Boredom to Roar-dom

It feels so long since I wrote anything here, and I  reality, it is.

I stepped out for a while, feeling that possibly, I had come to a place where I didn't have much to say.  Immersed in other pursuits, I allowed time to run away from me, feeling that the things I wanted to blog about were being covered, more eloquently and with more experience than I could portray.

But having spent the past few months 'down the rabbit hole' the one thing I have learned is that everybody's voice matters. 

So, as much as I may sometimes not be mainstream or conventional and be waaaaaay out of the box, I can still allow myself to rumble in the background. 

What I speak is from the heart, it only takes other lions among the flock to hear my little roar, to recognise kinship, and have the courage to just be who they truly are.  

Osho Zen Tarot

It's time to be heard, to be seen and to have the courage to stand in our own truth. Remove the illusion that, if what you think, feel or believe doesn't conform then you are wrong.  
Who made the rules anyway?  
Sometimes breaking them is the only way to free ourselves from the societal restrictions that stop us being who we are meant to be..........

In the words of a man who has done just that, we are all that ever was, is and ever can be.

From Buckets to Bengalore, to Breakthroughs

XI Breakthrough.  Osho Zen Tarot.

 Being 'of a certain age', I have, over the course of the past six months, been writing my bucket list.  The idea being, once I hit my next birthday, I will start crossing things off, said list.  Some items on the list are relatively small things, such as going camping with my grandson.  Others are far more adventurous.

I've always had wanderlust, my mother calls it 'itchy feet syndrome', and doesn't understand why I want to investigate this wonderful planet we inhabit.  A bit rich coming from the woman who dragged two children under the age of four across to the other side of the world, and back again.  I feel being so transient in my younger years has left it's mark.

My parents emigrated to Australia in 1966 by sea, a journey of almost 7 weeks, and we travelled back to the U.K in 1971 in the same manner.  I can say I've been to some amazing places although cannot recall most of them now.  I do know I have been through the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal, I have sailed over the equator twice and have trinkets and souvenirs from places, that in my childhood, many people could only fantasise about.

When we arrived back to the U.K, we were effectively homeless, but my parents worked miracles going from lodging with relatives to buying a small 2 bedroomed flat, to a 3 bedroomed house within 2 years.

That never satisfied my mother though, she wanted bigger, better, more space, a bigger garden, a nicer area.  And so I was moved about more than most.

This has always been a part of my life.  I've never been one to want bigger and better though,  I just like investigating different places.  I've lived in rural areas, I've lived city centre.  I have done conventional and controversial but I always enjoy the adventure.

So there on my bucket list is the desire to live at an Ashram in India, it's a big wish as I fear flying, but there is such a strong pull for me to do it.  It is something of the long term goal as obviously I would need money for flights and back up, but I have my heart set on it and am planning ways in which to achieve it.  I cannot shake the feeling that this is something that I will regret not doing.

I have done  community living before, where everyone worked for one goal, that however was for the material benefit of a singular person.  It was hard work with no nurturing of the spirit, only relentless physical work.  This time I want to assist with something worthwhile, for the benefit of all beings, the benefit of this amazing planet and for the benefit of spiritual nourishment.

I asked the Osho Zen for a card to show how following this idea could help me grow and it gave me XI Breakthrough.  In brief, I feel this experience will break down any barriers I have about my spiritual growth, stripping me down to my very essence, giving me the chance to begin a whole new way of living my life spiritually for the better.

I think I've been given a big thumbs up from the universe, now all I need to do is start saving hard and getting my priorities set.  Time to address the unnecessary spending and relinquish the so called necessities, that in the cold light of day are little more than snacks for the ego.

Tripping Out On Tarot

I've recently been experimenting with my recreational drug of choice......tarot.

I willingly admit, I do like colourful decks, rich vibrant meaty decks, the exception being my Hidden Realm cards, but thats another story.

I rally like my Osho Zen deck but rarely share it, feeling it may be seen as too woo-woo for most client readings.  

I love it for readings about spiritual growth and for contemplation, but for the favourite 'I met this guy and.....' questions, it just didn't seem to work for me.

