6/21/13—Breathing In The Creative Spirit

Today's Today's Draw is special, because it's part of a Tarot Blog Hop. What that means is that, from this post, you can link to the blog before me or to the blog after me. And if you keep linking in that manner from blog to blog, you can read 24 tarot blogs, all focused around a single theme. This particular blog hop is to celebrate the summer solstice and we're supposed to share one of our gifts with you...to write about something we're good at or do something creative.

In other words, I get to go hog wild. Mix things up. Get my goof on.

You'd think I'd savor that opportunity. But you know what? I'd really rather just share some thoughts about my personal relationship with creativity in the manner to which my regular readers have become accustomed. So with that...

Today's Draw: The Lovers in the Spirit position from The Wild Unknown and the Deck of 1000 Spreads. How dependent are you on your creative spirit? If you spent your days pushing paper and had no hobbies, could you be happy? What stands between you and your creative spirit?

I nearly cried when I drew this combo. The Lovers means different things to different readers. Sometimes it speaks of soul mates. Sometimes it speaks of a choice. In the Spirit position, however, I can definitely say that the creative life is both my soul mate and my choice.

When I was young, I wanted to be a veterinarian. Then when I got a little older, I wanted to by a cytologist...a cell biologist. I wanted to clone things. Those probably sound like weird things for someone like me to want to do. They're "desk jobs"...regular jobs. Certainly there's creativity in both things. But they're weighted to left brained thinking. They were practical choices...careers I would have enjoyed and done well at. Careers my parents would have been proud for me to have. 

But then I would have forever been fated to becoming one of those people who say "oh, I could have been a writer" when they meet people who earn their living that way. Those people make my eyes roll because they make me think, "well what's stopping you?" It's not like you need special permission to start a blog or submit a manuscript. It's so easy to say "oh, I could have been a writer" when you don't know what it actually takes to sit in front of a blank page every day and fill it with words some idiot will feel a need to edit. 

So instead of choosing to sit behind a microscope, I chose to spend my life in a career where my words would be put under a microscope. On the plus side, I'm the kind of writer who gets to think up wacky ideas and have fun with my writing...an advertising copywriter. 

There was a time at the beginning of my career in advertising that I wasn't a writer. I worked in the traffic department, which is the part of an advertising agency that moves work from one department to another. So an account executive will put in an order for work and the traffic manager will distribute that work to the relevant parties. Then when the work is complete, the traffic person will move it to the next step and next, all the way to the point that it's printed or goes live. The traffic department manages the workflow of the creative and production departments.

Anyway, I liked the job and did well at it. But I was miserable inside because the writer within me was crying out for attention. I felt incomplete, like part of me was missing. As time went by, the writer was fighting to crawl out of my skin. So I found a mentor among the agency's copywriters and she would give me fake assignments to do. I then convinced the creative director to let me handle a few overflow jobs...nothing glamorous. Just stuff the writers were too busy to do. It was, in retrospect, the only time of my life that I didn't have a reliable creative outlet. And it was its own special misery in my young life. I could have started a hobby or something, I suppose. But ultimately, having that unfed hunger was good for me. It's what gave me the wherewithal to keep pushing until I got what I wanted. 

Those of us who write, generally do it because something within us has to find its way out. And we're wired to do it through words. Someone with that inside them can't do life as "oh, I could have been a writer". There's either writing or a long, slow, miserable death. 

Beyond writing, though, is the creative spirit in general. Writing alone can't satisfy it for me. So I craft. I cook. I sew. I create. That green card up in the picture is one of my creations. I invented a whole new way of creating spreads in the tarot world, the Deck of 1000 Spreads. Tarot is something I've been doing nearly as long as I've been writing. So it's one of my talents, too. And that green card is just one of four decks I created in the past year or two. Not because it brings me money. It doesn't. It gives me something of greater value. It keeps me happy to be alive. 

So this Lovers card in the Spirit position, for me, is like the dance between creativity and my own spirit. Like the geese in the picture, creativity and I are flying in unison. I love being an advertising copywriter. But it's not as glamorous as you see on TV. We're not as "in charge" as Peggy Olson or "everybody loves my ideas" as Don Draper. Being an advertising copywriter is like popping out baby after baby, only to have the majority of them rejected or deemed ugly. Only now and again does someone say, "hey that baby has potential". And that's a moment of victory—the moment when someone gets it...when someone gets YOU. 

But not even that is why I choose this path. Creativity is my oxygen. And whether or not others think I'm good at it is a minor consideration. It's in the process of creation—the process of breathing that oxygen in—that I get my reward. At a time when others my age might start counting down the years to retirement, I look forward to writing until my final breath. If nearly 1000 blog posts haven't worn me out of things to say, I'm pretty sure nothing as random as a retirement age will. :)

Want to soak up more of the creative spirit? Continue on to the next blog in the hop, written by the FABULOUS Chloe McCracken, a Daily Draw regular. Or be wacky and work your way backwards to the post before mine, created by the insightful Jordan Hoggard. Or if you're really in a hoppy mood, consult this list of all the bloggers in the circle and hop around!

