Intuition…we all have it, and more and more it seems that people have a desire to develop it. One of the oldest tools for this kind of self development is the Tarot Deck. Please enjoy the following article on the Tarot, and be sure to have a look at our on-line course….should you wish to investigate things further.
Tarot: One of History’s Mysteries or
A Modern Day Self-Help Tool?
By Trish Ottone
Truthfully the answer is both. Generally speaking, mention of the “Tarot deck” or “card reading” conjures up stereotypical images of gypsy laden caravans, carnivals and hoop-earring scarved ladies with crystal balls asking for a piece of silver to cross their palm. As we all know programming and cookie-stamp stereotyping can be dangerous and limiting. Hopefully this article will help to demystify some of these ideas and false beliefs.
If you’ve taken a browse in any chain bookstore lately you may have noticed that along with getting a latte you can conveniently pick up any number of Tarot decks – there is something for everyone. Along with meditation, yoga and spiritual self-help books, reading cards has become very fashionable and mainstream and is enjoying resurgence. It is even being taught through one of the local school boards! All of these trends simply reflect a need within society for greater depth and understanding of the human experience and a hunger for soul based personal growth that clearly isn’t being found by typical conservative methods. The Tarot is one method of meeting that spiritual need.
Historically Tarot cards and card reading has its roots in ancient cultures across the map such as Egyptian (Gypsy?) and Eastern games and Deities. Though precise origins remain obscure officially the Tarot Deck seems to have become highly developed in Renaissance Italy, around 1450, and was openly used by the Aristocracy and the Church (yes, it’s true). Some of these actual cards remain today in a
Essentially the Tarot Deck is used as a tool for exploring our own subconscious through means of symbolism. Just as Shamanic wisdom often uses nature as a metaphor for life experience, the Tarot uses its own systematic symbology for self-discovery. Like any meditative tool or practice, working in a disciplined manner, with congruency, the Tarot will provide opportunity to develop and hone personal intuition. This can lead users to insights that will assist in everyday life.
With study and practice the Tarot can help give personal direction in solving problems and improving life. It can be used as a wonderful tool for balancing emotional aspects of life with physical material ones. It is a great starting point for spiritual self-discovery that can be done any place, any time by anyone willing to learn. The essence of Tarot is symbolic rather than ethereal or magical. It can be used by anyone and certainly does not depend on any supernatural forces or psychic energy. As with anything else in life however, to become competent and effective at it a course of study and practice are necessary.
Delving in to deep spiritual path working, particularly in connection to the Kabbalah and the Tree of Life, can take years of study. This is why people go for “Tarot Readings”, because professional readers have the expertise of study and practice, not because they are all clairvoyant psychics. The two are by no means necessarily linked.
At the end of the day working with the Tarot or any type of divining tool really boils down to the intention of the user. I have studied the Tarot for many years and I know of its use as a personal development tool. I look more like the girl next door than a carnival gypsy and I have been professionally reading and teaching Tarot for the last decade. I assure you that there is nothing to be uncovered but the depths of your own spirit and studying the Tarot is a great way to begin your soul work. The investment is small and the potential rewards are limitless. What have you got to lose?
Spring 2009
Historically religious and spiritual followers from all different races, creeds and faiths have observed sacred and seasonal times of worship and celebration. Many of these have been linked to the spring and to the time of the Spring Equinox. Common themes have been balance, death and resurrection, of cleansing and renewal, fertility, the “mystery” of life, and the flowing of life through life.
The time of the Spring Equinox, like its counter part the Fall Equinox, is the time when day and night are equal. This is a time energetically and in nature where we are moving away from the dark to the warmth of the solar sun and preparing for a time of lightness and growth. Think of all of the birds returning to sing their songs of joy and praise for the wonderful season of spring. For many of us we have come to know this time as a time for “spring cleaning” and of planting new seeds which will create abundance and beauty in the days to come. This is a time of reflection and celebrating with family, friends and nature because all know that a time of growth and activity is upon us after the long stillness of winter.
