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Everybody Deserves Somebody – We come into adulthood with strong memories of familialdependence. We are all attracted to caretaking behaviors and easily seduced by promises to read ourminds and give us what we really want. Then we discover Desire. Not only for bodies, but for Persons,Lives, Individualities. Other people are a spice, other people are a medicine for everything our livesappear to be lacking. What if we could combine all our needs together in one appetizing package? Challenge – We rarely ask our friends to change their lives for us. They are VERY rarely willing to doso. But a partner is someone to actively plan a life with. You get to talk through all the Wants, thePossibles, the Fears. Heady stuff! The challenge is to know Yourself well enough to make any sort of honest statements about who you are, who you CAN be and who you want to be. Danger – A substantial number of partnerships fail. We all know this but we keep trying. Then thereare the partnerships that evolve into Something Else, a Financial, Real Estate or Caregiving unit that isvery necessary but also pretty far from what we had in mind. Our challenge is – can we know and beknown? Can we evolve with another soul to a higher plane? Can we find our Soulmate? Does such acreature exist? Disappointment and betrayal are all too often the outcomes. Opportunity – Soulmates DO exist! They DO evolve. We WILL change our life for another and theywill change, blend, merge with us. Any interaction with another requires communication, boundaries,honesty, planning and “rules”. I put rules in quotes because a good partner keeps “transforming” thegame and we keep transforming ourselves to meet it. The best way to honestly know yourself is tokeep conscious, subconscious and unconscious in alignment. Purposeful dreaming is the best way todo that! Meditation – #Haiku: Marriage Alone we perish Jointly immortal Heaven is Joy maximized
YOU ARE A POWER – You are struggling to find your force. You feel the power and strength of asyet undefined wishes and the longing to create your place in the world. No guide exists to thiswilderness, you will have to map this forest yourself. Be brave. CHALLENGE – There are plenty of traps ahead. Do not become discouraged. Accept that the flow ofenergy pulses with your every heart beat, with your sleep/rest cycle, with the obligations you willinglyseek to smooth your path. DANGERS - Some of these obligations become too heavy, others seek to deter you from your setcourse. Still others offer false maps that seem to promise the ease of “I don’t have to do this alone.”We are all alone inside our heads and you – and only you – must be satisfied with the map you create. If you aren’t there’s no fellowship or wealth that can compensate you for that loss. OPPORTUNITIES – We revel in and with our fellow travelers. There could be a soulmate amongthem – for a time or for a life. Accept the wisdom of others, the wisdom of the path, consult othermaps in designing your own. Be prepared to alter your map – joyously – with each new and freshdiscovery. There will be many. Salut! MEDITATION – #Haiku: The Life Force Energy Resurge Depower dread Repower health Refocus Aim
76. The Daisy – Love – Love is the spirit that animates the empty spaces between humans. Once charged, these spaces become a powerful force for growth and change - uncharged they are so much dead air. Love is the longing to be truly alive and to share life with the Blissed, Blessed Others. Yearning Defines Us – Once we knew the meaning of life but it seems we have forgotten. But oh, how we long to be reminded, to re-experience the borderlessness between creatures that makes the dead universe come alive. We dream and dream and can't wake up. Challenge – We can’t go back, we can only go forward. We have to practice a technique we can’t recall in a threateningly uncertain world. We truly are standing up and running across the ocean, just as in my dream, but this time, we have the confidence of memory. Someone loved us once, now we can re-create and perpetuate that magic. Danger – Danger lies in narrowing definitions. Love must ever open outwards. As soon as we turn Love into a zero sum game with a shut-off valve the moment we feel gratified, Love is killed. Opportunity – Close your eyes and assume yoga’s starfish pose. We are open to what the universe longs to teach and once we commit to pass it on, we form an unbreakable chain, free at last from the bonds of selfishness. Clasp the hand (or paw) that generously, trustingly takes hold of yours. Meditation - #Haiku: Honesty Stop delusion No one’s fooled. Acknowledge Truth - Radiate Love: Know Peace. 