4/15/13—Being the Magician

Today's Draw Classic*: The Magician from the Infinite Visions tarot by Gloria Jean. Are you aware of your own power? What if you were divinely encoded with capabilities—or even perhaps a mission—and you just don't know it? What if we, as a race, all had that gift but vowed to forget it millennia ago because of the irresponsible way we were using it?

The question I chose for today's draw to answer was "What You Can't Change". See, I wasn't in the mood to be all uplifting tonight and I thought we'd get something...well, I don't know what I thought. But two things happened that I didn't expect. The message we got was TOTALLY uplifting. And the card I chose ended up looking INCREDIBLY STUNNING against the backdrop of the Deck of 1000 Spreads...haha. 

The Magician embodies the spark of creation. He can manifest things in the real world through nothing more than will and desire. Earth, air, fire and water are at hand to do his bidding, and he uses his sharp mind, flowing heart, fiery energy and grounded physical presence to alchemize their forces. 

I was recently listening to a lecture by Gregg Braden entitled Unleashing The Power of The God Code.  I can't tell you all the details here...it's a 4-CD set...haha. But he systematically goes through his proof points...some strong, some hard to tell...of why we're an intentionally created race, encoded with this "Magician" power in our DNA. And by Magician power, I mean this power to access god-like powers of creation. He says we're not god, but part god, part animal, with characteristics of each. 

Some of what I heard on that CD completely aligns with what I feel deep in my soul that we are. Some of it is stuff I'm not on board with. But overall, it was fascinating to me. And somewhere along the line, for some reason or another, our conscious knowledge of the Magician within has become lost or forgotten. And it's no surprise. 

For thousands of years we've been told god is separate from us, a force to be feared. And that anyone who claims to have god-like powers is tainted, an enemy of the lord, and their soul will be struck down for countless eternities. And, for many of those years, if you weren't on board with the plan, you'd be slaughtered by your god-fearing brethren. But what if we started believing god was separate from us because our gifts are so fearsome that we could annihilate each other with a force that would make a nuclear bomb blush? Gregg Braden posits that theory and interprets ancient, pre-Biblical, text in an interesting way that supports it. 

People who practice energy healing, psychic arts, manifestation or other methodologies know human beings are capable of more than science is currently able to prove. It's not a hope or wish or dream. We've seen it work too many times and too consistently to believe anything else. But imagine that even what we know and have witnessed is just the tip of our potential. 

That's the Magician. And it's what today's draw tells us we can't change about ourselves. If Gregg Braden is right and if extrasensory/paranormal/whatever powers are encoded in our DNA, then we're on a collision course with our own divinity and there's nothing we can do about it. Cool, huh?

*Taken from a post on 1/18/13

3/19/13—Uncovering What Lays Hidden in the Unconscious

Five of Swords in the Benefits of What is Hidden in the Unconscious position from the Infinite Visions and the Deck of 1000 Spreads. Are you capable of harming another creature? Could you ever tell a really big lie? Do you know what you're truly capable of?

The Five of Swords is the "win at any and all costs" card. When I first saw this combination, I immediately thought "shadow side". We all have one. And we tend to shove it as far away from our conscious mind as possible in hopes that it being out-of-sight will make it non-existantant. But that never works. And until we bring it out into the light, we'll never know who we really are. And until we know who we really are, we can never fully understand others. 

Every once in a while, something bad will happen. Take Lance Armstrong's lies, for example....his winning at any cost. People get all worked up about it, because they would never do anything like that. Never! Maybe not. But that doesn't mean it's beyond us. 

For example, I'm pretty honest about things. But I can think of times in my life when I've felt cornered and maybe I lied or denied doing something. And I kept the lie going because I got caught in a trap of my own making and was damned if I do and damned if I don't. Fortunately those humiliations drifted away as quickly as they occurred. I wasn't on a national stage with so many coming forward to prove I'd lied. Stubborn as I am, I can see an earlier version of me standing my ground. I wouldn't do this today, but the capability is in me. It's in all of us, whether we've ever done it or not. 