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. 

6/13/13—Getting Good News Today

Today's Draw: Bouquet in the House of Rider from Bridgett Trejo's Vibrant Visions Lenormand and the Deck of Lenormand Houses. How often do you get good news and surprises? What's the best one you can think of receiving recently? Think back really hard...how many of these have arrived already this week?

Aren't gifties fun? It seems like when we were kids we used to get lots of gifts and then when we become adults, the gift giving stops. Or transforms into the kinds of gifts you don't wrap, maybe. But I like the kind that jump out and surprise you, covered in ribbons. Or at least in packing materials. 

In a way, this Lenormand deck I'm featuring was a gift. It wasn't REALLY a gift, but it was a barter and came with the extra surprise of me getting one of the first ones. And it also came with the extra surprise of being so much more fun and colorful and lovely than it was in the pics I saw on Bridgett's site. There's just so much in the detail that doesn't come across in pics. 

There aren't two Riders in today's drawing. Just the House of the Rider, but I showed her Rider card because I liked it. The Rider is about news or something moving toward you. In this case, it's the gifts and surprises of the Bouquet card. But an extra little treat came from the writing in the background of the Rider cards which says "do more of what makes you happy", as though that's the directive the Rider brings. 

Anyhow, we say things like "giving is the true gift" or "I don't need any gifts when I have you". And all of that is true. But nothing beats a little surprise you either wished for or didn't see coming, especially if it turns out to be something you really like. I just read that one of my clients, who is a single gay man, got the news that the twins he's adopting were born this morning, six weeks early. That's definitely a Bouquet in the House of Rider moment. 

As I got to thinking about it in my own life, I just heard last night that me and one of my clients are on the short list for winning a nice account that we wanted. Also last night, I went to a School for Misfit Dogs class and when I walked Mystic around the parking lot, she was perfectly behaved, while the other dogs were distracted AND she walked behind me like good girls do. That's an incredibly positive development that really gives me hope that the days of Manic Mystic are numbered and the days of Mommy's Mystic have begun. 

In fact, the more I thought about good news and the arrival of gifts and surprises, the more of those things I saw in my life. Really. More than one per day, which is pretty cool. So it makes me think, how often does this happen that the moment passes by without savor or even acknowledgement as something special? And how different would our lives be if we DID savor it? I've always talked about how giving gratitude is the quickest way to get more of what you want in your life. What if you not only savored it, but were grateful for it? How might that change your life?

6/10/13—Creating Responsibility For Your Life

Today's Draw: Magician from the Dream Raven Tarot in the What to Take From The Past position from the Deck of 1000 Spreads. If you created your life, why do you suppose you made the choices you've made? Do you see them as choice or as the whims of a chaotic universe? Are you ready to take responsibility for who and what you are?

The Dream Raven is a deck I had been anticipating for quite some time and it doesn't disappoint. The colors are just gorgeous and the quality is typical Schiffer, which is darned good. I know Beth wasn't thinking of my Deck of 1000 Spreads when she drew this deck, but the colors work together quite well. 

Anyway, the Magician is all about creation and manifestation...the part of life you create. And by "part of life you create", I mean all of your life. Are there aspects of your life highly influenced by others? Yes. And no-ish. Because we choose how to respond and what to absorb. There are things that happen in childhood that can scar us. But each day we have the option of whether or not to heal those scars. 

I'm going to guess that most of the people reading this blog are established adults, aged 30 or over. So we're all grown up enough to decide who we are and who we want to be. We're mature enough to understand that if someone hurts our feelings that we're choosing to hurt over choosing to understand their words are about a pain inside of them and have nothing to do with us. In this way, we create every response, attitude, point of view, belief, etc. in our lives.

Further, we choose who enters our lives and who doesn't. We choose them by the attitudes, beliefs, points of view, etc, we choose to have in our lives. These people mirror things back to us that we've chosen, good and bad. If we choose to be easily hurt, we'll choose people who will hurt us. If we choose to live with loose boundaries, we'll attract people who will overstep them. And if we choose to heal our egos, we'll meet respectful people. Because disrespectful people won't even be an option to us.

Some believe we choose the human we're going to inhabit before we even come to this earth. So if you believe that, then you also have to believe that you chose the circumstances that would come along throughout your life, including your body, your family and all those childhood scars. 

In every second of every day, we're making choices that impact what we will create. And not just the bad things, either. You created the good, too. So think of a situation or circumstance in your life today. If it's something you're unhappy with, see how you chose it and figure out why. And if it's something you're happy about, give yourself credit for all the choices you made to manifest that in your life.

6/8/13-6/9/13—Enjoying the Spotlight

Weekend Reading: Moon and Heart from my Keywordy Lenormand, now available wherever Tierney's decks are sold! Lenormand cards are usually read in pairs. Think of the first card as a noun and the second card as a verb or adjective. As you can see, there are a lot of different phrases and meanings you can come up with. But the one I'm choosing for you this weekend is to enjoy a moment in the spotlight. So many of us normally mourn our shortcomings and brush off our accomplishments. But this weekend there's something to be proud of. Enjoy it. Maybe it's that you've got an adult child at home and are proud of them. Or maybe you win at BUNKO. Or maybe you get your list done early this weekend. We all have so much to be proud of if we just let ourselves accept it (and refuse to accept the criticisms of others.)

