Q&A:Spiritual Dictionary

You might find this one to be a little controversial...read at your own risk.

Q. In a tweet a few days ago, you described yourself as "secular".  Isn't that the same thing as an atheist? How can you be "secular" and say you give "spiritual guidance" with your readings?

A. Fair question. You make a good point.This is kind of hard to explain, so be patient with me for a few minutes.

As I see it, "spiritual" and "secular" aren't exact opposites. They don't cancel each other out, and you can have both happening at the same time. I haven't talked about any of that for a while, so someone new to the blog or the @modernoracle twitter feed might not have seen the older, spirituality-oriented posts.

The key is in the words "secular" and "spiritual".

Since we are going there, we might have to talk about the big emotional words "religion" and "atheist" too. They are all emotionally charged words, that carry a LOT of connotations, reflex reactions, defensiveness, fear, anger ...you name it. It is hard to talk about these things without emotions getting in the way, so I'm going to try and take this step by step,  as logically as I can, ok?

To my way of thinking, "secular" simply means not-religion. It doesn't necessarily mean atheist. An atheist is someone who doesn't believe in any god. If you don't believe in a god, you don't need a religion, so atheists are, by definition, secular. But "secular" by itself doesn't say anything one way or the other about a belief in god or not. It is possible to believe in a god or gods, and not participate in religion -  like the free-thinking Diests in the 1700s and the Age of Reason. Theism and religion, atheism and secularism seem to pair up most of the time, but they aren't the exact same thing. That's why I like the term secular...it is actually god/atheist neutral.

"Spiritual" is different from both religion and atheism as I use it. When I say "spiritual" I mean a person's individual understanding of how life works. Spirituality is an internal, individual relationship with the subtle, mysterious parts of life. It is our personal individual understanding of truth. It is how we, each alone, makes sense of life, the universe and everything (to borrow a phrase from Douglas Adams). It is based exclusively on our internal sense of truth, ethics, morality, philosophy and so on.

Religion on the other hand, is an outward, group, social construct. Religion is codified, external definitions of truth, morality, ethics, philosophy and so on. Religion is often expressed through rituals, writings, lifestyle, and is taught one generation to another in ways that personal spirituality often is not. Religion is external, a shared, group experience. Spirituality is internal, an individual experience.

For some people, their inward spirituality and their outward religion is the same thing. For others, like me, the two are entirely separate. I do not practice or teach any religion...so I'm secular.

Through tarot and such, I think about and interact with the intangible ideas in life. I share what I've learned, and how I've used tarot symbolism (among other things) to learn them...thus "spiritual guidance".

Tarot readings are spiritual, not theological in my experience. The ideas and symbols are helpful, no matter what your religion or beliefs might be.

Readings are all about one person coming to an individual, internal understanding of their situation. Readings are a way for an individual to navigate through a portion of life, and a tool to help with individual choices. Some people use their religion for that guidance. Others don't. Whether you use a religious or secular guidance-tool, the essence of this kind of guidance is internal, individual and spiritual.

From that point of view, religion offers spiritual guidance, but so does intuitive readings. It is all about how an individual uses the reading/religion, not the reading/religion itself.

Your question is a good example - it is essentially spiritual. We aren't primarily talking about religion...so this is mainly a secular post. We are talking about individual understanding, individual life-philosophy - so this is also a spiritual post.

There are even Tarot cards for this kind of conversation. The Pope or Hierophant card from the major arcana talks about the intersections of social convention, religion, and individuality. The Moon talks about our internal, intuitive, spiritual journey.

And before you even ask...I don't talk about whether I am atheist or not. I won't talk about religion except in very very general terms like this, and even then only when it is brought up by a question or a card. Like Bella said in Twilight..."I'm Switzerland". I'm a religion-neutral, religion-free zone. I'm secular, and I help people find spiritual guidance through tarot-symbolism and intuition-development. In my mind, "secular" and "spiritual" live side by side just fine.


www.ModernOracleTarot.com

Daily Meditation - Major Arcana "Death" card

The sky doesn't ask what you believe before you are allowed to look at it. 


