Q and A: When will I work with my spirit guides?

Q: When will I start to work with my spirit guides? Will I hear them or see them?

A: When, if and how you work with your spirit guides (or angels) is entirely  up to you. You can start right here, right now if you so choose. Basically, all you have to do is love, trust, and listen.

As I understand it, the door of communication doesn't open or close  on their side...it opens or closes on ours. They are  ready and waiting to work with you, whenever your are ready to work with them. 

In my experience, there are a few things that can help make the process easier. I think they are very  important steps, but that is for you to judge. 

1. Set your intent to Love, Light, Respect - and only that.
2. Learn to listen to your INNER senses
3. Learn the language of spirit: symbolism and coincidence.

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Today's Tarot - The Devil

This is one of the scary cards. There are cards in the deck that can frighten people, and often propagates the occult-ish "evil" reputation tarot has, especially among certain religious views. Even if you understand that Tarot and the cards are really about ideas and learning (not predictions and superstitions), even then, the artwork on some of the cards can be a little on the dark and disturbing side...like the guy face down with swords stuck in him on the Rider-Waite 10 of swords. Death and the Devil aren't exactly  cheerful-looking, no matter which deck you use.

These cards are part of the Tarot deck for a reason far more intimidating than satanism or witchcraft...they are there because of reality. 

While we might not enjoy thinking about it, the reality is that we all die. The reality is that there really is violence and injustice in the world. There is a dark side to life on planet Earth, and yes, fear and anger can take you there.

When the Devil card turns up in a reading, it isn't a prediction that something terrible is about to happen to you. That's an easy prediction to make, because we all experience ups and downs and bumps in the road - some bigger than others. 

When this card turns up, there is nothing wrong with taking precautions...forewarned is fore-armed. The problem comes when practical caution turns into fear and paranoia. I like to re-frame this card as a "use your street smarts" card. Think of it as a crook, gangster, drug dealer kind of card to put it into perspective.

The Devil card is a reminder that injustice and wrongdoing really does exist, and asks us to think about what we are going to do about that incontrovertible and unavoidable fact.

"The Devil", injustice, and "evil" are part of the wholeness of everything.  That doesn't mean we have to accept them. While it takes some work, we can find some tiny measure good in evil when lessons are learned from tragedy. Wrong is in the world for a right reason...to teach us how to protect against it.

Injustice is in the world to teach us how to fight and overcome it.

It is a card that can bring out the fear in us, or it can bring out the ethical warrior in us. The choice is, as always, yours.

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The Devil major arcana card

The Devil card is one that many people find frightening. It has the strongest association with the occult, and other misunderstandings about Tarot.

So lets use the Tower card that we've talked about in the past to understand this card: use perspective. Let's put the Devil major arcana card into some context.

Tarot evolved in a very Catholic culture in pre-renaissance Europe. Sure, the Devil was a very potent symbol in its time, and it still communicates powerful ideas. But it is also time we introduce the Devil card to the 21st century.

Many cultures and religions have a figure like this. So restricting the card to just the christian understanding of 'the devil' isn't so useful in our global, multicultural time.

Some say that the representation of the devil on the cards is less a visual representation of the old testament entity, but more a suppression of the horned male god of the European pagans. It symbolizes the id unleashed, the natural world and the natural impulses of humans. The physical aspects of life were vilified, some say as a way of suppressing the nature-based religions by the advent of a politically powerful christian church. So in this view, the 'devil' became the cosmic bad-guy trying to make you do really bad things - like question church authority.

If that is the old understanding, how does this concept fit into a modern outlook? Has the Devil card been rendered irrelevant?

I think a better understanding would be one that reflects the idea of the "dark side"...both of our individual persona and in life at large, a la George Lucas.

I think the Devil card can be seen two ways...as the dark side of humanit: racism, bigotry, hate, anger, brutality, torture, theft, assault...the list is huge.

While few individuals are heinous criminals or despotic dictators, we all have parts of ourselves we judge as 'bad' or 'wrong'. Nobody is perfect. We all have our inner dark side: anger, bias, harsh words, selfishness, apathy to others...sadly this list is just as long.

The message of the Devil card isn't external arch-evil, it is our inner demons, and the way they are made manifest through our words and actions.

The message of the Devil card is to be aware of the dark side of existence, and meet it with courage, conviction and common sense.

In a literal way, this card is a reminder that bad things do happen, so common sense precaution is a good idea: get that emergency flashlight, don't walk alone in a dark city alley at night, don't throw gasoline on a campfire...

It also speaks to the inner dark side. Denial does nothing to bring balance. Denial of our true selves, dirty laundry and all, does nothing to serve compassion. If we ignore our faults, we can't learn from them or change them. Facing our inner demons takes the most courage, but yields the most profound changes...for the better.

Wishing you courage and balance to free you from the devils inside and out.

Baihu
www.modern-oracle-tarot.com