Friday, October 4, 2013

10/5/13-10/6/13—Feeling Flush

Weekend Reading: Anchor + Pumpkin from the Samhain Vintage Lenormand by Seven Stars. In this deck, Pumpkin is one of four extra cards and it means prosperity or enchantment. So this weekend's fortune is literally "prosperous stability". This could mean you're feeling financially secure this weekend. Or maybe it means you make a very practical decision about money this weekend. Or it could indicate that any prosperity you have will be hanging around for a while. But whatever it is, it's good news. With many people worrying about their livelihood this weekend due to the government shutdown, it may provide some hope that, no matter how things look, it's all going to be ok. I know in one case someone's boss is allowing their furloughed employees to use all their sick and vacation days during the shutdown so they'll still get a paycheck for this time. That would be a perfect example of Anchor and Pumpkin at work!

Thursday, October 3, 2013

10/4/13—Turning the Circle Into a Spiral

Today's Draw: The Wheel of Fortune from the Wild Unknown Tarot. Do you keep having the same unpalatable situations or kinds of people showing up in your life? What clues might you be missing that could help you rise above? Or is it possible you actually enjoy wallowing in your hard luck story?

We had the Wheel of Fortune yesterday. So the universe is trying to tell us something this week. 

The Wheel is all about cycles and the variable nature of life—sometimes you're on top, sometimes you're on the bottom. 

Personally, I see life as a spiral. We have the opportunity to raise our lives forever upward in a spiraling motion. But if we don't use the turn of the wheel to learn and grow, life tends to be more like a circle. 

If you tend to attract the exact same situations and people, then you're moving in a circle. If the same kinds of people and situation come into your life, but not as powerfully or painfully as the time before, you're moving in an upward spiral.

Earlier this week we talked about how one way to change a situation is to change the way you approach it some way. If you always spill coffee on yourself walking from Starbucks to your car, do something different. Fill your cup less full. Use one of those stirrer things that seals the hole. Hold your cup farther away from you when walking. There are many things you can do differently. But if you keep doing things the same, you'll just be stuck in a circle. Do something different and your next coffee issue will different or you'll cease having coffee issues.  

But there's a lot more to it than that. You need to be aware of what's going on around you. Let's say you keep attracting needy people. Needy people carry a big sack of clues pointing to their neediness along with them. So if you're oblivious to the clues, you'll move in a circle. If you excavate your situation and become aware of the clues, then hold people with those behaviors at arm's length, you'll move in an upward spiral. You may still attract needy people, but they will come with different clues and they will be a different kind of needy. The more you spiral, and the more you learn about the things you do to attract neediness, the further you get from the issue until you no longer have it. 

So being aware of the motivations, behaviors and circumstances around you helps. But then you've also got to learn the lesson. A situation will repeat itself over and over until you learn the lesson. And sometimes the situation will escalate if you refuse to see the lesson. And the fastest way to have a situation repeat and repeat is to be a victim...to be the person who did everything right, but is surrounded by everything and everyone wrong. Victims are people who voluntarily hand their power over the situation or person that hurt them by focusing on their pain, focusing on the other person or slipping into denial. The only way out of victimhood is to focus on your own personal responsibility and/or reclaiming your power. 

So take a look at what's going round and round in your life. Is it getting better, coming less frequently and teaching you new lessons? Then just keep working on it and it will eventually disappear from your life. But if the needle just doesn't seem to move, it's not the situation or other person that's the issue. It's you. 

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

10/3/13—Weaving a New Frock


Today's Draw Classic*: The Wheel from the Wildwood Tarot. Are you ready for a change? Are you going to make it happen or would you prefer it happen to you? This week's readings are signaling something transformational on the horizon. Does that excite you or scare you?

The Wheel (also called The Wheel of Fortune) traditionally talks about the seasons or cycles in our lives. This particular Wheel, however, also speaks of how we weave our own destiny. It's not a wheel turned by the fates like other representations, it's a loom upon which we weave our own fate.

