After a tricky week at work, I was going to write about self care, but it didn’t feel right, but I still feel I need to write about something to keep the blog alive. There is a bit of astrology and tarot here, but it won’t be the main focus.
On Wednesday we started Pisces so I did a tarot spread about what your hidden superpower is and how it can help others. Drawing the eight of swords which isn’t the happiest of cards, I had to concede I wasn’t at my most powerful and was really feeling a bit mentally hemmed in and powerless. The card to help was the Hermit and this is what I will focus on.
The Hermit depicts an old and wise man walking alone in the dark carrying a lantern. Its message is that sometimes we need to find our own way. The answers aren’t always out there, sometimes they are within. All possible routes bring their own challenges. The advice of others isn’t always the best for us even when it is well meant and from a place of care. As a nine (it is the ninth card in the major arcana) it is a card of journey and also searching for meaning or truth. Interestingly Sagittarius whose energy is about the search for truth and purpose is the ninth sign of the zodiac.
The truth is hard to define, as I think what we often think of as true is actually a perspective based on our own conditioning, experience and position. Someone else’s version of the truth may be genuinely different to mine, but true from their perspective.
When out there is hard to fathom, or we aren’t sure what the next step is, or we do know but feel afraid to take it, then there is something to be said for going within. To go within we need to be silent, to find a way of stopping the mental chatter so that we can listen to our often drowned out inner voice. Someone once said that thinking is the mind talking and meditation is the mind listening.
To listen we need to stop talking, and be prepared to hear what is said. Part of this journey for me is to be open to what is there. If that is anxiety and unease, to use the meditation to acknowledge that is where it is right now, without making it a permanent state. There is something known as spiritual by-passing where spiritual practices are used to avoid addressing deeper problems. To me that would be trying to meditate to quell feelings of unease and anxiety about a situation rather than to acknowledge their presence and treat them as communication, part of my psyche’s essential warning system, telling me that maybe something is a bit off and I would do well to be aware of that. If it is fear, then maybe I can breathe with that fear, and if I can stay in listening mode, I can understand more about why that fear is there instead of trying to make it go away.
As someone who is always trying to plan for the future, it is a challenge to just be present, to accept that I don’t know what the future is, but in each moment I am essentially creating the future. Each step is towards something. Deepak Chopra in his book “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success” talks about spontaneous right action, where we intuitively know what do to in any given moment. Spontaneous right action requires heart centred present moment awareness, and a deep connection with our inner being along with an intention to be and do good.
There is also a purpose to the Hermit’s journey, a light in the dark, something pulling us forwards. To me that is hope and also love. It helps to know what is important and for each of that might be different. It is also to realise that all things are impermanent and change always happens. And the next card in the tarot pack after the Hermit is the Wheel of Fortune, so the Hermit’s journey does lead to change. Endings and beginnings.
But it can be too easy to change external circumstances without changing within which is why the journey within is so important. Real change begins within, and outer change follows. Otherwise, as I have done in the past, you can change everything while changing nothing. As some-one said to me recently change doesn’t always bring change. You can repeat the same situations over and over. Knowing what lies within is so important. As Carl Jung said “until you make the unconscious conscious it will rule your life and you will call it fate”
Whatever it is we seek we must look within ourselves first. To quote Rumi, an thirteenth century poet:
“Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.”
🤍🤍🤍
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