The Daily Draw: The Fool

Push…Leap of Faith at Mind, Body & Spirit

I was at the Mind, Body & Spirit Festival in Dublin over the weekend. I’ve spent an afternoon there every autumn for the past four or five years, always arriving on my own. I vaguely remember the feeling of…uh, let’s say excitement mixed with anxiety the first time I went, juggling questions like “what the hell am I doing here?” and “who do you think you’re fooling”? while moving from stall to stall and a few lectures (do a workshop? Are you kidding me? I’d be too visible.) quickly enough to not be noticed much.

Now here it is about five years later. I arrive just in time for a Solfeggio workshop with Yvonne from the Naas Holistic Center, who I do a Reiki share with once a month. Afterwards I meander through the stalls comfortably, feeling increasingly charged on the energy swirling around me, stopping for reflexology which lifts me even higher, then trying to eat a seaweed wrap (seriously, it tastes fine but it’s like trying to bite through paper.) before attending a workshop with Heidi Sawyer entitled “HOW TO READ HEALING ENERGY WITHOUT ENERGETIC OVERWHELM”.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with her, Heidi has been working with Intuitive sensitives for a good number of years. Intuitive sensitives are s sub group of Highly Sensitive People (HSPs), who are people with more sensitive nervous systems than others, people who tend to feel more deeply, tend to be empathic. HSPs make up about 15% to 20% of people on this planet. (There’s a lot of info about HSPs on the web, so I will leave you to do further research on that. )

One of the things Heidi does is run a group for intuitive sensitives called “Heidi’s Circle”. This group meets regularly in person and on the web. I joined a couple of years ago, primarily as a learning experience. I was certain I was an HSP. Since joining I have been trying to sort out whether I fall into the intuitive sensitive category although according to Heidi, the fact that I am interested in this group is evidence that I do fall into that category.

You can talk yourself into pretty much anything, or out of anything. I know I did. You would think growing up in the 60’s in America would provide an opportunity for free expression without judgement. You would be wrong in most cases, certainly in mine. I knew from an early age, single digits, that I was different/there was something wrong with me. Without going into detail I spent a great deal of my time from that point trying to fit in. I effectively replaced everything I knew with what I thought I was supposed to know, how I was supposed to behave. It wasn’t a perfect fit, and I was still too often the correct answer in the odd one out round. I got around this by being a rock musician, so I could be different in a more acceptable way. And that worked for me for a few decades, even beyond the point of knowing making it in the music biz wasn’t going to work for me. So I got into technology and became a tech writer, translating engineeringese into English, and that’s been working for me for the better part of two decades.

But underneath all that was a feeling that would come and go that there was more to this life for me than just going through this mundane business of life. Every once in a while I would look into that part of me, but I just couldn’t sustain it. I had done too good a job of convincing myself that this wasn’t reality. It wasn’t popular reality, a concept I hadn’t really come to terms with yet. The support wasn’t there. Other people could do these things, but not me. At one point, I had a friend in college who was in tune, was born with the ability to see auras, and introduced me to Tarot. Then he ran off with the woman I thought was going to be my life partner, Move back three spaces, maybe more.

Anyway we were talking about this workshop with Heidi Sawyer. Heidi likes to get right in there and challenge people with their own emotional stuff in an effort to process it and work through it. Personally, I like that – it appeals to the “no pain no gain” cliché that seems to be a part of my makeup. I’ve been listening to the webinars for a while now, and from the start this workshop seems to have a similar format, so I know what to expect.

Or so I thought. The workshop culminated with an exercise that involved reading the energy of the total stranger next to you. I didn’t see that coming.

I have trust issues with my intuition, which is no doubt reinforced by the decades of conditioning I briefly touched on earlier. Sure, I can do readings using cards, express what I feel when asked. I can read people I know, and even people I don’t, but generally keep it to myself, therefore never having to empirically test how accurate the information is. This felt like being thrown into the deep end. I wasn’t even supposed to face the person, just pick up on their energy sitting side by side and describe it to them in a room full of people.