Plants don't demand you think or do certain things before they grow from the earth to nourish you.


Gravity doesn't demand that you accept it before it holds you to the Earth.


The sun doesn't ask you have blind faith in it before it warms you.


Water doesn't require your trust to flow.


Why should "heaven" or the afterlife be any different? 


Some things simply are. 




www.ModernOracleTarot.com
www.RondaSnow.com

I agree

I agree with the editorial: Please read this young woman's excellent opinion piece.


Editorial Refused - Editorial advocating for religious freedom denied publication in school paper

Paranormal and Provocative: The Moon

Whether you gaze at it alone or with others, the moon remains as it is. Our spiritual journey, the awakening of our soul, doesn't need group activity or organized religion any more than the moon needs us to look at it in order to be beautiful in the night sky.


www.ModernOracleTarot.com

Today's Tarot - The Devil

The Devil:

 Hiding in the light because you are afraid of the dark does not make the darkness go away.

Darkness is as much a part of life and nature as light. Fear and anger make the darkness stronger, puts things out of balance. George Lucas was right..."fear and anger lead to the dark side".  The balance comes by seeing the shadow as part of the light, as part of the whole.

We can't see in total darkness, but by the same token, we can't see at all if our eyes are dazzled by light alone...we need contrast and shadow to see well. Light and dark together in balance is the way of nature. It is a hint for how things work philosophically as well.

Balance also comes by taking light to the darkness. Courage and compassion balance fear and anger. If we face fear with courage, the devil disappears.

The more pious and fundamentalist we are, the more absolute and powerful evil must be to strike a universal balance. If we admit there is a little light in the dark, a little dark in the light, then the balance is easier, just a little more loving toward everyone. If we admit there is a little darkness, a little or the "devil" inside human existence (as Halloween and Dia Del Los Muertos reminds us).

When we remove fear and fundamentalist piety, the devil is diminished. Instead of powerful and mysterious, the devil becomes mundane and commonplace - like dark woods on a bright summer day. Neither good nor bad, it simply is. For some, such darkness is cooling respite from summer heat. For others, the darkness of the woods is a source of fear and the unknown.

What the Devil tarot card teaches is largely governed by the emotion we bring to it, rather than anything it actually IS. For some it sparks a very deep visceral fear. For others, it is just "devilish mischief". 

Here is where I might make you mad...this is the controversial part, so it is up to you to keep reading or not.

I don't like to talk about religion or politics because these topics are divisive in the extreme. The only time I "go there" is if I feel really compelled by intuition or "spirit" or the universe or however you look at such things.

When this card turned up, the 2011 new year's reading came strongly to mind. You can read the full 2011 New Years post HERE.

Here is the part that the Devil card brings to mind:

I get the feeling that things will go well for the Obama adminstration: people will begin to see what he has done and again see what is possible “he will have earned his Nobel prize” is the feeling. Americans, real, grass roots population will rally behind him…”have his back” against dark forces…more of a domestic threat than international issues. There is a black way, a dark and wrong possible future…only the voices of ordinary people can push it back, and choose the brighter way. “Don’t be fooled again” is the message.

As I see it, the dark way is the Republicans. Vote them back into Congress or the White House, and we are going to be lead down the primrose path...again. "Ordinary people" may be Occupy Wall Street, or it just might be your average voter. If you like how things are now, send a thank you note to the Republicans who have been manipulating and making noise since 1998, probably longer. If you want something better...vote for Democrats, Independents, Green Party...anyone else you think is qualified to do the job. The Republicans voted in the House of Representatives two days ago to reaffirm the "In God We Trust" motto ...when only a short time ago the Republicans refused to commend the military involved with Bin Laden mission because they wouldn't entertain "frivolous" or ceremonial issues.

After hearing about that vote, there was no doubt in my mind what the dark path in the reading was talking about. The Devil here is clear. Rather than facing them with fear, allowing ourselves to be bullied, we must use the brightest light of our democracy...our vote.

