three of pentacles

Enjoying Collaboration

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IMG_6310Today’s meditation was just under eleven minutes long, and like yesterday’s meditation, it was a guided meditation with interval timer element added for the sake of my piriformis stretches.

The focus of the guided meditation today was about compassion, and it reminded me of someone that I watch on YouTube from time to time.  Dustin often closes  his videos with “Remember that everyone is fighting a battle that you know nothing about.  So be kind. Always.”  It is a phrase that has really stuck with me over time, and it is a prime example of the topic of today’s guided meditation.

The guide brought up how sometimes we are impatient or frustrated with others.  Whether it’s because they’re slower than we’d like in a store or on the road, or they’re paying with pennies in the grocery store and we’re stuck behind them, etc.  And the thing is?  Sometimes?  These things that irritate us only do so because we don’t understand what’s going on  and why they’re happening.

The thing is though?  It’s none of our business.  But what is our business is treating these situations and people with patience and understanding, regardless of whether we personally are in the know as to why whatever is happening is happening.

Hush Tarot - Three of PentaclesToday’s draw is is the Three of Pentacles, which is traditionally a representation of collaboration towards a shared goal or endeavor, usually in the area s of finances, resources, or projects focused on the process of manifestation.

This card feels a lot like the Three of Cups to me.  Three birds enjoying a treat, perched around the rim of a cup together.

And yet, being the Three of Pentacles has it’s own relevance here.  It makes this card about more than successful endeavors and collaboration, but also about enjoying the process.  It’s important to enjoy the time you put towards your projects and endeavors, and when you involve others in on these projects?  Then it’s important that it’s enjoyable for them as well.

The other day a reading suggested I figure out what it is that others who help me during the holiday season enjoy, so that I can shift those jobs to them rather than waiting until I’m desperate for help and handing them whatever jobs need done at the time.   In both instances, they are helping, and getting things done that need done.  But in the former instance they get to really enjoy the process… whereas in the latter scenario they could end up stuck with jobs that suck.

Here in this card I see the results of finding out what people enjoy and giving them those tasks rather than just tossing whatever needs done their way.

DECK USED:  HUSH TAROT

#Zentember #LovelyHealing Challenge Prompt
Question: Where am I emotionally?

Sasuraibito Tarot

Reading Summary: Feeling secure and grounded (Ten of Pentacles) and supportedly (new word) inspired (Queen of Wands) as at the moment I am both receiving and giving equally (Six of Pentacles).

Take Away: Emotionally I’m feeling pretty good right now. Having a sense of balance and security is really helpful in keeping me on an even keel and making life tolerable as a whole.  I also feel pretty good about my work.  Although I’ve fallen behind a bit, I’m getting help from both L and Z, which is helping a lot in keeping that “fallen behind” from becoming something that feels insurmountable.

DECK USED:  SASURAIBITO TAROT

#DiscordTarotholicsSep2020 Challenge Prompt
Philosophical Question: What is Humanity’s biggest accomplishment?

Tarot of the Secret ForestReading Summary: The ability to rise above (Hanged Man and The Sun) experiences of betrayal and deception (Seven of Swords), allowing those experiences to inspire us to be better and become more than before (King of Wands).

Take Away: This is about more than just “learning from our mistakes” but rather about taking the bad things that happen to us that aren’t our mistakes at all, and learning how to not just move past them, but turn them into a positive growth experience.  

I know that not everyone has this ability, but I do agree that the ability to “rise above” really could be one of humanity’s biggest accomplishments, if not one we’ve quite managed to master yet.

DECK USED:  TAROT OF THE SECRET FOREST

Lionharts #AstroTarotChallenge
Question: How has my family or foundation positively shaped, influenced or impacted the way I move or carry myself today?

Hardy Tarot

Reading Summary: I learned to fend for myself (Page of Swords) instead of depending upon external praise (Six of Wands), and to be secure in laying claim what’s mine (Queen of Disks).

Take Away: I can’t say that my family foundation has been all that positive, but it has taught me self sufficiency.  Although I do enjoy praise and admiration, I don’t require it.  I’m more than capable of motivating myself without that carrot dangling before me.

By the same turn, it has taught me to feel a good deal of protective ownership over what belongs to me.  This goes beyond personal possessions and includes thoughts, ideas, values, and those things that I work so hard to obtain such as a home, stability, and security.

DECK USED:  HARDY TAROT

#ConnectWithYourDeckChallenge by E Roebuck-Jones
Question: How can I make life choices more consciously?

