Reiki Flow

The Daily Draw: The Eight of Cups

We come into this life to experience it. We seek out the kind of experiences we desire. Sometimes they come easy, and sometimes we have to put in some effort to get where we want to go.

Think for example of the clichéd home-town hero football star and the cheerleader, king and queen of the prom, the anointed ones who elicited adoration, envy or both in everyone around them, the ones voted most likely to stay together, like, forever.

On the other hand, assume a classmate who is an acne-riddled geek with a nervous stutter gets none of this attention in high school. Maybe he gets recognized for his intelligence in college, but he still isn’t really successful on a social level. Then one day he’s tinkering in his parent’s garage and serendipitously creates a technological breakthrough. But he still he has to put in effort, working day and night for a couple of years, getting a few friends to help out with the promise of shares. Then suddenly one day his technological breakthrough is recognized as the NEXT BIG THING !!! Investors want to give him billions, his face is in every newspaper and magazine (the acne has cleared by now).

For the first time in his life he is popular. The man who couldn’t get a date to the prom now has women phoning him, beautiful, intelligent women. His social barometer goes from sub-arctic, where it’s been stuck since his youth, to muy caliente overnight. He suddenly finds himself standing on a penthouse terrace, Champaign in hand, a Hollywood starlet on his left shoulder, the most talented and sexiest neurosurgeon in the history of medicine on his right, his head in the stars and the world at his feet. It’s everything he ever dreamed of, and as he stands there drinking it all in he thinks…

“I’m bored now. What’s next?”

So he sells off his interest in the NEXT BIG THING, vacates his penthouse, kisses the women goodbye, books a five-star hotel in Tahiti (He’s keeping the money. He might seem crazy, but he’s not stupid) where he can contemplate life for a while and think about where it might take him next. Or, more accurately, where he might take his life because one thing he’s learned in his time here is that it’s up to him to make his life whatever it is going to be. He learned in high school that, like most people, only the rare few get to have a charmed life where they, as a natural matter of course, get to be King and Queen of the prom without having to work for any of it.

He checks in, wanders down to the poolside bar, and orders an umbrella drink. The bartender looks familiar – they’re about the same age. He strikes up a conversation with the bartender and, after a few incorrect guesses, realizes this is the guy. He’s the football star, the prom king, the anointed one. “What happened?” he asks the bartender.

“Eh, I don’t know. Once I graduated life just seemed to be over. There was no excitement. One day I was getting all-state football awards and the next I was working in my father’s used car lot, with 40 or so years to go. Debra (A.K.A. prom queen) and I soon got bored with our lives and each other. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore. I packed my bags and just went, with no plan. Deb was already gone anyway, in her heart at least. I’m kind of working my way across the world now. It’s not dull anyway, there’s always something to see. Last I heard Deb was studying shamanism somewhere in Colorado “

In an epiphany (I’ll have one for him, in case he misses it) the bartender’s former classmate realizes he spent years of his life competing against an ideal that was an illusion. He is now a millionaire, the hometown hero of his youth is his bartender, and both of them are disillusioned with what they once considered success. He smiles ruefully and says, “Remember what I was like in high school”? The bartender doesn’t. Why would he? He was a football star and this guy was just another acne-riddled geek. Oh well.

What can we learn from this story?

We come into this life to experience it. We seek and strive for the experiences we desire. We have those experiences and we may enjoy them a great deal. We become familiar with them, they become routine and we start to get bored. I don’t care if Joe the bin collector or Batman (the good one with Christian Bale). If you do the same thing the same way over and over again, day in day out, you are going to get fed up.

This is not to say that you should all ditch your lives every few years with no consideration for anyone else. But there are many ways to change, externally and internally, moving deeper as opposed to moving further away. Even small changes can keep life fresh for you, help you grow, and keep you from stagnating. When you try to avoid change you are really cutting yourself off from life, because life is change and there is always movement. There is always something to be released and something to be embraced. Something to leave and somewhere to go, even if it’s only on the scale of a new book or a new barber, moving house to a better location, moving your mind from couch potato status to a night course. Like a shark, movement is required to truly stay alive. It’s only natural.

The Daily Draw: Seven of Pentacles

Sometimes you can get so focused on a project that you can forget to poke your head up and see where you are. Are you making progress or were you spending time and energy getting virtually nowhere? No matter how much you enjoy the process (and that’s a good thing) you do need to review where you are from time to time in order to be able to sustain that process. You might be the best widget manufacturer in town, but if no one knows you’re making widgets, or you’re selling them for half what it costs in raw material and labour, then you’re not going to continue making widgets for long even if you are the undisputed king of the widget makers in the free world.