For a few seconds, part of my brain was doing a monologue that went something like “AIYEEAIYEEIAYEE!!!” One person actually did get up and leave the room. I could not bring myself to do that. Truthfully, I did not know what I was going to do. Then Heidi said “begin”.

I won’t go into detail. I will tell you that, after a brief pause, reluctantly, hesitantly, I began describing what I felt. Performing this exercise was scary, but I did not embarrass myself, much to my own surprise and relief.

In the RWS deck, the Fool stands at a precipice seemingly unaware of the tremendous fall he could potentially take. It’s a card that can signify the beginning of a journey, or a new phase in your life. It can indicate an act of spontaneity. It can represent a leap of faith.

In this story, the leap of faith may have had a boot planted in its backside to get me to accept and appreciate that, yes, I really have come this far. In the end it was still a leap of faith with some “forced” spontaneity, if that isn’t an oxymoron. As for the journey, perhaps it begins with the question “what’s next”?

The Daily Draw: Five of Cups, Reversed

Let Go. No, Really, Let Go. Enough Already, Let Go

The RWS five of cups shows somebody dwelling on what they’ve lost and completely ignoring what they still have. As we know, life is full of loss. It’s also full of gain. In order to make way for new and different things in your life, you need to make space by losing some of the old ones.

But this being life, loss and gain isn’t always a neat, linear process and the things you lose aren’t always junk and clutter. Sometimes they are quite dear to us: Jobs, prestige, friends, money, family members, and homes for example. Sometimes losing these things can really suck in a three of swords kind of way, but experiencing pain is part of the overall life experience package. As much as we could all do without it, we have to, perhaps begrudgingly, admit that we would not have the same opportunities for growth without that pain.

Emotions are great teachers. Much of the richness of life comes from processing emotions, letting them run through us. Even the harshest emotions may have their way with us for a time, but eventually dissipate and become a memory, leaving behind a life lesson or two.

But what happens when you get stuck dwelling on what you lost? What do you see if you are focused on the closed door instead of the open one? “Not much” is the answer to both those questions. There’s no going back, and you can’t see a path forward because you’re looking in the wrong direction. You don’t have to forget or disrespect the past to move on, but focussing solely on loss, on the backwards path, means there is no opportunity for growth and no opportunity for healing. You are effectively stuck.

A person can get so focussed on their loss that it becomes their entire world. Years can go by, even the remainder of a lifetime. We feel compassion for someone going through the grieving process, but sometimes well-intended compassion can be an enabler of the continuation of that process. A person can become stuck being comforted in the safe, familiar environment of their grief and therefore stuck in the past, unable to move on, not wanting to acknowledge any positives. This is not a healthy place to be emotionally, physically, or spiritually (hence the reversal of the card).

Ideally grief is processed and a person moves on. Sometimes people need assistance to see that life isn’t over. We want to be compassionate about that assistance, but we need to find the line between facilitating healing and enabling stagnation. Sometimes you actually have to pick someone up and spin them around (emotionally and/or mentally speaking) to at least show them that there is a forward path, should they chose to walk it.

The Daily Draw: The Emperor, Reversed

Listen to Your Daddy

The Emperor is primarily concerned with rules and regulations, and discipline. We consider these to be masculine traits, but as usual we shouldn’t get hung up on the sex of the person exhibiting these traits—it could be anyone. It’s really just a way to help us earth walkers to file the information.

I’m going to focus on the discipline part today. Giving up cigarettes (again) this week , as you might guess, has resulted in my daily draws reflecting what is going on in my life. “Well, duh” I hear you say. True, but my intention is to do a reading that will be of benefit to all reading these posts. Yet sometimes strong forces sway the energies one way or t’other. If you haven’t tried it, cigarette withdrawal is a pretty strong force.