Another example is those awful videos of predators hunting down their prey...the mountain lion going after a deer or something like that. We shudder in horror when the deer is cornered and the lion goes in for the kill, spattering himself in the blood of his prey. But how do you imagine man got food before farming? That's exactly what prehistoric man would do. He'd hunt a mastodon down, trap it, then hack away it until it was dead, body all bloodied from the attack, smelling of a fresh kill. And we'd all do the same if it meant living or dying. That's in us, too. 

Or how about "going postal"? We've all felt stressed and beaten by life and maybe we respond by driving aggressively on the way home, or taking our stress out on a telemarketer. Now imagine that's how your life has been, not for a day or week, but for a much more extended period of time. You'd lose it. We all would. Some of us would internalize it and shut down. Some of us would act out. Maybe we wouldn't kill people over it, but we'd probably do something reckless or feel out of control. We're not beyond taking that extra step.

These are human traits. To say you've never lied is a lie. We've all lied. You may differentiate between a white lie or a lie out of necessity or a lie to save someone's feelings and therefore proclaim your innocence. But you know what a lie is. Lies are lies. And now we know you're not beyond lying, it's really just a matter of the amount of pressure you're under, what's at stake and how much you're in denial before you start telling a lie like the very first lie Lance told about doping. Because, let's face it. The "big lie" was really a series of much smaller lies told over decades...many of which were told to reinforce the first lie. Then once that's told, the second one is easier, the pressure is greater to keep lying. And so on. Sure. You might have made different choices than Lance. Many of us would have. But you're nonetheless *capable* of going down that rabbit hole. Anyone who has ever told even so much as a white lie understands that lies can be justified...if you want to keep from being called a liar. 

See what I'm saying? None of us are going to shoot a classroom full of six year olds. Much of that is due to the fact we don't have serious mental illnesses. But do you understand how small the difference between mental health and mental illness is physiologically? There but for the grace of God and, in some cases, upbringing, accidents and heavy drug use go all of us. We are all *capable*. It's just that most of us are fortunate enough to never meet the circumstances that take us there.

The reason I bring all this up is because when you can shove the ugliness of our humanness into a box in the deep recesses of your unconscious, you never have to admit to being a part of it. It becomes something separate from you that you don't have to deal with. So these "monsters"—the liars, the murderers, the whack jobs and the mountain lions—are a whole other thing from what you are. They're a species capable of hurting others, of following their urges, disrespecting others, acting self important...of being fallible, sick, imperfect in some way...of losing perspective, control. They're not YOU. You'd never do any of that!

But as long as you're in denial about it, you're doing little bits of it every day and justifying it as needed. Little lies, little disrespectings of others, little bursts of anger. Acceptable amounts that keep you within the bounds of being able to justify your horror and judgment of others. Separating yourself from "that other thing" enough that it has nothing to do with you. Then you don't have to take responsibility for it

But if we dared to understand who and what we were at our extremes, maybe we could see our way to work on it as a society. You know, like get people mental help instead of an electric chair. To have compassion for minds so tortured that they kill. To understand how someone can get so caught up in what others think that they would disgrace the legacy they worked an entire life to build. It's a shifting from "how could you?!" to "I'm blessed this wasn't my lot to bear in this lifetime." 

We've spent millennia separating ourselves from "the sinners" and shaming them and how much have we progressed? Denying the "monster within" so we can judge those whose monster is visible isn't working. So hiding the "win at any and all costs" extreme that is part of the human makeup may benefit us in that we can judge others and deny parts of our nature. But the real benefits come when we can pull it out, see it for what it is and accept it. Ironically enough, if we pull out our ugly sides and acknowledge them, we can experience significant personal and spiritual growth through the heightened levels of compassion, love, forgiveness and understanding we're able to reach by seeing ourselves—seeing the humanity—in the ugliness in others.