Try to read this pair for yourself. The first card is the noun and the second card modifies it. What do you see? A date with a friend for the movies? A kiss beneath the dark moon? Some afternoon delight? 

6/3/13—Trusting Your Instincts

Today's Draw: Key, Clouds and House from Lenormand de Marseilles by Edmund Zebrowski in the Immediate Future position from the Deck of 1000 Spreads. How much do you rely on your instincts over other forms of information? Where do you see that you can make changes to rely on your instincts more? How do you determine the difference between instinctual fear and paranoia?

A friend from one of the Lenormand groups online had told me that she likes to pull a card from the Deck of 1000 Spreads and then draw three Lenormand cards to give her a daily reading. So I thought I'd try this particular system today and share the technique on www.1000spreads.com and share the reading here. What happened amused me. 

Lenormand is a linguistic sort of tool. You read the cards in pairs and in sentences based on keywords for each of the cards. The Key card commonly speaks of solutions, answers and destiny. But it can mean an actual key, too. The Clouds speak of confusion and hidden things, but can also  mean actual clouds. And the House card can talk about family, property or an actual home. 

So one way of reading today's combo is "In the Immediate Future, your Destiny is Clouds over the House." And sure enough, there are. Dark ones moving in just like in the picture. I think the reason this rather silly, but accurate reading came up is because two out of my three dogs get really upset about thunderstorms. So the energy of nervousness in the room is pretty high right now, as it was when I chose the cards. 

The beautiful thing about dogs is that they really rely on their natural instincts to inform their world. They know when thunder storms are coming. When their mommy is coming home. When it's treat time. When I want to brush their coat. And they have this uncanny ability to run through the yard at breakneck speed chasing squirrels and each other and not step in any poop piles. It always amazes that, even in a rush, they're aware not only of their own poopies, but of those of the other two dogs. 

We have abilities like this, too. But more often than not, we'll check the Weather Channel to see if it's just cloudy or if there are major storms on the way. We'll call our mommies to see when they're coming home, rather than sense their presence in the vicinity. Or we'll walk right into a grooming situation unaware we're going to have get our coat brushed until it's too late...haha. Our access to other means of information has put us in a position where we've deadened our own natural instincts. But they're still there. 

So there's a bit deeper meaning to why the cards have told me what I already know today. In a way, they're telling me that I don't need them to tell me things I can already sense within myself. Sometimes the questions we ask ourselves alone are clues to the answers. "Am I walking into a trap?" "Should I get myself out of this situation?" "Is my job in danger?" Well, why would you even be asking these questions if you didn't have a sense that something was goofy?

Of course sometimes our own fears and insecurities can cloud our instincts. Maybe you think your job is in danger because you're paranoid and not because it's based on any fact. Even the dogs do that. They're here terrified of the clap of thunder, when the fact is that we're pretty darned safe most of the time. We get severe weather here...hurricanes and tornadoes. But it's rare that we have devastating situations where life and limb are concerned. 

But whether it's paranoia driving the question or instinct, there's something in there for you to learn. A solution at hand. If you're afraid of losing your job, it's because you don't feel secure at work. You don't have to actually lose a job to look for another one. So maybe the universe is prompting to take steps to feel more secure. Start a job hunt and learn what you're worth, whether you're in real danger or not. 

We had storms last week, too, and I observed Mystic, who is the most frightened of my dogs. She sought out places to hide where she could protect her head. She ultimately decided on hiding underneath the desk in my office. Her fears weren't founded, but she found a solution anyway. Sometimes that's all the universe wants you to do...find a solution. Know there's a way out. Sometimes that's all you really need to know to move past paranoia and back into a more neutral state where you can trust your natural instincts. 

Want to know more about combining Lenormand with the Deck of 1000 Spreads AND also see a sneak peek of my new Lenormand Deck? Click here!!!

4/29/13—Conjuring a Soul Partnership

Today's Draw: High Priestess from the Robin Wood in the Future Relationship position from the Deck of 1000 Spreads. How long has it been since you've asked yourself what you want out of a relationship (even if you're currently in one)? Have you ever convinced yourself someone was "the ONE", only to quickly find out otherwise? If you're currently in a relationship, has it changed to mirror the changes you've made in life—is it still a good fit?

Just last week I was talking about how I'm not hot to get in a relationship, how I think I might have gotten too "set in my ways" and how I'm happy alone and all of that stuff. But that doesn't mean I don't *think* or even daydream about relationship and what kind of guy I'd like to be with...haha. 

First, let me clarify. Relationship can mean any kind of relationship. But I'm talking about a romantic one right now. And what this indicates is a spiritual relationship of some sort. After all, the High Priestess is like the female version of the Hierophant in the tarot. While he speaks of knowing through tradition, she lives in the land of inner knowing. 

