Smelling Roses

From the Anna K Tarot, the Knight of Cups; from the Meditation Cards, Karma Cloud:

We awaken continually. Cultivating lasting emotional stability requires a willingness to look and look again. —Jessica Angima

On patrol at night, this romantic knight can't help but stop and smell the flowers. This is definitely not part of the job, but it makes the job bearable. He knows that finding time to look for beauty, joy and love keeps the focus on what is important - it is the compass he relies on. Karma Cloud suggests that we need to be mindful of our thoughts, words and actions, not just because we will reap the good or bad they produce, but because they will be our legacy. As Jan Chozen Bays wrote, "The continuity of the energy is what is important. What do you want to pass on - suffering or happiness?" Pausing, as this knight does, is a good way to check in on our intentions and consider the seeds we're planting.

Sitting Among the Rubble

From the Anna K. Tarot, the Five of Cups; from the Meditation Cards, "Karma Cloud:"

          In what's left of a bombed house, a man sits among the rubble weeping. He focuses on the broken vessel by his feet and fails to notice the archway with four other golden cups around it. His whole life has crumbled before his eyes; his sorrow is so deep that he can't bear to leave the ruins of his home. Add an addict/alcoholic to a family of three little boys and an overwhelmed, young wife, and this is exactly what the results look like. Except there are many people whose hearts are hurting and broken, not just one.
          I don't particularly like the helpless feeling that I get when such sadness washes over me. It has been a pattern for me in the past to replace it with anger, which feels more powerful. Yet Karma Cloud reminds me what this can produce:

When a cloud is no longer a cloud, it is something else, like rain or snow or hail. So when you don’t see a cloud in the sky, you don’t say that it’s no longer there. It is still there in other forms. That is also true with a human being. When you are no longer in this form of body, then your action—your karma, what you produce in terms of thinking and speech and action—is your continuation. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

The continuity of the energy is what’s important. What do you want to pass on—suffering or happiness? ~ Jan Chozen Bays

Brooding anger has never produced anything close to happiness, nor has it ever truly removed or relieved my suffering. Neither has it been beneficial to those around me. Better to embrace rather than run from sadness; it will eventually pass if I don't push it away or get hooked by the story around it.