It kind of gives me the opportunity to discuss the occasional dichotomy of what we want to do vs. what we should do. In a perfect world these would be the same thing, but in a dualistic, or even pantheistic world what we should do and what we want to do can sometimes pull us in mutually exclusive directions.

Sometimes the things we want really aren’t all that good for us. This could be for monetary reasons, like maxing out your credit card filling your bathtub with caviar and champagne when you’re on minimum wage. It could be for health reasons, such as wanting to climb the Empire State Building radio tower to take a selfie despite the fact that you don’t have enough of a sense of balance to stand erect on a skateboard. Sometimes it is for reasons of integrity and self-preservation, like wanting to run naked through the streets in the summer evening rain despite the fact that you might catch a cold doing so. Oh, and perhaps have your reputation diminished by the gossiping neighbourhood watch. I’m also pretty sure I’m performing a public service by refraining from doing that last one.

Sometimes we need to listen to the logical part of our brain even when we really don’t want to, which may have something to do with why this card is reversed for me this morning. It is often easier to do the right thing for others, and then do the easier thing for yourself. In this case, the easy thing would be to keep smoking the fags, the right thing would be to ride out the withdrawal symptoms. To that end, it would be useful to augment the Emperor with the willpower of the chariot. But mainly, it’s time to listen to daddy, speaking archetypically.

The Daily Draw: Two of Cups, Reversed

Try a Little Tenderness

The primary energy of the two of cups is emotional connection. The connection people feel in a strong, loving relationship is an obvious example, as the RWS card depicts it. It could just as easily be a connection between friends, colleagues, even groups of people depending on the context. But today let’s go with that first example.

Now let’s turn it upside down. What I’m getting from this today is not a block on this card’s energy so much as a hurdle, with maybe the implication that this energy isn’t as strong as it might be, which is another common interpretation of a card’s energy when in the reversed state . What could this mean?

My partner and I have chosen today to both give up smoking. Do I need to say more about the reversed Two of Cups in our lives today? Actually I’m OK. Quitting is easy – I’ve done it dozens of times. The trick is staying off them, but I can probably get through the worst of the first few days barring unforeseen disasters and stress.

My darling is not so used to quitting as I, but she is determined. And she is expecting it the process to be relatively unpleasant. I hope not, but I know how these things go. For a few days little irritations might turn into GREAT BIG IRRITATIONS, and it could be cloudy with a chance of sparks through the week. Plus we have a number of small children holding us hostage and making different demands simultaneously, did I mention that?

So the two of cups reversed, for me, yes, is their might be a little strain on the relationship right now, but it’s still intact. It just might be a little rough around the edges for a while. It is also suggesting that I should do my best to prevent it getting too rough – be patient, kind, understanding, and supportive –things one might not feel like doing when one is going through nicotine withdrawal themselves.

Sometimes you have to put effort into a relationship, even if you don’t particularly feel like it at the time (unless you’re satisfied with disposable relationships). It’s important to be able to get through the harsh times together. It strengthens the bond and makes the good times even more enjoyable.

The Daily Draw: Justice, Reversed

Life Isn’t Fair

“Life isn’t fair.” How often have you heard that? The fact is, no matter what eventual checks and balances Karma has going for it, in the short term it can often be the case that people are treated unfairly or taken advantage of by those who seek an advantage in doing so whether for monetary gain, prestige, notoriety, or just because they’re narcissistic. There isn’t always a clear, logical cause and effect to why you would be on the receiving end of an injustice. As Alfred said to his employer in “The Dark Knight”, “Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

You don’t have to look far to see injustice. In New York a woman sues her 12 year old nephew, who’s mother died last year, for breaking her wrist with a hug. Before you judge her, it’s likely that she was forced into this course of action by an insurance company who would not process her medical claim until she pursued the lawsuit, This theory was supported by a person who commented on the story, saying that his brother had to sue their mother for a similar reason.