So the Seven of Pentacles is where we look up and say, “Oh, I really can make widgets. I haven’t been just fooling myself while filling in time.” Any venture is still going to be in its early days, but you might now be making a profit and capable of supporting yourself. That doesn’t mean you can sell of the widget factory and move to a tropical island, but you may at least be solvent.

You might also notice how much of a slog it’s been to get this far, but don’t worry about that. In the past you may have had less realistic expectations about the effort required. Now those expectations are a bit tempered by experience.

On the other hand, you may now realize that this widget thing is not for you, and that’s OK to. Not everyone is cut out to make widgets. Or rainbows either, for that matter. To each their own, and in this case the Seven of Pentacles might be offering you the opportunity to say “Been there. Tried that. It’s not for me. What’s next”. One can have a tendency to feel like they have failed when that happens, but realize that you’ve just learned something important about yourself – what you don’t like. You can’t really call it failure when you can take something positive from the experience.

The Daily Draw: The Hanged Man

My three year old daughter sings a song that goes something like “We’re so busy buzzing bees”. I have this stuck in my head to the tune of the Sex Pistols “Pretty Vacant” (We’re so busy/Oh so busy/Busy buzzing bee-ees). If I sing it that way, it’s pointed out “that’s not right”. But to me the words are a natural fit to the Pistol’s frantic energy.

And aren’t we such busy buzzing bees? From space the world looks free and open. Down here on earth it’s a series of invisible tunnels, sometimes interconnecting, often not. You can see this effect especially in urban areas where there are multitudes milling around each other daily who recognize each other by sight but know each other not, not even to briefly nod to. And we are each hurtling through our own individual tunnel of our own design, careening past each other because we are so busy getting from one, activity, event and/or responsibility so that we can get to the next as though we were on some high speed orienteering track.

Of course that is oversimplification and generalization. Yet even though there we have more emphasis on holistic living and spiritual, emotional and physical harmony, there is still enough of this behaviour going on our modern western society that, if you can’t recognize this behaviour yourself, you can probably recognize it in people you know.

The Hanged Man is an enigmatic character to try to describe, but if I had to do it in one phrase, that phrase would probably be “Let it Go” (another song my daughter likes to sing – no surprise there).

The Hanged man invites us to slow down, stop, and get out of the straight-line-groove we’ve worn into our tunnels. Progress isn’t always made by continually ploughing ahead. Sometimes you have to stop and look around you. Are the things you are doing serving you? Does it feel like you’re making progress or running in place? If you’re winning, are you happy? Are you even going in the right direction?

Sometimes you have to press the pause button and take stock of your life. You may find that you’re fed up with the track you’re on or the one you’re listening too, but you’ve been so busy being busy you didn’t realize it. The Hanged Man asks “Why? What’s so important that you can’t let go, open up, be vulnerable, experience life instead of working it to death trying to maintain the status quo.

Depending on your circumstances, such a notion might show up to you as giving up or sacrificing what you have now for uncharted waters. You might even seem crazy to others, walking away from apparent success or accomplishment to do something completely different that seems out of character. The Hanged Man doesn’t really care what those others think. He wants you turn your world upside down, to get you to look at life from a new perspective and thereby get to know yourself and your life’s purpose better than you currently do.

The Daily Draw: Ace of Pentacles

When I see this card come up it’s very tempting to think, “Money! Money! Money!”, especially in these economic times. And the Ace of Pentacles can certainly be an indicator of prosperity, a successful phase in a new or current business venture, for example. But to focus solely on that aspect of this energy is to miss the bigger picture. Pentacles are the suit of the earth plane – the material, and the practical. They speak of security and connectedness to earth, including physical and tangible manifestations.

Being interested in spirituality I tend to spend a lot of time focussing on, guess what, spirituality. Readings I perform for myself, for example, tend to be more wands and water. Yet I still live in this world just like everybody else – go to work, grocery shop, get the kids to school, pay the bills, take out the trash, wash the dishes, etc., etc. – all the things that come with taking part in the “real” world. At times it can feel like I’m more in tune with my inner world than the external world. The material world can seem imperfect, difficult to navigate and in conflict with my beliefs and aspirations. Meditation is so peaceful.

Here’s the thing – we are here to experience life, and we create our own reality.

Everything in your external world is a reflection of your inner world – the things you believe, what you love, what you fear, any soul contracts you’ve made before you began this life, and any debris you’ve collected along the way. It all works together to build the world as you perceive it. If you’re not seeing the world as you want to see it, well, maybe it’s your perception and maybe you’ve spent more time contemplating the world than you have spent changing your part of it, probably both. I reckon that’s pretty common during the season when it’s cold, wet, and it gets dark too early.

