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Day 187 – Analysis Only Stressful Outcome

Tuesday, 6 July 2021

Stress. Day 187. In order of appearance.:Possibilities, Clinging to the Past, Suppression, Sharing, Projections, Innocence, Moment to Moment, Healing, Comparison, Stress. Shuffle method was Fan Selection

Stress Context

It can be stressful to have a sore throat at a time when having the slightest sore throat means going and having a COVID test.

Today is short and sweet.  I went to work, and during the morning, I got a sore throat (like on Day 162).  The COVID ethos is to go and get tested and go home.  If you stay home, it means not working while you’re sick.  Taking another day off sick is stressful to me, even if I could use it.

Although reasonably sure it was from last night’s late-night usually cured with a couple of throat lozenges, I headed for the Fever Clinic for a COVID test when it still didn’t go away.

The process for the COVID test is painless, but man, those tests are so uncomfortable; at least this time, I got someone who did throat first and nose second.  The comment by the lady doing the swab of “you do have a sore throat, don’t you?” followed by a jab straight to the sore bit was annoying.  It wasn’t until the swab went up the nose when my eyes watered!  Yuk!  Fortunately, the stress of the COVID test is brief.

As per standard practice, I then went home and waited for the results.

Today's Cards

Stress. Day 187. In order of appearance.:Possibilities, Clinging to the Past, Suppression, Sharing, Projections, Innocence, Moment to Moment, Healing, Comparison, Stress. Shuffle method was Fan Selection

The Cards - Analysis

Carryover Cards

Three cards carried over from yesterday; Clinging to the Past moved from Goal to Influence, Moment to Moment moved from Others’ Views to Feelings, and Healing moved from Hopes & Fears to Others’ Views.

Cross

The Distant Past was all about team Sharing; we exchanged stories and managed to get all members up-to-date on the work we were doing too.   

More recently (Recent Past), it seems I was projecting a team camaraderie that doesn’t exist; this is Projections.

It appears there was an unconscious Goal of Suppression on my part.  When you’re suppressing parts of yourself to be accepted, you give away your power, which in turn causes stress.  The card’s appearance suggests finding a healing outlet a potential ‘explosion’ (Osho, p.96). 

Explosions can express themselves as pain, the phrase “the body cries the tears you don’t”, which means if you don’t find an outlet, a knot, tension or stress forms inside your body and if the knot isn’t released, the know manifests in physical form.  In today’s case, a sore throat.

Nonetheless, in the Now, the sore throat allows me (Possibilities) to take some time and heal.  The tension (block or influence) comes because I’m Clinging to the Past – my guess is I don’t want to take time from work, so I look like a diligent employee.

The Future Energy holds Innocence.  Innocence serenely and playfully engages with the world.  My world in COVID isolation is limited to the cats and fish – who are incredibly conversant once you strike a conversation away from food!

Base

My Feelings toward Possibilities is that I’ll take opportunities when they arise and from Moment to Moment.

Taking the time to take me to the Fever Clinic and go for swabbing and testing Others’ Views is that I’m taking the time to do some Healing.  I’d say that was an accurate perception.

Hopes & Fears is Comparison.  What if the Comparison that I am slacking off or I’m sickly? Well, that’s the fear portion.  I hope that there’ll be a favourable Comparison.  Yeah, I know – comparisons are unhelpful!

Finally, the Outcome on all fronts appears to be Stress.  Stress taking time off and Stress staying at work, and it’s self-inflicted.

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
End Day 187

Day 186 – Basic Analysis of Tarot Today

Monday, 5 July 2021

Basic Analysis. Day 186. Tabled list: order of appearance. The Creator, Understanding, Clinging to the Past, Conditioning, Slowing Down, Turning In, Existence, Moment to Moment, Healing, Integration. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

Basic Analysis Context

I’m going to try something new for today’s context section.  My notebook has a couple of dot points, and that’s all I’m going to have time for at the moment is basic analysis.  For those of you unaware, the purpose of the website’s first year was about tracking the daily cards.  What I didn’t realise is that I’d want to write about my day so much. 