I believe we come down here for a purpose and with lessons to learn/challenges to face. But for the most part, we're writing and rewriting our story down here. Some achieve more than expected spiritually in a lifetime, some less. Some repeat the same lessons over and over, others get it on the first try. Some walk through life with personal power, others feel powerless. All of that is up to us. The circumstance or challenge we were born into wasn't up to us, but what we do with it is. 

At the same time I say that, I also believe I had knowledge of certain parts of my life as a small child that are only just now beginning to unfold....as if they were always part of the plan, only I forgot. So I do think certain parts of our lives are inevitable and I believe we're also guided once we're down here. But ultimately we set the intentions and the paths to get there. And with each spin of the wheel we have an opportunity to start fresh, build on what we've achieved or have a re-do. 

I think I may have told the story before about how, when I was a kid, we moved every two years. And because I had a hard time making friends, I was generally unpopular. But every two years I had a chance to reinvent myself. So while I lost all the traction I had gained while I was in one place (which sucked), there was always that magical air of it maybe being different the next place we went. 

Of course, it never quite was...haha. That was largely due to the fact that I never changed the things that might have stood between me and friendship. I was always overweight and teased. I was bossy. I was smart. I was somewhat introverted, sullen and angry. A little spoiled, too, I suppose. And, for my teen years at least, I had adult responsibilities and embodied the "unfairness" of all that. From 12-14, I was the family cook, cooking for 6 every night after school. So there was little playtime available to get to know people. And at 16 my mother got cancer and I was faced with the prospect of losing the parent who had raised me (my father worked a lot).

Anyway, after a while (and through a lot of conscious work), my feelings of powerlessness and victimhood turned to power and personal responsibility. I stopped blaming others for who I was and what I'd become and started making changes. I stopped coming from a standpoint of anger and self dislike and started realizing that my happiness was my own to claim. And, as time drew on, I stopped weaving false frocks in which to show myself to the world and started weaving ones more authentic to me.

I feel like I've been a bunch of different people as an adult, in the sense that I've healed a number of the things that drove my personality and the way I carried myself through the world at any given time. I'm not the same person I was three years ago, let alone five or ten. And while I think I'm pretty groovy now, I'm still excited at the prospect of some new facet coming to the fore. Even if it's a "lemon" facet, I know I'll make lemonade out it, because that's the person I've become.

There are so many theories on what life is about. But even if you believe it's all chaos and there's nothing before it and nothing after it, it's still a pretty cool gift that we get to be here and think about it. That we get to love our people and pets. Dream of possibilities. Pick ourselves up when we fail. Have wins. And learn from losses. 

The Wheel comes to tell us that if there's something we don't like about our lives, to change it. We have that power. Crap is going to happen either way, but the difference between those who feel powerless over it and those who claim their power over it is all in the jasmine and magnolias we choose to smell along the way.

*Adapted from a post on 3/13/12. However, this week is also about change so this repost is appropriate. :)

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

10/2/13—Devouring the Cake

Today's Draw: Le Pendu or the Hanged Man from Tarot Waiting To Happen by Andrew Kyle McGregor. What tempts you? And when you satiate that temptation, how do you ultimately end up feeling? What is no longer working in your life?

While I don't do reviews at The Daily Draw, I do comment on decks I find particularly gorgeous or clever. Tarot Waiting to Happen (TWTH) is a simply drawn, black and white, majors-only deck that falls into the latter category. What McGregor has done here is that he's imagined the energy of what happened just before the scene we're used to seeing in tarot. Drawing from the Tarot de Marseilles style, he wanted to to inspire us to expand the way we think of the major arcana. And he also wanted to make us smile. I think he's accomplished both. 

The Hanged Man card usually shows a man hanging upside down by one foot. The message of the card is of seeing things from a new perspective, making a sacrifice or voluntary sacrifice, surrender to what is or time spent in suspension. For those of you following the current government closure, that's how many workers feel today*...they have to wait in suspension and surrender to what is. So the normal Hanged Man would certainly be appropriate for today. 

