6/19/13—Watching Our Ships Come In

Today's Draw: The Three of Wands from Marcia McCord's Postcard Tarot in the House of the Letter from my Deck of Lenormand Houses. What is happening on the horizon in your life right now? Are the fruits of your labors now in sight? Are you planning on celebrating no matter what happens? 

Today I'm mixing tarot with Lenormand. Because I'm a troublemaker. The interesting thing about this particular combo is that Marcia's Three of Wands could easily be The Ship card in Lenormand. If it were, today's message would be about messages coming to us from afar or a message about foreign travel. 

But it's not a Lenormand card. It's the tarot card about "your ship coming in". So it's about some communication about your ship finally coming in. You've put in your hard work and now all that's left to do is wait while the reward—or consequences—come to you. The message is that the rewards are so close you can almost taste them. 

For me this speaks about a pitch I'm in on with one of my clients/partners. We're waiting for news about a proposal we put in. And we're all pretty excited about it. I've felt very confident from the get-go about this account. So I'll be surprised if we don't get it. 

But I have a philosophy about things I want that I don't get—that the reason I didn't get them was because some force was protecting me from some sort of disappointment. So while I'm excited about the prospect of this piece of business for many reasons, including reasons that have more to do with my partner than me, I rarely invest too heavily in outcomes when it comes to my emotions. If it doesn't happen, it's because I dodged a bullet. That's what I believe. So I have something to celebrate, win or lose. 

Anyway, we spoke earlier this week about planting seeds. And it seems like another seed is sprouting for us out there. We might think it's one thing, but it could actually be something we completely forgot about. And it could just be an element of personal growth. 

Something recently happened in my life to show me just how much I had grown in some areas. I was falsely accused of something. And, coming from the source it came from, it was very hurtful. In the past, I would have wrung my hands over it and obsessed over it. But instead, I got to the bottom of it (because it involved a situation I had no knowledge of), then once I got a handle on what I was being accused of, I pretty much let it go....surprising even me...haha. While this incident showed me how far I'd come, it also showed me places I have yet to go in regard to worrying about what others think. I'm not 100% there, but one thing I know that I haven't truly known before is that what matters most is who *I* think I am...who I KNOW I am based on my own self knowledge. That's a ship that took a loooong time to come in..haha. 

So think about your own life. What ship might be coming in now? And could it be some situation in which you've just grown as a person? Regardless, it's important to give ourselves a little "woo hoo!" when stuff like this happens. We don't often see all the hard work in retrospect, but it is truly a moment we made for ourselves from our own valuable effort. 

11/24/12-11/25/12—Waiting for Ships to Come In

Weekend Reading:  Three of Wands from the Radiant Rider Waite. This card is sometimes known as the card of "waiting for your ships to come in". A decision has been made or a plan has been put into place. You've done all you can do at this point. And you may be able to see results on the horizon. But it's out of your hands now. You have to be patient and let the results come in their own time. So if you're anxious for something to be over, be here or to otherwise reach its outcome, remember that it's out of your power now. You've done all you can do. So just distract yourself from the situation, if you can. Watched pots take a long time to boil. But if you can detach and trust, the results will be here before you know it. 

8/27/12—Greeting Your Shadow Side

Today's Draw: Three of Wands from the Bohemian Gothic. What fears stand between you and what you want? Are there projects in your life that you never seem to complete? If you're not ready to change your situation, are you ready to let go of the dream of making it different?

I was upstairs in my room trying to think of what this week's topic would be when one of the most spectacular decks known to all mankind caught my eye—The Bohemian Gothic Silver. Photos can't possibly capture this deck because parts of it are printed in silver ink that makes some of the images seem almost three-dimensional. But when you try to scan or photograph the silver aspect of it, it just seems like the colors are muted. (I found this image of the card online. I don't whether it came from the silver or the regular edition.) The effect is all in how the light and ink and eye interact. Long story short, however, I decided that this week is going to be Shadow Side Week and I'm going to use all my "dark" decks (which basically means gothic or vampire themed decks).

