6/11/13—Making Love Your Crowning Influence

Today's Draw: King of Cups in the Crowning Influences position from the Art of Life Tarot and the Deck of 1000 Spreads. Do you find yourself choosing things over love? Could you be making more choices that lead to love than you're making now? What is the crowning influence in your life?

After about 1000 Daily Draw posts, I consider myself an expert on the one-card draw. And the Art of Life is my absolutely favorite one-card draw deck. I think part of it is because it's a non-traditional deck, part of it is the quotes (I'm a word person, after all) and part of it is the very interesting way it has of making me think. 

Crowning Influences are influences we're usually aware of that come to bear on whatever situation we're reading about. They're usually pretty major influences. And obvious ones, too. But sometimes the thing that is most obvious is the thing we tend to discount. 

This painting is a self portrait of Paul Gauguin. I did a quick Wikipedia read on him to find that, just before cutting his ear off, Van Gogh came at Gauguin with a razor blade. That's kind of interesting. He attacked Gauguin and then ran off to a brothel and cut his ear. 

Gauguin's art was not respected in his day, but he became quite famous after his death (a lifestyle blend of syphilis, alcohol and morphine did him in at 54). He ultimately inspired an entire generation of artists, including Van Gogh, Matisse and Picasso, and styles including cubism and even the American Arts and Crafts movement. 

All of that is beside the point, however. I just thought it was interesting. :D The real point, the crowing point, is that it is better to be loved than rich or powerful. One thing that I think surprised many people when my brother died, was how many people cared about him. His funeral was standing room only. Hundreds of people showed up to pay their respects. There were teams of boys he coached, their families, the people he worked with, neighbors...I don't think anyone ever knows how many lives they touch. I don't think my brother knew. He wasn't rich. He wasn't always strong. But like the King of Cups, he was loved. 

Think of yourself and those around you. Do you live your days to give and receive love? Or do live it to keep the hamster wheel moving forward? You can do both, I suppose. Being self employed, I'm in a good position to stop in the middle of the day and check in on my dogs. Have one of my Kizzie snuggles. He gives the best snuggles. 

Though, while I'm getting better at it in my later years, I have to say I focus on the money and "standing" to the detriment of self love and love of others. We think we'll always have time to get around to love, but "this project" has a deadline of now. So "this project" is what gets the attention. And so on. And we never get around to love. What is probably God's highest priority for us is the priority we place after all others. How screwed up is that? And how well is that working for our happiness?

Like my brother, I don't think any of us realize how many people out there count on/hope for/cherish our love and acceptance. If you feel like you don't receive nearly as much love as you might like, consider everyone else feels the same way. The best way I know to receive love is to give it. It's usually so appreciated that it's returned. Sure, there are some incapable of receiving and returning. But give it anyway. It may not come back from them, but it will come back. 

Money, power, fame...all of that feels good in the moment, but the feeling fades. However, the memory of being loved is one of those things that pops up while you're sitting in traffic, while you're grabbing a coffee...it never leaves your side. It lives beyond the moment and, as I've observed with my brother's family, lives on long after you die. So keep that in mind next time you have a choice between work and family...prestige and pets. We all have to earn a living. But that's not why we're here. Love should always be the crowning influence in our lives.

10/31/11—Feeding the Demon Wolf

Today's Draw Classic*: King of Cups from the Archeon Tarot. What's your relationship with your inner demons? What are the strengths your demons have come to give you? What is your take on what our demons are about?

The King of Cups usually indicates a sensitive, charismatic leader. But the Archeon Tarot adds a compelling twist to that with this entry from the book: Upon a throne of iron, the King of Cups takes counsel with his inner demons." You can see he's deep in thought, with the hollowed skulls of his past strewn about his feet.