On a lighter note...

that celebrity wedding...don't know where the red color comes in, but sure sounds like that Kim Kardashian thing. If you like that kind of thing.

There were some more tarballs on the gulf coast this summer.

There was a low oxygen thing killing sardines near California.

That was fun...it always surprises me when those new-years semi-predictive, just for fun readings actually "come true". Who knew?

Be brave, vote for courage, vote for compassion, your vote can diminish the Devil. 

www.ModernOracleTarot.com

Announcements October 26, 2011

The King of Swords supplemental post "Q&A: What Religion Are You?" has been revised and expanded a little. Verson 2.0 is HERE if you would like to take a look.

I'll be appearing tonight doing tarot readings at the Halloween Bash at North Country Brewing, in Slippery Rock PA from 8pm to 11pm.

I'll be doing family-friendly readings at the Scott Library Halloween party from 6:30 pm to 8pm on Saturday, October 29, 2011. Please visit www.scottlibrary.org for more details.

Want a Halloween reading all your own?
Get the SAME reading as you would get live and in-person - at a $15 discount and with no appointment needed. Please click HERE for prices and ordering instructions.

Happy Halloween!

Q&A: What religion are you?

Somebody asked this the other day when they called to ask about getting a tarot reading. I'm guessing they didn't like the answer, since they didn't make an appointment.


This question is what drew me to today's card. This post is sort of a  "King of Swords supplemental...the many facets of a human being."


Nobody is defined by any one label, not even the "religion" one.


You might be a person who believes in X  or practices Y religion, but it isn't the sum total of who you are. You might like to golf, but that isn't the totality of who you are, either. I like rainy days and science fiction. Choice of religion is no more defining than that. Some people define themselvesalmost totally by their religion. In my opinion, we shouldn't define other people by their religion any more than we define them by their favorite flavor of ice cream.


If religion is important to you, then knowing the religion of a psychic or tarot reader is a good question to ask. If you need a reader from a particular religious background in order to resonate with them and have a good reading, by all means keep asking until you find that match. There areChristian psychics out there if that"s what you need.


I'm not one of them.


I see spirituality as a very personal thing. That's why I treat readings with great respect. I'm honored when someone shares that part of themselves with me. That's part of why I won't read a sitter's love-interest in a romance reading without that other person's permission.


Personally, whatever spirituality I'm willing to share is already right here in this blog. Read the archives. It's pretty obvious that, while I don't participate in any given religion, I draw from the common ideas between a number of spiritual traditions: Taoism, Buddhism, Native American thought, Spiritism, even a little Wicca. My childhood was spent in a very devout Christian family, so I'm familiar with that mind-set, even though I don't agree with it much. I've read world religion books with overviews of Judeaism, Islam, Hinduism, Shinto...the major ones that books seem to cover. I may not know a lot about those, but I do know what is right for me...and I know that I respect your right to decide what is right for you.  I have no intention of convincing anyone of anything...ever. The readings are what they are, my view is what it is....all I can do is share it. The rest is up to the reading public to decide...to take it or leave it as they see fit. Get right down too it, I'm a freethinker, and hope this resonates with other Freethinkers too.


I am ever grateful to those who do decide to 'take' the blog under consideration and give the posts a read. Thank you.


To label a person by their religion is, in my mind, the fast track to bigotry. To judge a person by religion is no better than judging a fellow human by the color of their skin. If you want to talk about your religion, that's cool. If not, that's cool too. It doesn't change the reading I do one bit, because there is so much else to talk about, so many other analogies to make.


So what religion am I? None. I'm not a religion, I'm a human being.



www.ModernOracleTarot.com
www.RondaSnow.com

Paranormal Proof

Nobody likes to be wrong.

That is the problem with proof. When something is proven right, another thing is proven wrong, and there is natural resistance to that.

Was watching one of those "ghost hunter" shows on TV earlier. They are interesting, not because they prove or disprove life after death, but because they are generally an interesting window to human nature. Tarot is too.