However having recently started experimenting I decided to start using it as an 'everyday' deck where possible.

A client recently wanted some insight into a matter of the heart and so I did the reading using my faithful Illumiati deck (love it or loathe it, it has so much to offer in readings). 

I suddenly had the desire to pull the corresponding cards from Osho Zen and overlay them with the Illuminati cards and all I can say is 'WOW'!

This added a whole new dimension to the reading, it gave insight on so much of this relationship it was unreal.

I do have to say though, at some points I felt like I was having some weird trippy hallucination.  So. Much. Colour.

It possibly didn't help that it was a 12 card spread (X2) making 24 very vivid cards staring me in the face, but it was so worth it.

Obviously the reading took longer than it should, but I can honestly say, it was so rewarding, the client was so happy, and quite surprised I had got so much detail form the reading.  I had apparently touched on issues that she felt were so deeply buried that she actually said '...it felt like you had climbed into my head and had seen my life through my eyes.'

That to me was enough to make me decide that I am going to start using this method more often.  Not, I may add, for the run of the mill 'love' readings, but where there seems to be an repeating or ongoing situation in a querent's life that they want really deep answers for.  

When a querent is willing to open themselves up to the inner work that needs doing, then I am willing to double the cards up and put that time in.

After all, its very nice to want to find out if you will meet the man of your dreams soon, but if you seem to be his worst nightmare, then surely having the tools to change that in yourself is the most powerful part of tarot.

Ladies and Gentlemen.....A Toast.

5 of Waters.  Osho Zen Tarot.

I love working with the Osho Zen Tarot.  It is a deck that helps guide me along on my spiritual path like a Rough Guide Handbook, pointing out the good places and not so good and takes you off the beaten track to those little areas not everyone has discovered.

I drew the 5 of Water (equivalent to Cups in RWS) in response to a question my daughter asked.  The gist of which, was, why did everything in her life keep turning out crappy.

Its sad, she is a beautiful young woman, with a gorgeous little boy.  She works hard at her job and at being a mum.  She's warm, friendly,funny, honest and touchingly niave, but she seems to keep hitting brick walls. 

As a child she was quiet and well behaved, but due to having to wear glasses form under the age of one, was bullied and ridiculed throughout her early school years.  As she got further through school, she had to wear braces on her teeth, so as kids do, she was yet again singled out and ridiculed.

However, as I kept telling her, my little 'ugly duckling' became the swan (she has a killer smile and te most beautiful eyes) but the damage was done, her self image was distorted and her confidence shattered.  It has taken many years to just begin to re-build what her school years took away.

So the 5 of Water Clinging to the Past seemed appropriate even though my daughter tells me she doesn't cling to the past, she says 'It's there, but filed away.'  So I began to tell her exactly how I see it.

She carries it around, frozen, part of her past that she doesn't want to deal with fully, so it is in the 'freezer compartment' of her memories.  Neatly stored in little parcels, every insult, every 'joke', every jibe, easily within reach on that special little shelf made for the ice cube trays.

The glass, behind the figure on the card, is waiting to be filled with all the good things, the experiences and events in life that we long to drink in.  Every time the promise of filling that glass comes up, like an automatic response, out come the ice cubes.   

Ice cubes made of shit, (not recommended but hey, its a metaphor) containing all the hard, cutting, hurtful things we have experienced in life, once dropped into that glass of hope and promise they aren't going to make the experience nice, it becomes tainted. 

It makes no difference how expensive the champagne, how good the quality of it, once that ice cube gets dropped in and starts to mix in, your champagne isn't going to taste good.  In fact it's going to taste of the same old shit that was held in the ice.

Maybe we need to check our 'freezer compartments' and acknowledge that there is some crap in there,  better still deal with one cube at a time, defrost it, check for any diamonds of clarity and pearls of wisdom we may have put in there by mistake that can be of some value,  and then flush the rest away, even ice has a use by date. 

We need to stop thinking our glasses need the ice cube, if you stop using ice, there is more room for champagne. 

Dealing with it one by one is possible, we all deserve to be able to raise our glasses up and savor the crisp, fresh taste of the delicious champagne that is our life.