9/14/12—Choosing the Consequence

Today's Draw: Two of Swords from the Victorian Romantic Tarot. Do you tend to hold emotions and frustrations inside until you ultimately burst? Or do you find that you dispense your emotions as they come? What is your emotional style?

So it's the final day of the One Card Challenge. Today's interpretation comes from something I saw in the card as I looked at it again this morning. 

She's got stormy skies, rough water and dangerous rocks behind her. So we can interpret that as meaning that the worst is behind her. But we could also see it the opposite way. To me, she looks like she's about to fall backward, like in one of trust tests they do at corporate retreats...you know, where you fall back into the waiting arms of others? 

I have a love/hate relationship with my emotions. Sometimes it feels good to just feel and let your emotions out. Other times, it can be scary. Emotions can be a gateway to depression and wallowing for me. Ain't pretty, but it's true. 

To me, this card seems to be saying "I've tried everything to release this pain short of letting it wash over me. So I'm just going to fall into it and trust I won't drown." That's what all the experts say to do, right? Feel what you feel. Let it all out. Feel it until you heal it.

I used to be really good at crying and "feeling it". But somewhere along the line, all of that went away. I don't know if it's age or negative reinforcement or numbness or what. I can't do it anymore. Which isn't to say I don't still cry from time to time. But now I cry when the rain barrel is full and can't hold any more emotion. Or when really bad stuff happens, like when my brother was dying. 

Honestly, I spent so many years being either content and "normal" or down and depressed (I've never been manic, which is evident by how little ever gets done around this house) that I don't even know what's healthy or "normal" anymore. Is it healthy to just let emotions wash over you? Or is it healthy to just take them by the jugful when you've got the capacity? With my history of depression, falling back into the waters frightens me. 

The good news is that somewhere between making better choices, building self esteem, meditating, gaining a spiritual purpose and starting on prescribed pharmaceuticals, I feel pretty even most of the time these days. A couple of years ago menopausal mood swings made antidepressants wise, if not necessary, for me. But all those years of resisting them makes my knee-jerk reactions err on the side of not swimming in the deep end if I can help it. 

Pretty much every entry I write comes with an answer. But this one does not. Will this woman have the courage to fall backward? And if she does fall in back in trust, will she get taken by a rip tide? Or will she wash gently back up on shore, weary from the waves, but nonetheless cleansed? I really don't know. 

That's part of the dilemma of the Two of Swords. A choice has to be made and every choice we make in life comes with some sort of gift and some sort of consequence. We usually choose based on the gifts. But we do have to be cognizant that we're also choosing a consequence. 

Perhaps that's what she's really falling back into in this card...a choice. And she just has to trust that whatever consequence she's choosing is one she can live with. 

8/29/12—Examining Your Story

Today's Draw: The Seven of Holy Water from Robert Place's Vampire Tarot. What tempts you? How often do you make choices that you know are bad for you? Do you still find yourself making bad choices without realizing they're bad choices?

The Seven of Holy Water corresponds to the Seven of Cups. It's a card of choice. In traditional decks, each cup would be filled with a wonderful thing. And your job is to choose among all the options available to you..to make a decision...to take a stand. 

But in this card, it's a little different. There are three doorways, only one of them leading to escape. Do you choose the one with all the money and see where it goes? Do you choose the one with the vampire...maybe he's guarding the exit? Or do you choose the third one?

Life is often like that, isn't it? Full of difficult choices. Heck, the empty doorway could be clearly marked "Exit" and we may still choose the one with the money. Or even the one that promises eternal life. Or maybe we think we can scoop up the money, be given eternal life and still make it out exit!

In one of the questions up top I asked if you still find yourself making bad choices without realizing they're bad choices. I asked that because it seems like there comes a time in our lives where we see the clues to a bad choice and can keep from choosing it. This, of course, isn't 100%. But we do get to a point where we know the earmarks of all the bad choices we've made in the past and we, nonetheless, make them again. We make them consciously. 

I feel like when I make bad choices these days I know when I'm doing it. I mean, I'm not blind to the fact that that piece of chocolate cake is not nutritionally equal to a sprig of broccoli or that smooth talking misunderstood playboy is going to turn out to be genuine and loyal. Obviously there's a shadow side issue at play when we knowingly make bad choices, even if we're only marginally conscious of it. We have to search ourselves and ask, "What story is this keeping me stuck in? And how is that story serving me?"

By story, I mean the stories we tell ourselves, like "I only ever meet the wrong men!" or "All the good men are taken!" or "But his smile was just so irresistible!" Your story can also point to a cycle or pattern. For example, one ex was a drunk, another a womanizer and another a workaholic. They're all different, right? No, they're all the same. They're all unavailable. So why do you keep going for unavailable men? And, more pointedly, what is unavailable about you that you only attract unavailable men?

