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, April 19, 2017

Don't Hide

From the Tarot of the Cat People, the Ace of Swords; from the Sacred Geometry Oracle, the Hexagram:
          The Ace of Swords often represents mental clarity that helps us see the truth. But this fellow has added a shield to his sword, as if he is protecting himself. Perhaps he thinks he is preserving the truth, but my guess is that he is using the shield to keep from fully seeing reality. Reminds me of this description by Bodhipaksa:
 Worry can make us behave in ways that perpetuate it. I was surprised, talking at a class one night about how I sometimes leave mail from the tax office unopened for several days, to find out that I wasn't alone. In fact almost everyone there said that the fear of knowing what was in a tax notification stopped them from opening the mail, sometimes for weeks! So what happens here is that our anxiety takes an unknown that could be resolved in a moment ("Hmm. Mail from the tax people? I wonder what's in it? Let's see!") into a prolonged bout of dread ("Oh, god it's still there! I wonder what's in it? OK, I'll try and ignore it a bit longer!"). The mind multiplies and amplifies our sufferings.
The Hexagram is constructed from two equilateral triangle pointing in different directions, suggesting a balance of opposites - yin with yang, light with darkness, pleasant with unpleasant. To live life fully, I can't continue to run in the direction of one and leave the other behind. All of it is valid and deserves my time and attention.

6 comments:

  1. Denying the truth, hiding behind that shield, how foolish we sometimes behave while thinking it's for our own wellbeing. Silly humans!

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    1. Somehow our minds convince us that if we deny something long enough it will simply disappear.

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  2. A timely post to read for me Bev. Thank you.

    Denial can be so debilitating for sure and causes us a lot of problems, worse than what we first start out with. When we're kids it's coping mechanism that kicks in automatically. But once we grow up it sure doesn't work anymore just exacerbates the messes we're in. I ain't quite growed up yet and I'm still working on this!

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    1. I understand; I had certain coping mechanisms that helped me survive my childhood that have been hard to let go of as an adult too. :)

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  3. Two steps forward and one step back.

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