Looking inward is all well and good, but the Ace of Pentacles suggests that it’s time to bring your inner world out for some fresh air, to create, to connect, to be a part of this world. We are here to experience life. If we weren’t, we could have all stayed home and spared ourselves the more painful aspects.

Spring is here. It may not look like it right now where you are, but that will soon change. It’s time to create, to grow, to manifest. Use the energy of this Ace to realize your dreams and desires and have an effect on the world around you, ideally making it a better place for yourself and those closest to you who you share it with.

Apparently this card came up earlier in the month, so if you’d like to read another day’s take on it, click here.

The Daily Draw: Ace of Swords

About three weeks ago this card came up reversed for this blog. At the time Mercury was retrograde. My main take-away from that was to be as clear as possible in your thinking and proceed with caution.

Now the card is upright, and people who know more about astrology than I tell me the stars are lining up for what one person has called “the best week of 2015 so far”. Assuming that, I’m going to say this is an excellent day for your little grey cells.

Whatever opportunities or obstacles come your way, the energy of the Ace of Swords will provide you with the clarity of thought to see the way forward and make easily decide which path to take. You can trust yourself to make those decisions. You won’t need to second guess later.

Not being omniscient, we can feel like that we don’t have all the information we want or need to be completely confident in our decision making process. In my own phraseology it’s a feeling that there is something I don’t know, but I don’t know what it is. Today is going to feel more like everything is out in the open, the curtain is pulled back, and the sky is clear.

In the event that you are on the receiving end, or are in the middle of some judgement, such as a salary or performance review (it is that time of year) or a job interview you’ll find that you are treated ethically and fairly. You will do well if you have earned it, or if you are the right person and this is the right situation.

If you don’t get what you think you want, know that there is a good reason and take steps to bring yourself more in tune with the frequency of receiving, such as poking your head out of your cubicle to see what other job options are available. I think Friday is still employment ad day in the Irish Times.

If you are the reviewer or interviewer, I trust you will be fair and ethical. Of course, you shouldn’t need a card for me to tell you that. That’s just simple physics – Newton’s law of what goes around comes around.

The Daily Draw: The Hierophant

The Hierophant is the card of group conformity. It can represent education, indoctrination into a belief system or culture, including company culture, or anything where there are a set of rules that group members need to abide by.

The energy of the Hierophant runs through our education systems. We are taught as a group. We are taught the same curriculum across many groups, so we receive a common knowledge base. How successful our education was is often based on how we performed compared to the rest of the group.

The energy of the Hierophant runs through our religious orders. Through them, we are taught our spirituality, how to pray, and why. We participate in common rituals, recite common verse and prayers, and develop a common sense of morality.

The energy of the Hierophant runs through society. We are taught what is acceptable behaviour and what isn’t, in the home and in public. We are given rules. We are sometimes rewarded for following those rules and may experience the consequences for not following the rules.

Of course, group conformity suits people to various degrees. Some people thrive in such a setting, so much so that they are reluctant to leave that structure, especially if they are reaping the rewards of being shining examples of such conformity. Then there are those who do not fit in so well. Some become disenfranchised and come to feel like outsiders and loners. Others are happy to go along with the group for a while, but start developing a growing awareness that the group belief system does not hold all the answers and they grow disillusioned.

As someone who fancies themselves a free thinker, it’s not my favourite card in the deck. On the other hand, I acknowledge that conformity and group systems are a necessity. Without them it is too easy for anarchy to become chaos. But too much reliance on them can make life stagnant and stunt personal growth.

How comfortable someone is in conforming to the group is likely to have an impact on how quickly they progress to examining their own beliefs and values, as illustrated by the next card, the Lovers. The Hierophant gives you a foundation, the Lovers lets you carry this to the next level of self-discovery where you may have a strong desire to throw out the rule book. To do that, of course, you first need a rule book to throw away.

Since things tend to go in spirals, you may have more encounters with the hierophant, this time in smaller groups with more similar, specialized beliefs, and preferably with respect and appreciation for each other’s individuality.

The Daily Draw: Ten of Wands

Much of the writing I’ve seen about this card focuses on the negative, but to me this is kind of a good news, bad news card. The good news is you’re being effective, you’re able to carry your own weight (and then some), you’re making progress, you’re somehow managing with everything you take on. The bad news is you take on too much, you’re struggling to maintain, either no one is helping you or you won’t let them help, and as a result you’re being run into the ground.

On the RWS deck it’s obvious the person on this card is hunched over under the weight of a great burden. What might not be so obvious is that he was once standing upright, probably with fewer burdens, and he’s apparently travelled some distance to get this far.

