know thyself

Nosce Te Ipsum

/ Twist the Leaf / 1 Comment

Today’s meditation has not yet happened yet, as I overslept and had to pop out of bed and get my ass moving this morning when the housekeeper showed up.   I will do it before bed, but I really need to start doing it in the morning rather than putting it off.  I just feel like I’m getting more out of the process when I do the meditation in the morning as a part of starting my day.

The Sun - Ostara Tarot Today’s draw is The Sun card, which is a representation of fun, positivity, and the inner child.  But honestly, that is not what I see when I look at The Sun card in this deck.

What I pick up from today’s card is a message about individuality and strength.  It’s about being genuine.  Being yourself.  And standing up for what you feel is right and your own personal values.   That is what I saw this morning, and it turned out to be a theme in my day as well.

I am well aware that my own personal moral compass and ethics are not entirely on line with those of the world around me.  I get that.  I don’t like favoritism.  For me, it smacks of lack of fairness and creates imbalance.   And for me, much of life is all about balance.  I feel it is important to look at situations from an unbiased perspective.  I feel it’s important to strive to be fair in all things, even when that fairness may not be to your own advantage or the advantage of your own personal opinions and goals (thus the importance of being able to look at things from an unbiased perspective).

The feeling I got from today’s card is that it’s okay to be different. It’s okay to have no interest in conforming.  It’s okay to march to your own drum, and it’s okay to see things differently than others as long as you’re willing to entertain their perspectives.  Know yourself.  Be yourself.  Stand tall.

DECK USED:  OSTARA TAROT

Bonus Reading – #TarotForGrowthDecember

Question: Something that I was right to let go of this year.

Wayhome Tarot

Reading Summary:  Being so quick to judge myself (The Chariot) by my father’s standards (Father of Swords) instead of celebrating who I am (Daughter of Wands).

Take Away: My father was an extremely harsh man who spent the entirety of my youth making sure that I was fully aware of just how much of a disappointment I was to him, and just how much of an embarrassment I was to my family, due primarily to my sexual preferences and lack of interest in most “traditionally male” pursuits.  Although I never felt the least bit of an urge to conform to his standards, I did spend a good deal of my time mimicking his tone in my own self talk.  This year I have been diligently working on being kinder to myself and letting go of that asshole in my head that judges everything I do so harshly.

DECK USED:  WAYHOME TAROT

 

#7philosophicalreadings (non) VR to Benebell Wen

/ Twist the Leaf / 2 Comments

Recently, Benebell Wen did a video on YouTube that involved a challenge of doing 7 card readings for 7 classical philosophical questions.  I really liked this idea, and so I decided to give it a go.   Most of these questions I already have definitive opinions concerning, but the purpose of this exercise is to set the intention that the cards will know how you would respond deep down on a soul deep level, and thus communicate this in the readings.

I decided to do single card pulls for each question, but as you will see, I ended up with a few jumpers along the way.

The Seven Philosophical Questions:

1. The Trolley Dilemma: (I have linked the title to an outline of what this is if you are not familiar.)  Do you divert the course of nature and kill one to save five, or let nature take its course and let the five die.

IMG_9364The bell indicates I would try to warn all of them involved.  Although this is not something I could do verbally, I would definitely give my all to get the warning out there.  In the end, though, a difficult choice would have to be made.

This is where the spikes on the inside of the bell come in.  Either way, one or many will die.  I would choose the one, and my insides would be torn apart by this choice, probably forever after, just as those spikes are sure to scratch and score the inside of the bell.

I am that son-of-a-bitch that would kill five for someone I care about, though.  Just sayin’.

2. What difficult truth(s) about the human condition are you ignoring?

IMG_9365Sometimes I forget just how vulnerable people can feel.  Like so many, I go through life distracted by my own thoughts and issues and forget that others are dragging their own anchors behind them.  Some people’s anchors are heavier than others, but everyone thinks their own anchor is the heaviest.

In other words?  Everyone has burdens, and those burdens are entirely subjective.  That subjectivity makes it difficult to acknowledge other’s burdens, and impossible to see them in the same light as the one carrying them does.

3. What does it mean to live a good life?

IMG_9366Defeating your demons and protecting the security of your home, friends, and family (or your village of towers) from those demons hidden in the dark.

This boils down to valuing your personal “village”, and working on your shadows and demons so that they do not  crawl out of the dark and destroy everything you hold dear.  We all have deep dark shadows where monsters lie in wait, emotional demons and the creeping shadows of our darker selves linger there.

Unchecked and unacknowledged, these dark entities within ourselves surface and wreak havoc.  To protect what you hold dear, it is important to deal with these demons rather than trying to bury them into a hole they will then try to climb back out of again and again.

4. Where does your self-worth come from?

IMG_9367This card came with a twofold answer for me.   From within… and from the earth.  This is very fitting.

a) From within… I have never really been able to explain where my conviction of self comes from.  My father tried throughout my entire childhood to break me down and build me up into something different.  And yet it never worked.  No matter how hard he tried, I knew who I was and what I wanted, I knew what felt right and where my values resided.  From within, while not really speaking of “why”, does speak of where quite eloquently.

b) From the earth… I have always had a very strong reaction to the earth.  An instant communion with soil and sand, with trees and the green.  It is the balm of my soul in the way water is the balm of my emotions.  Being in nature among the trees and the soil, especially here in the rainforests where things are dark and moist and filled with green, has always been extremely restorative to me.  It lifts me up and centers me into myself. My self worth greatly ties into this, as it is a part of how I identify with my inner self (and the world at large, for that matter) on a very base level.

