Today's Tarot - Queen of Swords

When you work with intuition, you run the risk of startling yourself every now and again. It is just part of the territory, and kind of the point....some ideas need to grab our attention.

As I am writing this the TV is on in the background. I just didn't bother to change the channel after the morning news, and they are re-playing the whole news broadcast from 2001.

I picked up the cards for today's post...I had no intention of touching on 9-11, which has been remembered to the point of exploitation over the past decade...but when I cut the deck to shuffle, the Tower card was in my hand. It's hard to believe that is random coincidence. We commemorate the day because it was a watershed moment in history, a profound point of energy that echoes still today.

I remembered my fear that day: home with a baby, a husband working in a downtown high rise, watching the live news from New York ... and the report that another plane was down south of Pittsburgh. The distance was initially mis-reported as being closer than then it actually was. Living in the southern 'burbs, I literally looked out the windows expecting to see a smoke plume somewhere within sight.

That was 11 years ago. The loss may never heal for those who lost loved ones that day. The grip the events still have on people who were not directly affected, except in the abstract, national sense, surprises me sometimes. Violence is a global heartbreak, no matter what country, what day or what motivation causes it. At some point, all the focus on "9-11" starts to feel like wallowing in self-pity, when other places have lost as much.

Which is exactly why commemoration is still needed...the chill from seeing the Tower card in my hand at the same moment of the news re-play was a reminder of that. We still have much to learn from the retrospective. It is a chance to see the facts, see the mistakes, see how the tragedy has been magnified by the further tragedy of ten years of war. The loss of life that day has been multiplied many times over by war - some defensive, some unnecessary, all too long-lasting.

It also lets us see where we are stuck, where fear has become paralyzing and unhealthy, but also where we have courage and where we are strong.

We could just sit here and be freaked by the Tower card turning up like that, or we can go on to shuffle, and see what we need to know NOW, HERE, TODAY.

That is when the Queen of Swords comes along. The meaning of "mystical power" from Diane Morgan's book seems the strongest one. There is mystical power available to each and every one of us...intent, attraction, action...and choice.

We see now how the events of 9-11 and the choices of 2001 have affected us today. Today, we have the ability to choose our path for the next 11 years. We can choose war, pain, fear (as the suite of swords reminds us) ...or we can choose wisdom, courage, cooperative action (as the nature of a queen reminds us).

A queen is a leader, with the feminine touch of intuition and nurturing. Today she is asking us to remember - to understand those in pain and grief, but also to remember the power we have, the magic we hold over the future through the choices we make today.

Thoughts from the Wheelhouse

I'm hooked on a fishing show. 


Never thought I'd say THAT. I don't fish. It makes me woozy to ride the "lazy river" at the water park. Don't get me wrong, I love to eat the crab the guys on TV catch, but never thought I'd want to watch the process of catching it in the first place. 


What does that have to do with intuition, tarot readings or the mind-body-spirit connection in dieting? It is a round-about connection, but we'll get there. Like almost everything in "The Vampire Diet" and "Modern Oracle Tarot" blogs, it is all about choice and taking charge of our own life. 


It's no secret that I loves me some Mythbusters. I watch Discovery Channel and Science Channel all the time. Not long ago I saw an ad for their series "Deadliest Catch" where there was an ill crew member. He had "the look".  It caught my attention and the part of me that spent 13 years in medicine like a grappling hook. Whatever was going on was real, and it was bad. That guy would have looked scary enough rolling into a well equipped emergency room. Can you imagine dealing with that situation in the middle of freezing water nowhere with nothing but a blood pressure cuff, a bottle of sports drink and a radio? Yikes! My hat, were I wearing one, is totally off to Captain Keith and the "Wizard" crew.


Now throw that little bit of light viewing in the mental stew-pot along with Marcus Bach's excellent "Secrets of a Buccaneer Scholar", Gina Mazza's "Everything Matters, Nothing Matters", the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, and every other poetic captain-ship-ocean metaphor you've ever heard. The universe is trying to tell us something. These are powerful images and analogies for a reason.


Living life well is a solitary achievement.


We are each captain of our own ship. At the same time, we are deeply connected to the all-that-is just like a ship is connected to water. We can't disconnect from the one-ness of our existence any more than a ship can float up in the air levitate over waves. 


Our ship-of-self is part of a fleet. We command alone, but do not sail alone. You might not see yourself as captain of the ship, but, in a sense, you are. Think of the crew members on the crab boats...they aren't in charge of the actual ship, but they have the command call of how they conduct themselves. Each of them decides how they navigate their own personal 'ship' within the 'fleet' of the crew. They choose how to act, how to do their job. And they see results of those choices - fast - in their share of the profits and if they come back next season or not.


We are all captains in that sense. You can choose to sail alone, unconnected, but that seems to make an already risky business even riskier. 


We reach out to connect for guidance. The Captains have GPS, maps, and training to guide them, just like we can reach out to intuition and spirituality to guide us, but in the end, we call the shots. We can read diet books and recipes all we want, but in the end we decide what we buy, chew and swallow.  We can communicate and connect with other "captains" while we are in command our own ship. We get whatever information we can, yet we  still move with the waves and tides of our existence. Whether we roll with it, plow through it, or get rolled by it is our own decision straight from the captain's wheelhouse.  


Or at least, that's how it seems to me.


www.ModernOracleTarot.com

The Wheel - daily meditation

The wheel: change is certain, so choose well and adapt wisely when it happens. That is where you choice and control becomes part of creating something new

www.ModernOracleTarot.com

Parallax -redux

Just as the brain uses the input from both eyes to navigate the world, it is ultimately ourselves, OUR choices that utilizes the information from a psychic reading. We are ultimately responsible for the choices that accept or change the envisioned path.

www.modern-oracle-tarot.com

When is the answer a question?

Does that sound yoda-ish enough for you?

Questions have value. "The only bad question is the one you don't ask" as the adage goes.

I use this idea all the time when asked for specific predictions.

I make it crystal clear to every client that my style of reading is for ADVICE only, that predictions are not reliable, because CHOICE CHANGES EVERYTHING. Change your mind, change your actions, change your path, change your future.

Some people still ask for predictions like "will I get a new job"?

First I fight off the urge to answer with a snarky, sarcastic "I dunno, did you apply for one?"

Usually very concrete questions like that, rather than sparking a specific answer, bring a whole cascade of additional questions to mind.

No sarcasm intended...DID you apply for a different job? What is your dream job anyway? Are you happy where you are? Would a new job be an improvement or a loss? Do you need training or mentoring to help you get a new job if you want it? Have you talked with your current boss if you want to stay put? Is the change withing anyone's control? Or do you have to adapt to a larger situation? Is there anyone who can give you help of advice in your current field? In the one you want to be in?

And so on. When this cascade of questions happens in response to a specific prediction-request, it means two things to me...

1. that answer the questions in the cascade will give the person the answer to the original question...and

2. This situation calls for logic and action, not passively asking for a psychic prediction.

This paradigm works for me...it is like the old chinese parable. If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him and his family for a lifetime.

Giving a set prediction has the effect of locking the persons thinking into one pattern, either leading them to a self-fulfilling prophecy OR toward disappointment.

Giving a set of questions to ponder expands the persons possibilities, and helps them move toward their dreams.

I like questions. Sometimes questions are the answer.

Baihu

www.modern-oracle-tarot.com