4/26/13—Checking In On That Place No One Can Touch

Today's Draw Classic*: The Nine of Cups in the Pros position from the Maroon Tarot and the Deck of 1000 Spreads. Are you aware of a place inside you that no one else can visit, touch or destroy? What possibilities exist in this place? And if you had to gauge the health of this place—how often you feed and exercise it—what kind of shape would it be in?

The Nine of Cups is tarot's "wish card". If you're wondering if you're going to get that job or find that apartment or meet that man, this is the card you want to show up for you. Your wishes will come true. The "Pros" position (opposite of Cons) definitely affirms you'll get your wish. You tell that to someone in a reading, though, and they'll think all their bad days will over and life will coast from here on on. But we've all gotten our wishes before and wished we had wished better, right?

Something this combo made me think of today is that, in the absence of anything else, we always have our hopes and our dreams. We always have that place where we can conjure perfect worlds fulfilled by wishes. We always have that garden of abundance that man is sitting in. And we always have a capacity for gratitude that can bring us to tears. 

This is a weird confession and something I don't think I've ever told anyone else. When I was a child, I used to contemplate the possibility of being taken captive and put into solitary confinement, or for some reason having to wander the earth on my own. Could I survive that? Could I live without interacting with people? I weighed these questions heavily and usually came out cautiously optimistic that I could withstand extreme isolation if needed.

Now, I have NO idea why this thought would ever cross my mind, but it actually did quite often. Maybe it was because my mother would often find any excuse she could to send us to our rooms...just to get us out of her hair. She was also prone to forget that she'd sent us to our solitary confinement...haha. So an hour later or whatever, we'd creep out of our rooms, peek down through the railing and cautiously try to gauge the situation...perhaps even quietly call out to her to see if she was paying attention. 

So that could be it. Or it could be some past-life memory from a time when I spent extended periods alone. In fact, I once had a past-life regression where I was a solitary hunter person with no tribe. I basically died frozen and starving. 

Or it could be because I really kind of like being alone. One of my brothers and I were the introverts in a family of extroverts. There were six of them and just two of us. We were generally the only ones that got our own spaces—me because I was the youngest and too young to share a room with my sisters. And my brother because, like Gollum, he was happy to inhabit any dark, damp corner of the house, just so long as you left him alone there. 

The reason why I thought I would fare well is because I'm really good at entertaining myself, thinking up stories and shutting the outside world away. In reality, as an adult, I know I need some interaction. But back then, I didn't really know it. I was a generally lonesome child, slow to make friends and we moved every two years, so I never had much chance to form attachments. Of course, you wouldn't think this of me from the outside looking in, but we're all lonelier on the inside than we are on the outside, aren't we?

But there was something else. From this young age, I also somehow knew that we all had a place within us that others can't touch or control or ever take away from us. We could be sent to our rooms indefinitely, we could be mocked and teased at school, have our world uprooted every two years, conform to rules of propriety and get shoehorned into some vision of normalcy by society, but one thing nobody can ever touch is that personal place inside us. That place where we can escape into ourselves. That place where anything is possible. 

What I was really weighing back then was the strength of this place against all the slings and arrows of life. As a child I thought it would be hard, but that the spirit of hope and magic and possibility would always win. That its little oasis of abundance, comfort and peace would always hold arms wide open. As an adult, I can see where this place can be snuffed out of a person in extreme conditions—through psychological terror or torture of some sort. But I still believe it's indomitable. Eternal. 

Some might call it the "self". Some might call it the "soul". But it's our greatest weapon—a gift from the universe to help us withstand what can often be a cruel world. And it seems to me that it can get lost under the debris of everyday life, numbed by our obsessions and compulsions and neglected as a "childish thing". But it could one day be the rope that saves us from falling into the abyss. So if you haven't seen yours lately, go and open up that creaky door, oil the hinges and let the poor sucker come out into the light once again. 

*Taken from a post on 1/28/13

1/28/13—Checking In On That Place No One Can Touch

Today's Draw: The Nine of Cups in the Pros position from the Maroon Tarot and the Deck of 1000 Spreads. Are you aware of a place inside you that no one else can visit, touch or destroy? What possibilities exist in this place? And if you had to gauge the health of this place—how often you feed and exercise it—what kind of shape would it be in?

The Nine of Cups is tarot's "wish card". If you're wondering if you're going to get that job or find that apartment or meet that man, this is the card you want to show up for you. Your wishes will come true. The "Pros" position (opposite of Cons) definitely affirms you'll get your wish. You tell that to someone in a reading, though, and they'll think all their bad days will over and life will coast from here on on. But we've all gotten our wishes before and wished we had wished better, right?

Something this combo made me think of today is that, in the absence of anything else, we always have our hopes and our dreams. We always have that place where we can conjure perfect worlds fulfilled by wishes. We always have that garden of abundance that man is sitting in. And we always have a capacity for gratitude that can bring us to tears. 