75. Homing – Forgiveness - Do you dream of home? What’s “home” to you? Sometimes we dream of a home that no longer exists, or never existed. DreamTarot posits that “home” represents the state of psychic absolution where all mistakes are forgiven and fall away. We dream of ultimate understanding where our sins are not too terrible to be entirely forgotten. Jesus suggests to us that state will never arrive until we learn to be the “forgivers”. Obviously, this means we must learn – somehow – to forgive ourselves. What Does It Mean to “Start Over”? – We don’t wish to be free of “consequences”. We want to learn and grow from our mistakes but not be humiliated and punished for them. Pretending they didn’t happen doesn’t free us. Seeing our mistakes as moves in a dance we all contribute to frees us from painful rumination and helps explain the prison of blame. “I did this because you –“… Human interactions are a tar-pit in which we trap and tar ourselves. We realize we need to forgive every chain in the event pattern if we are ever to have any peace. Challenge – Robert Frost defines “home” s a place where, when you show up, they have to take you in. Defining “they” defines your group, your natural home. Philosophy may provide an answer. Buddhists see history as a circle, Christians as a spiral. The question for us Christians is, which direction is the spiral headed and do we have time to learn what we need to know before there’s a cataclysm. Can you define the mess we’re in and intuit your behavioral contribution? Is it possible to detach from the mess? Can you find a group – or even a moment (say, in yoga class) detached from the mess? Danger – Mixed up about right and wrong? Think it through. One avenue leads to health, dignity and growth; the other leads in the opposite direction.. Don’t make the mistake of “fundamental attribution error” either. Martin Luther King Jr. made a wise comment that the type of government capitalism desires is “socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the rest of us.” It certainly suits corporations to lecture their employees on building a better world without incorporating any of those ideas into the bigger picture, where we have no control and they have absolute freedom. It is important that our resistance not embitter us. Opportunity – Forgiveness doesn’t require ignoring the past or accepting bad behavior. It’s part of an interaction where forgiveness is requested. Usually there is a recognition of fault or an expression of remorse: “I’ll never do that again!” When the requesting party seeks permission for the suffering to continue, “I can’t change” -- that’ a different request. “Home” is not re-created that way. Hell is. Your opportunity is to point this out – if necessary, to yourself. “But if I’m not willing to try giving up my behavior because I think I’m not able to, this pattern will continually get worse.” And make an intelligent choice. “If it gets really bad I can always commit suicide” is not an intelligent choice, “I need help” is. Meditation - #Haiku: Forgiveness Returning home with New eyes Strong hands Fresh translations of Future past The Gazing Ball – Prophecy – The Number One question people have about dreams is, Are they prophetic? And the answer is of course YES. We KNOW the “truth’. We fear the truth. We don’t want to face the truth. We fear the continuing “losses” of age because the accretions are so hard to see. Our dreams KNOW what is going on. But they are also Art, and art – especially good art – is as mysterious, meaningful and forceful as any living thing. It changes as you change, and it changes depending on how you look at it.
Accept the Revelation – Your dreams tell you when you are afraid. Your dreams tell you when something is missing. Your dreams uncover all the secrets you have been keeping from yourself. The first obligation is to accept is the fact that the truth is not so terrible. It is the endless hiding, the mounting fear, that can be really destructive. Challenge – The truth is that we are human, that we are imperfect, and that we need each other. The truth is that humans need governance and law to regulate our natural blindness and selfishness (which some would call original sin) into peaceful accord. The truth is also that humans who lust only for power will eternally angle to get themselves into positions of control, exclusion and punishment. These must be weeded out and it is courageous, difficult, and really unwelcome work, because we creative, loving, generous types have our own lives to live. Danger - Our dreams notify us when one of these lethal persons is in our midst. Our dreams offer a variety of plans for confrontation and escape, and a recipe for courage. At the present time the Lethal Persons are banding together and hoarding weapons to give themselves even more guarantees for power an opportunities to enjoy our despair. Opportunity – Jesus said evil will not win. The challenge is to explore what ELSE he said, indeed, what is the message of all the great teachers? It is not to hate one another and go to war with one another and people who tell you that it is are agents of evil. The first challenge into create peace in our own heart, peace in our own lives, peace in our own homes, and then start developing compassion for those who are not so lucky. When their brutal tactics are exposed for the empty promises that they are as family destroyers, peace destroyers and community destroyers, they will acknowledge that their efforts to share their despair come from a desire to surmount despair, and that it has never worked and is not working. Then we will welcome them back into the community of Sharing. Meditation – #Haiku: The Future Wisdom & will Extinguish death; Ides of Youth Depower Fear Share Growth The Labyrinth – Last night I dreamed of being at a resort where people were able to run across the top of the ocean playing a curling game – but they had to move fast. I couldn’t figure out what kept their feet above the waves. Later it was my job to provide lunch but the food at