Not that anyone asked or needs to know, but know who you are reading.
A human being.
“I will govern my life and thoughts as if the whole world were to see the one and read the other, for what does it signify to make anything a secret to my neighbor, when to God, who is the searcher of our hearts, all our privacies are open?”
—Seneca the Younger
I am no nihilist.
I am no atheist.
I am no agnostic.
I am no believer.
I am no mystic.
I am no Angel.
I am no spy.
I am no Demon.
I am a human being.
I move swiftly, like 💨 and 🔥
Seneca the Younger spoke against the folk religion of the common people. But he had a deep sense of the invisible mover of our Will, God. Choose your name. Let us call it the original human religion.
I do not deny the invisible hand in my life, truly, I credit it with creating my will and body. I do not preach about this god. I reflect on the beauty of it in my life. I cannot teach this god. I cannot reveal this god to you. I cannot name it, nor do I claim it. Nor do I feel myself more special than any other. But I know this as I know my breath. Both mysterious in a way and profoundly beautiful. I am not so arrogant to imagine myself god’s special creation. This is all special and wonderful and beautiful and the ugly is beautiful too in a way. God itself can correct me through my clear burning Will, but no human could.
No need to attack the faults of others no need to flaunt your own virtues act when you’re acknowledged retire when you’re ignored rich rewards mean great trials deep words meet superficial minds think about what you hear children must see for themselves
A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that that patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face.
— Jorge Luis Borges
once upon a time there was an old star who had thought it had seen everything…
one day it spied with its timeless eye a small blue gem…
what is this new thing covered in blue water…
suddenly, without warning, the star began to fall…
faster and faster…smaller and smaller…until he could fit on the head of pin…
blackness…and then there was light…a bright wet light…
no memory of who he used to be and was still yet up there in the sky…
one day a bird was heard singing by the Hu-Man boy…
I just read a story about a man who was killed in an avalanche following his passions on Mt. Everest. You never know when one of those is coming for you. He seemed driven by a deep need to connect with something. I understand that feeling of emptiness. He climbed the world’s highest peaks to fill it. I seek to climb those internal peaks men have dreamed of. Rest in peace Dan.
I want to share a summary of sorts of my experiences with The Tarot. It kind of just presented itself to me after 44 years without one passing thought about it in all that time. It was something gypsies ripped people off with I thought. Little did I know.
I will not go into it more now, but The Tarot is a mystical tool, like the coins of the I Ching, or bones of the medicine man. The cards make a web you can cast out into the Universe to get your current bearing in time and space.
The Tarot helped me attain self knowledge, it helped me learn why I did what I did and also hinted at what is possible for one to become. More than anything it showed me simply what I was. I found ways to let go of regret and desire and see myself honestly. I used the cards as a mirror and I looked at the pictures and felt the words at that given moment and time and sifted myself through the filter of the cards. It helped me grow rapidly using the cards spontaneously and creatively. It showed me the need for balance between the Sun and Moon, Anima and Animus. We live in between these polarities.
It led me to an experience with myself and embracing myself as a Shaman and Mystic. Who knew? The cards aligned so well with my personal esoteric studies and writing and synchronicity made it all real. I’m an experiencer and a gambler, but I learned there need be no gambling.
Life is a mystery and love is the way to understand it. The rest seems to work itself out naturally if you let it.
I found two causes for my suffering, or I should say the Tarot clarified these. It suggested I embrace my life in the world and pay attention. I came to it in deep mediation and wide open with few questions, factors I learned that can contribute to deep insights. These led me to self initiation into many things. Then long dead teachers began teaching me, they are not dead actually, alive in us.
I do not feel like being quiet or keeping secrets, that time is past. Time for a new way, a synthesis, which is the responsibility of every generation. It led me to the I Ching and then beyond Divination. Tarot is a great tool in individuation and I think it should be used by every Psychologist and I would go further to say, while the Tarot can lead one out of the maze of their mind, I think it can also lead one into madness. As with all things, intention I learned matters. Greed and the baser instincts seem to disqualify you from these insights. So, I think you get from Tarot, just like anything, what you put into it and ultimately into yourself. I learned what was holding me and all of us back from heights undreamed.
Fear and regret.
I am free to do what I like and I find I like higher things and my natural tilt is towards the light. I wish not to hurt others, but I like lowly dirty things too, such is what I am. Why do all of this anyway or ask these questions, because you know and feel in yourself many rungs on the ladder of awareness.
“I cannot grasp all that I am.” – St Augustine
Augustine could not grasp it all, but we can and I am and we should. We can grasp all that we are. A gift or curse, shrug, its fun to search for it. I thank the Gamemaster.
Perhaps we are food for the Moon, as some people have wondered, but that would be absurd, wouldn’t it 😉 Everything eats something in this Universe.
All this from some funny cards. The archetypes of our unconcious are strewn out across the numbers, images and formulas. They tell the inner journey of all people. The cards are meaningless though, the wisdom I found is already inside of us. The cards just help me remember myself and how I like to play and fool myself.
There are many ancient and new tools to use to explore yourself with. I say try them all. Live like you have no tomorrow, you were born for this moment. Dance like a fool before the Gods.