I often let the Hierophant indicate spirituality in my readings because, frankly, he pops up more often and my inner voice tells me to speak of him this way. But really SHE is the one who represent spiritual knowing, and he is the one who is all about the religious dogma. 

It's funny, because it has been so long since I asked myself what I wanted in a relationship, that I had forgotten. And when I do kind of fantasize about meeting the right person, I always forget that this is what I want....haha. But I really do want a soul partner or spiritual partner. 

Note that I didn't say "soul mate". I think pretty much everyone of any significance in our life is a soul mate. Personally I think too much energy goes into waiting for "perfect soul mate" to come along...the ONE. I don't think there's just one. I think there are scores of soul mates in our lives that are friends, co-workers, etc. And I think when they arrive in the form of an attractive person, we assume they're there to become our lover. And so we sometimes shoehorn them into that role. And sometimes that is part of the "grand design". And sometimes you're left wondering what the HELL you were thinking!

No, I said "soul partner". That's someone you're in partnership with to help each other heal and advance your soul. It's someone worthy of your trust. Someone responsible. It's not about wanting someone so bad that you start play hooky from work for some afternoon delight, not that that's out of the question. But the relationship is not driven by the physical. 

It's a partnership driven by the advancement of the soul. Which isn't easy. It requires you to be honest with yourself and each other. To tell each other things about themselves that they may not be able to see. To support them in their growth and visa versa. It requires you to put the normal dynamics aside as much as you can and operate on a higher plane...no manipulations, tantrums, passive-aggressive BS. Growth is the first priority of the relationship. The sex and romance stuff, it's still in there, but it's gravy. The greater intimacy is the trust you form between the two of you to not abuse the relationship...to drop the need to control...to stop needing to win or be right. 

Maybe it's just a fantasy...haha. I do know it exists out there. And I'm sure it's not as ideal as it looks from the outside, because nothing is. And these relationships are allowed to end when the mutual growth does, though I imagine in a relationship like that, it rarely happens unless one or both partners can't handle the partnership. I imagine it to be a very difficult thing...one that requires a whole different tool set than the relationships most people have. And like I said above, this can happen with a friend just easily as with a lover—you can totally have a soul partnership with one of your friends. I just wanted to talk about romance....haha. 

I don't know that I've ever met anyone I could do that with...at least not someone of the opposite sex. But ultimately I only ever have to meet one, you know? So I'll have to bring this up to my conscious mind again, because the conscious and unconscious minds determine the things we think, do and say. And the things we think, do and say determine what we create. And though I'm not ready for him now, I may just be by the time I conjure him up! 

4/25/13—Blocking Romance

Today's Draw: Three of Swords from the Deviant Moon in the What You Can't Change That's Blocking Romance position from the Deck of 1000 Spreads. Are you pretty much decided upon remaining single? Do you have a reason why? Whether you're in relationship or not, do you find you protect yourself from the downsides of love?

My daily process is that I choose a card or three at random from the Deck of 1000 Spreads then, more often than not, I worry that the tarot deck I choose will fail to make sense in the context of the convoluted position I've established. And you know what? It always DOES make sense. 

Take this Three of Swords, for example. This three-legged woman has had her heart pierced and broken by love. Perhaps it was something her partner failed to say, or insisted upon doing...or was incapable of feeling. But there she stands, a storm looming in the distance, distressed and with a single black tear issuing from her eye. She touches the tip of one sword—can she bear any more pain? Has she now lost her capacity to love forever?

A couple of weeks ago I went to a meeting with a man and woman and, on our drive over, the topic of conversation was whether or not it was even worth it to couple anymore. As they lamented all the work and heartache that went into building a relationship, just to have each successive one fail, they were preaching to the choir. All three of us had full lives without partners. And they were 15-20 years younger than me and invested in building their careers.

I found it interesting that these two, very attractive specimens of the "younger generation" were discovering what I discovered at their age—I'd rather be content and balanced as a single person than subject to the expectations and heartaches of coupledom. But I also felt a little like I should warn them...warn them that you become so comfortable after 20 years of solitary living and casual flirtations that you can become somehow "unfit" for relationship...haha. I mean, if you think it's a pain in the ass when you're 30, wait until you're 50. 

Further, when you're thirty-something, there are still casual encounters to be had...there's still a pool from which you can draw. That pool gets narrower and harder to find the older you get—and still narrower and harder to find the more set in your ways you get. 

Still, I don't lament my choice. It was absolutely right for me. And my life's not over yet. There may still be a "love of my life" to eclipse whichever man I would consider so today. 

But when I think back on what started my "relationship apathy", I guess I'd have to say that I was just tired of investing my time and energy into relationships that eventually left me hurt and healing. Let's say you're with someone for a year or so and it takes a year to recover enough from all the dashed dreams (I'm a slow healer...haha) before you're actually anxious to go out on another date. You have to look back on all of that and ask "were those two years I spent out of balance—first in the excitement of a new love, then in seeking balance with a new love, then in riding the disagreements, then in the decline of the relationship and then in the post-relationship healing—worth the good times I had?" For me, the answer kept coming up as "no."