It is a time of opposing changing energy and a shifting of the earth. When you stop and think about it you can easily see what a special and powerful time this is.
So Spring has arrived and the turning of the seasonal wheel is upon us. What does this mean to your everyday lives? It can mean many wonderful things. With a little effort and attention you can use this very powerful energetic time to enhance your life and your seasonal experience.
I am not just talking about enjoying the common things of the season like the flowers and chocolate eggs – though I highly recommend enjoying these to the fullest! By paying attention to a few simple things you can “ride the wave” of the seasonal energies and use their momentum to your personal advantage.
The Spring Equinox is a great opportunity to spend a little time with yourself and with your thoughts assessing what the past months have brought you. Looking to nature we can follow her lead in beginning to ponder what it is we would like to most change in our lives. Now is the time to think about planting new seeds of growth in all areas of your life. Have you felt like your mental and emotion garden has been a little worse for wear lately and could benefit from a good clean up?
The energies of renewal and birth have always seemed such a sacred time – not necessarily in a religious sense but rather in a “celebration of life” sense. I don’t know of anyone who can watch the birth of a child or hold a baby animal and not feel connected to the sacredness of the universe. This inherent sacredness of the season is what we all want to be sure to get a little piece of!
There is a special energy of anticipation that is always catching in the spring…we have all heard of “Spring Fever”. We all are anticipating the liberations that come with the change in climate and the shedding of heavy winter wear, both literally and symbolically. There is a dreamy sweet feeling of the playfulness and freedom that the coming seasons hint of and a general feeling of “lightness”. We know that there are restful lazy days ahead and that the heavy burdens of the winter can be forgotten for some time. Spring almost feels like a vacation itself!
This new cycle invites us to let the past fall away in preparation for our new opportunities to come in. This is a time to act on our dreams, hopes wishes and desires. Spring offers a new opportunity to create and to spark new ideas and actions. We can effectively “cultivate” our own gardens of freshness and beauty. The gentle slow awakening of the earth begins and with it extended light and warmth. There is a fervor within the energies and a pulsing of the heartbeat of nature waiting to spring forth into activity.
There is an intimate connection to the energies within us and to our level of personal fulfillment, satisfaction, health and happiness. We feel these energies whether we are conscious of it or not. Learning to “ride the wave” of seasonal energies is the trick to making the most of them!
A little spring cleaning for the soul is a great way to make contact with the magnetic living energy inside of us. External events are a result of our internal world. Living with a positive attitude, the desire to be healthy, and strong and self aware, is an excellent way to approach relationships, work and life. Inner strength comes from having choices not dependency. When we come from a place of strength and rely on ourselves to get our personal needs met, we will magnetize healthier relationships. If we don’t like who or what we are attracting, the inner world is the place to make the changes. Authentic permanent change is not an external dynamic or event, but rather, it is a greater completion within you. The key to changing what we are attracting is to do our own inner work, providing love and dedication to this work and to ourselves.
Spring is a great time to focus and expand on your personal strengths and talents and learn to neutralize your weaknesses so they have less impact on your life. Negate self limiting patterns and self-punishing dialogue and you will heal and shift out of sabotaging behaviors. This will lead to be master gardeners in your own gardens and will yield you a beautiful display unlike any you have experienced!
Do a thorough “Spring Cleaning” in the spirit and energy of the season, inside and out! Clean with mindfulness and with the intention of transformation. Remove the clutter and let the past go. Observe your home and space as if you were a visitor. What do you see and how does it make you feel?
Personal Exercise:
This exercise is designed to help you get a foothold in creative positive change and manifest a beautiful “garden”. You can choose to do this as a meditation or a journal exercise – it is up to you. Remember that there is no “right or wrong”, this is just for your own personal benefit. As always though, you get out of it what you put into it.
Reflect on these questions:
1. What new things have happened in the last year that you are happy with and want to keep in your life? This can include people coming into your life.
2. What is currently present in your life that you are relatively happy about, but that you would prefer to be working better or flowing more abundantly?