This is a weird confession and something I don't think I've ever told anyone else. When I was a child, I used to contemplate the possibility of being taken captive and put into solitary confinement, or for some reason having to wander the earth on my own. Could I survive that? Could I live without interacting with people? I weighed these questions heavily and usually came out cautiously optimistic that I could withstand extreme isolation if needed.

Now, I have NO idea why this thought would ever cross my mind, but it actually did quite often. Maybe it was because my mother would often find any excuse she could to send us to our rooms...just to get us out of her hair. She was also prone to forget that she'd sent us to our solitary confinement...haha. So an hour later or whatever, we'd creep out of our rooms, peek down through the railing and cautiously try to gauge the situation...perhaps even quietly call out to her to see if she was paying attention. 

So that could be it. Or it could be some past-life memory from a time when I spent extended periods alone. In fact, I once had a past-life regression where I was a solitary hunter person with no tribe. I basically died frozen and starving. 

Or it could be because I really kind of like being alone. One of my brothers and I were the introverts in a family of extroverts. There were six of them and just two of us. We were generally the only ones that got our own spaces—me because I was the youngest and too young to share a room with my sisters. And my brother because, like Gollum, he was happy to inhabit any dark, damp corner of the house, just so long as you left him alone there. 

The reason why I thought I would fare well is because I'm really good at entertaining myself, thinking up stories and shutting the outside world away. In reality, as an adult, I know I need some interaction. But back then, I didn't really know it. I was a generally lonesome child, slow to make friends and we moved every two years, so I never had much chance to form attachments. Of course, you wouldn't think this of me from the outside looking in, but we're all lonelier on the inside than we are on the outside, aren't we?

But there was something else. From this young age, I also somehow knew that we all had a place within us that others can't touch or control or ever take away from us. We could be sent to our rooms indefinitely, we could be mocked and teased at school, have our world uprooted every two years, conform to rules of propriety and get shoehorned into some vision of normalcy by society, but one thing nobody can ever touch is that personal place inside us. That place where we can escape into ourselves. That place where anything is possible. 

What I was really weighing back then was the strength of this place against all the slings and arrows of life. As a child I thought it would be hard, but that the spirit of hope and magic and possibility would always win. That its little oasis of abundance, comfort and peace would always hold arms wide open. As an adult, I can see where this place can be snuffed out of a person in extreme conditions—through psychological terror or torture of some sort. But I still believe it's indomitable. Eternal. 

Some might call it the "self". Some might call it the "soul". But it's our greatest weapon—a gift from the universe to help us withstand what can often be a cruel world. And it seems to me that it can get lost under the debris of everyday life, numbed by our obsessions and compulsions and neglected as a "childish thing". But it could one day be the rope that saves us from falling into the abyss. So if you haven't seen yours lately, go and open up that creaky door, oil the hinges and let the poor sucker come out into the light once again. 

10/5/12—Building the Life Force

Today's Draw: Umiarkowanie (Temperance) from the Tarot Maroon. Is there someone or some situation in your life that drains you of your life force? What unfinished business keeps that situation in your life? What do you suppose it is healing within you?

I pulled this EXACT card just a little over a month ago. And in that entry I spoke about how my dog, Magick Moonbeam, comes to me to heal her hiccups with my reiki energy. And I spoke about my other dog, Kizzie, is a healing source for me...instantly calming me when I dig into his abundant fur. 

But today I officially became the mommy of a third dog, Mystic, aka Manic Mystic, aka Buckshot Annie. And I wonder which way this will go...will I be healing for her? Or will she be healing for me. 

The truth is, it will probably be a little bit of both. Because that's what Temperance is...a balance. A give and take. The hummingbird in the picture nourishes itself on the nectar of the flower, then flies off with the flower's pollen to pollinate another flower. Both receive life force from the other in one way or another. 

While it's easy to see how a doggie and mommy receive life force from each other, sometimes it's hard to see this at work with the humans in our lives. I mean, it's easy when the relationship is good and healing. And with relationships that aren't, we can easily see how they suck the life force out of us. What we don't easily see is how, even when a relationship is draining, it's pulling us forward and ultimately aiding in our healing. 

It's all in how you look at it. The hummingbird is taking from the flower, draining it of the nectar it has spent a lot of its energy accumulating. But it accumulated the nectar to attract the bird so the bird could spread its seed. We often do that with others. We have them in our lives to serve a certain purpose, even if we can't always see it. Sometimes it's a human, ego-driven purpose and sometimes it's a soul-based spiritual purpose. Then, when the exchange has completed its value, like the flower, it will wither. But it will have created something new in us in the process.

