5/3/13—Perching on the Front Stoop of Life

Today's Draw Classic*: Knight of Bows from a trimmed Wildwood Tarot in the What to Avoid position from the Deck of 1000 Spreads. Do you spend too much time one on aspect of your life to the detriment of other parts of your being? If you died tomorrow, would there be any regrets about it? What undiscovered gem of life might be standing right in front of you, waiting for you to shift your focus?

Today's draw is one of the reasons I don't like to reversals. For the uninitiated, reversals are cards that, when you turn them over, end up upside down. And many people read those as roughly the opposite of a card's meaning. But I don't read reversals, primarily because I believe the position the card lands in can create the same outcome. 

So, for example, today's card of the Fox is about stealth and cunning, playfulness and determination. None of those are things we would want to avoid. So reading the card in context of its spread position, you'd look at the shadow side of that card, like being opportunistic, manipulative, childish and ruthless. 

Shadow sides come from too much of a good thing. Leadership is a good thing. But when you go all leadership on people's arses, it's called megalomania. Not a good thing.

Another way of looking at it is how the book for this deck spelled out the downside of this card—"Determination leads to success, but often at a great personal cost." 

I'll cop to being one of those women who focus too much on career...to the detriment of my personal life. I even ended up turning one of my personal life hobbies into a second career so I could work even harder...haha. Mind you, I'm not complaining and I won't use the word "regret". I enjoy the things I do. And because I'm at home when I do all of them, my dogs never feel lonely or neglected, as far as getting their needs for attention and sustenance met. 

But there are so many things that fall by the wayside because I'm now attending to two different careers. I don't get out as often. I don't exercise often. I don't spend enough time with friends. And most of my friends are the same way, so they don't have time to spend with me. So while I don't regret it...my life is full...I could nonetheless find a healthier balance. 

I see a lot of this around me. Women who devote all of their time to their children and husband and spend no time developing their own personal relationship with self. People who dive so deeply into their relationships that they have no friends. Certainly we shouldn't neglect the things we need to attend to in our lives. But having friendships, personal interests and a personal life are also among those things we shouldn't neglect. 

Anytime we pour so much of ourselves into one thing or another, we put ourselves at risk. If we lose that one thing that identifies us, then who are we? But beyond that, we're cheating ourselves out of part of life we came here to experience. Having just one or two aspects of ourselves supporting the entirety of a life is a precarious foundation to build on. It's simple principle of engineering. 

That said, I enjoy my life. Especially now, because a lot of things are coming to a successful conclusion. But I think we all have to ask ourselves, if we died tomorrow or a year from now, is there something we'd wish we'd had more of in our lives? I wouldn't have any MAJOR regrets, but I can see where I'd be a little wistful about things I could have done more often or had more of in my life. 

Even just tonight, I was sitting on my front stoop watching the sunset and seeing the neighborhood happen. I'd only done that once before and that was just last week. All these years and I never experienced life from a perch on the front stoop! It made me sad that something so in-my-face had been overlooked for so many years. What might you not be seeing for all your determination in life?

*From 2/19/13

2/19/12—Perching on the Front Stoop of Life

Today's Draw: Knight of Bows from a trimmed Wildwood Tarot in the What to Avoid position from the Deck of 1000 Spreads. Do you spend too much time one on aspect of your life to the detriment of other parts of your being? If you died tomorrow, would there be any regrets about it? What undiscovered gem of life might be standing right in front of you, waiting for you to shift your focus?

Today's draw is one of the reasons I don't like to reversals. For the uninitiated, reversals are cards that, when you turn them over, end up upside down. And many people read those as roughly the opposite of a card's meaning. But I don't read reversals, primarily because I believe the position the card lands in can create the same outcome. 

So, for example, today's card of the Fox is about stealth and cunning, playfulness and determination. None of those are things we would want to avoid. So reading the card in context of its spread position, you'd look at the shadow side of that card, like being opportunistic, manipulative, childish and ruthless. 

Shadow sides come from too much of a good thing. Leadership is a good thing. But when you go all leadership on people's arses, it's called megalomania. Not a good thing.