I used to work for a company where the COO once confided to me, “if you want to get something done, ask someone who is busy,” the rationale, I think, being that busy people get things done, whereas people who take life at a slower pace will get around to it eventually. That’s great and all, but it leads to dumping on capable people until they become incapable, especially if they have a hard time saying “no”.

We are taught from an early age that “no” is a bad word. What child hasn’t heard a parent say, “don’t say no to me”? And it’s usually said in a tone of voice that most children will change their behaviour to avoid. The theme is reinforced in school, any organized activity and even in peer groups. Hands up anyone who hasn’t done something stupid, wrong or both at least once just because their friends were doing it. No, I didn’t think so.

By the time we become adults we are conditioned to not say no, or at least feel uncomfortable and guilty when we do, even when it comes to disciplining children (which probably explains a lot and is a conversation for another day). Sometimes it seems the better one gets at not saying no, the more outrageous and overwhelming the requests for assistance become. This is most likely how the person in the Ten of Wands came to be carrying that load.

There are always going to be the core responsibilities of existence – providing your family with a place to live, food, clothing, support, guidance and supervision for the young. And those responsibilities, on their own, can be too much to carry for many people in these economic times.

That brings us to something else most of us seem to have an issue with: asking for help. Think of it as active receiving, and start practising. If you hear no, ask somebody else. I know, I have to train myself better in this too, but I have seen it work in everything from school bake sales to government rent subsidies. Those of you above a certain age will know this as the squeaky wheel getting the grease.

If you are coping with the core responsibilities, perhaps even seen as thriving, then all the more reason to become at peace with using the power of no. Having a large family, and wanting to help people when I can, I get little enough opportunity for me time. That’s why I make gosh darned sure I get what I can of it. We all have to take care of ourselves. We all have our limits. We all have to recharge our batteries. If you can’t take care of yourself, you really can’t take care of anyone else.

The Daily Draw: King of Swords

I‘ve drawn this card from time since I started my most recent technical documentation position nearly three years ago, and each time it signalled the start of a period where I was able to make great progress.

My day job involves writing customer documentation about in-development products that are either designed to perform a new function or to perform an existing function in a new way. Documentation is released the day the product is completed, which means I’m trying to explain what it does and how it works while people are still determining what it does and tinkering with how it works. Change much? You bet. Sometimes at work I tell people I’m writing speculative fiction. They get it.

So when I see this card, especially less than halfway through a project as I am at the moment, I have a welcome sense of confidence that anything new I write or any major changes I make will, to a large extent, be something that will remain solid at the end of the development process.

“That’s very nice and all, but how does this apply to my life?” you may be asking yourself. Well, let’s look at the qualities possessed by the King of Swords.

Being a sword card, this king is more right-brained than left brained. He doesn’t let emotions cloud his judgement. So, for example, he’s able to look at a situation objectively while putting aside any emotions he might have about how the situation affects him directly, such as when he has to toss out umpteen pages of material he’s already written, to pick a random example.

The king of Swords is able to take a problem and treat it as an abstract puzzle, which he thoroughly enjoys. He probably unwinds by doing a couple of Sudoku puzzles. He’s able to look at the problem from a variety of angles, analyse the situation, and make the best determination that is most fair to everyone. He can apply that skill to plan a driving route for a family trip that has the quickest route with the most rest stops, and he can apply it to interpersonal conflicts where a crucial decision needs to be made but everyone seems to have a valid point of view. You can count on this king to be fair and ethical in such matters.

There are times when even the most emotional of us need to be able to think clearly, detach emotionally, and make important decisions objectively. When that time comes, draw on the qualities of the king of swords.

The Daily Draw: Nine of Swords, Reversed

I could start off with an examination of what we mean by “positive” and “negative” emotions and whether emotions deserve such labels, but I’m going to skip that abstract PC conversation and cut straight to the chase. I’m pretty sure that if I say “negative emotions”, most people are going to be in the ballpark of what I mean. And the Nine of Swords is all about negative emotions such as worry, guilt, fear and anxiety.

Even though this card came up reversed for me today, the more I considered it the more I came to believe that, for me anyway, there’s little of import in the difference. In the context of a reading the client and the surrounding cards would have more impact on the meaning than whether the swords were going up or down, although reversed could indicate that there is actually something to be worried about. Then again, that depends on context.

Either way the Nine of Swords represents the energy of emotional turmoil. And in a case where something troubling shows up the question is not “what’s going to happen” so much as it is “what are you going to do about it”?

Regardless of whether you’re paranoid or whether they really are out to get you, negative emotions usually contribute nothing worthwhile to a situation. They merely get in the way when what you really need is a clear head with which to think and a clear heart with which to feel your way through.