Whether it's a human or a job or some other situation, it's not just there to drain you. It's there to heal you. Viewed through a spiritual lens, EVERYTHING in life is there to nourish or heal you. The mistake we make is standing in its way by whining about it all the time and making it more painful than it needs to be...haha. 

I mean, look back on your life and you'll see where everything has all been a process of growth and renewal that you, eventually, became grateful for. Whatever person or situation you're facing now will be the same. 

8/23/12—Knowing Where to Seek Healing

Today's Draw: Umiarkowanie (Temperance) from the Tarot Maroon. Is there someone, someplace or something in the natural world that is undeniably healing for you? Are you the source of anyone's or anything's healing? What stories do you have of natural energetic exchanges that resulted in physical or emotional healing?

I've been dying to tell you the story about Magick Moonbeam, my dog, all week of Energy Week. And, at first blush, this card doesn't *technically* allow me to do it, but I'm going to do it anyway, darnit! I'm going to bend the meaning to suit my purposes! This is my blog! MINE, I say!!!! *collapsing under the stress of holding a good story in too long*

OK. So Temperance is about balance. But it's also the card of alchemy...the blending of one thing into another to create a third thing. When we temper steel, we harden it. As a diabetic, when I temper a measured enjoyment of carbs with high fiber and protein, I sort of stabilize the impact having, say, an ear of corn, will have on my blood sugar. So that, in itself, is an energy exchange...between the fiber and protein and the sugars. 

Anyway, this stabilizing effect is the window through which I'm going to walk to tell the story about my baby girl dog. And it also occurs to me my boy Kizzie plays a role, too. More on that later. 

I know reiki, which is a form of energy medicine. Energy medicine is becoming more and more mainstream as doctors like Dr. Oz speak of it benefits. Basically, a trained practitioner uses their energy to help heal you, either physically or emotionally. I've heard stories over the years of broken bones snapping back into place, cancers being healed and the healing of issues that modern medicine has failed to heal. Personally, I don't think anyone should rely on energy medicine alone. Or modern medicine alone. I think tempering one with the other is your best bet. 

Magick knows where to look for healing.

I'm not a good reiki person. I never practice or try to develop it. But once you have been "attuned" to the energy, it's inside you. Anywho, there is one situation in which I occasionally whip out my reiki skills...when Magick Moonbeam has hiccups. I cure them for her immediately simply by putting my hand on her belly and calling up my reiki energy. She's always very cooperative, but up until the other day, she has always allowed the healing to come to her. 

So the other morning I'm laying in bed, half awake, half asleep. One arm is cuddling Magick while the other is just flopped to the side, palm up. And Magick gets hiccups. Without missing a beat, she stands up, walks to my other hand, positions herself above my palm and squats down so her belly is touching my hand! I couldn't believe it! Like the hummingbird in the card, she knew where her source of sustenance came from and went to it—instead of waiting for it to come to her!

She knows my energy "heals" her. She knows which hand I use. She knows what part of her body I send the energy to. Her ENERGY seeks my ENERGY to heal her. She knows both intellectually and energetically that there is a tempering effect that passes between us. 

Kizzie's healing energy just radiates from his body. 

So that's my story. And now the Kizzie thing. Kizzie is the big furry one. And he has amazing healing energy. I'm sure if you hooked me up to monitors, you'd see many energetic systems in my body—beyond just blood pressure—change significantly for the better when he's in my arms. 

My motto with Kizzie is "a cuddle a day keeps the doctor away". So we schedule the snuggle time. But I also seek it out whenever I'm upset. I can't even describe it, but the effect is instant and entirely energetic. He has an amazing tempering effect on me. And just like Magick knows where to go to heal those hiccups, I know where to go when I'm feeling stressed. 

Someone once gave me a really good example of how living beings, especially humans, are programmed to heal ourselves and others. She said "when you bump yourself or get a scratch, what is your first instinct?" Well, our first instinct is to place our hand on the boo boo until the initial pain goes away. As children, our mother's kiss on a scratch would somehow make it feel better. We are instinctually programmed to use our energy to heal...to heal with touch. 

So what about you? What tempers you? What energy do you seek out as a guaranteed source of healing? If you're not really sure, start observing. It may be an energy exchange between you and nature or the ions in a hot bath with salts. And what are you a source of healing for for others? These energetic connections, while not widely recognized in the mainstream, are nonetheless real and integral to our health. 

2/9/12—Being Golden With the Golden Rule

Today's Draw: The Eight of Coins from the Maroon Tarot. Have you ever been the object of some sort of prejudice? Do you ever wish someone understood that part of you? And while you're hoping for that kind of consideration, do you truly follow the Golden Rule?

The Eight of Coins is a card that usually depicts a person hard at work on their craft. It's the card of the second-time apprentice and suggests starting something new. The Eight of Cups from the Maroon Tarot is different from any I've ever seen, because it shows someone in a pointy "witches" hat, setting off on a journey (or arriving somewhere new), a little bent over and in thought. 