So how do we forge a healthy relationship with our demons? First, we all have them. These are the darker sides of our personality. Those which lead to depression, self-destruction, hedonism, greed, overblown ego and savagery, whether real or imagined, physical or verbal. At the root, the demon, imo, isn't as much these sinning actions, as it is the beliefs that lead to these actions...the inner beliefs/attitudes/opinions that tell you you are separate from the divine. Once you believe this, you perpetrate these actions and convince yourself you're even more separate. And that feeds on itself, creating more destruction, more shame, more separateness. 

Over our lifetimes, we find different ways to cope. Some deny their demons exist...that if they ignore them, they'll go away. Some revel in their demons to the detriment of the divine. Some use their demons as a fortress to protect their heart. And some drown their demons in drugs and alcohol.

But our demon attitudes and behaviors can serve positive purposes in life. My nefarious mind has helped me out-think/anticipate those who would harm me in the past. Anger has helped to define boundaries. Other less-than-attractive skills have helped me survive difficult situations, even if only in the short term, before I had time to really integrate. And if any of us were in a true survival situation, the savage within us would rise to save our arses.

Two related things I learned when I quit smoking apply here. One is that our demons aren't to be ignored or hated. They're to be acknowledged with non-judgment. One of the secrets to overcoming the pull of an addiction is not to steel yourself against the craving, but to let it flow through you...in one ear and out the other...with non-judgment. If you hold on to it or resist it in any way, it becomes stronger and embeds itself in you. So demons just "are". We can deny them and resist them all we want...if we want to give them power. We can torture ourselves with them, but they're not a mistake. Whether parts of the human condition that we've evolved beyond the need for, character flaws or parts that are just emerging within us, they're part of who we are and why we're here. 

Which leads to the second thing...the Cherokee story of the two battling wolves inside. One wolf is evil and one wolf is good. Which will win? The one you feed. If you feed the demons they get stronger and beget more pain, more addiction, more self-hate. If you feed the good wolf, that is what will grow inside you. The evil wolf will always be there, though. Some parts you may succeed in taming. Some parts will come in handy when needed. And other parts will become too weak to make a difference. 

So the answer to the initial question of how do you have a healthy relationship with your demons? You don't deny them or fear them or ignore them or feed them. You see that they are there, understand their strengths, forgive their weaknesses, and turn toward the other wolf, knowing that, when needed, you have two wolves to fight a battle. But that the good wolf will always keep the troublemaker in check. 

Another part of the answer comes from the first thing I wrote up there...that the true demon is believing you are separate from the divine. Even when you're entertaining a demon, you're at one with the divine. You can never NOT be. And demons aren't outside of you, they're within you, part of you, part of your journey on earth. They're as much a part of what God has given you as artistic talent, a beautiful voice or flaxen hair, for example. They are the fodder of profound lessons. 

Clearly, some people will take issue with this. If you have a different idea about the demons within, feel free to comment and let others hear another side of the story. But this is what I believe. We all have things and thoughts and feelings that we're ashamed of. We've all walked down a "wrong" path. And we've all emerged with valuable lessons and information. If you choose to cast that aside and deny it, which wolf do you think you're feeding?

*Repeated from 8/11/11

1/4/12—Unleashing Your Inner Priest

Today's Draw: The King of Cups from the Tarot of the Holy Light. Who gets to decide what the word of God is? And if you don't believe in God, who tells you what to believe? What do God's confidantes have that you don't have?

In this deck, the King of Cups is equated to a shaman. Technically, a shaman is an intermediary between the human world and the spirit world. Their functions are far ranging, from healer and counselor to diviner and ceremonial leader. He is both medicine man and holy man, a spiritual guide and a priest. You wouldn't find a shaman in a church or temple, however. His church is in nature.

Today's shamans are more healers than priests, though I'm sure there are plenty of aboriginal tribes still around who count their shamans as holy men. From prehistoric man through Iron Age man, there was no "God" as we think of God today. Instead, they worshiped animal spirits, ancestral spirits, elemental spirits, the divine feminine, and the multiple gods of mythology and polytheism. The history of "not a Judeo-Christian God" is significantly longer than the history with one on this earth. 

