Tarot Spread – Sanity in an Insane World – We Can’t Breathe – What Else is Going On?

A Coping Question:  What Else is Going On? 

The ending is coming up to the beginning of this post.  I was about to end with this but decided it may be better to ‘go here’ first.  I often use this question in order to bring myself into a state of wholeness and balance, if not harmony.  People are chanting, police are watching, emotions are intense but what else is going on?  The breeze is moving through the trees and they sway as if wanting to march too.  Its a distraction but a good one to use when I need to remember that this or that moment of intensity, perhaps fear or overwhelming anger threatens to overcome and drown me — I ask, yes this is so, this is what’s happening but what else is going on?  Am I breathing? Go there. What is the weather right now?  See about it, looking up. What kind of clouds are in the sky?  What else is going on?  There’s always so much more.  It helps.  And it has helped me a lot lately.

We can’t Breathe

This first paragraph may be intense but I’d like to end this with some insight or guidance that may be helpful.  We’ll see.  But first, it takes courage to march, to chant “We Can’t Breathe!”  and “Hands up; Don’t Shoot!” In a mask on a hot day in a pandemic and in the midst crying and feeling like so many have felt; how can one pretend to know how it must feel.  But we try; we heard his cry along with so many others and we demonstrate and call out his name while on one knee… mask wet with tears.

Insane World

POTIS is out of his mind yet people still think to vote Republican will keep them in the $dough$ somehow — greed over basic humanity? Military in the streets?  Global Warming and Environmental Protections deleted by the Trump machine ( and did he really say it’s a great day for George Floyd on the day of his funeral? What?)  Hey, if I just arrived here from another world, and observed The Donald and his military minions while knowing what America stands for, I’d say this guy is trying NOT to be re-elected.  (Inject Bleach… what?)  Looks like he’s doing something more outrageous every day; is it some great experiment to test people’s loyalty to inhumane craziness for the love of their money? their stocks? their 401K?  Really? What?

If you were trying to NOT be re-elected and your ego was too big to say you don’t want the job anymore, all that Trump and his machines are doing is one way to achieve that.   But then I can’t really try to figure out a crazy mind or I risk craziness myself. 

One thing though. Maybe Trump could see that people all over the world were protesting what happened here in America… can he now see how we are all one humanity?  Did some of the sleep fall from his eyes?

Tarot Question about the Pandemic

And then there’s the Pandemic.  What do my cards say about that?  Let’s just go there for a moment.  Back in early May, there was a moment when I grabbed my cards and asked a question about having to go back into shut down due to the coronavirus, COVID-19.  I used a timeframe in the question, August.  If memory serves me, August 1st was how it was worded.  The answer that I received was ‘yes’.

I would like to turn to divination again and ask if we will be closing things down again anytime in August or September.  I am focused on my area (North Carolina)  in what is usually referred to as ‘the south’ so generally this is the area that I have in mind as I pose the question.  Circumstances have changed since I first asked this question in early May; many people think that the pandemic is over and have stopped wearing masks and thumb-their-noses, to turn a phrase, at COVID.  How much does group-mind create our group experience?  If at all?  

But for now, the question is will COVID resurge and require shutdowns in August or September?  Ace Wands, The High Priestess, Ace of Cups.  The YES indicator is the Ace of Cups in the last pile.

Yes spread

The High Priestess is adding some further information.  It may actually be validating the question itself, thus validating the answer.  What I mean is that The High Priestess often indicates retreat and being passive; going inward which is what we do when we stay home or our city goes into some level of shut down.  Note the eyes being covered in the image of the High Priestess in this deck (Herbal Tarot).  The card meaning relates to being non-active, being calm, waiting patiently — that certainly sounds like a lockdown or shut down.  This card also alludes to something previously unknown being revealed; something that has been hidden.  Secrets being revealed and the unknown future are key focused intuitions that spark when I look at this card.  Maybe the group-mind will have some major part to play yet; and let us hope in a positive way.  The world is uniting in ways that we might not choose but the world has been uniting through the pandemic, police brutality and economic inequality. Meanwhile, don’t let it depress you, anger you, or make you fearful.

I say this to myself and to anyone who reads this too:  Remember, there is always something else going on. When all else fails, remember the big sky consciousness and always look up.  Find the moon or stars or even the dark clouds if that’s all you can see for the moment but know that they will pass and the Sun, Moon, and Stars will shine for you again.