Quite often, negative emotions are like little sensors that go off when we get too close to the ego’s outer boundaries. They are the ego’s way of saying, “hey! I’m who you are. I’m what’s real, not this other mumbo jumbo. Stick with me kid and I’ll keep you safe in the familiar, no matter how painful or dull, and I’ll make you suspicious and afraid of everything else.” Let’s face it, if listening to your ego was enough for you, you wouldn’t be reading this.

We need a way to release these negative emotions. To truly be able to let go of them you need to work through them. Ignoring them does not make them go away any more than literally sweeping dirt under the carpet makes the dirt go away. You might start with a small, not even noticeable lump under the rug, but eventually you wind up with a small mountain of debris that starts popping out in unexpected, weird and not necessarily wonderful ways. Emotions are no different.

Let’s say you feel worried, for example. Although it might be unpleasant to do so, when you allow your body to feel and acknowledge that emotion for what it is (as opposed to dwelling on what you associate it with), it will work its way out of your body, and you will relax from it. You might still have to deal with the issue that worried you, but now you’re emotionally better able to deal with it. Or you might learn that the worry had more to do with your perception or what pushes your buttons instead of something that needs to be addressed outside yourself.

On the other hand, if you allow your worry to go unchecked, and you keep fuelling it by dwelling on the person or scenario you associate it with, the worry will continue to run you down while drawing other negative emotions to it like a snowball hurtling down a ski slope. You might pick up anger and guilt for example. You might even move into depression. Instead of processing your emotions you’ve built an abominable snow-person. This is a completely ineffective way to accomplish anything except self-sabotage.

I know that some of you are saying “My emotions are what they are, you’re mad thinking I can change them.” Sure, I’ve said it myself. But I’m not asking you to change them. I’m inviting you to try dealing with them differently. Everyone gets angry. Everyone has anxiety from time to time. The difference is in how you deal with it.

Here’s something that works for me: The next time you feel one of those negative emotions come on you, sit down and let yourself feel it. Don’t do anything, don’t speak, just feel. Now, where do you feel it in your body? Heart? Head? Solar plexus? If you look you will find it in a physical location in your body. Have you got it? Now, simply feel it. Let yourself experience it. You might want to take your hands and place them over that part of your body. If you want, you can ask what that feeling is trying to communicate to you. It’s OK if you don’t get an obvious answer. Let yourself keep feeling that emotion in your body. As you do, in a short while, that feeling should dissipate and you will feel at peace with it. You’ve acknowledged, worked through and processed the emotion.

If you want additional assistance, Reiki is very useful for releasing built up negative emotions that you might be carrying around with you.

Repeat as necessary.

The Daily Draw: The Lovers

Well, this looks a lot more promising for lovers than yesterday’s draw (Two of Cups, reversed). In fact, could we get more literal? Where the Two of Cups represents a mutual attraction and connection, The Lovers speaks of a relationship where there is a deep, spiritual connection. We’re talking the full chakric scale here.

With the week that’s in it, of course I’m focused on romantic relationships between two people, but with the Lovers that doesn’t necessarily need to be the case. We could be talking about any deep, significant relationship.

The phrase “Know Thyself” is heard and seen so often it nearly trivializes the important part it plays in one’s coming to awareness. Pretty much anyone on any kind of a spiritual path is striving to understand themselves – who they are, what they believe, what their principles and values really are as opposed to what we are told they should be.

The Hierophant, which comes directly before The Lovers, is all about being indoctrinated into society by such shared experiences as education and religion. This is where the rule book gets handed down. With the Lovers, we put down the rule book and start to look within ourselves for answers instead of having them handed to us, unquestioned. For the most part, we don’t quite “throw out the rule book” as much as we might think, but we do start to determine which ones serve us, which ones don’t, and which ones were designed to serve others by instructing us to behave a certain, convenient, conformist way. Then of course we have to deprogram ourselves, but that sounds like a conversation for another day.

As part of this self-awareness, we come to acknowledge and respect our feelings in a much more significant way than when the Hierophant was in charge. This, in turn, has a profound impact on how we relate to others. We become more aware of who we want to spend time with and who we don’t. Not how people make us feel, but how we feel when we are around certain people, how we resonate with them.

Naturally, the person or people you feel really good around are the ones to which you feel the most connected. And through those relationships you come to practice and examine your beliefs and values even more, as do the people who feel connected to you. You might even say it’s an inter-relational ascension system. And whad’ya know? On the card in the RWS deck, the masculine figure is looking to the feminine figure who is looking to an archangel, all connected in love.