The thing about love is that you can't avoid having your heart broken. Even couples that have survived 50 years of marriage and are still in love have had their share of heartbreaks along the way. So if you let heartbreak deter you from romance, it's always going to block your way. You can't change the fact that there will be hurt, feelings of betrayal, etc. 

When I look at the enviable relationships around me—I was blessed by parents that hung in there till death did they part—they all worked through these disappointments and heartbreaks. It's not because their relationships WEREN'T challenged that they lasted so long, it's because they WERE. 

I can't speak for my young colleagues, but I can see where the prospect of disappointment, pain and heartache are blocking romance for me. I mean, if Prince Charming came along and was so magnetic and persistent that I couldn't say no, like you see in all the Lifetime movies, then I would probably dive in. But you've watched Lifetime movies before, right? They're, at best, loosely based on reality...haha. So for now, I'm not really interested or prepared to accept someone in my life. And, like today's draw has pointed out, until I'm ready to accept the inevitability of disappointment, pain and heartbreak mixed in with all the rest of what a romantic relationship can be, I'll never be. 

4/16/13—Fighting the War and Letting the Battles Fight Themselves

Today's Draw:  Conquistador/Vanity of Victory from the Rock and Roll Oracle in the What's Blocking the Heart of the Matter position from the Deck of 1000 Spreads. Could the battles you fight in your daily life be distracting you from seeing the war? Could fighting those battles actually end up being a losing proposition? If you pulled back and viewed the greater war, might you then uncover what you're really fighting?

Today I had a particular matter in mind when I chose the cards and when you consider that all these cards were chosen at random...well, that's the magic of cartomancy (or fortune telling by cards.)

So the question was about a recurring interpersonal issue that crops up in my life. And I feel like I've given this issue a lot of thought and tried changing a lot of things—the way I view I situation internally, the boundaries I draw with others, the way I enter into the dynamic, etc. And it just keeps happening. I feel there's improvement in the situation, but I think there's something I'm meant to learn that I'm just not learning yet. I feel that if I tighten my boundaries more or make other further adjustments that I'll just be going too far in the other direction from balance and "healthy". 

So I guess I feel I'm a at a point where I've changed my behaviors and attitudes enough. So there's just something I'm not understanding, otherwise these situations would cease to present themselves to me, right? At least that's how I believe spiritually. So having the combo of Blocking or Covering and Heart of the Situation is very appropriate. There's something I'm not seeing past. And this Conquistador card is talking about winning the battle, but losing the war. That's exactly what I feel like is happening!

So getting this card combination has opened up a few more thoughts about the situation to me. The details of the situation don't really matter, because I think the lessons are universal. In my particular recurring "battle"I can see where I'm playing defense...either responding to situations as they present or arranging ways to ensure situations don't present. I'm letting the other team carry the ball, so to speak, and I'm blocking and tackling and whatever else that goes into play defense. But what about my offensive game? 

I suppose you could liken it to the polarity of giving and taking...you can't always be giving. And you can't always be taking. You have to know and appreciate both sides. Givers have to allow themselves the pleasure of taking, and to do that, they have to get past the discomfort of taking without giving in return. And takers need to know what it means to give without expecting in return.  We need to learn to play both sides of the field. And then we'll find others who know what we know and dynamics will be more balanced. So "learning to play both sides" is one "front" in the bigger war. 

Another "front" in my particular war is this. You often hear people say, "I don't care what you say, it's what you do that has meaning to me." I understand that logic. But I think we can all use to pull back a little farther and see beyond the battle of say vs. do. There's a whole other level beyond that—motivation. Why is the individual saying and doing what they're saying and doing?

We can't always know the answer to that. But every action in every situation has a motivation behind it. There are many people out there who say and do all the right things just to get what they want. Maybe they were raised in an addictive, unhealthy or "survival" situation and that's the only way they know. In a situation like that, there's a lot of work that person will have to do before they can be any other way. Or maybe they have an actual pathology around it that will never change. 

I'm guessing we can all look back on a friendship with someone who knew what to say and how to act. And maybe we thought to ourselves at some point, "something's off here, but I don't know what it is. Maybe I'm just paranoid." You have nothing other than your intuition to base your opinion on. Some of it may be that you want to believe otherwise because it suits you. And some of it may be second guessing yourself. And some of it may be the cunning of the other person. Regardless, you put both what you see and hear before what you "know"...or think you know...inside. That's another front in MY personal war. 

And we also have to ask ourselves, "what's MY motivation?" What do I think I'm getting from this person that keeps me tied to them? Why do I stay when I want to go? Do I have a problem saying "no"? Am I afraid they won't like me anymore? Does it keep me trapped in one of my comfortable, but toxic, cycles? Why do I want to believe that what they say and do is true, over my intuition that it's not? 

Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that some repeating cycles are harder than others to figure out. And it may be because we're winning battles here and there and not seeing that this recurring cycle and that recurring cycle and the other recurring cycle over there are all part of a much bigger war—a war that's being fought on many different fronts. 