 

 

 

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CoVid-19 Pandemic Lifts the Veil

How are you doing?  One moment your heart (like mine) may crack open and the next your fear for society and your family may overcome you.  Then there is a settling down and recovery—so many of us have been here before.  Maybe not the same exact pandemic peril but instability at watching a version of reality that we believed so true and to which we had so many thoughts attached become shattered.  Only to find in just a little while (days/weeks/months—maybe longer) but eventually experiencing life lifting us up as if on the wings of a merciful angel and once attain we’re recovered.  But each time we hold less intensely to what we perceive to be and label ‘reality’—our version of it anyway.  The veil thins and our illusions and delusions are exposed to ourselves.

We’ve been unstable before and found our comfort in the role of the observer having to let go of what we once believed kept us sane.  With that last line comes to mind the Jimmy buffet song lyrics, “It’s these changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes; Nothing remains quite the same; With all of our running and all of our cunning; If we couldn’t laugh we would all go insane.”  When nothing remains the same, and when the veil thins and (sometimes painfully) our illusions are exposed humor does help.  (Last night our family gathered in a webcam platform and created belly laughs which were quite healing and fun.)

More lyrics:  If it suddenly ended tomorrow
I could somehow adjust to the fall
Good times and riches and son-of-a-bitches
I’ve seen more than I can recall

Yeah, on that last part sons and daughters of people who ignore social distancing!  Ah, but there it is again – fear and projections overcome me again.

We’re living through dramatic change these days and rapidly. When I contemplate and meditate that whole process is about observing the mind and studying and learning from the way the mind itself is continually changing.  Now we see that change on the outside as well as the inside. The nature of life ‘is’ change and we experience this in our meditation and contemplation but our human side, the personality that attaches to all that it believes is un-changing is now waking up due to the potentiality of this virus for which there is no cure and no vaccine.  Yet, today, with my facemask securely in place and list in hand while walking through the produce section of one of our local grocery stores, two older gentlemen, one who is the produce worker and the other a customer were rather loudly defending their old realities (poo-pooing COVID-19).

Later at home in equal form, the woman across the parking lot had 6 children closely playing together in front of her apartment (only one was her own child) while she watched from her porch.  A young mother with a toddler was amongst the group as well – no social distancing at all mind you!  Apparently, the gig was up and they were back to the old reality.

In meditation, we begin to realize directly ‘how things are’ and we begin to see the very deep truth of impermanence and uncertainty.  We see that form is impermanent and subject to continual change.

Turn on the news and you will see it how impermanence and uncertainty is televised in abundance.   The amount of change, insecurity, destabilization, and vulnerability is quite visible.

People create an identity and then attach to that persona an idea of how they believe things are supposed to be.

Yet how things ‘are’ actually ‘is’ how it’s supposed to be – because this is how ‘it is’. To defend a different reality or to try to live an old illusion will only potentially cause more disappointment and suffering.  And as I type those last words the images of people who are not socially distancing flashes before me.

The way things ‘are’ is always changing and that change really isn’t up to us.  I can’t make people observe social distancing and they can’t stop the virus spreading by going back to a reality in which they closely gather and ignore the risks.

To ignore the feelings of fear and panic that may arise by indulging in risky behavior not only for one own self but for others (isn’t that the huge lesson associated with this virus?) is not wise or skillful.  Those feelings of anxiety that arise are normal; and so to, first of all, best accept that and realize that those feelings are not to be identified with.

They are feelings and those who are very sensitive to energy are feeling those feelings, processing them right along with the world in which they are arising.  It’s okay – it’s just what’s happening like in our meditation when we observe the thoughts and feelings, we don’t over-identify with those either.  We realize that it’s just what’s arising and then dissolving again.  We are not thoughts and we are not feelings.

Yet, again, like those ignoring social distancing right now and those refusing to wear a face mask, it’s the lower human nature to want to shove away a reality that one doesn’t want.

There was anger in the voices of the produce man and his customer in the grocery store.  That certainly comes from loss – loss of the old reality and the resistance to change.

Can we learn from this all these changes rather than running from it (like those who refuse the mask and ignore social distancing) and becoming angry with it (like the men in the grocery store)?

This pandemic lifts the veil and shows us the true nature of reality.  Pardon the pun but now can we take some of this veil and put it over our nose and mouth?