Wiener Secession Tarot

Reading Summary: I need to make it a conscious choice (Two of Spades) to worry less about my fears and anxieties (Nine of Spades) and focus instead on embodying the strength and purpose of my endeavors (King of Clubs) while practicing the moderation needed to keep things balanced (Temperance).

Take Away:  To make life’s choices more consciously (and more confidently, for that matter), the cards indicate that I need to spend less time worrying and more time finding a balance between my drive and my need for self care.  Moderation is not my strong suit, and I have a habit of dropping myself into an endeavor and allowing it to overtake every facet of my life until it is all that I eat, sleep, or breathe.  This is a tendency that I am trying to break myself free of. 

The thing is, when I focus on my anxieties?  It only pushes me more towards the need to delve deep, and pulls me away from the self care I need to sustain in my life.

DECK USED:  WIENER SECESSION TAROT

A Sense of Community

/ Twist the Leaf / 1 Comment

Today’s meditation was just under ten minutes long and was very restless and uncomfortable.  It wasn’t pain that was causing it, but the fact that I knew I had a lot of work to get done and just could not manage to put it out of my mind long enough to get in a peaceful ten minutes.  Hopefully I won’t be pulling an all nighter tonight, and will have a chance to do a do-over before bed.

Next World TarotToday’s draw is the Three of Pentacles, which is traditionally a representation of collaborative efforts in the areas of finances, resources, home life, health, and  manifestations.

This card’s imagery takes this from the scope of small groups collaborating with each other as is often where the mind first goes when seeing the traditional imagery for the Three of Pentacles, and opens it up into a community scope, which I really like.  It allows for a larger perspective, and encourages one to look beyond more minimal interpretations that you usually see come from the Three of Pentacles.

What I feel is the message of this card today is that it takes a community to create a community.  It takes people willing to come together to support a singular goal.  And, I think that this is something I want to discuss with L, because I feel like I want to encourage her to volunteer to be a part of our building’s council.

There’s been a lot of distance and lack of communication lately where the building is concerned, and I have a feeling she’d be a good addition and terrific at helping in getting the building back to feeling like a community again.

DECK USED:  NEXT WORLD TAROT

#TarotForGrowthAugust Challenge Prompt
Topic: I’m struggling with boundaries in my relationships.
Question: What pressing need of mine am I overlooking?

Stunning Tarot

Reading Summary:  Both slow growth (Seven of Pentacles) and eventual success (Nine of Pentacles both require A certain amount of controlled finesse.

The yellow combined in the second and third card creates a connection there that indicates we often need to look back at the past in order to build towards the future, and once success is obtained you need to continue to have an awareness of the past, but juggle it with future vision.

Take Away:  This is a direct response to my rant yesterday about the influence of parents on your foundation. The cards here are indicating that no matter how much you grow or how far you move forward in life towards something better, those things that made you bleed from your past are still going to be an influence and continue to be relevant.

DECK USED:  STUNNING TAROT

#DiscordTarotholicsAug2020 Challenge Prompt
Topic: Retreat / Hold Ground / Advance

Encore TarotRetreat – Three of Swords – Retreat from the pessimism and negativity that have the ability to draw me down into the pit of despair and depression.

Hold Ground – Page of Cups – Hold my ground with my creative endeavors. Explore and have fun with it and don’t allow it to become too staid and serious.

Advance – Knight of Cups – Advance in my emotional growth. Pay attention to those things that make me feel good and create a positive emotional response… and go after them instead of disregarding them as frivolous.

DECK USED:  ENCORE TAROT

Lionharts #TheAugustTarot#ElementalChallenge
Question: How can the element of Fire boost my (creative) energy?

Tarot del Fuego

Reading Summary: Allows me to identify my hearts desires (King of Cups), and use both my heart and gut (imagery in the Nine of Pentacles), to go after what I want and achieve my goals (Ten of Pentacles).

Take Away: Fire allows me to identify what my heart and soul wants. Rather than getting wrapped up in the mind and logic, the fire in my soul gives me the spark to go after those things and manifest them into reality.

DECK USED:  TAROT DEL FUEGO

#ConnectWithYourDeckChallenge by E Roebuck-Jones
Question: What drains my energy?

Alan Tarot

Reading Summary: Impatience (Eight of Clubs) concerning my creative endeavors and explorations (Page of Hearts). I’m not giving myself enough nurturing rest (The Empress).

Take Away:  What is currently draining my energies is twofold.  First and foremost, is the lack of rest and nurturing care directed toward myself.  Added to this is the fact I’m pushing too hard.  I need to spread out my efforts over a longer period of time instead of cramming them into a single day twice a week and pushing myself on those days until they turn into an all-day-and-all-nighter.

