“if you go looking, you’ll find evidence for both” — which do you want to quest for?
and also, how can you practice non-duality? so that these seemingly opposing forces can coexist with each other?
HOW do i create space for both?
…
let’s talk a walk through my recent tarot spread since i’m struggling to grasp what i’m trying to say. which is okay because i’ve been instructed to let go of logic for a while. so maybe it works for me to be scattered, to be piecing together a quilt of which i have no tangible vision. to choose intuition over striving. if i just surrender to the page, allow instead of “come up with”…
first we have The Fool, which represents setting out on a journey with a childlike sense of optimism and wonder. if you look at the card, you’ll also see someone blissfully unaware of the fact that they’re about to walk off a cliff.
so there’s a couple of messages at play here — is the fool, well, a fool? or are they all of us when we choose to embark on something new and exciting?
dramatic changes require risk, and to some extent, naive optimism… if you decided you wanted to open a business, get married, have a kid, it’s probably best to focus on the rewarding aspects of the venture versus all the draining, mundane, frustrating ones. if you focus too much on all the scary, hard, boring parts of change, your rational mind may convince you it’s better (read: more comfortable) to just stay where you are, even if it’s killing your soul a bit.
next up is The Moon, a truly lovely and mysterious card. for obvious reasons, when i look at this card, i immediately think of Women Who Run With the Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes.
there’s a lot going on symbolically in this card — femmes worshipping the moon with wolf/dog masks, their subconscious emerging from the water behind them.
this is a place i think many of us might be confused by. or, to be more clear, it’s a place that confuses me. i both know this place of deep mystery, and i don’t. it’s like, unless i’m in it, i can’t really fathom it. which maybe makes sense considering it’s inherently mystifying nature, similar to the experience of dreaming. it’s those experiences that take place in the cover of darkness, that we struggle to name…
it’s a stirring from deep within to commune with something wild and ancient, to embrace the chaos of existence. i find the way i access this place is typically through my body, especially if i can really let go dancing, allowing myself to enter a more trancelike state. in this way, i can connect with something primal. and oh boy is it cathartic and invigorating.
last in this three-card spread is the King of Cups. like any tarot card, there are multiple ways you could interpret this as far as the ideal expression of masculine emotionality. which at first i was like, oh, that’s stoicism. or maybe meditative practices in which you allow the emotions to come and go without becoming too attached to them…
but then i read an interpretation by Sabrina Scott that i found to be much more captivating. which caused me to question, what does strength and power, from a place of action, look like in relation to our emotions? to which she explains,
To feel feelings deeply is a form of expertise: hard won, gained over time through practice and intention. This card has big emotions, thick like the ocean. And it has just as many gifts for us, just as much solace, just as much beauty…
This King embraces a different type of masculinity, a different relationship to gender and strength and intimacy. Each round of tears is an initiation into freedom, a fuller expression of how we feel who and how we are.
the place where ideal action meets intense emotionality is the practice of feeling. there’s a lot of courage involved in giving yourself over to a big and scary emotion, to trust that, in the end, it will not destroy you. [talking to myself here.]
and the only way to build this trust is to practice, over and over and over again. it is the courage to allow yourself/your heart to be broken and mended back together, endlessly. it is the work of a king willing to truly show up for all that is at play within their [inner] kingdom.
to show up for myself emotionally is one of the hardest practices in my life. i still feel so new to it, far from the expertise of this king.
so to sum it all up: limitless, naive optimism –> communing with that place of deep mystery, surrendering to it –> the courage to brave the storm of emotional turmoil and hardship, trusting we’ll come out stronger, freer, and more in touch with our personal knowing and power
…
much love, good luck out there ❤ ❤ ❤
becki's a practicing human 