It's interesting to note that as far back as man has existed, we've had a tendency to entrust our communication with the higher power to a mediator, whether a shaman, priestess, pastor or priest. This is how religions are built. A handful of these special people have communicated with a higher power, had mystical experiences, written texts, interpreted texts, developed a set of morals and values and brought their takeaway to the people, who then adopted the input as beliefs and it became a religion. Whether you worship a bear, Zeus, Allah or Jesus, that's how it happens. Much of what people believe in today is based on the input and interpretations of men who lived a couple thousand years ago. 

But we're talking about spirituality and a kind of "2012 new world order" this week and in the context of both of those things, I think the King of Cups has come here today to tell you that YOUR line to God is just as strong as those men's who lived thousands of years ago. It's just as reliable as your community's most beloved pastor's. And it's just as profound as anything you've ever read in a book. 

Which is not to take away from the studies and knowledge of priests and pastors and the like. They know their scripture better than us, no doubt. But talking to God isn't about scripture, is it? It's about learning to hear and recognize the voice of something greater than ourselves. Which is a capability we're all born with. It's not like holy men are born with a gene we don't have. They just have more of a discipline and practice of communicating with spirit than we do. But that doesn't mean we can't catch up to them and even surpass them in our communications.

So how do you do it? Well, prayer and/or meditation work. But what many may not realize is that we don't always hear clearly and the higher power doesn't always speak in words. You may get messages in symbols or pictures, feelings or intuitions. 

There are a few things that help set the stage. One is being in a quiet place where you can hear your thoughts. While you can connect anywhere, another is being in a place where you think you'll more easily commune with the higher power. For some, that's church. For others, it's nature. Both offer the kind of profound silence and stillness you're looking for. Then state your intention that you want to talk to to God about whatever it is. Visualize and feel the light and presence of the higher power surrounding you and just set yourself on "receive". Then, and this is the most important part, trust what comes to you, whether it's a feeling, thought, picture, words or even a smell. The more you practice, the more fluent the conversations will be. 

***Now for a disclaimer for the marginally stable among us, God's not going to tell you to hurt someone or do something you know is morally or ethically wrong. God won't tell you to manipulate or control. And God won't scare you. So if anything like that is happening, maybe it's a good idea for you to pass the Jesus on the Mainline phone over to someone else.***

A couple of years ago the American Religious Identification Survey (google "ARIS survey") showed that American's are becoming increasingly less religious, identifying themselves as having no religion or being spiritual, but not religious. In fact, the number of people identifying as having no religion has doubled in the past 10 years. These are the people we might call "lapsed Catholics". I know a lot of them. They have faith in God. But they no longer have faith in the church. They've never been told they don't need the church to know God, in fact quite the opposite.Truth is, they can do the same thing those men 3,000 years ago did when the whole earth was just getting to know "God"...find out for themself. 

So me and my Kingly friend here are suggesting that all the answers and love and communication and signs you seek are within your reach. Don't stop talking to God because you stopped talking to the church! And don't give up on a higher power just because you don't believe in God. The "force", the energy, the power, the being, the entity—whatever you call it—has been here all along. In all sorts of flavors and colors. Tens of thousands of years before the first priest came along, he/she/it was communicating on the wind you see blowing into the card above. In the cycles of the sun and moon. In the reflection of the ripples on the water. In the rustling of the trees, shape of the clouds and visage of a bear. In fact, that power was communicating long before man ever existed, just for the insects and dinosaurs to hear.

The 2012-ness of this is that, like the study suggests, we're trending toward being our own self-intermediaries with spirit right now. If we want to have that relationship, it's time to find our own vision. And, if you read yesterday's post, respect the visions of others while you're at it, whether their vision is their own or the church's. Can the earth survive 8 billion different visions of God? I think it already does in one sense. It doesn't have to be organized to resonate in our hearts. And it doesn't have to be a battleground, either. Because everyone I know who has their own mainline to God says the same thing—it's all light and love. And the more we know it and understand it and feel it straight from the horse's mouth, the better off we'll be.