Finding a New Place

Today I'm going to post a little differently - I'll be doing my oracle card first, then my tarot card.  From the Tao Oracle comes "Oppression:"

I can't think of a more perfect card for where I am emotionally, mentally and physically.  All the crow-like birds that surround this person feel like all the people, pets and situations I've been trying to take care of.  The attempted suicide of a friend this week was the blow that finally sent me reeling.  I've had a smile pasted on my face up until now, but I just can't fake what I'm feeling anymore.  In her companion booklet, Padma writes that any situation "can be approached from a life-affirmative or a life-negative standpoint.  And it is the life-affirmative approach that embraces the whole rather than drawing the lines that divide good from evil, darkness from light. ...every darkness has its dawn, and every dawn contains the seed of darkness."  My head understands this, but right now my heart hurts too damn much to be able to embrace it.

From the Fairytale Tarot, the Four of Wands:

  The "Musicians of Bremen" is a story about four elderly animals who were considered "throw-aways" by their owners.  They resolve to join together and go to the town of Bremen as singers.  Along the way, they come upon a house filled with robbers.  They decide to test their singing skills with these men, so all four animals begin making "music" which sounds awful and scares the robbers off.  The animals figure since the house is now empty, they might as well make use of it.  However one robber comes back in the night, but he is bitten, scratched and kicked by all the animals.  Convinced the house is full of evil spirits, he leaves never to return. The four friends enjoy the home and the company of each other for the rest of their days.  The Four of Wands is generally about building a foundation and a celebration of this new beginning.  But the story reminds me that sometimes I must move to a new place (whether physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually) before I can begin.  As Einstein once said, the mindset that created the problem is not the mindset that is going to solve it.