So the very reason for each of these smaller repeating cycles—equity in relationships, trusting my inner voice over appearances, and staying in unhealthy dynamics too long, for example—is to lead you to fighting a much larger war called "making yourself and your needs your top priority" or "standing up for yourself" or whatever your particular thing might be. And maybe if we shift our focus to fighting at the level of "the war", all the smaller battles will fight themselves. 

4/12/13—Letting Go And Accepting Help

Today's Draw: The Seven of Energy from the Snowland Deck in the What to Let Go of In The Future position from the Deck of 1000 Spreads. Are you getting what you need from your relationships? From life? Could it be that, before you can grab what you want, you have to let go of your own stubbornness and fear so you have a hand free to accept it?

Sometimes the tarot is funny. Like a card with a guy hanging on to a cliff in the What to Let Go Of position. When stuff like that happens, you forget about what a card's supposed to mean and you ask, "what does it mean to me?" So while this card is intended to mean surprise assistance or accepting help...things you wouldn't want to let go of...in my case this combo is saying just the opposite. What to let go of is the cliff, so that you CAN be helped.  In order to accept the Yeti's help, the camper has to let go of trying to save himself!

Before I get too far into today's writing, I want to say that I've watched this deck come together for a really long time now. See, I like snow and cold. So a winter themed deck was welcome to me, not to mention unique. While Ron Boyer, the artist, isn't a tarot freak, his wife Janet is, so this is a true collaboration between the two. Their son even created one of the cards, so it was a family thing. I like the thought of that...the sweat of an entire family unit coming together to produce something for others to enjoy. 

And it's a lovely deck—non traditional with some interesting visual interpretations. That kind of creative thought is what I look for in a deck. And it's even lovelier, because it arrived at my house on a day of record high heat—93 effing degrees in early April. So just as I was whining about being robbed of spring and my beloved cooler temperatures, a little piece of winter hit my mailbox. :)

Now back to the reading. I have a really hard time letting others help me. Included in that sentence is that I have a really hard time letting go of control so that others CAN help me. I've been learning more about how to do this, but it's hard for me. 

In deconstructing one of my romantic relationships many years ago I discovered how unhealthy it can be, too. I mean, you'd think it would be OK to be self sufficient. And it is. I like being self sufficient. But when you're a woman and you give your man no opportunity to make himself of value to you outside of...you know...then it sends a message that doesn't reflect the way you really feel...it sets up an unhealthy dynamic.  

There's a bestselling book out there called The Five Love Languages. It's written for love relationships, but really there's wisdom in there for everyone. Well, I haven't actually read the book, but I saw the guy on Oprah...haha. And his message was the same as what I figured out on my own a long time ago when assessing this relationship—we all need to be needed in different ways. 

My boyfriend showed love by doing things for me. But I wouldn't let him. I showed love through words and physical expressions...touching his hand and whatnot. Those things meant little to him because he was a "don't tell me, show me" person. 

So, technically, we were made for each other—so we could learn to give and accept love in the ways our partner needed to give and accept love. But we didn't learn. And the relationship ended. Like most relationships do...not because we didn't want to love the other person, and not because we didn't try, but really because we didn't know how. Ultimately each of us ended up in an unhealthy relationship where we didn't feel loved. Sound familiar?

So the advice of today's duo is to think about letting go of the cliff so you actually get what you need. Let others do for you. Some need that in order to express the way they feel. And, more importantly, learn to see when people are loving you in the only way they know how. At the very least, be aware of what your partner's currency is—and what your own currency is—in your relationship. 

Beyond that, for me, it also means to just stop trying to do everything for yourself. I have a hard front yard to mow...hilly and dippy and exhausting. A few years ago I finally let go enough to hire someone to mow it for me. Today was mowing day and when I came home from having lunch with a friend, my grass was cut, my walk was trimmed and the place looked great! Letting go and letting others do for you can actually feel good... if you let it. :)

4/9/2013—Waiting the Process Out

Today's Draw: Heart from Paris DeBono's Gypsy Tattoo Oracle in the House of Lily from the Deck of Lenormand Houses. Are you a raging hormonal lunatic? Has menopause driven you to the brink? And are you feeling bad about it?

The Gypsy Tattoo Oracle isn't a Lenormand deck, but I just received it today and decided to use it like one. The Heart card is about love and emotions. And the House of Lily is about wisdom and maturity, sensuality and serenity. So I could go a couple of ways...I could talk about sensual love relationships. Or I could talk about "maturing emotions" aka my raging menopausal hormones. 

Unfortunately you're going to hear about the latter. 

You know, for all you men and younger ladies out there, I'll tell you this—you cannot possibly fathom the insane and dramatic mood shifts that can happen during menopause until you actually experience them. Most women (and men) know about PMS. PMS is child's play compared to the more "mature" experience of menopausal hormonal rage. 

