Month: September 2019

Wear Waders and Keep Climbing

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Today’s meditation was ten minutes and twenty two seconds long, and dealt with healing from shame.

I want to say that the only time  ideal with shame is the kind that comes during my ultra vulnerable moments of the drop, but that’s not entirely true I don’t think.  This is because the meditation today made me wonder if that feeling that I describe as “discomfort” that I still experience concerning the scar on my face isn’t, in fact, shame.

Muffled shame.  Partially healed shame.   But still…. shame.

I’m not entirely sure, to be honest.  But this is the second time in as many months that I’ve wondered this, and so I think it’s something to consider.

I do not agree with the quote given in today’s guided meditation, though.  I do not thin that sharing your shame with a sympathetic and empathetic ear will miraculously make it disappear.  Shame, especially that caused by trauma, just doesn’t heal up that quickly or that easily.  At least, not in my experience.

Today’s draw is the Page of Flame, which is a representation of an receptive omega energy in the area of one’s passions, drive, ambitions, willpower, and inner spark.  This is a card of learning and development, and often comes up in relation to the spark of inspiration, the limitlessness of potential in a person or situation, and sometimes the unnecessary limits we put upon those people or situations.

In my mind, I always see the Page of Wands (Page of Flame in this deck) as a boy with a huge and infectious smile standing proud on a hilltop with a bonfire behind him and sparks flying up into the air around him in all directions.  I’m pretty sure this isn’t from any deck I’ve seen but is, instead, simply my own mental image of that card’s energy.

That said?  I think this deck’s card is a spectacular representation as well.   In this card I see the transformative power of life and positivity.  The caterpillar, the chrysalises, the butterflies in his hair.  The new buds of growing rack reaching up from the top of his head.  The lush carpet of new green sprouts.   All of it speaks to me of a time of newness, transformation, and growth.

I’ve been feeling my inner self trying to shut down and shut itself in over the past few days.  That vulnerable space is starting to get to me.  Perhaps too many drops too close together?   This card points out very clearly that shutting down is happening, and encourages me to keep up the good fight and not to let myself sink into the suck of the mud and muck.

Deck Used: Stolen Child Tarot

 

Unpacking the Chest

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Today’s meditation was twenty-five minutes long, and was not a guided meditation.  Instead, I did a retreat into my “mental safe place” for a time.   I will do a post about this in the future to fully describe it for you.

Essentially, though, what this meditation entails is immersing yourself into a daydream.  Specifically, a daydream that you use to find peace and calm.  Your personal paradise, to be exact.      You then spend the time exploring this place, including touching in with all of your senses in the process.

Today’s draw was (instead of IS, because it’s now the very end of the day today) the King of Brine (aka the King of Cups).  This card is traditionally a representation of a projective alpha energy, personality, or person in the area of emotions, creativity, relationships, and intuition.  It follows along the themes of authority, as all the kings do, but in the flavor of diplomacy and emotional balance. Among other things, it can also indicate a time of inner work on the self or that emotional manipulations are afoot.

When I looked at this King of Cups card this morning, what stuck out to me was the baby crocodiles and the delicate shells tucked in the upper and lower corner.  When you think of the crocodile, thoughts of tenderness and nurturing are not usually a part of that equation.  And yet what you see here is delicateness that is existing alongside the “brute” of the full grown croc.

Like most King of Cups cards, the representation in this King of Brine card makes me think of you.  Your power  and your dominant nature, and the tenderness underneath that allows for me to learn and grow in the area where my knowledge and experience is at my weakest… my emotions.

I met you when I was just 19 and when most are just starting out at life.  I’d already been on my own for just over three years and was very much getting my ducks in a row.  But I was emotionally stunted, as I spent the majority of my life closing myself off to my deeper emotions.  You held the key that opened that box I had buried so deeply.

I did not understand the depth of this card when I saw it this morning.  But since then, I’ve done a reading that clarified it much better.  I will include a summary of that reading at the bottom of this post, but suffice to say that the appearance of the King of Brine today is a reminder that your support is there for me whenever I need it, no matter the depth of that need.

The Reading:

I did the #TarotForGrowthSeptember prompt from Instagram.

Question: Where may it be beneficial for me to ask for help?

Reading Summary: There was once a very hard working man that thought he knew everything, but he really still has much to learn in the area of his emotions.

Take Away: This is pretty much the story of me when I met you. I worked hard, and I thought I had everything worked out and under control. Then you arrived and showed me that there was an entire aspect of myself that I’d buried and ignored. Eleven and a half years later, and I’m still unpacking that chest I’d once buried so deeply… and I still need your help to work through it all.