the little store was appalling. Very little bread, all stale – some weird canned vegetables, no protein other than some very suspect cheese. I was so relieved to wake! Life is very complex. We are bombarded with daily reminders that many of its problems are too big for our tiny brains to tackle alone. We need help to decipher the maze - legions of engineers, mathematicians, philosophers and artists – living and dead. Our mythic history is Tiny Human Confronts Huge Universe. You Are A Problem Solver – There is a way out of the labyrinth. You can follow string, leave breadcrumbs, mark walls, climb higher to get a birds’ eye view. My favorite cartoon shows a goat calmly eating his way through. The key, problem solvers tell you, is not to panic. Whole years of primary education are devoted to getting you to sit down, breathe calmly and focus on the problem. Remember what you have been taught. Recall your goals. Challenge – It is not necessary to solve the entire problem to solve the problem. Even a blind rat can get through a maze one step at a time. Algebra is manipulating unknowns. Guessing at the existence of x using the behavior of surrounding particles allows us to see without eyes. Many “hacks” are clever, and certain innovators have a gift for adaptation and reconfiguration. We can always get help. Repeat after me: “All my problems have a solution.” Often the solution is to view the “problem” differently. Maybe it isn’t a problem. Maybe it’s an opportunity. Danger – Primary dangers are panic (inability to think) and defeatist thinking (lack of imagination). The lovely movie The Martian shows a scientist literally conquering the impossible. If you ”give up”, you never get there, but retreat, reconstitution, changing training regimens and getting help are NOT giving up. “Sleep on it” is always good advice, as is viewing the difficulty from some other angle or changing the definitions of the entities considered. Opportunity – Key to success is fostering excitement about the challenges. Our high school used to dump couples in the countryside at night and give a prize to the first couple who found their way home! (Following roads and train tracks always a good idea.) Scavenger hunts and orienteering cover much the same territory. The fact that a problem is difficult only makes it more fun. Ask chess players. Meditation - #Haiku: Brainworms Cruel Thoughts niggle; Threatening Hijack: Breathe deep: Swipe left Swipe right Float Up
72. The Thief – Dispossessed - We wake with a sense of loss. Something has been taken from us, but what? This “politics of grievance” has always waged particular power, breeding anger and revenge. “You took something from me I will take something from you.” Yet our loss remains amorphous. We cling to the concept that we were “entitled” to something we no longer have. Philosophers and psychologists speculate; is it the mothers womb? The family nest? What exactly is this lost paradise? You Can’t Take It With You – There is much talk nowadays that “the American Dream” is no longer possible. Very relevant to our study of DreamTarot! Dreams are our specialty! But what was that “dream”, exactly? a mystical concept of “wholeness” – family, life, work, rewards – that shifted according to who you were and how you looked at it. Once you are part of a “team” – even if just a team of two – you look at it differently. Is that loss? Or accretion? Marx said all property is theft. We no longer fill our tombs with the junk of real life for use in the Great Beyond, “terra cotta servants” who will “wake” to wait on us hand and foot. We are forced to satisfy ourselves with strictly “mental” pictures. Is the detachment of elder-hood a triumph of success or a long wail of departure? Challenge – The “de-cluttering” movement did us all an enormous favor. Marie Kondo asked us to rid ourselves of every object that does not “spark joy”. That’s a high standard! We soon discover that daily life stirs up a lot of “necessary” detritus that sparks joy in literally no one but is a misery to live without. Probably the best way to free ourselves is to freshly contemplate this entitlement mystique. What is it we think we are entitled to, and the next question is, Is everyone entitled to the same thing? How’s that work? Danger – What’s it mean when we believe we are entitled to something others are not? How do we stop them from wanting what we “have”? Do we “have” anything, really? It doesn’t take much to see this American Dream turning into a nightmare. We may say we’ve worked very hard for wha we get but the whole principle of capitalism is to benefit from the work of others. It doesn’t take much to see the grievances THAT would stir up. And yet “state” ownership churns up grievances of its own. Ownership itself is fraught with exclusion, hostility, and danger. Opportunity – Do we possess objects when we are not physically present? Can we ever possess people? Do we WANT to take responsibility for another’s entire existence? How do our dreams of freedom comport with our dreams of possession? Who – or what – is held captive? What if we freed ourselves – mentally and spiritually? Can we still enjoy the world if it doesn’t belong to us and we don’t belong to it? Meditation – #Haiku: Dispossessed We “own” Nothing: Objects, people, selves Sweated off As spirit Rises |
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