Another way of looking at it is how the book for this deck spelled out the downside of this card—"Determination leads to success, but often at a great personal cost." 

I'll cop to being one of those women who focus too much on career...to the detriment of my personal life. I even ended up turning one of my personal life hobbies into a second career so I could work even harder...haha. Mind you, I'm not complaining and I won't use the word "regret". I enjoy the things I do. And because I'm at home when I do all of them, my dogs never feel lonely or neglected, as far as getting their needs for attention and sustenance met. 

But there are so many things that fall by the wayside because I'm now attending to two different careers. I don't get out as often. I don't exercise often. I don't spend enough time with friends. And most of my friends are the same way, so they don't have time to spend with me. So while I don't regret it...my life is full...I could nonetheless find a healthier balance. 

I see a lot of this around me. Women who devote all of their time to their children and husband and spend no time developing their own personal relationship with self. People who dive so deeply into their relationships that they have no friends. Certainly we shouldn't neglect the things we need to attend to in our lives. But having friendships, personal interests and a personal life are also among those things we shouldn't neglect. 

Anytime we pour so much of ourselves into one thing or another, we put ourselves at risk. If we lose that one thing that identifies us, then who are we? But beyond that, we're cheating ourselves out of part of life we came here to experience. Having just one or two aspects of ourselves supporting the entirety of a life is a precarious foundation to build on. It's simple principle of engineering. 

That said, I enjoy my life. Especially now, because a lot of things are coming to a successful conclusion. But I think we all have to ask ourselves, if we died tomorrow or a year from now, is there something we'd wish we'd had more of in our lives? I wouldn't have any MAJOR regrets, but I can see where I'd be a little wistful about things I could have done more often or had more of in my life. 

Even just tonight, I was sitting on my front stoop watching the sunset and seeing the neighborhood happen. I'd only done that once before and that was just last week. All these years and I never experienced life from a perch on the front stoop! It made me sad that something so in-my-face had been overlooked for so many years. What might you not be seeing for all your determination in life?

6/20/12—Making the Tough Decisions

Today's Draw: Seven of Bows from the Wildwood Tarot. Is there something you want to do, but you've never gotten around to doing it? Does life keep getting the way of your dreams? What would you be willing to do to have the thing you've always wanted?

I recently had a discussion about life dreams with a friend of mine. She's a single mom and a spiritual leader/teacher and she earns her living in a spiritual profession. She's also itching to write a book. She knows everything the book is going to say, she just has to write it. But she can't find the time. 

We all know that, right? And if you make your living in a spiritual profession, then you know that the psychics, mediums, spiritual teachers, healers and other light workers who are showered with riches are few and far between. One of the ways to become one of those fortunate few is to write a book. But if you're mired in the details of paying a mortgage, raising children, promoting your business, keeping your home clean, maintaining friendships and all the other necessities of life, when do you write that book (or go back to school or hike the Himalayas or whatever your dream is)?

The Seven of Bows is about making priorities and choices in life. It's about clearing space for the things we want out of life. There comes a time when we have to make some tough decisions if we're ever going to live our dreams. And we also have to take a good hard look at what is really standing in our way. Even the busiest of moms is probably saying yes to at least one time-sucking thing that they could just say no to...being a Girl Scouts troop leader, working on the PTA, being the home all the kids go to after school. You may not WANT to give those things up, you may have reasons why you can't, but in reality, they're optional. Plenty of moms aren't doing them and you could be one of them. 

What it all really comes down to is this: the biggest thing standing between us and what we want is excuses. And the excuses usually only hold water if you're the kind of person who is never going to achieve your goal. J.K. Rowling, for example, had tons of excuses why she couldn't write Harry Potter. She was a single mom living at poverty level, recovering from a failed marriage and the death of her mother, and battling depression. Rather than indulge the momentum of all those things, she wrote anyway. Everyone has excuses. And for every excuse, there's both a fear-based reason for it and a way around it.  