3/18/13—Making the Right Choices for Our Bodies

Today's Draw: Seven of Cups from Infinite Visions in the What Your Body Wants You to Know position from the Deck of 1000 Spreads. Do you listen to clues from your body, and do you act on them? Are you a good steward of the vessel your soul inhabits? What is your body trying to tell you?

You could also read today's position pair as What to Know About Your Body. Or even What Your Body Needs to Know. However you interpret that, the answer is there are a lot of options available to you—just don't spend so much time mulling over your choices that you do nothing. 

I've written on this blog before about how I've struggled with my weight for most of my life. While I believe that cutting calories and exercising are really the only natural way to lose weight, there are so many possibilities within that, it's mind boggling. What calories do you cut? Fat? Carbs? Do you cut across the board? The right answer is different for different people. 

Then there's exercise. What kind of exercise should you do? What time of day? How long should you do it for? The options are endless. And no answers are wrong. But it's so easy—and convenient—to get into a situation where you think about it a lot and end up doing nothing. I know this because this is where I've been for years. I've basically told myself that anything I do won't be "enough". Meanwhile anything I do will be more than I'm doing now. 

Just looking at these cards, it seems to be saying "your body wants you to know you've become complacent and indifferent." And this can apply to my healthy friends, too. Let's say you're a jogger and you like jogging, but you're not getting the same results from it that you used to. You can vary the lengths of your runs and your venues. You can lengthen your stride. You can do something to shake yourself out of the routine and up the ante on your workouts. You have many options—just don't get so caught up in them that you just continue with the status quo. 

Let's face it. Very few of us will ever make all the right choices for our bodies. Likewise, very few of use will make all the wrong choices. What these cards want is for us to make conscious choices, as opposed to choosing through inaction, because that's a choice, too. And it's not just about diet and exercise. It's about anything you put into your body and anything you do with it, not to mention the vigilance you put into it through doctor visits and whatnot. 

Another element of this is that our bodies try to communicate with us all the time and we need to listen to that, too. My aches are my body's way of saying, "I need more flexibility and exercise." A craving for OJ, which I have now and again is my body asking for added vitamins. Everything from heartburn to loose stools is trying to steer you toward making a different choice. 

A lot of people in the spiritual world tend to have weight and/or health issues. There can be a lot of spiritual reasons—or excuses—for this. For example, some healers might take on some of the health issues of their clients over time. Or some might say holding extra weight is something people do when they otherwise have issues "grounding" themselves. I used the word "excuses" up above, because there are options to circumvent these issues...stronger boundaries, better protective measures, better spiritual techniques. But by not choosing those options, we choose the unhealthy option by default. We're not victim to our spiritual path. 

So I know this combo has come to tell me to "just do it". And to become a more conscious steward of this body. And maybe it's come to tell you something, too, whether you need big tweaks to the choices you make for your body or not. One thing I know from having a 30-year-old spirit trapped in a 70-year-old body at the age of 50 is that if I don't do something about this now, I'll drag my youthful spirit down with me. And I just have too much I need this body to do. 

1/18/12—Being the Magician

Today's Draw: The Magician from the Infinite Visions tarot by Gloria Jean. Are you aware of your own power? What if you were divinely encoded with capabilities—or even perhaps a mission—and you just don't know it? What if we, as a race, all had that gift but vowed to forget it millennia ago because of the irresponsible way we were using it?

So I thought I'd be all clever today and choose my tarot card in conjunction with a card from my soon-to-be-released Deck of 1000 Spreads. I did this for a couple reasons. One is because I like to promote this product that has been a project in my hopper for two years now. They're going to be released in less than two months time by America's largest tarot publisher and I'm getting excited. The other reason is that I've just added a new tab to my blog with information about this deck and purchasing information about another cartomancy tool I've created, The Deck of Lenormand Houses. In a month or two, a third product will hit that page (but I'm going to keep that on the downlow for now.) If you need a link to my blog, it's at http://thedailytarotdraw.blogspot.com/ 

So on to the day's draw. The question I chose for today's draw to answer was "What You Can't Change". See, I wasn't in the mood to be all uplifting tonight and I thought we'd get something...well, I don't know what I thought. But two things happened that I didn't expect. The message we got was TOTALLY uplifting. And the card I chose ended up looking INCREDIBLY STUNNING against the backdrop of my hotly-anticipated new deck...haha. 

