit or excess you'd like to eliminate from your life? How often do you spend time by yourself with no distractions—no radio, not when you're driving the car, not while you're reading—just you, yourself and thy sitting around being good to each other?
A black hole is when a star collapses in on itself,
pulling all its mass into something so small it can't even been seen.
Everything in its vicinity is pulled inside, too, never to be seen
again. Not even light can escape the prison of a black hole.
Even
though all that mass compressed into an invisible black hole is tough
for even my favorite astrophysicist, Neil de Grasse Tyson, to wrap his
head around, on one level, we kind of understand it, don't we? Because
each of us has one inside us...a black hole so vast that no amount of
Oreos, no kilos of drugs, no number of children, no posse of pool boys
and no storehouse of sparkly things can fill it. Its gravitational
field pulls us in. Nothing can escape it, least of all the light of
peace.
*mindlessly filing my nails while some of you slit your wrists over this ugly truth*
So
today's Nine of Swords comes to us for a couple of reasons on the final
day of "how to create peace" week. The first reason is that it's in the
suit of swords, which is the suit of the mind. Yesterday's card was a
Swords card, too. And both of them are pretty dreaded cards to get in a
reading. Not because they predict bad things, but because they point
at things we're already doing—the ways in which we allow our own minds to
defeat us. Yesterday's card was about the negativities we dwell upon and
today's is about disillusionment and the lies we tell ourselves.
Really
the two cards are very interconnected. Some of the negative stuff we
dwell upon is about us and our abilities and potentials, for example. On
one end of the scale we tell ourselves that a prince will come in on a
white horse and we'll live happily ever after, thereby ruining every
relationship we forge under that belief before it even starts. On the
other end of the scale we tell ourselves in one way or another that we
are somehow limited—not smart, lucky, pretty, creative or deserving
enough to reach for the highest star. So these are some ways in which
our minds defeat us. And with all that noise up there, with all our
limited potential and dashed dreams, how will we ever find peace?
Gratuitous photo of my next-life boyfriend, the phenom known simply as NdGT. |
But the other part of this Nine of Swords is this black hole
inside us. The one we fill with food, alcohol, social engagements,
television and other, more innocent sounding distractions like music,
books and gardening. (Oh, yeah. That.) None of those things are bad by any means, by themselves and in moderation. But when they build up into a ball of noise and roughage
so huge we can't hear ourselves think...when we use them to numb the pain inside...when they keep us from listening to
our inner voice...when we expect them to fill the void...that's when
they create problems.
I think this is probably the #1 thing society is in denial of.
Somewhere inside us, though, we know. We know "something" is missing. We
know something else is excessive. A big part of it comes from looking to
something outside of you—romance, children, potato chips, possessions,
thrills—to make you happy or rescue you from the burden of your "self."
Our fears overtake us and that black hole looks like a source of
comfort, but it always ends up leaving you cold.
So what's the answer? Some of the answers have been given this
week. Learn how to love and trust yourself, learn how to accept yourself
and others and start a healthier relationship with yourself...listen to
yourself, give yourself a break. That's the thing that's missing—a
healthy, loving, respectful relationship with yourself. Yeah, I know
it's hard to do. There's no Cliff Notes version. It takes time. Trust
me, I'm still working on it myself. It's a practice, more than an event,
meaning it's something you form the habit of doing every day. Just like
you formed the habit of second-guessing yourself way back when.
Still not sure who Neil deGrasse Tyson (NdGT) is? |
But
the biggest part—and, honestly, the reason I think you come here
however often you do—is to stop being afraid of what you'll find when
you look within. Have the balls to ask yourself the tough questions and
be honest about the answers, which so many of you are already doing. So
much is stuff we've been struggling with since childhood. The input we
got from back then is deeply rooted and nobody escapes unscathed. Sometimes I swear I
think we come here to this earth to heal our childhoods...haha. But
another way of looking at it is that our childhoods happened the way
they did to give us the cues we need to heal our souls.
One
of the reasons I'm so frank about my own life here at times is to show
others they're not alone. Monsters thrive in the dark, and until we shine
light on these things and deal with them as they are, we can't defeat
them. But we can't do that if we think we're the only ones who feel
emptiness or disappointment in our lives and in ourselves. The energy we
spend holding on to the shame could be used to escape the black hole.
This may not be possible in outer space, but it is possible within.
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