Why the need to PROVE anything? Who is being convinced? What does it matter if we prove our way of thinking to another human being or not?

I have a hunch it is tied to that basic need to "belong" and the even stronger need to communicate. After all, communication and social, coordinated effort is a survival skill from way back. And, we like to convince people to our way of thinking...that way we don't have to be wrong.

Why can't the answer be "yes" or "all of the above", though. Isn't tolerance of other views a compassionate thing?

Both science and religion have a sort of dualistic bias. If it can't be scientifically proven, then it is dismissed, ridiculed, even oppressed (like scientific medicine oppresses holistic medicine through archaic legislation, but that is another, off-topic rant).

Some religions are well known for its "believe what we believe or to hell with you" attitudes.

A certain amount of judgment and classification is needed for us to understand our world and get along in it...But I wonder how far beyond our own judging and understanding we should venture. If the journey is what matters, more than the destination, perhaps the process of reasoning, deciding, rejecting, believing is all more important than the final conclusion. And if the process is what matters, can't each conclusion have validity? No matter which lens of understanding we use, shouldn't each lens be respected by virtue of the process that formed/chose it?

Like everything, it seems to me, it is a balance of opposites. We must test, judge, rationally (scientifically) test what is true and valid for us. We choose what to believe. The two together form what we know. *

So why run around shouting at ghosts, chasing them with emf meters and digital recorders? Why tell people that they will suffer an eternity if they don't join a particular belief-group? Why not just live by the basic agreed-upon rules of society (don't kill anybody, don't take anybody's stuff, keep your promises and don't tell outright lies) but beyond that, believe what you believe and that's that.

Sounds pretty ironic, coming from a blog-writer that does nothing but spout opinion...

Also ironic...this is an exercise in just that believe-what-you-believe and not care about proving anything to anyone motif.

After decades of self-editing and keeping opinions to myself, this blog has been a fascinating practice in running ideas up the flagpole...if anyone salutes, thank you! If not, that's ok too. I have no proof to offer, and no interest in doing so. It is a hard-won but good place to finally be.

And you?

*"Believing is one thing. Knowing is another." ~Chris Fleming

"...I would like to make one thing quite clear...I never explain anything" ~ Mary Poppins

Starseeds and Seeds of Truth

Some things are too "fringe" even for me.

A friend sent a link to a website...we both like creative paintings and art, and she wanted to bring a particularly nice graphic to my attention. It was very good. But for once, the visual is beside the point.

The graphic was on a website that was all about "star seeds" and indigo children. I'm not here to say whether those ideas are true or not. I don't know. All I know is that it doesn't quite resonate with me. Something's a half bubble off, but I can't quite put my finger on just what it is. There is a part of me that wants to be an "indigo" or a "starseed". I've always had an interest in science, space and astronomy. Blame it on mom...she uncharacteristically (thank goodness) let me get up to see the moon landing when I was 4. I was hooked. I wheedled, whined and sneaked (the night launches) to see every Apollo launch and landing possible after that. After putting my own little one on the school bus, beat a path to the tv to watch the Endeavor launch.

Speaking of tv...I'm a huge Mythbusters fan...back to that seemingly random statement in a minute.

One of the characteristics of a "star child" according to this website is a fascination with space and astronomy. Well, I have that one covered. Still, the whole indigo children / star child thing doesn't seem a 100% on target.

I've always loved the constellation Orion, and take great comfort in seeing it somehow. Was talking about this same topic with one of my like-minded soul-sisters one time. We picked a star to be "from", with the idea that our first impulse might hold some grain of truth, might be some clue. She picked the Pleiades. I picked Rigel from the Orion constellation. What that means, if anything, I've yet to figure out. I think it means I like the Orion constellation. Had to laugh at some of the people on the website claiming to be FROM Orion. That is the name of a pattern of stars as they appear from Earth. They are actually quite distant in 3 dimensional space, and if you got far enough away from earth, the pattern, thus "Orion" disappears and becomes meaningless.

Strike two for the star seeds.