In America people line up on two sides of an artificial barrier to hurl abuse at each other over politics, guns, welfare, illegal immigration, minimum wage, last year’s Superbowl, etc. Much of this is fuelled by Facebook memes which are either blatant lies that can be disproven with one minute’s worth of research, or extreme opinions representing either the right or the left that seem to beg for an aggressive response. If you dig deeply enough, you’ll find that much of this divisiveness is fuelled by various member of the 1% who are practicing the winning tactic of divide and conquer – keep the common people fighting against each other and they won’t notice how what remains of their money is being funnelled up through various acts of wall-street /banking larceny.

Seemingly Incessant wars continue in various countries. In order to survive people have to flee to other countries such as Ireland, where I live. Many people do not want those refugees, some because they just don’t, but many because we already have homeless people who are sleeping on the street, who will still be on the street when we house the refugees. Meanwhile we are making more people homeless with each passing day, while tens of thousands of homes go unoccupied for a number of reasons. Of course, none of the people I’m referring to can begin to afford to buy or rent those homes at today’s market prices, which is how many of them came to be homeless.

This is the world we live in. We may not have created it, but we have inherited it. We are responsible for it even though we deserve better. It’s up to us to stop the momentum of this moral disintegration and come up with something better. That is an overwhelming proposition, but simply blaming “them” is an exercise in futility.

You might not be able to change the world, but you can change your corner of it, and those changes will ripple out. What changes are you willing to make?

The Daily Draw: Six of Swords

Don’t fear the Postman

In the RWS tarot deck, the Six of Swords depicts a family making a trip across water to new land. They are moving away from turbulence into calmer waters. While this can imply a journey from one geographical location to another, it is even more likely that it is a journey of the heart, mind and/or spirit from a troubled time or situations into more peaceful one.

I’ve been feeling kind of funky over the last few days. This is partly due to having a cold /flu ailment, and partly because there was a lot of harsh energy around yesterday’s new moon, which I felt coming on most of the weekend. It brought up a fair bit of “negative” emotion, and a little energy went into managing that emotion. Just because you have a feeling doesn’t mean you have to act on it. Yes, I know that’s easier said than done, but it’s the truth.

Instead of unleashing negative emotions like a snarling tiger, I find it more useful to breathe through them and process them internally. They will come and, if you let them pass through, they will go, leaving you free to feel something a bit more pleasant. But you do have to let yourself feel those emotions, acknowledge them, process them, let them deliver their message and move on.

I say “negative” emotions, to get the idea across, but they are not actually negative, they are what they are – anger, sadness, frustration, stress, etc. We sometimes think of these as being “bad” emotions, but that makes as much sense as demonizing the postman because he puts bills in the letter box. No matter how much you judge the postman, the bills will still come. And if you don’t pay the bills, they will begin to multiply.

That’s not such a bad analogy for emotions. Judging them doesn’t make them stop. It often has the opposite effect and multiplies the impact – now you have something else to feel bad about. If you ignore them they don’t go away. They just keep coming at regular intervals, increasing their efforts to get your attention, maybe bringing reinforcements with them. So now you have even more to deal with. Eventually the final bill comes due, so to speak, and you haven’t got it in you to pay up.

Emotions, all emotions, are delivering messages to you. If you are happy, for example, you are being told that right here, right now, life is good and all is well. If you are feeling frustrated, you are being told that something is not working and needs to be dealt with. That’s actually a good thing, getting that information.

What happens next depends on whether you have emotions or they have you. What I mean is, do you let your emotions drag you on whatever theme park roller coaster they are in the humour for, or can you say to yourself “Hang on. This is what I feel, let’s stop and look at what it means”. And your emotions may be tugging at you like small, wilful children, but you don’t have to give in. They’re your emotions. Feel them, listen to them, respect them, find out what they want and what their needs are. You don’t have to join in with their tantrums. Give yourself a time out if needed.