Not following my own advice from yesterday, I got too bogged down in the details of something—trying to control the uncontrollable—and went off on a customer service person over the phone. F-bomb action. Screaming action. I'm sure anyone within a square block radius heard me. I have a voice that carries. God bless her soul, it was so insane and out of proportion that the customer service rep was trying hard not to laugh. 

This isn't the first time, either. It's happened a few times in the past couple of years. The first time took me by surprise. It was fueled by paranoia and, even while I accusing the other person of stuff, there was a sane person inside my head asking "why are you doing this? You don't believe this." But I couldn't stop myself. I really felt like I was loosing my mind. 

See, I don't want to take bio-identical hormones and pharmaceuticals. It just doesn't feel right to me. It feels like what Monsanto does to corn. So I'm looking into more natural things. And, mostly, I'm just hoping to wait it out. In a year or two this whole menopause thing will be done with. Maybe even in less than a year if my ovaries play their cards right. And I'll settle into a new normal that I can deal with. 

But in the meantime, I've had maybe three big incidents in two years and one of them was today. And I hate being that person! 

Why am I sharing this with you? Because back in our mother's time, we were told we were imagining things. Even now, this is something we don't talk about. It's a "secret shame" we hold...because we "lost it" on someone. And it's scary when it happens. We can talk some about night sweats and insomnia and memory lapses and some of the other symptoms, but when it comes to emotional meltdowns, who likes to admit to THAT? Women were sent to sanitoriums over stuff like THAT. 

And if you have a male doctor, like I do, really how much can he understand? I've almost always had male doctors, so I'm not being sexist. I'd say the same about a female doctor in her 30s, quite frankly. You only have observation at that point. You have NO IDEA of what it feels like to have one of these meltdowns inside and how out of control you feel. It's like a violence within. And it's scary that you can turn on a dime like that. Until you experience it yourself, it sounds like someone's being dramatic. And while I'll cop to being dramatic, I'm not being dramatic about this. 

So anyway, I wanted to share for all the other women out there going through this or about to go through or who have made it to the other side. We've been given this miracle process in our bodies that allows us to have children and connects us to the human lifecycle in amazing ways. And when it starts breaking down, it takes a toll—physically, emotionally and mentally. 

It's an honor and a curse to be a woman. And the things we experience because of it are real. It's not a reflection on you when you go balls-to-the-wall crazy on someone...haha. It's the way we were built and part of our path. And we—I—just have to remember to be easy on and kind to ourselves until this process is through. 

4/6/13-4/7/13—Letting Things Come in Their Own Time

Weekend Reading: The Empress from the Kitty Kahane Tarot in the What is Hidden position from the Deck of 1000 Spreads. With the Empress card in this position, surely someone is going to find out they're pregnant this weekend. But beyond that possibility, the Empress is also giving her little top-hatted duck man (that she usually keeps safe beneath her skirt) some space and time to develop on his own. So if the bun in your oven is something other than a human (or duck)—perhaps it's a project you're working on, your self development goals or something else you're anxious to see come into fruition—just give it its space this weekend and be ok with it coming about in its own time. The Empress is wise in three ways. She knows when to nurture. She knows when to let go. And she knows that everything comes about in its own time. 

4/3/13—Contemplating A Future Life

Today's Draw: Ten of Flames in the What to Know About a Future Life position from the Margarete Petersen deck and the Deck of 1000 Spreads. What have you cleansed yourself of and purified in this lifetime? What do you think your big lesson has been in this life? And what do you think you'll have to focus on next time around?

This is something you don't think about very often, is it? For those of us who believe in past lives and future lives, the general assumption is that you evolve over lifetimes. And so we seek to improve in this lifetime, partly for our this-life benefit, but also for a future life. 

So it's an interesting thing to noodle...what have you earned absolution from in a future life, because you dealt with it in this life? And that's not to say, "I've earned to live my next life without mean people in it because there have been a lot of mean people in this life." I don't think that's how it works. But what have you HEALED in this life that no longer needs to be revisited? And can we even know?

The Ten of Flames is about cleansing and purifying. It's about healing areas of obsession and compulsion...about redeeming ourselves. It's about welcoming situations that once vexed us...not in an "I'll show you" kind of a way, but in a way that genuinely no longer pushes your buttons. When we get to that point of enlightenment about something—a deep understanding of why it's there and gratitude for its presence—we no longer have to face it again. 

This hasn't been a lifetime for me where I learn a lot about romantic love, for example. I'll probably do that in another life. In this lifetime, I don't have the patience to deal with other peoples' crap on a one-on-one, intimate basis...haha. So I don't sustain those kinds of relationships very long. I have a great respect for that ability and came from a household where I had that kind of commitment modeled for me, but it's not what I'm focused on this life. On the other hand, this *is* a lifetime where I'm learning about the solitary path and the path of the seeker. I'm also learning a great deal about how to take things less personally and how to love and accept myself, but I think I need at least one more life for those last two things. 

So it's interesting to think about. What do we NOT have to deal with in this life? And is it because we think we've healed it in another life? Or because it's waiting for a future one to take shape? I think we all learn things in a different order. So while I may have yet to learn to pull off what my parents pulled off with their "til death do you part" kind of relationship, you might be having that lesson this time around and have no idea how to be alone. 

