I Will NOT Make a List

From the Urban Tarot, the Eight of Cups; from the Principles to Live By Oracle, "Gratitude:"

          Since Scott's Urban Tarot is Thoth-based, she's given this card the keyword "indolence." Now on the outside, this looks like inertia, laziness and sloppiness. But these are just external symptoms of an internal cause. If you were to peer inside the head of the person who owns this work space, you would find the emotional roots. It might look like the darkness of depression or the desperation of being overwhelmed. Professor Taima Hendler, of TAU’s Sagol School of Neuroscience recently did a study that showed how exhaustion affected the brain's reaction to emotional images. She described her findings: "The ability of the brain to tell what’s important is compromised. It’s as if suddenly everything is important." Add the adrenaline of "it's all important" to an already stressed person, and it's no wonder we give up trying and shut down.
          The cornucopia disc represents Gratitude; to be grateful is to be deeply appreciative of what I have received. The first suggestion I usually hear when I tell someone how I feel is that I should make a gratitude list. But if I am in a such an exhausted, emotional state of despair, I'd probably respond with "Fu*k that." Joan Chittister wrote, "Darkness deserves gratitude. It is the alleluia point at which we learn to understand that all growth does not take place in the sunlight." Perhaps instead of making that list or lying in the bed I could examine what is going on with my body and mind. Just maybe I will be able to follow the roots back to the seed of the cause. Then I could renew both body and mind by following the advice of Gary Kowalski: "Feelings of awe, reverence, and gratitude are primary, and these can never be learned from books. We gain them from sitting high on a cliff side, gazing at the sea, lost in reverie and listening to the laughter of children."