But we didn't pull the normal Hanged Man card today. We chose the one from TWTH and we
What happens after he reaches
for the cake. 
discover how that Hanged Man got there in the first place. Cake. It always comes down to cake. :D


It's an interesting aspect of human nature that we often hold on to toxic behaviors until we become trapped—either by them or because of them. As I sit here writing this, my back and legs are sore. They're sore because I'm old, partly...haha. But they're also sore because I'm overweight and out of shape. And with a sore back and legs, it's hard to do much about the problem today. Ironically, the very things that I turn to for comfort (food and rest) are the same things causing my discomfort. When Le Pendu grabs that slice of cake, he will learn the same thing while hanging upside down. 

One thing worth noting is that I've never seen the Hanged Man card drawn with cake crumbs and pieces laying beneath the man. Nor have I seen him drawn with icing on his face. So I imagine he learned his lesson about cake in the thoughtful moments during and after devouring every last crumb of it and licking his face and hands clean. Which is another interesting human thing. One of the local gurus here defines addiction as "pleasure followed by guilt." I love that. I extend it to all sorts of toxic behavior. We enjoy it, then beat ourselves up about it. 

So this brings up a lot of thoughts for me—thoughts about the pathways we follow in order to think past what's usual or comfortable for us and how that applies to my current issues. And that's what Le Pendu wants to happen. He wants us to go "there". Even if going there means to indulge the temptation enough times to see how it has the opposite of the desired effect....indulging it enough times to see it from another angle. 

Yesterday we talked about doing something different to inspire and support a change. Today we're talking about doing something the same way until it hurts enough to even see the different way. That doesn't have to be the case, but it's interesting how the things that have the biggest hold over us cause us to trap ourselves in that way first. Le Pendu is a reminder to us that doing what is comfortable and habitual will lead to discomfort and stagnation when the choices that used to work, no longer do. 

*Though dated 10/2, this blog is written on 10/1 and, currently, the furloughs are in effect. So if my comment is outdated on 10/2, that's why. :)

Monday, September 30, 2013

10/1/13—Trying Something New

Today's Draw: Ship in the House of Sun from the Le Newbie Lenormand by Jera Babylon Rootweaver and the Deck of Lenormand Houses by moi. Is there something you've been trying to change, but just haven't been successful at changing? Are you trying old ways that haven't worked in the past? What can you do differently this time that could make a difference?

The Le Newbie Lenormand is the newest of a very few decks made for beginners with keywords right on the card. Another is the Under the Roses Lenormand, which is sold out. And then there's my Keywordy Lenormand. These are the only ones I'm aware of and they're immensely helpful for those wanting to the Lenormand system without having to memorize all the card meanings first. 

While the Ship card is usually about travel, my go-to personal meaning for the card is "departure". So this combo can be read as meaning that now is a good time to find success through travel. Or, as I'm going to be using it today, it can mean that doing something different will bring you success.

You've probably heard the saying "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results". That's what I think "departure" is trying to tell us about success (the Sun). That right now, success is best found by doing something different. 

Ten years ago I really took this saying to heart while I was trying to quit smoking. I had tried to quit for 10 years, mostly doing the same thing over and over again. So the last two attempts I made, I did something different. For the first one, I incorporated social media and found a support group online. To that date, it was my most successful quit ever—5 months. Then two months after I screwed that quit up, I decided to try again. So I searched for something I could do differently and I found it. I tried the nicotine lozenge as a helper. I'd tried every other form of nicotine replacement but that. I also promised myself I'd never smoke again, no matter what. I'd always had a contingency before (like "if I find out I'm dying I can smoke"). The result? Next month will mark my 10-year anniversary without nicotine.

This isn't about smoking, though. It's about anything you've been trying to change in your life, but haven't been able to pull off....losing weight, quitting drinking, leaving your partner, changing careers, learning to say "no". Examine your failed attempts from the past and figure out a way of doing it differently this time. It doesn't have to be a total makeover or huge change. Just try changing one thing. Sooner or later you'll find the right combination of tactics that works for you!