Shadow Week ain't easy. Oprah once said she had a breakthrough about her weight issues when she realized they weren't about the potato chips. Whatever it is that's recurring in your life...whatever bad or limiting choices you're making, it's not about the potato chips. It's about something far beneath the chips. The good news is that, if you're making the bad choices consciously, you're way ahead of the people who are going through life blindly wondering why bad things always happen to them. 

Other shadow issues with a Seven of Cups might be an inability to make a decision for fear of making the wrong one. Or wanting/needing to have it all. Choosing and regretting. Or worrying you've made the wrong choice and so you take the choice you made for granted. Or not showing gratitude for the options you do have. The Seven of Cups doesn't offer the kind of choices you're meant to regret. It only offers cup after cup of enjoyment. Your job is to choose the ONE that works best for you and be happy with it. 

7/21/12-7/22/12—Making the Right Choice

Weekend Reading: 22/Rain, 24/Sunset and 32/Snow from the Transparent Oracle by Emily Carding. Read individually, these cards speak of cleansing and renewal, closure and peace, and purity and silence—all good things to take into your weekend. But if you examine the three cards placed on top of one another (as you can only do with Emily's transparent cards), you may notice all three forms of water are depicted...solid, in form of snow; liquid, in the form of droplets; and gas, in the form of the steamy rays of the sun. We, too, have a trinity of forms—body, mind/ego and spirit/soul. Water doesn't have a choice in the form it takes. Surrounding conditions of temperature dictate the form it assumes. But we do have a choice in how we respond to surrounding conditions. We can respond physically. We can respond with our intellect or ego self. Or we can respond with our spirit/soul self. Remember this weekend that, no matter what happens outside you, you have a choice. You are in control of how you respond. So consider responding in the way that brings more love, joy and self respect into your life.

2/2/12—Weighting the Scale in Your Soul

Today's Draw: The Chariot from the Mythic Tarot. How many conscious choices do you make in a day? How many unconscious ones do you suppose you make? What do you think you could gain by becoming more conscious of the choices you make each day?

There are many ways to read The Chariot. One meaning is about balancing forces, such as dark and light. Another way to read The Chariot is about reigning in opposing forces so everything moves forward smoothly. Some read it to mean momentum toward goals or taking control of a situation. But whenever I see this Chariot in particular, I always think about being pulled in two directions. 

In countless little ways every day, we're given the choice between moving toward our higher selves or indulging our more base desires. It's that split second choice you make when the elevator door is closing and you see someone running toward it. Whether or not you let a car merge in front of you in traffic. Whether you smile at a passer-by or divert your eyes from them. 

Every single one of those things weights one side of the invisible scale in your soul or another. It's not always a choice between your dark side and your light side. But I do think there's always an option that will lift you higher, whether it's obvious or not. 

The things we do are not the only choices we make. The things we think or say...what we choose to see...how we respond emotionally...all those things are choices too. Most of us go through the day on automatic and maybe we won't even notice one of hundreds of choices we're making between the time we wake and the time we sleep. We just kind of go along the way we always have, not even recognizing that every choice we make is also an opportunity to feed our divine spirit. The more conscious we are of the choices we make, the more power we're able to have over our spiritual, personal, romantic, sexual, financial, familial and career trajectories.

Another thing I see in this Chariot card is like being at a fork in the road with one horse moving down one path and the other horse taking the other fork. Around the world there are human, environmental and financial shakeups pretty much everywhere you turn. When things start falling apart, it's usually a good sign that it's time to change. Some will stay at the crossroads in the rubble for as long as possible. Some will retreat back into old habits and continue to suffer shakeups. And some will move forward with a lesson learned. 

I can't explain this but to say I feel it within me each time I've written these blogs lately...the time is now. We can't sit on the fence any longer. Either we keep making the same choices or we start making more choices that lift us up and move us forward. It all starts with recognizing that you have a choice in the first place. You made probably at least a hundred—if not a thousand tiny little choices—today. How many of them were conscious? How many of them were purposely made to move you forward? 

Once you start making conscious choices, then make a habit of choosing the higher one. You won't always be 100%. That's OK. But you can decide, for example, that every time you make eye contact with someone, you will smile from now on. And if you have an off day, that's fine. But as long as you're going to move on automatic, why not move forward with the automatic choice that serves your higher self?

OK, that said, I'm going to leave you with the Cherokee story of the two wolves: 

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy.

"It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego." He continued, "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."