Tarot is all about what you seen in the cards in the moment. In this card, I see a witch who has a hard day and yet is still moving forward with her good works. This makes me think of the prejudice and assumptions people make based on the fact that someone reads tarot:

1. They think you're a witch or practice Wicca
2. They think you're going to tell them they're going to die
3. They're afraid you'll put a spell on them
4. They think you're in cahoots with the dark side
5. They think your readings are BS...a sham

Needless to say I'm none of those things. For anyone curious, I have no religious affiliation, but am very definitely metaphysical, which means I think there's a physical and/or scientific explanation for why things happen in the universe. I believe everything is energy interacting with energy and that there is way more going on out there than we currently know about. So, to review, I don't sacrifice babies (or any other living thing...God and nature are one to me), I don't confer with any false or devious Gods in order to do a reading, and I absolutely do NOT cast spells on people or even wish others bad, primarily because I think it comes right back at you.

Anyway, maybe a month or more ago, something really interesting happened on Facebook. A person who doesn't know me made a crappy little remark to me about me and my cards. They suggested that, because I read tarot cards, I have dark intentions. I mean, anyone who's even read just ONE of my blogs knows that my message is all about moving closer to our higher selves and the light. So I replied back, not in a snippy way or anything, that he might consider he's judging something he knows nothing about, because if he understood what the cards are about, he may not have such a harsh opinion about them. The person was kind enough to apologize for being snippy (probably because he thought I might cast a spell on him...haha) and things ended nicely. 

But that's not what is interesting. The interesting thing is that the very next day, someone came to my Facebook wall in a friendly and curious manner and asked me a series of questions about tarot. They said they felt comfortable approaching me about it, which was a VERY nice thing to say. And we had a thorough discussion on the topic, whereby she asked all the right questions and I gave the answers as I know them. She asked how it works and where the messages come from. What the role of a tarot reader is. Everything! It was the conversation you dream of having with someone who doesn't know. 

Essentially, my answers were that I believe everything is energy interacting with energy. And I don't need the cards to interact with her energy and give her a reading, but they're a useful tool because they spark certain thoughts in me. Just like this card today was about being a second-time apprentice and I'm talking about prejudice and assumptions instead, it's all about what you see in the moment you're reading it. And a reader trusts that she's focusing on a certain element of a card for a reason.

I told her that different tarot readers have different religious beliefs. So some might think the messages are coming from God or Jesus (yes, there are MANY Christian tarot readers and most of the ones I know call themselves Christian) and others might feel they're reading the energy of the person or situation. It's different for different people. And, regardless of their beliefs on that, it works.

And I also told her that, to me, tarot is not about foretelling the future (though it can do that). It's about helping people understand "why" in a way that no other means can. It helps you see a person and/or situation through a lens you can't view it through on your own. It's a more astute adviser than a friend (who probably knows you too well to be objective) and it's the perfect adviser for those day-to-day issues that aren't worth going into therapy for. I want to be careful comparing it to a therapist, though, because tarot readers aren't qualified to guide you through your traumas and inner child issues. This is for people who are relatively emotionally healthy and stable who just have a question about why something is happening in their life.

So one day someone criticizes me because they don't understand. And the next day someone comes seeking understanding. It was full circle moment. And I bring it up because there have been a couple of times lately that I've wondered if the reason someone has responded so negatively toward me is because of the tarot thing. Sometimes we know why people act out toward us...there's a trigger. But other times it just happens for no apparent reason and you wonder (though I could always ask the tarot and never think to do so for myself...haha). This isn't a part of me I hide. And I accept responsibility for that. But I've wondered recently in regard to a couple of incidents where people did know this about me. There are a lot of different views in the world, right or wrong. And it's often hard for use to look past the one thing to see the other million things that exist in a person or the intentions beneath their actions.

As I saw the woman on this card in her witch's hat bent over, yet continuing on, I have to say I feel that way sometimes. Especially lately. Especially after the story I told yesterday. I think it may be connected. Bottom line is that, when I choose to read a person, I do it for good, healing reasons. And I write this blog for good, healing reasons. And there will always be people who will look at it and see darkness, no matter what you do. But you press on.

And on a final note, I apologize to all the Jehovah's Witnesses I've been rude to in the past. I'm not being cheeky. I still don't want you to come to my home for a chat, but I do apologize. Because I can't ask others to see me from the standpoint of my intentions if I can't view them through the standpoint of theirs. All they want to do is serve their beliefs and they're good people inside. It doesn't matter if they can't see past the tarot with me. What matters is that *I* become a good enough person to see past *their* pamphlets. So that's something worthwhile for all of us to consider. It's a nuance of the Golden Rule we often overlook, but it's essential for all of us who seek to walk in the light.