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

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Coming Alive

From the Transformational Tarot, the Queen of Wands:
The Queen of Wands takes Joseph Campbell's advice to heart: "Follow your bliss.  Find where it is and don't be afraid to follow it."  Her passion is like the fire beneath the cauldron; it motivates her to do what she loves.  But like Campbell, her "bliss" isn't a form of hedonism - it is neither transient nor self-serving.  As Howard Thurman explained:
Don't ask so much what the world needs.
Go out and do what makes you come alive,
because what the world needs most
are people who have come alive.   

From the Celtic Book of the Dead comes the "Island of the Mill:"
Here Maelduin and his men saw people with large sacks of grain being delivered to a mill.  The crew learned these people were reaping what they had sown.  Those folks who proved themselves to be grudging and unkind ended up having to pay for their deeds by giving up a portion of what they had.  The message of this card is that while I may rationalize my "justified" resentments and punishing behavior toward others, it will come back to bite me in the rear every time.  If I focus on following my bliss, I won't even have time to think about payback.

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