Resolving Mental Corruptions

Mistakes.  Learning opportunities — that’s  what they are.  Negative karmic behaviors sometimes cause us to dump the toxic spills of our own minds onto others–loved ones, friends, etc., and we create oil slicks.  If we allow our emotional fires to run rampant, it causes destruction.  Compassion and forgiveness put out the fire and is what begins the cleanup and restoration in the emotional aftermath.

Yet, sometimes our own mental corruption is deeply ingrained.  Healing deep imprints of karmic, habitual behaviors can be a challenge.  It can feel like uprooting one’s very identity!

It is wise to recall that this identity is ego itself.

Lately, I’ve become more aware than ever before of where my energy is focused and what exactly is a good use of that emphasis and why.  I have a few thoughts to share about that.

Energy, of course,  is better spent on tending to our own gardens and enjoying our own flowers.

Smelling the roses is more worthy an endeavor, even if garbage dumps are around *and there always will be to some extent*.  Enjoy the accomplishments of what you have grown and how you are progressing down life’s path–thus speaks my inner guidance.

Meanwhile, compassion and forgiveness make the best traveling companions.

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Personal Tarot Traits – I was the Knight of Swords!

Personal Tarot Traits – Relating Personal Daily Experiences to a Daily Tarot Card

I was the Knight of Swords.  This card is about obeying one’s own Spirit!  I was the Knight of Swords yesterday… well, at least there was me personifying this archetype.  I spoke my truth.  I was brave.  Someone (like me) with a lot of “people pleasing” and “confrontational avoiding” Libra in a birth chart finds that a challenge.

I took some action involving communicating something that represented my personal truth yesterday.  We could say that I defended my own truth which took a bit of courage in a way that is untypical of me.

(By the way, I’m not referring to anything having to do with yesterday’s King of Swords–I’m writing about an entirely different life experience.)

Sometimes when we do this kind of thing — speak our mind  honestly or make a decision that is in alignment with our inner wisdom — especially if we’re not accustomed to doing so — we may feel a pang of concern about it afterward.  Did I create karma or set into motion something that may come back to bite me?

When I drew this card yesterday,  I had no idea what it could mean for the day ahead. My own habit when I see a knight of any suit is to think “change” in some way. Perhaps “change” was true to some extent yesterday as well since, one thing leading to the next, I ended up changing my office arrangement again!  Which in this small apartment is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle.  LOL   As I was moving things around the apartment I thought of the Knight of Swords and of my usual tendency to think “change” with this card.   And of course “action” is another keyword that comes to my mind.  So those things fit with my office rearranging.

Yet, the other archetype here has to do with words, verbal stuff, communication — we’re talking about swords after all associated with air and Gemini energy.

The day before we had the King of Swords giving his speech at the local YMCA, but the Knight speaks more in personal terms, expressing personal opinions and ideals and … simply speaking his own mind in a more personal or one-on-one manner.

Yet, the Knight of Swords has to be careful not to be self-serving in his communication and aggressiveness has no place when speaking one’s truth either.

Upon self-examination I don’t think aggressiveness applies and the self-serving part is still up in the air (pardon the pun),  but I call following my intuition, even though it was rather impulsive, something that is fair for all concerned.

How do I know it was my intuition guiding me to speak my truth?  Well, first of all there was a feeling and secondly, there was that familiar thing that happens when I sort of watch that energy that comes in and takes over.  Overpowering confidence and calmness cover the whole scene as well.  That’s how it is when a higher part of me takes over.  It’s happened before, and I recognize it.  The reader may have to take my word for that one.

Moving bravely in pursuit of one’s ideals and honest truth despite any cost and allowing the higher mind and intuition to work without fear or apprehension are descriptions of the Knight of Sword’s energy.  That’s how it acts in the psyche and the world.

Allowing one’s self to be “daring”–that’s a good way to express it.  And that’s what I did yesterday.  Daring myself to speak my truth in way that wasn’t forceful, just matter of fact.

This Knight of Swords doesn’t control his horse but allows himself to lunge forward ‘with’ the horse.

When one obeys one’s own Spirit (my personal experience correlates this fact), the gift that comes is one of avoiding ugly and unnecessarily unpleasant situations.