3. What have you been working on that has not yet manifested for you?
4. What is not in your life that you would like to be, but that you have not yet begun to actively work on?
Remember that the Spring Equinox is a time of balancing – emotional, mental, physical and spiritual. We have not quite arrived at Spring and not quite left Winter and are perched somewhere in-between. However, balancing will happen, this is part of cosmic law. Whether you go kicking and screaming or with effort and grace is up to you. Our mental and emotional reactions to our environment factor tremendously into our baseline experience of life. Tend a healthy, tidy, and orderly garden and you will cultivate a beautiful garden.
At this time new life is stirring and yet we sometimes find ourselves amidst a sudden cold storm. It is a time to remember our balance in the greater scheme of things. At times balance is easier to achieve than at others. Allow for this in your life and keep perspective. We are at a period where day and night are equal, in perfect balance. If we give thought to this balance and to nature’s way we will learn to live within our own cycles and balance and flow with ease and grace. We will attract the “good stuff” and manifest a harmonious existence both in our internal gardens as well as our external ones. The two are invariably connected. This season is reminder to embrace change in our lives to the best of our ability with gratitude and grace.
Enlightenment – High Spiritual Concept or Every-Day Awareness?
For those who have chosen to investigate a path of spiritual practice it is likely that you have come across the concept of “enlightenment” at some point. Depending on your source of reference you may be feeling and thinking that “enlightenment” is something for the likes of great Spiritual figures rather than the common man. That perhaps, “enlightenment”, is something beyond the reach of normal everyday living.
In terms of a religious perspective this is an accepted view point. However, I also believe that we can all learn to access the seeds of enlightenment in our every day lives, and that perhaps the concept of “enlightenment” is not necessarily an all or nothing thing. I believe that if we can learn to access these “seeds of enlightenment” and apply the “little wisdoms” found in them to our choices, actions and experiences, then we can vastly change our life experience.
Like most things the concept of “enlightenment” is open to personal interpretation. The suggestion here is that even a far reaching aspiration such as enlightenment can be simplified into applicable concepts and practices for our every-day reality. Holding this to be true, the question then becomes what would a simplified less classical understanding of “enlightenment” mean to you? How would you go about creating and cultivating it into you every-day life?
Training your brain to begin thinking in terms of “recognizing” the “seeds of enlightenment” that happen in your every-day life is perhaps a daunting suggestion, but it needn’t be. With a little effort and practice it is really something very accessible, and I believe it can make the world of difference to your life experience.
How can we do this? I suppose a logical place to begin would be to spend some time thinking about what “enlightenment” means to you personally. Once you are able to formulate a definition or concept for yourself, then spend some time trying to recognize it in your every-day life. With a little focus and practice it is possible to get very savvy at recognizing the seeds of enlightenment in common every-day living. Applying those seeds of wisdom to your thoughts, words and actions is a whole different ball game, and really the vital next step if you are going to make lasting changes and actually reap the benefit of all your effort.
So what would these seeds look like? A “seed” for example would be recognizing a mistake and not repeating it. Recognizing how and when your “buttons” are pushed, and possibly by whom would definitely be a seed, and then applying that seed to change the pattern would be the practice of every-day enlightenment (at least to me).
What we are really talking about here is living “consciously”, and to me at least, that means living an enlightened life. Learning from our mistakes; recognizing unbeneficial behaviour patterns; working toward positive changes…these are all enlightened actions. To me every-day enlightenment involves looking at life with a “hands-on approach”, with awareness at what is “behind” the things that are presented to us.
For example, if someone lashes out at us rather than immediately reacting to that, pausing and asking ourselves first… “what might be motivating that person to behave in such a way?”. If we take the time to do this mental work before reacting, we may actually find that we can respond in a way that changes the energy of the interaction without escalating the potential negative outcome, and that may actually change a life long behaviour pattern for everyone involved.
To me practicing “every-day enlightenment” means approaching things and people with an open mind and an open heart. Nurturing awareness in our thoughts and actions will bring about new opportunities that you would not expect to find. With a little effort and practice it can make a tremendous change in how you experience life. It can help you to also identify things, situations and even people in your life that really no longer serve you. Once they are identified and changed, or removed altogether, your life will really begin to open up and take a positive turn leading you to new dimensions of experience and opportunity.