Another thing from the "are you a star seed" list of questions is having a feeling that all religions are missing something. Amen to that.

A-HA! There are the dots to connect. Religions and star seeds...no one religion has all the truth. Neither does this "star seed" "indigo children" construct. All religions have some granule of truth or benefit or they wouldn't survive the test of time. "New age" beliefs share some traits like that with orthodox 'religion', in function, if not in form.

Human nature is rich in dichotomies. We are social and need to belong, yet we need to think of ourselves as unique and special. Religions and belief groups meet both of those needs. It seems to me that part of the impetus for religious participation and the interest in 'star seeds' and 'indigo children' is a need for specialness while being part of a tribe. The balance of those two seemingly opposing needs is different for each person...some are driven primarily by the rules and expectations of their 'tribe', as with religious fundamentalist. Others are more 'lone wolf'...but still take pleasure in meeting those of like mind and equal independence. But the seeds within each, the core grains of truth are the same for both motifs.

That's where the Mythbusters reference comes in. Their experimentation often finds the "grain of truth behind the myth".

This dual need of human nature is one of those grains that show how much old religion and 'new age' really are alike...and should be taken with the same grain. Of salt that is.

At the same time, as much as religion and 'new age' arouse our skeptical instincts, there is another grain of truth to been here.

Let's change the TV channel again...from the moon landing to Mythbusters, now back to Carl Sagan's Cosmos.

The "Starseeds" are expressing in intuitive/spiritual terms what Dr. Sagan expressed in literal, logical, scientific terms. "We are all star stuff".

The atoms that make up our bodies...the iron, calcium, carbon, all of it...those literal atoms were literally created in the hearts of distant and ancient stars. We are all literally thinking, feeling, communicating expressions of the cosmos...the stars. We are deeply connected to ALL that is, every place, every dimension, every time. We are ALL children of the stars, literally and symbolically. That is the breathtaking beauty behind the scientific phrase "time-space continuum". That is the spiritual common ground between the new and the orthodox, the fringe and the fundamental.

"We are all star stuff"...we are all special and unique in the most connected and egalitarian way possible.

And in so being, in being both special and one, we echo the stars that bore us, and the cosmos in which both we and the stars exist.

www.modern-oracle-tarot.com

Tarot reading: Four Seasons for America

People who write like to do just that...when you have a blog, sometimes it is hard not to rant and opine on any old thing that gets your hackles up.

I know I push the envelope when it comes to one of the two topics that inevitably lead to somebody getting disgruntled or annoyed to one extent or another. I 'go there' with religion. Won't do it with politics too, that's be nuts!

So I won't give my opinion of the mid-term elections in the U.S.

But I would like to experiment with this. I've heard of astrologers and the like who do readings for nations, and celebrities. While I personally think it is wrong to read someone without their direct consent, what about a collective group as large as a country? I don't know if it is even possible to do from a Tarot point of view, like it is in astrology. I've heard some astrologers cast charts etc based on the date that a city was incorporated or a business started.

So this is just experimental, no promises, just out of curiosity to see what cards turn up. Not to mention a dead giveaway of my political leanings. It might be more of that than an actual reading for the direction of the country-at-large...but hey, Tarot readers need to vent / rant / opine as much as any blogger, eh?

Winter...knight of cups...suffiency

"Enough"...a period of little change...no further slippage, but not prosperous either. Knight suggests action. It feels grassroots. The action is drawn from the everyman, to make do, to get by with nothing but inaction if not outright obstacles. Direction of the country caters to the few, while the rest show strength, resilience.

Spring...3 of swords...corruption

Corruption is recognized more, seen more, but not corrected

Summer...The Emperor...Illimitable Ability

Skilled leaders...not just one, but a small few...step in to re-set direction and effect a positive change that gives heart to the public that feels abandoned.

Fall...3 of cups...merriment...

A feeling of some hope and optimism returns. A feeling of relief as a crisis ends

3 and a second three...there is a feeling that March and June will be important shifts in energy.

www.modern-oracle-tarot.com