In astrological terms (if you are an astrology buff) we could think of the Knight of Swords as the aspect called the “opposition”.

ADDENDUM – WHY AND WHEREFORE’S OF THESE TYPES OF POSTS 

In the morning when I first awaken, I let guidance come in and do a waking dream for the day ahead.  On one of these occasions recently I received a directive in the form of an idea laced with intensity.   “Draw a card at the beginning of the day and reflect on its meaning and then revisit it at day’s end correlating the day’s experiences with the card.”  That’s the treasure at the end of the rainbow so-to-speak.  Doing so gives insight into the world of divination for the purpose of adding layers or additional traits to the tarot card meaning.  This deeper understanding to the cards can be applied for use when doing future readings.  It’s like letting Life Itself teach us the cards.  

Guilt, Withdrawal, The Hermit, The Leopard and the 12th House with Moon and Pluto

Its probably a good day to stay home and write.  The Moon is transiting my 12th house and sitting atop of my natal Pluto with Mars nearby.  Could get intense in the outer world today–best to keep that intensity within the 4-walls here.  Or so says the intuition.  The 12th house is about seclusion and withdrawal — or at least that’s one of the archetypes.  Or that’s one astrologically accepted classic model of the House 12 pattern anyway–withdrawal.

I think that its good for the soul:  withdrawal, going within, terminating connections with the outer world.

Sometimes we withdraw from life or from certain situations for self-protection but what do we really want to protect ourselves from?  The same thing that motivates all of us–we either seek pleasure or avoid pain.

Let’s face it. We don’t have to be martyrs in life.  I don’t think it’s wrong to disengage from persons, places or things that are unpleasant if we have a choice.  Sometimes we don’t but with the blessing of the universe, sometimes we do.  Why not exercise the choice and not feel guilty about it?

That’s how my 12th house Moon conjunct Pluto feels about it today.  I think that choice is a gift, why not use it and do so so without guilt?

I don’t know about you but sometimes my feelings of guilt, when present, seem to come from worries about what other people will think about me–people that I care about or who are important to me.  Sometimes we see ourselves through other people’s eyes and that triggers those old patterns of guilt that we’ve probably carried over a number of lifetimes.

Guilt serves no purpose and is un-necessary self-criticism.  Its like allowing those voices of the old Catholic nuns or critical parents or other authority figures to take over our psyche.

It serves one thing that is purposeful however; it let’s us know that we are still working on resolving something within our own relationship to our self.    We always think these things are about us versus them.  We think it’s about our connection to the ‘other person’ or ‘the job’, etc.  When really its about our own relationship to our own self.

In other words, in my own case, honoring my own tendencies and feelings without concern of being misunderstood or judged as being uncaring or cruel.  So in that way we can see that the concern really is self-judgment.

Give self permission to embrace one’s own natural tendencies which are there for a reason and there as much for other people’s benefit as well as our own.  And honor that.

One thing we learn when we withdraw is how to experience our feelings fully and to release them in full too because we are giving ourselves the space by withdrawing in order to do so.

To carry guilt is to sabotage ourselves.  Withdrawal gives us the space to know ourselves, and to understand our feelings and to release them.

One way to resolve any guilt is to rebuild faith in one’s self and withdrawal creates the space for faith and self-trust to become strengthened.

I always relate the TAROT card of THE HERMIT to 12th house withdrawal energy.  I think of an “old soul” (if you will) and someone more comfortable alone than with others and not because of a lack of social skills or anything of the sort.  Just someone who values alone time higher than surface or shallow time with others.

The Hermit card relates to the 12th house in another way –or so I think.  I liken this energy to someone who has created their own religion or their own rules to live by following the inner guidance or personal conscience.  Here is someone with personal dogma and may be seen as eccentric because this is quite different than the consensus rules of society and is seeking spiritual happiness in ways that the consensus cannot understand or does not follow.

Sometimes I feel a lot like THE HERMIT and its animal counterpart THE LEOPARD. Today that feels more intense than usual — it’s one of those times.

But then again, the Moon is setting off my 12th house now highly activating Pluto so I accept that as normal for today.  Once a month my inner Hermit and Leopard get kicked up to higher levels as the Moon passes through this area of my psyche.

Thus, I stay home and even write about it!  😉 wink!