A Sea of Expectations

From the Sacred India Tarot, the Ten of Staves; from the Land Sky Oracle, Ahimsa:

He was swimming in a sea of other people’s expectations. Men had drowned in seas like that.

― Robert Jordan

King Rama had already asked his wife Sita to walk through fire to prove her purity to others after she returned from being kidnapped. Yet his subjects didn't truly believe that she was undefiled; when Rama needed her for an important ceremony, he asked her to go through another fire ceremony. Sita, however, was not a people pleaser. Being the daughter of Mother Earth, she requested to return to Nature, where she no longer had to deal with the rules and judgments of men. Sita understood that Ahimsa, the moral restraint that encourages nonharm and compassion, applies not only to how we treat others, but also oneself. She knew that false obligation (expectations that are not promised) and wanting to be liked were invalid reasons to cause harm to herself. Rama could have learned a thing or two from her.

The Lion's Roar

From the Sacred India Tarot, the Wheel; from the Land Sky Oracle, Ahimsa:

Can you imagine opening without resistance to the aliveness, change and loss that is inherent in this existence?  Can you imagine opening in this very moment to the pleasantness and pain, the changing flow of life?  ~Tara Brach 

          In Buddhism, the Lion's Roar is the confidence and faith to be with whatever comes next, knowing we can work with it. Rather than repeat our reactive patterns according to what pleases or displeases us, it gives us the equanimity to be okay with life as it unfolds. This is not something that can be purchased; it develops through an ongoing practice of moment-to-moment mindfulness. [The deer often symbolizes the Buddha's first teaching in Deer Park, and the elephant represents training the mind.] Ahimsa means non-harming, or in other words, to be tender and kind with oneself and others. As we attempt to cultivate equanimity, it will help our progress if we use gentleness and compassion as our guardrails rather than self-pity or self-hatred. As the oracle's guidebook encourages us, we can be reflective rather than reactive in difficult circumstances.