The Magician embodies the spark of creation. He can manifest things in the real world through nothing more than will and desire. Earth, air, fire and water are at hand to do his bidding, and he uses his sharp mind, flowing heart, fiery energy and grounded physical presence to alchemize their forces. 

I was recently listening to a lecture by Gregg Braden entitled Unleashing The Power of The God Code.  I can't tell you all the details here...it's a 4-CD set...haha. But he systematically goes through his proof points...some strong, some hard to tell...of why we're an intentionally created race, encoded with this "Magician" power in our DNA. And by Magician power, I mean this power to access god-like powers of creation. He says we're not god, but part god, part animal, with characteristics of each. 

Some of what I heard on that CD completely aligns with what I feel deep in my soul that we are. Some of it is stuff I'm not on board with. But overall, it was fascinating to me. And somewhere along the line, for some reason or another, our conscious knowledge of the Magician within has become lost or forgotten. And it's no surprise. 

For thousands of years we've been told god is separate from us, a force to be feared. And that anyone who claims to have god-like powers is tainted, an enemy of the lord, and their soul will be struck down for countless eternities. And, for many of those years, if you weren't on board with the plan, you'd be slaughtered by your god-fearing brethren. But what if we started believing god was separate from us because our gifts are so fearsome that we could annihilate each other with a force that would make a nuclear bomb blush? Gregg Braden posits that theory and interprets ancient, pre-Biblical, text in an interesting way that supports it. 

People who practice energy healing, psychic arts, manifestation or other methodologies know human beings are capable of more than science is currently able to prove. It's not a hope or wish or dream. We've seen it work too many times and too consistently to believe anything else. But imagine that even what we know and have witnessed is just the tip of our potential. 

That's the Magician. And it's what today's draw tells us we can't change about ourselves. If Gregg Braden is right and if extrasensory/paranormal/whatever powers are encoded in our DNA, then we're on a collision course with our own divinity and there's nothing we can do about it. Cool, huh?

7/2/12—Being Enough

Today's Draw: The Hermit from the Infinite Visions. When was the last time you spent a weekend all to yourself? When was the last time you were your top priority? If you routinely put your needs aside for others, what do you suppose you're teaching them about how to treat you...and how to be themselves?

This week's topic is Five Lessons to Learn Before You Die. I added the "before you die" part because, if you haven't noticed, I'm a little dramatic. :D BTW, if anyone would like to suggest a topic that we could spend an entire week on (like last week's "How to Create More Peace in Your Life"), feel free to let me know.

Today's lesson of The Hermit is about solitude. I really like what the book says, so I'll repeat it here: "You must first know who you are and how to help yourself before you can help others. By seeking solitude, you can collect and organize your thoughts without distractions. Teaching others what you have learned is one of the best roads to self discovery."

No one is better qualified to teach others about solitude than I...haha. For the past 20+ years, I've lived alone. For 15 of those years, I've worked alone. And only for about, say, 3 of those years have I had a man of one kind or another in my life. And by "one kind or another" I mean someone who distracts me from my own little world. That said, I do have dogs and have for the past 13 years. Two dogs for the past 8 years. So I do know how to share my life, albeit with creatures that are easy to communicate with and pretty much always do what I say...haha.

