Just a Small Step

From the Mary El Tarot, the Four of Cups; from the OH Cards, Steps/Threat:

We all have days when we feel like this shell - one moment we're in our element enjoying life and the next we're tossed up on dry sand. We are discontent and lethargic, without the energy to motivate us to action. If we feather a nest for this mood, it will just hang around longer, letting us become comfortable with our discomfort. Steps and the word card Threat suggest that change is needed, but we assume the devil we know is safer than the devil we don't. Yet just taking one small step in a different direction each day, no matter how inconsequential it might seem, will eventually get us to the doorway. Move slowly with determination, and that dark mood will begin to shift too.

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up.

— Anne Lamott

The Most Difficult of Tasks

This week I'll be using the Mary-El Tarot, created by Marie White and published by Schiffer. I'll be pairing it with the OH Cards, created by Ely Raman and Joe Schlichter and published by Eos Enterprises. The OH draw is actually two cards - one a picture and the other a word. Today's draws are the Lovers and Policeman/Threat:

          What a beautiful rendition of the Lovers - a union that breaks the barriers of age and race. What is it that makes two people love each other? Beauty, sexual attraction, a feeling of completeness, common beliefs... these may cause the initial spark, but time changes everything, including people's looks, emotions and ideas. Lasting love (beyond the emotional feeling) includes a mutual intention held by each partner to invest themselves in the well-being of the other. Even when we're tired, cranky or overwhelmed, we have each other's back. The Policeman/Threat combo seems to caution these lovers about the potholes and speed bumps they're going to encounter ahead. I can almost hear him asking, "How have you nurtured your connection today - physically, mentally and emotionally?" According to some psychologists, shared, positive emotions can be 'banked' and drawn on when the relationship hits a rough patch. Today might be a good time to check the balance in that savings account.

For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. 
― Rainer Maria Rilke