Lessons and Advice

This week I'll be using a self-published tarot deck created by Alexander Daniloff and appropriately called the Daniloff Tarot.  Today's draw is the Five of Coins:

What makes this tarot even more interesting is that some of the characters appear to be puppets - check out the pins in the joints of their arms and legs.  But if these are puppets, where are the strings?  What controls them?  For that I must look to the number and suit of each card, in this case the Five of Coins.  Lack of resources, both health and financial seem to be playing a part here.  But the characters seem to have their faces intentionally turned away from the warmth and security represented by the building/institution behind them.  Does their pride or judgment keep them from going inside?  This card reminds me that I often don't get to choose where my help and support will come from, and sometimes there is a lesson in tolerance and acceptance as well as being willing to grasp the hand extended to me.

The oracle I'll be using this week is one based on the 100 Poems of Kuan Yin, attributed to the Bodhisattva of Compassion.  I have 100 bamboo sticks that are numbered to correspond to each of the poems; the book I'll be using to translate the poems is the Kuan Yin Oracle by Stephen Karcher.  This morning's chosen stick was #79 and relates to the poem "Go Your Own Way:"

Do only what is real.

Plans that aren't real are doomed to disaster.

Each person has his or her own principle,

so don't be influenced by other people's bad advice.

The message of this poem is twofold: first, get out of my head and back on firm ground; second, listen to my intuition or Higher Self rather than blindly following what other people think I should be doing.  In pairing this message with the tarot card above, I see that while I might have some problems to deal with, I have available resources to draw from for help.  Self-pity doesn't look pretty, no matter what Crayola color I use on it.  But perhaps the greatest resource (and one I constantly forget) is the well of wisdom within, whose advice is purer and infinitely more beneficial than that from my ego.  Time to get reacquainted with reality...