Our shadow sides are our darker sides...the sides we pretty up, deny, hide away or otherwise keep from view. The shadow side can include addictions, fetishes, angry thoughts, "dark" moods, etc. Or it can include beliefs and behaviors that hold us back or defeat us. The reason the shadow side is important to explore is because things will never change and we won't move forward if we keep sweeping it under the rug. As the saying goes, monsters live in the dark. The only way to defeat them and move past those barriers is to bring them out in the light. 

The Three of Wands is a card of planning ahead. A card of vision, hope and ambition. Here's this woman amidst all this darkness and decay, but she keeps her eyes forward, toward the future. No dark side here.

But if we were to look for a dark side in this card (and for the tarot peeps, I'm not talking about a reversal), it might be someone who is always planning and dreaming, but never takes practical steps toward a goal. Or someone who has too much anxiety to move past their fears toward their dreams. Someone, perhaps, who can't see past the gloom of their current situation to a brighter future. Someone who flies by the seat of their pants, never making a plan. Someone who has a lot of unfinished projects going on. Or someone who feels so trapped by their situation that all they have is daydreams and fantasies.

Lurking beneath any dark side situation, to one degree or another, is fear. Rather than look at that fear and acknowledge it, it's easier to just make excuses. "Oh, those are just dreams." "I'm so busy trying to keep my head above water that I can't move forward." "There's always time to pursue that dream." "The odds of me succeeding are unlikely, but it's nice to think about." "I can't start on X until I take care of Y."

That last one is similar to one I tend to use when I tell myself why I can't be working on such and such right now. I imagine a set of perfect conditions under which I can pursue something. For example, I don't have a man in my life. And I don't have a man in my life partly because I'm comfortable with the way things are. But part of me believes that any man I meet will mirror back to me what I feel and think about myself. So I would like to be in a position where I'm feeling really good about myself before I meet a man. I think it makes perfect sense. And it does.

But I also know that beneath that is a fear...a fear that I'll be disappointed. Or lose my equilibrium. Or lose my focus on other aspects of my life. Or become co-dependent. I haven't had nice, nurturing relationships in the past and, frankly, I'm not sure one exists out there for me. The story I tell myself is that when all the pros and cons are added up, I'm better off alone. After all, that's what my experience has been so far. I'm not really blaming it on anyone but myself. I'm in command of my equilibrium and happiness, not them. I'm afraid of losing who I am and what I enjoy of my life, and being set back emotionally and spiritually in the process because that's what I've done in the past. In that sense, I don't trust myself. 

Yet, on the other hand, I'm on a spiritual path that is a huge part of my life. And relationships of all kinds are essential to the learning path. Whereas many other people might need to work on their ability to be alone, it's the opposite for me. Being a hermit is safe and comfortable. Most people that know me think I'm an extrovert and comfortable with others. But it's a stretch for me. Doing some of the things I do...teaching classes and being social...that's hard for me. I can do one-on-one, but when it involves a crowd, I can feel very exposed and uncomfortable.

Another aspect of the Three of Wands is that you're on the verge of things coming together. This is the card of "ships coming in". So all your planning is about to pay off. But in some regards you can stay in that place of "just about to pay off" forever. Or at least tell yourself you're there. Before the actual payoff, though, you have to make that final leap that takes you from this card to the next where you've achieved something worth celebrating. You have to truly to commit to the direction and you have to be prepared to face either victory or failure. For some people, victory is as hard to face as failure is. 

So this all comes back around again to you. If there's something you want out there that you haven't been able to get, what fears hold you back from it? Why does your shadow side keep you on this side success? And if you're not willing to do anything about it, are you willing to let the dream go?

8/22/12—Discovering The Power of Your Energy

Today's Draw: Three of Wands from Tod's Creatures Tarot by Tod Wills. Are you effectively creating the life you want? How important do you think your energy body is to making things happen in your world? What secret does this precious winking cat know that you don't?

