We need not be limited by our stories.
—Mark Epstein
Last year, I wanted to plant zinnia seeds in three large terra cotta pots. Unfortunately, the army of gray squirrels in my yard will dig up anything I plant in pots. I ended up stretching chicken wire over the tops of the pots with a wire around the rims to hold it in place. The seeds, once planted and watered, grew through the holes of the wire without a problem. The Eight of Swords card is like the wire we think is trapping us. We get caught up in how things are supposed to be or not supposed to be, and we forget to look past our stories. There's a lot of open space there to grow in if we'll see beyond our mental ruminations. The Dhammapada quote reads:
It is up to you to make strong effort;
buddhas merely tell you how.
No matter how many seminars I attend, what teacher I study with, or the number of books I read, nothing changes unless I make the effort to change how I think and act. As Henrik Edberg explained it, "...in the end, if you are an adult then no one is coming. No one is coming to save you. You have to take responsibility for your own life and what happens in it." The first thing I need to change is the stories I tell myself.
I get caught up in that same Eight of Swords wire trap; thankfully as I get older, less so.
ReplyDeleteI love zinnias. They are such happy flowers.
Zinnias are happy flowers and tough enough to deal with our heat.😊
Deletewe wire cage our two remaining yellow roses against the deer. I can see them from here, just below the paddock fence, smiling. They will think of a way. They don't seem to eat our wild roses though, which can be really invasive. Funny old world, wire ourselves in, wire ourselves out...
ReplyDeleteIt seems your deer have top dollar tastes. 😊
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