This “conscious” living and thinking is something that does take practice and commitment however, and maybe even a little bit of courage. The long term benefits however I feel are well worth the effort. Once you begin to live consciously you will cultivate a desire to approach all things this way. Along the way you will be shown the gifts of inner wisdom and intuitive knowing, and these are things that only you individually can begin to nurture and cultivate in your life. These are the “seeds of enlightenment” that are just waiting for you to reach out and grab.
Knowledge and wisdom are everywhere and are ripe for the picking. Teaching yourself to recognize these seeds are what is called for if you want to me changes. Learning how to do this is not totally easy, but it is not that hard either…you just have to be up to the challenge, and you have to have the desire to make life better…..but isn’t that something we all want?
Welcome to our first York Region Centre for Natural Health blog. Hope you enjoy it, your feed back is greatly appreciated.
Welcome to January 2009!
You may have felt there was an “odd” start to the year and still be feeling a little unsure of things – but don’t misread the energy! Things really are getting better….
What you may have been feeling is the tail whipping of 2008 working hard to assist you in letting go of old paradigms and dynamics and really expediting your growth process to get you into the best position possible for what’s ahead this year.
So…if this is sounds like something that you have felt do not despair….things may not be as they seem. January energies are kind of like cleaning up after a big party. We have had the last hurrah of ’08 and now have to sweep up after the dance. Heading into February you will begin to feel better and be able to sense the changing tides of energy as we shift into Spring…which I have a feeling will (thankfully) be early this year.
Looking ahead to the upcoming year it will become important to be very clear about the things that truly matter to you. This will be a year where you need to really prioritize and at the same time simplify. It will be very easy to get side tracked and fall into the “perceived” struggle of others.
On a social front have a look at the people in your life and began to really observe if you are surrounding yourself with people who match your aspirations and ones who live positive supportive lives. “Time” itself will become the commodity of 2009 and it is really important to keep a close check on your mindset and your attitude. It can be challenging to maintain a positive outlook in a time when there will be many changes, even on a global level. It is important to have great like minded positive people surrounding you to help you keep your “internal compass” accurately poised.
2009 will be a time to get back to basics. There will be a lot of changes on all fronts over the next three years and this year will set the tone for how well you are able to cope with the ebb and flow of those changes. Look to find comfort and happiness (even joy!) in the simple things that life provides – the ones that we often over look in our “busy consumerism” and the hustle and bustle of active lives.
Take your minds back to your own childhood and what you witnessed in terms of lifestyle. People lived much simpler lives in the past and did not seem to be fraught with the stresses that we have today. Physical and mental illness are at an all time high and many auto-immune dysfunctions that we have today did not exist even 20 years ago!
Living simply and mindfully, enjoying your families the outdoors and old fashioned home cooked meals (full of nutrients and minerals of course) are things to try and cultivate this month…and throughout the winter season. They will bring a new appreciation “Winter” and of one another…and before you know it Spring will have arrived!
Be sure also to take time for yourself, in an unselfish way naturally. Even 15 minutes of meditation or a simple walk alone outdoors can do wonders for your peace of mind. Let yourself linger in thought and pondering….it will be a very healthy and natural thing to embrace…and you may be surprised with the information that you glean from your inner thoughts.
This year will see everyone have the opportunity to access their own intuitions on deeper levels. The energies now are pulsating with information and guidance – you need only to tap into it! If you are not sure “how” just pick up a book or take in a meditation class, it is really a natural and simple process. Be sure to approach your “quiet reflective” time without expectation and just sit back mentally and let ideas and thoughts present themselves to you….thoughts without thinking!
February will be here before you know it….so do yourself a favour and take advantage of every snow storm or nasty weathered day….make the most of each situation! Take time out while you can this winter…for the Spring will present a much faster pace that I am sure you want to be well prepared for.
Be well.
Question to ponder for January, please share your thoughts with us:
How will you to enchance your well being and spiritual growth??
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