With the series of drops that I’ve been going through lately, and the family matters that are coming up at the end of the month, I’m sure I am very much going to need help emotionally in working through what comes up and learning how to deal with it and balance it all into the rest of my life.

Decks Used: Stolen Child Tarot, Morgan Greer Tarot

 

#11ParanormalQuestions (non) VR to Amethyst Ascension

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Another quiz!  Cuz you know how much I like quizzes.  This one is from Amethyst Ascension on YouTube, who answered these questions herself in a live.

1. Do you believe in Aliens?

Yes.  Do I think they are humanoid?  Probably not.  I feel like statistically, there is no possible way there isn’t other life out there.  It may not be  sentient, or maybe it is.  It may not be humanoid, or maybe it is.  It may not be recognizable to US as “life”… but I absolutely do believe there is alien life out there in the universe.

2. Do you recall a past life?

I do not.  I have also never done a past life regression.

3. Do you believe in Mermaids?

I believe in the possibility of mermaids. More than eighty percent of our oceans are unmapped, unobserved, and unexplored.  I feel there is a huge possibility for a great many things lingering out there in the deep beyond our reach.

4. Do you believe in Bigfoot?

Like mermaids, I believe in the possibility of the existence of the Sasquatch. There’s still plenty of places on earth to hide, and for something the size of a man (or perhaps a bit larger?)  That’s a lot of room to roam without being observed.

5. Do you believe in Ghosts?

Absolutely.  I believe in reincarnation, and I believe that sometimes a soul lingers before it continues on into the next cycle.  I believe, also, that sometimes for whatever reason the soul can linger too long and end up stuck.

6. Do you believe in Vampires?

In the Bram Stoker / Anita Blake / Sookie Stackhouse sense?  Not really, no.   I am open to the possibility, though.  IF they exist, I would not be surprised to discover that they are some breed or another of the Fae.

7. Have you ever astral traveled that you remember?

Only in my room looking down upon myself.

8. Have you ever had sleep paralysis?

No.  Never.

9. Do you have any of the 8 psychic Clairs?

Yes, I have a touch of all eight.   I believe that everyone has a touch of all eight, it’s just that the volume is turned up for each of them to different levels in each individual.

For me, clairsentience is the strongest.  That said, I am also an auditory –> tactile/olfactory/gustatory synesthete.  This means that there are a lot of crossed wires in my brain where my hearing is concerned.  Sometimes the resulting experiences can be confused with some of the 8 psychic clairs.

10. Have you ever had a paranormal experience?

Define paranormal?  I’m really not sure how to answer this question, as I don’t really consider ghosts or the psychic clairs, or any of that to be “paranormal”.  Then again…

Comes back after looking up the definition of “Paranormal”, which is defined as… “denoting events or phenomena such as telekinesis or clairvoyance that are beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding”.

Under that definition?  Absolutely.  Many, many times.

11. Have you ever been abducted or contacted by aliens?

Not that I’m aware of.

I could have SWORN she’d also asked about Unicorns, although maybe that was only mentioned in the chat?  Anyway, I’ll answer that one too…

Bonus Question – Do you believe in Unicorns and the Fae?

The Fae…. 100% yes.  I do.  I do not believe that they are all pretty pixie-looking humanoids with gossamer butterfly wings, but I do absolutely believe in the Fae.  I can’t really say why or how I became so certain, but I have no doubt.

Unicorns…. I am of two minds on this one, although, I will say that the answer boils down to a yes either way.   In my opinion, the possibilities is split between 1) unicorns being a breed of the Fae and/or 2) the unicorns are an extinct species of animal.   I don’t really lean more one way or the other, I just logically speaking think it must be one of these.

 

 

Stay Grounded

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Today’s meditation was ten minutes and four seconds long, and focused on how no one is perfect, and how our flaws are what make each one of us unique.

It discussed how, while self improvement is an excellent goal, it is important to accept yourself rather than beat yourself up over every little thing that you think is not just right.   Perfection is an unattainable goal, as it is subjective to each of us.

Instead, it suggests working on acceptance of your flaws and a path of learning rather than criticism and beratement.

Today’s draw is the King of Zephyrs, which is a representation of a projective alpha energy, personality, or person in the area of the mind, intellect, thoughts, communication, instinct, and logic. This card is usually interpreted as an authority in the areas of mental acuity and intellectual prowess, but on the negative side of things can also indicate manipulation and abuse of power.