First things first. After my rant about cat decks last week, I know there are a couple of people out there thinking, "nice cat deck, Tierney." So I'd like to say that Tod's Creatures is an equal opportunity deck. There are all sorts of animals in it. This card just happens to be a cat. And while I don't always mention anything much about the deck I'm using, I'll say this deck is whimsical with some interesting artistic deviations from traditional decks (which is something I like). There is no lwb. And it's within my tolerance of cute, but just. You can see samples at: 

https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/tod-s-creatures-tarot

Next I wanted to mention that yesterday's post sparked some lively commentary and it would seem a lot of people have either been having their own storms lately or have been the recipient of a storm. A couple of good points were made on my Facebook page that I didn't make yesterday. One was that sometimes the storm is physical...we hold this stuff inside and when it bursts forth, it does so in the guise of illness or festering pustules or whatever. The other point was that, sometimes our storms, depending on how they're received, can result in needed change. They may come out in a loud and unattractive way, but the point is made. 

OK. Now on to today's card. Traditionally this card would show a man from the back, surveying the scenery as his ship is about to come in...both literally and figuratively. It's an initial phase of completion on a creative project and it's a moment of success. It's also a card of foresight and planning for the next phase of the project, because we can't sit on our laurels for long. He doesn't need to act, because he is the divine overseer of the project.

While we see the guy from the back in the traditional card, here we see the cat's face. And he's winking at us. Because he knows something else is aiding his success...something in addition to hard work. He is literally the divine overseer of his fate. His job is to observe and receive while the universe is doing all the strategizing, organizing, scheduling and execution. 

As Mike Dooley says, when it comes to manifestation, "your job is the 'what' and the universe's job is the 'how'." The whole idea behind spontaneous manifestation of desire is that you put the thoughts out into the universe, keep those thoughts consistent, act in alignment with those thoughts and the universe will create the thing you desire. 

I'm not going to go into a whole drawn out thing about manifestation. No, it's not as easy as it sounds. And yes, it is easy as it sounds. It's more of a mindset, discipline and faith you have to acquire...that's the hard part. And, once that's acquired, it's easy. Anyway, the reason I'm not going to yammer and spew about it is because I did a whole week on it here:

http://thedailytarotdraw.blogspot.com/2012_06_03_archive.html

Then there's this excellent post:

http://thedailytarotdraw.blogspot.com/2011/08/81511doing-less-and-believing-more.html

And if you want more, just search the term "manifestation" on my blog and you'll get an entire book's worth of thoughts on the topic. 

The point is, every passing thought, every action, every word you utter is an energy exchange between you and God/the universe/the all of creation. With every neuron that sparks inside you, you're telling the universe what you think, what you want and who you are. And the universe responds to you accordingly. 

There's one other past post that comes to bear on the situation—one of my most popular posts ever. Remember the one where my boy, Kizzie, is standing in the water? It's all about the energetic impact and effect each of us has on everything around us. We are nothing more than senders and receivers of energy...like little Ham radios operating on an infinite array of frequencies, sending and receiving a bazillion impulses or messages a minute, most of which we are completely unaware of. Here you go: 

http://thedailytarotdraw.blogspot.com/2012/02/week-of-21912raising-your-vibration.html

See the cat in today's card is an energetic sensei. See the robes he's wearing? And his wink is telling us that he knows all the secrets I've shared with you in all those post links above. He's so attuned to his connectedness—to God, the natural world, and others—that he can feel the leaves around him rustling before they even begin to twitch. He doesn't have to turn to watch any ships coming in, because he already knows they're there. 

And the cool thing is, the only way he's different from you is that he's aware of his power. He cultivates it, respects it and has complete faith in it. When we talk about energy and vibrations and wavelengths, this is what we're really talking about—the knowledge that each of us is just an energetic impulse away from all that exists and ever has existed. 

8/6/12—Taking a Good, Honest Look

Today's Draw: Three of Wands from Melissa Townsend's Tarot. Do you act in alignment with your beliefs about how others should be? Do you ever find you've fallen short of the mark and become akin to the very things you judge others for being? Have you ever noticed that, just when society starts to forget all the hate in the world, someone comes along to remind us?