This won’t stop you having those emotions, but the more you practice this, the more quickly they will leave you in peace.

The Daily Draw: Nine of Cups

Be Selfish

Some of us spend so much of our time working for, being responsible for, or just plain looking out for others that we find ourselves with little time to spend on doing something we want, and little energy with which to do it when we do get a moment. That really won’t do.

I believe that if you can’t take care of yourself you can’t really take care of anybody else. Sure, maybe you can do it for a while, but eventually the batteries run out in even the brightest Eveready bunny if you don’t find a way to recharge them from time to time. When they do, all that follows is DRUDGERY.

You want to indulge yourself. You NEED to indulge yourself, to do something that makes you feel alive, something that makes the endorphins flow, something that puts a smile on your face, a glow in your heart or a tingle in your body, preferentially all three at once.

The Nine of Cups is all about self-indulgence, getting what you want, and feeling oh so good about it. And why not? There’s enough opportunity in life to feel the opposite of what this card’s energy offers. Take it and run, for who knows what tomorrow will be like.

The Daily Draw: Three of Wands, Reversed

Shifting Forward

Mercury goes direct today. The little grey cells will start working better now. It will be a time for getting out and starting a new (ad)venture you’ve been putting off. However, the time around when a planet shifts gears can be a bit discombobulating as well, so don’t feel like you have to rush off just yet. Besides, it’s the weekend.

Heading into something new is great. It’s also great to have a clear idea and intention about where you’re going. You don’t need to know the details, but it’s nice to have a sense of direction. Otherwise you’re just wandering. And there’s nothing wrong with that, unless you’re actually trying to go somewhere.

The guy on the reversed Three of Wands doesn’t quite seem to what he’s doing or where he’s going. I know that feeling, and it can be caused for a variety of reasons – lack of focus, self-doubt, non-specific intentions. These things can make you second guess yourself, make you reluctant to move forward, and eat in to your concentration.

It can help to write down your ideas for a plan of action. The writing process, (and the reading back process) can help you focus your thoughts. If it seems a bit scattered or vague when you read it back, then it’s a good chance to gain some clarity by doing a bit of editing.

After that, the important thing is to get started. Take one step, then another. Waiting for the right moment can be good for timing, but it can be bad for inertia. Fortunately, momentum builds up once you start moving. Like Mercury, you might have to shift gears, and give yourself a bit of a push in the right direction.

The Daily Draw: Page of Cups, Reversed

Intuition 101

I’ll let you in on a secret – sometimes in these blog posts, not even I know what I’m on about until I read it myself. Now that I’ve written this one, I can see I’m mostly speaking to those of you who feel, blocked, frustrated or otherwise diminished in your intuitive abilities. For me, reversed cards often show up as blockages in that cards energy. Foremost in my mind today are the aspects of the Page of Cups that have to do with intuition and emotional intelligence.

In college I had an English professor who would, on occasion, speak in such a way that his words are still with me nearly 40 years later. For example, one day upon reviewing my creative writing assignment, he said to me, “There’s nothing wrong with writing about the truth, but in order to do it you have to lie like a bastard.” I nodded, but it was years before I really began to understand what he was talking about. For starters, truth is a lot more subjective than most people realize – a lot of it depends on perspective and point of view. Then there is the fact that something that might illicit an emotional response from you might illicit a yawn from someone else, which is one reason a writer might try to impart an underlying truth or an emotional truth about a situation or event by, shall we say, liberally dramatizing that situation or event beyond the actual “facts”. For example, when a filmmaker tries to express what a legendary historical figure Abraham Lincoln was by portraying him as a fearless vampire hunter. OK, that might not be the best example. In most cases the tweaking is a little more subtle, but the point is to get the “truth” across without getting bogged down in relatively insignificant details.