Look at it this way—what, other than supplying the basic needs of food, shelter and love to your family, is more important than using this one chance at life to pursue your dreams? You want to be there to see every single one of your daughter's dance classes? Then you're making a choice to watch dance classes rather than pursue your goal. Your daughter may feel like you're an attentive mom and that's great. And maybe one day she'll even give up her own dreams to watch her daughter's dance classes, because that's what mother's do. Or you could use that time to pursue your dream and focus instead on the quality time when you can actually interact with her. The choices you make for your dreams are not always easy. But the people who have what you want to have made difficult choices of their own. 

My pathetic excuse is that I write all day for a living. When that's done, I write a blog (waving hello to all my readers!) And when all of that is done, I frankly don't feel like writing. That's my excuse. Beneath that is, admittedly, a fear of failure/success that keeps my butt dragging, but I continue to move forward despite it. Anyway, back in January I shared my excuse with a wise woman who suggested that I write a chapter of my book a week as part of my blog. I did that in January and February and got enough of those entries to put into a book proposal. I also got a lot of positive feedback that reinforced my desire to write this book.

See, you don't have to do the whole dream at once. It helps to remind yourself of that. With book writing, you just have to write a proposal. And if a publisher says they want to publish your book, then you'll get deadlines you have to meet. And you'll meet them, because you have to.

Same thing goes with hiking the Himalayas. You don't have to hike them today. But you can start making plans...training your body, getting the money together, mapping course, making lists of things you'll need, scouting out hostles, shopping for sherpas. By the time the reality of living the dream hits, you won't have a choice but to pursue it! 

But the first thing you have to do is start clearing the space for this thing in your life, whether literally or figuratively. All it took was for me to ask my single-mom friend a simple question, "is there something in your life that is taking more time and effort than it's worth...something that once used to hold value, but no longer does?" She immediately knew where to clear space. She'll probably need more space than that, but it's a start. And she'll need the discipline to use that cleared space for its intended purpose. But once that space is cleared, it will be easier to weed out some of the things that may be more difficult to let go of. Before she knows it, writing will be just as automatic as the other priorities in her life.

Clearing is a pivotal choice we make where we decide whether to walk toward our dreams or put them off. Again. Whichever choice you make is up to you and can really only be judged by you. But Clearing gives you the opportunity to really decide how important those dreams really are....or if they've changed over years and become about something else. Like making sure you're there for all your daughter's dance classes.

Whatever your choice, choose it with confidence and move forward with confidence. The only thing more painful than making a difficult choice is to spend your life looking over your shoulder at all the choices you didn't make and wish you had.

4/27/12—Reuniting with Your Lost Self

Today's Draw Classic*: Six of Vessels from the Wildwood. Reunion. Is there something you're currently being reunited with? Is it a happy reunion? And what part of your "self" is it returning to you?

The Six of Vessels/Cups traditionally speaks to some sort of nostalgia and usually has a childlike feel to it, as if you're being reminded of something from childhood. But the Wildwood takes that concept further. It speaks of the reunion of souls from other lives, for example, in the form of soul mates. The reunion of a clan or tribe. The reunion of different parts of your "self" or a part of your history. Although the traditional thrust of this card is that it's usually a sweet reunion, the Wildwood points out that it could be a rocky one, but with the intention of giving you a chance to heal and integrate that part of yourself that you're reuniting with.

The moment I pulled this card this morning, I was greeted with a happy feeling, though. There's just so much cooperation, symbiosis and beauty in this card. And whether it's from the moment you reunite or by the time the reunion is through, this is where you're being led. To a place of integration where all parts of you feed all parts of you. Even if the thing you're reuniting with is another person. 

There is a perspective in the spiritual world that everyone you encounter is an angel. If you believe you come from light and return to light, you can see how this is true. The concept is hard to apply to someone who annoys you or angers you. But in this context, they are some of your kindest angels, because they came into your life, knowing you'd hate them, just so you could learn. Who could love you more than them, that they would be willing to feel the pain of your rejection just to help you out in this world?

Recently I feel I've been reunited with a passion and ambition that has been gone in my life for quite some time. Hopefully I will have matured in my handling of that energy when all is said and done. I'm finding that part of myself that moves through the world with trust and faith, that part that leaps and trusts the net will be there to catch me. Fear has kept me from it for a long time. I feel my journey in all of this will be a positive, happy one, rather than a painful one. 

