Get Me There Quickly

From the Sun and Moon Tarot, the Prince (Knight) of Wands; from the Wisdom Keepers, 'Lightness:'

          This Prince/Knight is full of courage, energy and charismatic swagger. If someone mentions a daring adventure, he'll be the first to sign up. Unfortunately, he's a little lacking in the patience department. The Prince will relegate the boring details like packing and travel arrangements to someone else (an instance where his charm is helpful). If he had his way, he would just be dropped into the excitement and miss all the tedious preparation that precedes it. The Lightness Wisdom Keeper points out that even spiritual objectives can become self-centered desires. We pray without ceasing to have things turn out the way we want. We buy oil and candles to draw to us what we long for or turn away what we don't. We meditate for hours in an attempt to bypass what scares us and transcend our worries (hoping to reach nirvana so we don't have to deal with what's unpleasant at all). We say affirmations and visualize the positive in an effort to ignore what needs to be dealt with. We forget that the point of this life isn't just to learn from the joy and wonder, but to grow and develop through struggle as well.

Spiritual bypass shields us from the truth, it disconnects us from our feelings, and helps us avoid the big picture. It is more about checking out than checking in—and the difference is so subtle that we usually don't even know we are doing it. The shorthand for spiritual bypass is grasping rather than gratitude, arriving rather than being, avoiding rather than accepting. ~Ingrid Mathieu