DECK USED:  ALAN TAROT

Acceptance and Appreciation

/ Twist the Leaf / 1 Comment

Today’s meditation was eleven minutes and thirty seconds long, and focused on emotions, and how they are transitory. It spoke on the topic of challenging emotions such as grief, anxiety, and depression and about how it is our instinct to push these emotions away.

The meditation was focused on how these feelings, and all emotions, are temporary and will pass.

This is the method that I take with most of my negative emotions, but especially the depression. In fact, it was one of the things that helped me before I found a medication to assist in relieving me of my suicidal urges. Accepting the fact that the depression is temporary, and that if you wait, it will pass? It keeps the mind on the fact that no matter how -forever- the depression feels, it WILL come to an end. It will move on and you WILL move past it.

That mindset has saved my life many, many times. I can’t say that I haven’t made attempts to end my life. I can’t say that I haven’t become so swallowed up in that dark place that I believed it would never end, unable to see the past happy times and unable to imagine a future with any of them in it. But since taking up that mantra of “it will pass”, that endless time is not quite so endless.

Today’s draw is the Three of Pentacles (with the Hazel Dormouse), which is a representation of collaboration, inspiration, and expansion in the area of finance, work, manifestation, resources, and the physical world.

In the guidebook, the Dormouse holds the keywords of discovery, devotion, commitments, resourcefulness, and vigilance.

The artwork depicted on today’s card stirs in me the familiar thoughts of family and working together with family to accomplish a goal. It reminds me of working on Ms B and Mr R’s property, where they are so on in years but still work so hard to keep their home and property beautiful and well-kept.

Working with them on their property is an experience in familial harmony that I don’t get with my own parents. They accept me in with open arms, and helping them makes me feel good. Working -with- them doesn’t just make me feel good, but is educational as they have taught me over the years about life, responsibility, working in harmony with other’s differences, how a multitude of different things work, and the value of doing things the -right- way instead of the easy way (because Ms B loves the right way, and Mr R prefers the easy way… and he always has to do it over cuz in the end the right way wins out every time, even when she lets him fuck it up first).

It reminds me, as well, in how well L and I work together and how in sync we are with each other on projects and even just everyday tasks. I may have built a life for myself, but -together- we have built something more than that. A life with depth and meaning and comforts and… We have, in essence, built what neither of us had in our home life growing up. A life of harmony and acceptance.

And that is where today’s card steps in. A reminder of these these connections in my life and how wonderful and valuable they are. Not just those connections with my sister and Z’s parents, but with Z, and with you, and with so many others. Today’s card is a reminder to be appreciative, and grateful.

Deck Used: The Animism Tarot

 

The ‘Us’ Card

/ Twist the Leaf / 2 Comments

Today’s meditation was 10 minutes long, and focused on making a choice to reside in the present and mindful in the moment, rather than allowing future worries and concerns or past traumas to pollute your mind and emotions with stress and anxiety.

Sometimes, in the face of stress over the future, we forget just how sweet the current moment is.   Today’s meditation was a reminder to stay mindful of the present and don’t get carried away with things that are either already over, or have not even come yet into existence.

Today’s draw is the Three of Pentacles, which is a representation of collaboration, cooperation, and the small gains and growth in the area of the physical world, finances, manifestation, and resources.

The Three of Pentacles reminds me of our relationship.  Not that there are three people in our relationship, but rather that there are three entities… the you, the me, and the us.

This is not the suit of emotions and relationships, mind you.   That would be the suit of Cups.  But, I feel that this suit fits our relationship better.  For me, our relationship isn’t based on emotions.   I’m not saying that love and emotions are not there, as they absolutely are.  I’m saying that our relationship feels like home.  Solid.  Substantial. Supportive. Stable.  All of these are a reflection of the suit of Pentacles, and that, to me, is where our relationship resides.

The Three of Pentacles speaks of how differences come together to create something better, collaborating in a way that each side contributes its own particular brand of expertise to the whole.   The you, the me, and the us.

Each on our own are forces to be reckoned with, and we are both very, very different.  But, what we have built together is also its own thing.  It is “US” and that, too, is powerful and strong in its own right.  It is the blend of two that creates something with a life of its own.  Our life.

Today’s appearance of the Three of Pentacles isn’t a lesson, but simply a reminder to appreciate the us… and the you… and the me.   All three distinctive factors, unique and essential in their own right, that when combined together create something bigger and more beautiful than any one could have done on its own.

I love you.