Something larger is happening in my life right now and I'm going with it. The last time it happened on a big scale was back when I became a freelancer and, during that time, I experienced one of the happiest stretches of my life, both literally and figuratively. So, fingers crossed, I'm being reunited with all of that, rather than with lessons that have to be hard or painfully won.

What are you reuniting with these days? What lost part of your self are you joining with? Or is there actually an unexpected reunion with someone in your past in the offing? And if so, what do you think that came here to teach you?

*This is a reprint of a draw from 5/9/11

3/13/12—Weaving a New Frock

Today's Draw: The Wheel from the Wildwood Tarot. Are you ready for a change? Are you going to make it happen or would you prefer it happen to you? This week's readings are signaling something transformational on the horizon. Does that excite you or scare you?

The Wheel is the perfect companion to yesterday's card about personal responsibility and the discovery (or rediscovery) of new facets to your being. It also works well with our weekly reading about getting real about ourselves. The Wheel (also called The Wheel of Fortune) traditionally talks about the seasons or cycles in our lives. This particular Wheel, however, also speaks of how we weave our own destiny. It's not a wheel turned by the fates like other representations, it's a loom upon which we weave our own fate.

I believe we come down here for a purpose and with lessons to learn/challenges to face. But for the most part, we're writing and rewriting our story down here. Some achieve more than expected spiritually in a lifetime, some less. Some repeat the same lessons over and over, others get it on the first try. Some walk through life with personal power, others feel powerless. All of that is up to us. The circumstance or challenge we were born into wasn't up to us, but what we do with it is. 

At the same time I say that, I also believe I had knowledge of certain parts of my life as a small child that are only just now beginning to unfold....as if they were always part of the plan, only I forgot. So I do think certain parts of our lives are inevitable and I believe we're also guided once we're down here. But ultimately we set the intentions and the paths to get there. And with each spin of the wheel we have an opportunity to start fresh, build on what we've achieved or have a re-do. 

That's what I like in conjunction with the last couple of readings—that if a new facet enters into our personality or we uncover one we didn't realize was there, there's no telling who we'll become from all the choices we make based on all the variables! It's always been a very exciting prospect for me. 

I think I may have told the story about how, when I was a kid, we moved every two years. And because I had a hard time making friends, I was generally unhappy at my unpopularity. But every two years I had a chance to reinvent myself. So while I lost all the traction I had gained while I was in one place (which sucked), there was always that magical air of it maybe being different the next place we went. 

Of course, it never quite was...haha. That was largely due to the fact that I never changed the things that might have stood between me and friendship. I was always overweight and teased. I was bossy. I was smart. I was somewhat introverted, sullen and angry. A little spoiled, too, I suppose. And, for my teen years at least, I had adult concerns and embodied the "unfairness" of all that. From 12-14, I was the family cook, so there was no playtime, and at 16 my mother got cancer and I was faced with the prospect of losing the parent who had raised me (my father worked a lot).

Anyway, after a while (and through a lot of conscious work), my feelings of powerlessness and victimhood turned to power and personal responsibility. I stopped blaming others for who I was and what I'd become and started making changes. I stopped coming from a standpoint of anger and self dislike and started realizing that my happiness was my own to claim. And, as time drew on, I stopped weaving false frocks in which to show myself to the world and started weaving ones more authentic to me.

I feel like I've been a bunch of different people as an adult, in the sense that I've healed a number of the things that drove my personality and the way I carried myself through the world at any given time. I'm not the same person I was three years ago, let alone five or ten. And while I think I'm pretty groovy now, I'm still excited at the prospect of some new facet coming to the fore. Even if it's a "lemon" facet, I know I'll make lemonade out it, because that's the person I've become.

There are so many theories on what life is about. But even if you believe it's all chaos and there's nothing before it and nothing after it, it's still a pretty cool gift that we get to be here and think about it. That we get to love our people and pets. Dream of possibilities. Pick ourselves up when we fail. Have wins. And learn from losses. 

The Wheel comes to tell us that if there's something we don't like about our lives, to change it. We have that power. Crap is going to happen either way, but the difference between those who feel powerless over it and those who claim their power over it is all in the jasmine and magnolias we get to smell along the way.