Another thing I remember my English professor saying is “There are people who want to do things, then there are people who want to want to do things”. In this case he knew he was being enigmatic, so he explained himself. “People who want to do things go out and do them. People who want to want to do things sit around thinking about doing them, read about those things, plan them out doing them, try to figure how to fit doing those things into their lives, yet infrequently, if ever, get around to the actual doing part.” (I’m no doubt paraphrasing this. I don’t remember his exact words at this point. This would be part of that liberal dramatization I was referring to in the previous paragraph).

To put it another way, “Writers write”, which is Stephen King’s description of what makes someone a writer.

What on earth does all this have to do with an upside down fish in a cup?

Intuitives Intuit.

If you grew up in the latter half of the twentieth century like I did, chances are you grew up in an environment where the priority placed on emotional intelligence came in a distant also ran to academic intelligence, financial stability or being “normal”. How do you know you’re intuitive? For starters, you go through all that conditioning and you’re still interested in intuition.

But do you want to develop your intuition, or do you want to want to develop your intuition?

At the risk of sounding trite, anyone can practice intuition. Don’t believe me? Can you listen? Can you use your imagination? Can you be honest with yourself about how you feel and what you feel? Can you distinguish between what pops into your head unbidden and what gets there by following your train of thought? Hint: your own thoughts usually take the train.

I’m not asking whether you do these things now, I’m asking whether you can do them. When you break it down, it sounds more like a manageable process than something that comes out of a magic Kinder egg given to only a few. And of course some people are given some wonderful Kinder eggs, but the rest of us quite capable of going to the shop and getting our own Kinder egg of some description (to push that analogy to breaking point)

I’m not going go on about process. There are plenty of resources for that. Of course, none of them will work for you unless you take on the doing the work. If it helps, treat it like a college course – take notes, do homework, attend lectures.

Observe and write down your experiences. Evaluate, but do not judge. Where others are in their development is unimportant. Take a cue from the young person on the card and play with the energy. Be patient and persistent, but don’t turn it into hard work.

In short, approach developing your intuition as you would any other skill you would like to acquire.

Now go and do.

The Daily Draw: Six of Swords, Reversed

For me, today, I see this card as representative of being emotionally stuck. One aspect of the Six of Swords is a movement away from what was troubling you in the past to calmer waters (quite literally, looking at the RWS deck). That’s assuming you can get past the past, so to speak.

It is human nature to try to avoid pain, especially emotional pain. We can plunge very deep into denial in the process of that avoidance. If we experience the physical pain of sliding on the ice and falling flat on our backsides, there’s no denying the resulting aches and bruises. But that feeling pales next to the humiliation of the people around you having a right old laugh at your expense. You might feel hurt, emotionally, which is overshadowed by anger, but that anger may remain internalized because, hey, it’s no one’s fault you fell down so it wouldn’t be right to take it out on anyone else. Unexpressed anger turns to sadness. One day you realize you’re depressed and you don’t know why.

Of course all that isn’t going to happen from one pratfall. Life is full of similar slips where maybe you fall, maybe you’re pushed, and maybe you never had the chance to get up in the first place. Sometimes I think the main focus of our life’s work is to try to resolve all the issues that were dumped on us in our developmental years. Some of us grow up in environments that support emotional development and resolution. Some of us find those environments later in life, when the time is right. And some of us are pretty much left to figure these things out for ourselves. In every case it’s up to the individual to come to terms with their own emotions, how to live in harmony with them, and what there is to learn from them. Even with the best guidance, you still have to do the work.

In order to get past sorrow, anger, frustration, anxiety, the emotions we see as negative, or blockers to living a fuller, happier life, we first have to acknowledge those emotions, examine them in the light, really feel them, own them, and process them. Covering up emotions by repressing them works no better than covering up dirt by hiding it under the carpet. Sure, you can get away with it for a while, but eventually you are going to have a lump under the carpet the size of an Irish wolfhound, and it will keep tripping you up until you’re ready to clear it properly.