I use tarot and oracle cards as tools for reflection and contemplation. Rather than divining the future, they are a way for me to look more deeply at the "now."
"The goal isn't to arrive, but to meander, to saunter, to make your life a holy wandering." ~ Rami Shapiro

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Sitting Among the Rubble

From the Anna K. Tarot, the Five of Cups; from the Meditation Cards, "Karma Cloud:"
          In what's left of a bombed house, a man sits among the rubble weeping. He focuses on the broken vessel by his feet and fails to notice the archway with four other golden cups around it. His whole life has crumbled before his eyes; his sorrow is so deep that he can't bear to leave the ruins of his home. Add an addict/alcoholic to a family of three little boys and an overwhelmed, young wife, and this is exactly what the results look like. Except there are many people whose hearts are hurting and broken, not just one.
          I don't particularly like the helpless feeling that I get when such sadness washes over me. It has been a pattern for me in the past to replace it with anger, which feels more powerful. Yet Karma Cloud reminds me what this can produce:
When a cloud is no longer a cloud, it is something else, like rain or snow or hail. So when you don’t see a cloud in the sky, you don’t say that it’s no longer there. It is still there in other forms. That is also true with a human being. When you are no longer in this form of body, then your action—your karma, what you produce in terms of thinking and speech and action—is your continuation. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
The continuity of the energy is what’s important. What do you want to pass on—suffering or happiness? ~ Jan Chozen Bays
Brooding anger has never produced anything close to happiness, nor has it ever truly removed or relieved my suffering. Neither has it been beneficial to those around me. Better to embrace rather than run from sadness; it will eventually pass if I don't push it away or get hooked by the story around it.

8 comments:

  1. Better to embrace rather than run from sadness; It is so scary I know. Fear and anger can suppress the sadness but only temporary. One way ore another we have to acknowledge our true feelings. Only then we can shed our cleansing tears and find the relief which anger and fear can never give us.

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    1. Yes, if I can just make space for the sadness without all the labels and judgments attached, it will pass and I'll find my way through that lighted arch.

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  2. Jan Chozen Bays names it beautifully, doesn't she!

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    1. Her arrow of insight strikes right at the heart of things.
      I am REALLY enjoying the Meditation Cards. :)

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    2. So glad! The way you're working with them is inspired! I wonder if your readers know how much thought and heart you've put into them. I wonder if your readers know about Bev's secret wonderfulness ;)

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  3. I've found many times for me anger is another form of fear.

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