I use tarot and oracle cards as tools for reflection and contemplation. Rather than divining the future, they are a way for me to look more deeply at the "now."
"The goal isn't to arrive, but to meander, to saunter, to make your life a holy wandering." ~ Rami Shapiro

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Restoring Balance

From the Art of Tarot, the Six of Pentacles:
This is a painting of the Good Samaritan, a parable of one enemy helping another.  In his speech I've Been to the Mountaintop, Martin Luther King, Jr. examined what might have been going through the two religious men's minds as they passed the injured man: "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?"  But then when the Samaritan comes along, a man considered to be scum among the Jews, King reflects that he must have asked, "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"  The Samaritan could have had a self-righteous attitude but instead he chose a selfless one.  The Six of Pentacles involves restoring balance and doing the right thing (compassion) rather than following my ego's advice.  I may not leave behind a big bank account, but a legacy of love will last much longer than a few dollars.

     From the Tao Oracle comes the card "Work on What Has Been Spoiled:"
After a forest fire, a woman tries to heal the earth by planting a tree.  In her companion book, Padma writes about leaving leftovers in the refrigerator until they spoil, and instead of cleaning things out, just pushing the container to the back and trying to forget about it.  I've had a resentment that I've tried to hide in the back of my mind; it is a relationship that I do not have the power to fix.  But I do have work I can do, which is to change my attitude and stop replaying the tapes that only stoke the fires of my anger.  We each have our own lessons to learn in this mess, but instead of pointing the finger, I need to concentrate on learning my own.

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