5. What had existed before our universe was created?

IMG_9368Okay, so this one totally made me laugh, and I think that was the entire point.

No, I don’t think that the card is saying that before the universe was created, angels resided on high.  But, I believe that before our universe was created there was still something greater at work.  An energy of creation, evolution, and balance that in the end gave birth to what we have today, much in the same way that melody is created by the creation, evolution, and balance of notes blending on the air.

6. Are you ethically obligated to improve yourself?

IMG_9369

OOph… man.  The short answer?  Yes.  Look at those cards tho.  Wow.   They are so self explanatory, at least to me.

What I see here is the unpacking of one’s inner self (as life tends to do whether we want it to or not) develops into the discovery of one’s inner demons, and those demons being set loose out into the world.  And, when they are set loose, the world feels dark, and all those carefully erected pieces of your life that you value so much start to topple.

So yes. We are.  Because without self improvement, you are not just at risk of screwing over your own life, but the lives of everyone and everything around you (alllll those dominoes).

7. What is Divinity?

IMG_9370

Divinity is the unlikely vessel that lifts you up and carries you when you are feeling vulnerable and small.  It is the light in the darkness that we must choose to accept or turn away from, and yet even when you turn away from it, it still glows to light the way.  It is the duality of right and wrong, good and bad, man and beast, feminine and masculine, yin and yang… always together, always in motion, always side by side.

Deck Used:  Dixit Expansion Pack #2 Quest

 

Instinct vs Intuition

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Today’s meditation was ten minutes long and was focused on working on the inner self.  It discussed how society is so focused upon the external progress, that we often forget about working on our inner selves where our emotions, instincts, and sense of self lives.

To me, this related to the importance of shadow work, and the necessity of knowing yourself.  Not just the parts of yourself you want to know or accept, or believe that others will accept… but knowing your whole self, including those dark and secret parts you don’t want to acknowledge or admit to.

Today’s draw is the Two of Swords, which is a representation of duality, division, and choices in the area of intellect, the mind, logic, communication, and instinct.   It is a card that deals with making choices, and trusting your perceptions and instincts (as opposed to intuition) to choose the path that is right for you.

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Instinct and intuition are often confused with each other, perhaps because they both speak from a very similar place (your gut).   Instinct indicates that your subconscious is gathering outside data and steering you in relation to that data and one’s genetic dispositions.  Intuition is more esoteric.  It is the “just knowing” that sparks regardless of external input, instead of because of it.

Or, at least, that was how it was explained to me.

Because most people feel both of these through their “gut” or solar plexus, they are easily confused and intermeshed together, and I am no different.   In truth, I don’t care which is which when I feel it in the moment.  I only care that I felt it and react accordingly.   Later on, though, I (we?) often sit back and pick apart these reactions (if not doing it in the moment already), and even then it can be difficult to discern which was in action at the time.

Oops sorry…. wandered off topic.

The Two of Swords… Instinct and decision making.   A choice.

This card represents when there is a choice present that needs to be made, but the scales are level as to which seems the right one to go with.

The Two of Sword’s appearance in today’s draw is a reminder that when such difficult choices arise, it is important to take in all of the pros and cons of each situation, but JUST as important to listen to your instincts.  Bringing in as much information as possible will assist your inner voice of instinct in having all of the information it needs to steer  you in the right direction.

The key?   Don’t discount that voice when it speaks or disregard what it has to say… no matter how much you may want to at the time.

 

To Thine Own Self Be True

/ Twist the Leaf / 1 Comment

Today’s meditation was ten minutes and forty eight seconds, and focused on grounding, which is the practice of centering yourself in order to create a space and sense of stability, whether this is during a time of anxiety, ritual, meditation, or just in every day life. The method that the guided meditation teaches to do this involves the practice of feeling your feet on the ground, and tuning into the solid earth under your feet.

Although this is a good way to begin a grounding, it’s pretty impossible for me to do during my meditation as I am on my back with my feet propped up in a piriformis stretch. Therefore, my feet are not anywhere near the ground.

So, instead I chose to hold one of my larger labradorite palm stones and focus my grounding upon the stone instead of upon my feet.

Today’s draw is the ninth card in the Major Arcana, the Hermit. As with all Major Arcana cards, this card is more about the “bigger picture” and one’s spiritual journey than any one physical or mental or emotional aspect along the way. The Hermit conveys a message that has to do with self discovery, taking time to yourself, and the journeys in your life that you take on your own.

The message in the appearance of the Hermit in today’s draw is that it is all about individuality and thinking for yourself. It’s important to focus on knowing thyself, and sustaining a separation between the opinions and beliefs of others, and one’s own personal beliefs and moral compass.

There is a difference between learning new things, and becoming a sheep. Individuality is important and the Hermit coming for a visit is a reminder to keep in mind just how unique and individual I am… and that we all are.

In my return to my spirituality, I’ve been doing a lot of research on different interests and curiosities, such as a deeper dive into the chakras, delving into astrology (which is something that I have never studied before), and other different ideas and beliefs. These studies are not always (or even often) in order to incorporate these beliefs into my own practice or belief system, but simply because I stumble across something along the way that seems interesting and it becomes a journey of exploration and curiosity.

The Hermit is here to tell me that although these flights of curiosity and discovery are interesting, it’s still important to remember to only absorb into my own practice the things that fit for me and are right for me, and to discard the rest.