In short, I'm a lone wolf. I actually prefer being alone. Which isn't to say I don't mind having some male interaction, but I don't place it as a priority. If anything, my personal lesson in life would be the opposite of today's...I could use to learn how to live contentedly with another person in my life. So consider that my curriculum vitae for teaching you about solitude. :D

I wouldn't necessarily suggest that anyone live my solo lifestyle. It's a bit far to that end of the spectrum and, as such, not entirely healthy. And it's not healthy because, like I said, I'm not learning the lessons that come with tolerating others in your day-to-day life. (Notice my use of the word "tolerate"? That speaks volumes of my capacity for being around others.) That said, the same, but opposite thing could be said for anyone who hasn't been alone for any significant amount of time in their adult life.

I have many friends who have never been alone in their lives...have never had to fly solo financially, socially, emotionally or any which way. I also have a lot of friends who can't seem to stay uncoupled for any length of time...they need the affirmation of another in their life to feel "right". I think it's important for all of us to find out who we are when we aren't with someone, and to feel "right", if not joyful, in that journey. I also think it's important to do that at different times in your life.

Now, obviously, that's difficult if you are in a marriage or a long-term relationship. But carving out your own identity and taking retreats on your own is essential. Even if you have kids. You need the experience of being free of everyone else's agendas in order to really discover your own. You need to be free of all the labels...professional, mother, wife, friend, whatever...to get to the essence of who you are. Sure, all of those things are part of who you are. But there's another you underneath all of that and it's too easy to lose sight of that when your life is busy with so many other priorities. 

And that's what it comes down—priorities. When everyone else's priorities take precedence...when your interests center around the interests of someone else...when you can't make time to do the things you dream of...when you'd rather die than live without any one person in your life...when having someone else love you is a higher priority than loving yourself...that's when you've lost yourself. 

And people always come back with "but I have kids and it's selfish to just pick up and leave them to go off on an artist's retreat (or whatever)", but that's a bunch of BS. You're teaching those kids that their lives are not as important as the life of anyone else who may come into their lives. Or you're teaching them that everyone else's lives should stop when they have needs. If you don't want that fate for them, why are you imposing it on yourself? Why not, instead, teach them that self-love, solitude and independence are important parts of life?

Unfortunately, I could probably write a book on this topic, but I only have a single entry here. The bottom line is that people have a tendency to fill their lives with activities, noise and other people so they never have to face the most dreaded state at all—being alone with themselves. And the thing is, as long as you're avoiding it, dreading it or labeling it a bad or selfish thing, you're saying that you are not enough. You, alone, are not enough. And that one core belief..that you alone are not enough...will toxify every choice and every relationship you have.

You can say you know you're enough all you want, but until you've lived it and been right with it, you will always spend your life searching for the missing piece in your life—your own loving relationship with yourself. If you really DID know that you, alone, are enough, you'd be hungry to get away from the world to nurture that relationship every now and again. 

Simply put, there is no relationship more important than your relationship with yourself. And there is no relationship more important to the health of your relationships with others than your relationship with yourself. And if others can't hold that space for you, it's a clue you've been neglecting your relationship with self too long. You're the one that taught them you're not important.

I can tell you from experience that living alone, in and of itself, will not get you there. Likewise, you can get there even if you're married to your high school sweetheart. But in order to really know that you, alone, are enough, you do have to risk being alone. You need to enter it into your priorities and use the time in such a way that nourishes your relationship with yourself. Do something you like to do just for you. And if you don't know what that is, figure it out.

The Hermit comes to us to tell us that not only are we, alone, enough, but that the most enduring relationship we will ever have is with ourselves. Unfortunately, for many of us, husbands come and go. Children grow up. Our parents die. Our siblings go on to their own lives. The only relationship that's there forever is the one we have with ourselves. Having a good relationship with yourself is vital to making the right and healthy choices for your life. It's critical to having the kind of life you want. Yet it's the first relationship many of us dump the second someone comes into our lives or has needs...even when they can fulfill their needs themselves. It's disrespectful to the dream our parents had for us. It disrespects the possibilities God gave to us. And it disrespects ourselves. And that's just wrong.