From the Neuzeit Tarot, Temperance; from Rory's Story Cubes, Cauldron:
Taking the middle path is not an easy road. Those who are aggressive and natural leaders (wolf) might seem they have the upper hand, yet the fly agaric mushroom points to intoxication (of power) that can cause that person to become completely self-centered (making more enemies than friends). On the other end are those who are submissive followers (sheep); they prefer to let the herbal flowers relax them since someone else will take responsibility. They tell themselves they are unselfish, but their sacrifices are purely those of a martyr. But Temperance mixes both these extremes, knowing that we are often called to play different roles at different times - student or teacher, benefactor or recipient, hero or sidekick.
The cauldron reminded me of making a pot of soup; everyone seems to have a preference for one kind over another. I detest potato soup, but I love both homemade vegetable and chicken and rice. It might seem nice if we got to structure our days like we made our preferred soups, putting in only the ingredients we liked and leaving out what we didn't. But then I would never meet anyone who didn't like my particular soup, and I would never get to try new soups. Thankfully, life isn't set up that way, and I shouldn't expect it to be. The world is a natural mix of unpleasant and pleasant, and I can better navigate both by avoiding the extremes.
Rob enjoys doing all the cooking now. I told him a while back soup is a cinch to make and set about proving it by burning the heck out of a pan of simmering chicken pieces...
ReplyDeleteI rarely cook now unless we are going to a family or friend get together. Mostly because no one is here to sit down and eat it.
DeleteAfter spending time making my own variations of soup there was no going back to the canned stuff.
ReplyDeleteYep, the canned stuff just can't hold a candle to the homemade. :)
DeleteI prefer avoiding extremes too but sometimes someone pushes all my buttons and the world seems to shift form various shades of grey to black and white and nothing in between.
ReplyDeleteI think that's pretty normal. But at least once we realize what we're doing, we always have the choice to move back toward the middle. :)
DeleteWell Bev with an addictive personality, extreme measures seemed to be mostly the order of the day for me in the past. Thank God for recovery which gave me balanced life compared to before. I'm not much interested in what normal is. I just strive for balance and that's enough of a challenge and difficult enough. Why make it harder than it is by, walking backwards, while eating soup?
ReplyDeleteI love soup and make mine homemade in my slow cooker, which I can't live without!
I'm growing leeks this year and look forward to some leek potato soup!
I think "normal" is a relative term. :D Good luck with your leeks!
DeleteThank you Bev. Yes whomever came up with that adjective...not one of my favourites.;)
ReplyDelete