Every time there's a hate crime, an act of terrorism or hate rhetoric, it elicits a certain response in this country. First people say, "how could anyone be so cruel, unaccepting and judgmental? There's just no excuse for it." Then, shortly thereafter you'll hear people say, "those bastards should be tortured the way they tortured others" or "string those useless mofos up and be done with them!"

You've probably even thought something along those lines yourself at one time or another. But can you see the irony?

This week's theme is about oneness. Oneness is seeing others the same as we see ourselves...focusing on similarities, rather than differences...seeing ourselves in others.

I believe having a stronger sense of oneness is society's way out of hate and separation. I believe that's important because the more diverse our cultures get, the more we need understanding. There will always be hate. But there will be less of the hate we hate, if we just learn to stop hating.

Who, you? Yes you. When you hate the haters, you're a hater. It's that simple. And if you're a hater, you're part of the problem and not part of the solution.

Further, if you feel you're "better" than the haters—even the worst among them—you're also part of the problem. There is no moral high ground in oneness. There is no good and bad duality. No us and them. There's just one.

Yeah, yeah. I said a lot of this yesterday. And some of you may have decided that hating the haters is the only morally correct thing to do. And that's ok. I'll just address whomever is left.

I think sometimes these acts come along to wake society up. I mean, look at their timing. It seems as soon as we get complacent, another thing happens to put us back on our game. And "our game" isn't about taking the easy road. It's about taking a good hard look at ourselves and seeing if we're in alignment with what we believe.

That's what today's Three of Wands has come here to ask of us. It's never easy to see yourself as part of something you don't approve of, but that's what personal growth is about. We see something in others that we find annoying or reprehensible and live that way for years, only to look at them again one day down the line see ourselves mirrored back to us.

As our lives go on, we seem to have an inexhaustible supply of self denial as we uncover ugly bit after ugly bit and fix it. And it is only then that we can look back and see why so-and-so was in our lives and what they came here to show us. They were ourselves, echoing back at us what we needed to take a longer look at. And, instead, we pushed them away. We separated them from us with an attitude of "that kind of person is not MY kind of person."

This is a hard week. If you didn't read yesterday's entry, do. Because it's time for all of us to not only ask ourselves what we stand for, but to also see where we're falling short of our own mark. When we separate ourselves from the world's issues thinking that it doesn't have anything to do with us or that we would never such-and-such way, we're part of the problem. If we really want to honor our paths and live up to our rhetoric, we'll have the balls to look deeply and honestly enough to become part of the solution.

2/14/12—Leaving Beauty in Your Wake

Today's Draw: The Three of Wands from the Victorian Romantic. What are your gifts? How do you use those gifts to bring beauty into your everyday life? And if you don't see your daily obligations as a opportunity to bring beauty to the world, wouldn't today be a good day to start?

I always get a good feeling from this particular card. I get a sense of daydreaming, confidence and planning for a new journey. And I like the added touch of the lyre in his hand, because he's creative, visionary and out of the box. Plus, he's got a really nice arse. 

I also never miss sight of the swans gliding along the glassy river, their images reflecting back at them. Our loosely robed musician can't see them yet. But they're about to come into his view and perhaps even color the plans he's creating in his head. What will they spark in him? To move forward with grace? To bring along a partner? To proceed slowly and surely and enjoy the scenery?

Today they're saying to me to move forward with that which reflects beauty to you. For this guy, it's music. For you it may be something different. There are people out there who say they're not creative. But they are. "Creative" just means that you're capable of making something. It doesn't have to "art". But it's actually art within the context of your gifts. It's the beauty you're able to make in this world.

So the question is, what beauty do you make? The beauty a personal assistant may make might be to make life easy for their boss so they can glide effortlessly through their day. A lawyer may make beauty in the way they architect their case. And now and then, I'll turn a phrase in a way that makes a client squeal with delight.

Chances are, no matter what you do, you're pretty good at it. And that, in and of itself, is a beautiful thing. You may not see it that way, but today could be the day to start seeing the beauty you reflect in this world.