Sunday, September 29, 2013

9/30/13—Considering Past, Present and Future Lives

Today's Draw: Three of Rings (Pentacles) in the Past Life position from the Wickwillow Tarot and the Deck of 1000 Spreads. What can past lives tell you about the life you're living now? What things have changed and what have remained the same between lifetimes? And how are the lessons you're learning now shaping you next life before it even begins?

Just before I drew today's cards, I was trying to figure out what class I would teach at the end of October. I wanted it to be Halloween appropriate, but nothing too hard to put together. I was already thinking in this direction, but drawing the Three of Rings in the Past Life pulled it all together for me. 

Hal Weeks, the creator of the Wickwillow Tarot, describes the Three of Rings as the "third thing" that is created when two different and separate things come together. We've discussed this thought a few times on the Daily Draw. Sometimes I talk about it in relation to how we tend to limit ourselves to an "it's either this or that" kind of mentality, but there are an infinite number of third things in there that expand our options. Keeping your mind open to that is keeping your mind open to miracles. 

Other times I talk about the third thing in the sense that we tend to judge or label things and this labeling means we either declare something good or bad, or nice or mean, or whatever and usually it's the third thing between the two. So today is an overcast day with beautiful temperatures. Some would call it a beautiful day. Others would call it a disappointing day. But it's really just a day. And labeling it crappy cuts us off from appreciating it. And labeling it beautiful might make us feel bad about all the work we have to do that keeps us from enjoying the day. So labeling it at all limits us. It's the third, or really the base, element that ties the two together...it's just a day. And that third thing is truer than "good" or "bad". It is what it is. 

So there are many sides to the "third thing" consideration. And getting the Three of Rings in the Past Life position made me think, "What is the third "me" created by the integration or alchemy of my past-life self and my "present-life" self? Now, we can look at that from the perspective of "how can knowing about a past-life lesson or issue transform an issue in my life?" Or "how will the blending of this life and a past life shape who I am in a future life?" There are other possibilities, too. And all of them would be appropriate for a pre-Halloween class. :D

But even without the class, you can do it for yourself. If you've ever had a past-life regression, use the data from that to draw a line between who you were then and who you are now. For example, I did one once where I was a sheriff and quite controlling and intimidating. In this life, my leadership style is less controlling, though sometimes confrontational. And instead of policing the legal way a life should be led, I'm offering options to consider for the spiritual way a life *could* be led. So some lesson I learned in between the two made me softer and more inclusive. I've let go of needing to be "the only way" or "the law". And in that lifetime, nobody really liked me and I didn't care. In this life I'm learning to find a place between the two extremes of not caring if anyone likes me and caring too much. 

I had that particular past-life regression maybe 20 years ago and it has very much inspired the creation of a "third thing" that isn't that past life and isn't who I was before I was regressed. The insights from that session changed me in some way. 

If you've never had a past-life regression, do one of the ones you can find on youtube. Or just let your inner guide guide you. First of all, think about an old-time profession, era, style of dress, type of music, language, etc. that you feel strangely drawn to for some reason. Chances are, it's a clue to a past life. Once you have an idea of what that might be, see if you can observe that life in your mind's eye and just trust that what you come up with is valuable information to help you through the exercise. Then draw lines between that life and this as I did above. 

As much as I talk a good woo-woo game, there's some skeptic in me. So I can't say I'm 100% on board with any of this stuff. The sheriff would probably have closed his mind to other possibilities, but I leave mine open...haha. The conclusion I ultimately drew with all of this is that it doesn't matter whether the insights are real or not. They're still insights...the third thing that ties the polarities together. And if those insights bring greater peace and understanding, then more power to them. 

In the end, we just don't know for sure. So all of it is our own personal lore. As long as it's lore, why not open to the infinite field of third possibilities and see what makes sense...for now? The nice thing about the "the third thing" is that we can always change our minds without leaving behind an ideal or firmly held belief. Holding on tight to polarities makes it much harder for us to change and grow. Considering the gray areas in between is where all the fun happens.