In the King of Zephyrs, what pulls to my intuition is the butterflies and the dead mouse, secondary comes with how the two hawks face each other, and the presence of the thistle along the bottom of the card, which is commonly a representation of aggression and pain, protection, and pride.  

What I see in this card’s imagery is contrast.  There is a push and pull between asserting one’s strengths, and going too far.  It is a “mind the precipice” moment, where you stand in the embodiment your strengths and feel a sense of pride in them, but need to pay heed to what may come if you forget to look down at your feet.

In other words…. don’t get too full of yourself.  Stay grounded.

I do have my moments of feeling cocky now and then, especially concerning how well seated I am in my values and expectations of other’s values in relation to my own.  At these times, I run the risk of riding on the “high horse” where my internal moral compass is concerned.  Today’s card is a reminder to keep my feet grounded instead of getting carried away.

Sidenote:  I feel like my sentences and writing are all kinds of disjointed today.  My brain is feeling very fractured by the subdrop, so I’m sorry if this post is a bit scattered or doesn’t make sense.

Deck Used: The Stolen Child Tarot

 

Interesting Places

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I really liked one of the prompts in a group I’m a member of on Discord, and I wanted to do an extended reply to it here.

Question:  Where is the most interesting place you’ve been? What did you find interesting about it?

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This wasn’t a difficult question for me to answer, as I live near what I believe to be the most beautiful, captivating place on the planet.  (Not that I’ve seen the entire planet, but I have a feeling I’d be hard pressed to find anything that could out-shine it or my connection to it.)

That place? The Olympic and Cascade Rainforests of western Washington state.

I could spend an entire day exploring the moss draping from branches of trees, or the lichen on a fallen tree trunk. I could pick a spot, a single spot, and spend an entire day exploring just within that spot… and then pick another on the next day.  Another on the next.

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I love that the terrain that is not flat or soft nor hard.  Instead it is rugged, with places of soft, spongy earth, and spots where the jagged rocks of the mountain beneath the soil jut out to trip you.

Speaking of tripping… I love the roots.  They are everywhere, exposed and reaching.  The earth is moist and fertile, roots lift out of it.  They fan out beneath the earth, other than these surfacing of knobs and knots that are like the joints of a swimmer poking out of the water’s surface.

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Lie down on the forest floor in places like this, and even in the driest of summers, over time your clothing becomes damp and then heavy with moisture as the forest lends some of its bounty to you.

Here in this place I know the mosses and the trees, the ferns and the mushrooms; I know the slimy and wet, I know the crisp and crunchy. I know the fronds and the spores, the molds and the crumbling decay of fallen trees that give life to all that claim them home. The flora and fauna here are my family.

These rainforests are filled with life and death.  It is in the air and touches your skin, you breathe it in with every breath.  I love the rich myriad of  greens and browns, the dank and earthy smells, the muffled and whispering sounds in the kind of quiet stillness that feels sacred.  I love the damp darkness and decay that blends seamlessly with lushness of growth and green.

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This is my home.

I live in the city, but it is among the trees and the moss, the decay and the growth, the earth and the water…. it is there that is home.  These places are a balm upon my soul, and no matter where I travel or whatever else I see, I do not think I could ever find any place more engaging and more interesting to me than here.

 

Shelter In the Storm

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Today’s meditation was ten minutes and ten seconds long, and focused on finding gratitude for the good times through experiencing the bad ones.

Honestly?  This is one of the main ways in which I connect with gratitude.  There have been so many things that have gone on in my life… that I have lived through, survived, worked around, etc.  My connection with  gratitude is easy when I look back at these times and compare them with what I have (and where I am) now.

I also think that is something that a lot of people forget to consider.  So many wallow in the experiences of their past  and how they wish things had been different, or the effects that those experiences have had on their present or future.   But it is much more rare to find those that look at those past experiences and accept them as lessons learned, and say “thank god that’s over and no longer my situation”.   I think this is an important part of the healing process.

Today’s draw is the Empress card, which is the 3rd card in the Major Arcana.

I love the imagery for the Empress in this card, and it speaks to me really deeply right now.  Delving into the subdrop is a difficult process that makes you feel small and vulnerable.  Today’s card is a reminder that my “Empress” is right within my reach, only a text or message away.  That supportive energy, that protective bulk, and that calming influence is hovering right behind me, ready to step in as soon as I reach out for it.

I love you, man.  Even with the subdrop.

The traditional meaning of the Empress card is one of strong nurturing energy.  She is the mother, fertile and comforting.  She is the queen, strong and supportive.  This card can also mean dependency upon another, and I think that in today’s interpretation, it is all of the above.

Deck Used: The Stolen Child Tarot