7/11/12—Redefining What Love Is

Today's Draw: The King of Disks from the Mary-El Tarot by Marie White. Is there a time and place for feeling and expressing love? Is there a limit to the number or type of things that can fill you with love? What if you found out the biggest thing limiting the amount of love you have in your life is your own prejudices about what can and can't be love?

Copyright 1997-2011 Marie White, All Rights Reserved.

For a country as progressive and advantaged and free as the United States, I have to say I think we're pretty repressed and myopic when it comes to love. Not sex, mind you. But love. I don't know if that's the case for people in other countries or not. 

What I'm getting at here is that there are many social conventions about expressing love and affection in this country. During work hours, it's considered unprofessional. You have to have good reasons to break away and spend time with your children. And "because you love them" isn't an acceptable reason. In public places, there is a line you don't cross when displaying affection. We literally have a societal rule about "public displays of affection".

So expressions of love and affection are generally reserved for our private time. But even there, friends and family shy away from it because expressing love and receiving love is uncomfortable for some people. But even if it's not, we usually wait for a moment when we're not eating or preparing dinner, putting the kids in pajamas, or any of the other stuff that we do. Some couples actually schedule their romantic time. And those are the smart ones. 

For me personally, I sometimes think "I'll snuggle with Magick Moonbeam when I'm done with XYZ". Then I usually forget. There's always something that needs to be done before love happens. It's rarely spontaneous, a priority or of imminent importance. It's the thing we save for the end of the day (when we're too tired to do it.) I'm putting in a conscious effort to correct that.

The reason I bring all of this up is that there's a complex series of "rules" and factors of timing and propriety that color our moments of expressing and receiving love in our society. But scroll back up and look at this King of Disks. Do you think he cares about propriety? The way he's eating that apple, you know he's making it a sensuous experience...savoring the pleasure of every bite. We talked about that on Monday...about stopping and consciously feeling the love that's offered to you.

But the other part of what I see in the card is that he's spontaneous and using each moment as an expression of his sensuality...his experiencing the pleasures of life. And he doesn't just limit those pleasures to human interactions. Anything can trigger his sensuality. And anything can trigger your love.

When it comes down to it, there is no time of the day that you can't and shouldn't feel love. And there is no priority greater. Feeling loved and loving is a choice you make that you can extend to all around you. And you can find love in everything. You can express love through the way you work...you can do it with love. Getting a pat on the back—or even a criticism—can be an act of love. Taking a co-worker out to lunch can be an act of love. The choices you make buying groceries can be an act of love. Driving home carefully can be an act of love. In short, love can be a part of everything you do. If you let it.

Again, not all love is romantic love. And romantic love isn't the only kind of love with value. Thinking otherwise is the same kind of societal brainwashing that exists in thinking there's a time and place for being a loving creature. I have no husband and no kids and I'd wager I *feel* more love and consciously express more love than most married parents. It's all in how you allow yourself to define love. Lock it in a box with roses, chocolates and romantic trips to Paris and your heart will suffer long periods of starvation. But count things like sunshine, a good hair day and dogs that miss you when you're gone as expressions of love and your heart will always be fully nourished.

3/12/20—Meeting a New Facet of Self

Today's Draw: The Eight of Wands from the Mary El Tarot. Have you recently been reminded of a part of yourself you'd forgotten? Is there a new facet to your personality that is currently unfolding? Are you being honest with yourself about why you don't have the things you want in your life?

The Eight of Wands is usually about swift action or feeling impelled to do something NOW. But Marie White, the artist, has a totally different take on it. She says knowing yourself and achieving your highest potential requires knowing and accepting our shadow sides, as well, then learning to use them to our advantage. She talks about really being honest with ourselves as to who we are...to drop the veils we hold up to the world and embrace the whole tamale. 

One of those kind of truths might be found in the kind of things that limit us in life. As long as we can point at something outside of us as the culprit—"I can't look for a job right now because the market is so bad", "I can't move forward with the project because Sue is gumming up the works" or "I can't write that book because my kids need me to sit and watch TV with them"—we don't have to be responsible. It's beyond our control. But that's not the truth, is it? 

The truth is, more than likely, you can't do those things because you're afraid of something. And one of the things you're afraid of is acknowledging that you DO have the power. Because then you'd be personally responsible for your actions. And the truth would be not that you "can't" do it, but that you "aren't willing to do it"...probably because you're afraid of failure. Or success. 

I know someone who claims great pain and frustration over not being able to purse a lifelong dream he has. This was marinating within him for a good 20 years of singlehood when he had all the time in the world to do something about it, but didn't. Then when he got married and had kids, he gained a new excuse—he can't take time away from his family to do it. Another excuse is that he needs someone with specialized skills to help him with it. And now that he's got all these great excuses, the need within him to achieve this thing is urgent.

Now, I have no doubt his family would support him in taking an evening or two a week in private to work on this. He's very charismatic, so I'm certain he could find the specialist he needs at a local university, possibly a master's student who might be thrilled to work on a project like this. But it's easier to blame these things as if they're out of his control. That way, he's not responsible. Life has dealt him a crappy hand. And, bonus, he gets to take his anger about that out on others—on his family for cheating him out of his dream, and on his friends for either wasting their spare time on things of little import and for not understanding the urgency that haunts him in regard to this. 

Because he won't look at himself or this situation honestly—from a place of personal responsibility and power—he's just an angry person who blames everyone but himself for not reaching his potential. And the toxins of fighting off the acceptance of himself and his truths course through his veins and impact everything around him. He's someone who, on the surface seems laid back, but who, beneath is always on the verge of exploding. It's interesting to note that his situation has the urgency of the traditional 8 of Wands meaning and the personal acceptance issues indicated by Marie White's meaning. 

Anyway, I didn't even mean to write about all that today, though it is a valuable thing for all of us to consider. What I really liked about Marie White's interpretation, though, is that she says a part of us that has long remained fallow or forgotten—or a side of us we don't even realize we have—is coming to the fore right now. For some reason, I'm really excited about that prospect. It's always fun to learn something new about someone you've shared every second of your life with.

While these things can be good or bad, what Marie's talking about is a moment when you realize you're a lot kinder and more compassionate than you thought. Or that a childhood enjoyment of sewing is still with you, even though you set the hobby aside for years. Or that, somehow, fudgsicles have become your favorite frozen confection without you—or ice cream—even realizing what was going on.

All three of those things have happened to me. Sometimes it seems just when you know yourself, you throw yourself a curve. And there it is—a new or long-forgotten dimension of you pops up and begs to be embraced and integrated into your known truths. Even if that side of you is a side that reminds you of your own buried angers or fears. 

Perhaps the greatest desire humans have is to be understood, loved and accepted for who we really are, warts and all. The only way that can ever happen is if we first give that love, understanding and acceptance to ourselves.