Listening and Grazing

From the Hezicos Tarot, the King of Cups; from the Way of the Horse, Back to Grazing:

          This King guides and instructs in the watery element of emotions. Listening to and advising people in crisis can be exhausting, so how does he do it? I think of him as having mastered equanimity. Narayan Helen Liebenson gives her description of this quality: "Equanimity means responding to the conditions we encounter with inner balance and relaxation. It’s about responding with wisdom and compassion rather than reacting with aversion or clinging. Being equanimous doesn’t mean being compliant, complacent, or resigned. And it has nothing to do with indifference." In other words, being present with what is happening without letting our preferences color our perception of what is happening (This is great! This is terrible!). But to do this requires the ability to connect with the luminous mind rather than the ego; meditation is a practice for finding this place of spaciousness. Then, as Sharon Salzberg explains, "we can fully connect to whatever is happening around us, fully connect to others, but without our habitual reactions of rushing toward what is pleasant and pulling away from what is unpleasant."
          Back to Grazing is another way the King of Cups maintains his serenity. Kohanov suggests following the horse's lead: "When something scares them, they startle and bolt. When the danger passes, they relax and go back to grazing. They don't spend the afternoon ruminating over the fact that they had to run from a predator, and they don't stay up all night worrying about future encounters with lions and tigers and bears." The King knows its the story we write and narrate in our heads that makes us crazy. The moon snail shell he wears on his head has an operculum ("little lid") that is like a door on the shell. It is a reminder to connect with the emotion, but unhook from the story line.