I think I've spent many lifetimes as a lone wolf in that regard, in fact. A reliable source once told me that I had a lifetime where I had, like, a dozen children and had to raise them alone in a cabin in the woods because my partner abandoned us...haha.  That would certainly explain my aversion to children and my desire to spend this life with just dogs and the occasional male. So maybe you have some sort of "explanation" like that in your past life as to why you're choosing something unconventional this time around. It's interesting to think about. I once did a past life regression where I saw that I starved to death...again a solitary life. And perhaps that's why I overeat in this lifetime...because of the memory of that life of lack. Who knows?

Hopefully this will open up your own thinking in this regard. If we even just consider what we came into this lifetime to heal, it can help us focus on the one or two things that matter, you know? And it can also help us forgive ourselves those areas in which we just really aren't adept....areas we're scheduled to address in a future life. 

4/1/13—Laying Down Your Swords

Today's Draw: Six of Swords from the Steele Wizard Tarot in the What to Use in the Future as You Move Toward Your Goal position from the Deck of 1000 Spreads. Is there some attitude or recurrent thought that you find constantly gets in the way of your goals? Are you responding to something, rather than acting from a place of genuine power? Are you ready to lay all that down and find your true source of balance and power?

In the Six of Swords, we see a woman leaving conflict and issues (swords) behind and moving on to a better place. Dolphins guide her journey, signaling more peaceful times ahead. She's not abandoning her previous situation. She's merely moving on...without looking back. 

While I believe in assessing situations to take your lessons, lessons often reveal themselves better from a distance. And the easiest way to reach our goals is to lay down our swords and move forward. In fact, it's the only way. 

This isn't just about interpersonal conflict. It's about any issue. Let's say you got fired from your job. Your goal is to get another, much better job. But that will be harder if you're suing your old place of work. It will be harder if you bring resentment and a "I'm out for myself" attitude to the next job. And, if you're paranoid that the same thing will happen to you again, it probably will. 

All of those things are reactions. They're actions and attitudes you take in response to another's actions. And as long as you're reacting to what has happened before, you're not acting on your goal. 

I've been putting a lot of thought into action vs. reaction lately. I think one of the harder—and most essential—parts of our spiritual growth is to act genuinely. By that, I mean to act the same regardless of external stimuli. If you're non-violent, be non-violent even if someone pushes you. If you're into oneness, then see yourself in your enemy, not just in your friend. In other words, act unconditionally. 

Now, there are some non-violent people who will die from being unconditionally non-violent. So the practice may be sometimes more of an ideal. But this kind of unconditional action is the only true source of power. Because each time we act in response to something, we give up our power to whatever it is that's pulling our marionette's strings. 

Usually we do this by getting caught in the drama (or the excuse) of something that happened to us...or something we did to ourselves. I had a boyfriend once that was a professional athlete at one time in his life. And he blew it. He could have worked harder, but he didn't. He drank and messed around with girls and then spent the next 20 years or more drowning his regrets in alcohol. He acted in response to a bad mistake on his part and lost all his power. In doing so, he wasted much of his life with regrets and getting revenge on himself. 

His way out might have been to unconditionally pick himself up after he falls...or unconditionally forgive himself for being human...or to move forward and unconditionally focus on his goals despite distraction. See, where I'm going? It's a way of becoming "bullet proof" that doesn't come out of defiance or trying to prove yourself to someone. It's just an agreement you make to yourself to not give your power over to something you cannot change. 

If I look back on my own life, I can see times where I've held onto something for way too long...a relationship that ended poorly and a conflict that was very hurtful to me, for example. When I realized I had a hard time letting go, I worked on letting go, not to spite the other party, but to become more unconditionally centered in my own power and balance...to take things less personally and focus on what *I* think of me, more so what others think of me. Which isn't to say I don't still struggle. But I lose much less power, balance and time on it than I used to. 

But I also noticed something else. When I moved away from losing my power to others, I found myself losing power to myself. Like the boyfriend, I found myself responding to my own "dropping of the ball" in a particular situation and fixated on that, instead of starting over fresh and just moving forward. So we do it to ourselves in many ways. And it can be something as old as childhood bullying getting in the way of adult friendships, you know? We let a bunch of noise come in to distract us from our goals, whether it's self-pitying, defiant, righteous, proud, fearful, angry, regretful or whatever. It's all reacting. And it takes us away from acting from a place of power in the pursuit of our goals. 

So think about the goals you've set for yourself in life, whether they be spiritual, career oriented, relationship centered, personal or whatever. What noise is in your head that may be slowing you down? What are you spending your energy responding to? Becoming conscious of these things is the first step toward taking your power back and developing an unconditional way of being that enables you to focus on your goals...regardless of what happens. Make decisions for yourself long before the stimulus comes along for you to react to. It's time to lay down the swords of reaction and sail on to a new phase of life where you're acting from a place of internal integrity and are far less subject to the whims of outside forces. 

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.