Since I’m behind in writing and there are no days off and no one else assisting with writing, posting or developing the website.  There are times when I need to take a break. It’s been a constant struggle trying to maintain the work-life balance.  One of my faults is my enthusiasm for giving myself little projects—more on the projects another day. 

The notes say:

  1. It’s a good day for completing tasks at work and home
  2. Why does completing tasks come in waves? Hmm, I begin a multitude of tasks and chip away at them until they’re all finished.

Hey!  I got a moment to investigate, and voila!  And there’s an email link

Email

Today's Cards

Basic Analysis. Day 186. Tabled list: order of appearance. The Creator, Understanding, Clinging to the Past, Conditioning, Slowing Down, Turning In, Existence, Moment to Moment, Healing, Integration. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

The Cards - Basic Analysis

Carryover Cards

No cards carried over from yesterday.

Cross

Okay, let’s start with the basic analysis!  The Creator is in the Now position influenced by Understanding.  My aim or Goal today was focused on Clinging to the Past.  The Goal forms before the Now, but the card dealt first is the Now card because of its immediacy.  My day began Clinging to the Past, but I became The Creator when an Understanding dawned on me that some projects were ready to be finalised. 

The finalisation of the projects came as a surprise because I had broken my self-inflicted Conditioning in the Distant Past – yes, you can do it to yourself – not so long ago, Day 165, I embraced a new way of doing things. 

When two projects went on hold in the Recent Past, it was an unexpected advantage, which meant the rush was Slowing Down.   Slowing Down enabled me to dedicate time to promoting the completion of other projects.   And what a pleasant surprise it was!

By Slowing Down and completing some activities, I was able to breathe and become The Creator, get an Understanding and take an opportunity for Turning In (Future Energy).

Base

The base for a Celtic Cross’ basic analysis is the last four cards dealt in a ten-card deal.  Position seven here reflects the Feelings toward the card in the Now position; in some other readings, it is the Immediate Future.

My Feelings toward The Creator is I am one with Existence; getting back time can make me feel humble.

Others’ Views are that I am simply moving from Moment to Moment.  Unhurried.

Hopes & Fears are on the inside, and I hope for Healing.  My fear is the time I’ve gained is not enough.

Finally, the Outcome has Integration.   Integration suggests a fusion between Turning In and the new time I’ve gained or maybe developing a way to keep the time available.   It gave me a moment to think about why completion activities in my life come in simultaneously.

That’s it for the basic analysis today.

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
End Day 186

Day 185 – Shelving and Mental Health

Friday, 4 July 2021

Shelving. Day 185. In order of appearance.:Thunderbolt, Innocence, The Source, Aloneness, Morality, Consciousness, Letting Go, Guidance, Compromise, The Lovers. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

Shelving Context

Getting organised can sometimes help your mental health.  It’s like redoing the cupboard or drawer space, representing an externalisation of what’s happening in your head.  Changing your shelving around or simply organising what is on them can make a big difference to your mental health.

Years ago, I went to a Denise Linn seminar on her book called Sacred Space, and she spoke about the profound effect simply tidying a sock drawer can have on a person’s mental health.  A friend of hers had called her in a severely distressed mental state, Denise sensing peril, asked him to occupy himself by cleaning out his sock drawer until she got there.

By the time Denise reached her friend, the peril had passed, and her friend amid sock drawer clean-up said he was now OK.  So, from the seminar, I learnt never to underestimate the benefits of tidying up or helping someone get organised. 

Several times, over the years, just helping with something as minor as tidying the shelves, folding clothes, helping them do dishes, or take out the garbage can make a difference to someone’s wellbeing.  

Organising Shelving

Every time we go into COVID lockdown, I identify some other part of the house to organise.  Something a little cheaper than the bathroom but still provides me with efficiencies, the pantry.  I’m not sure how widely spread the availability of the Elfa system is, but it’s fantastic!  And this is what we used.

There have been a couple of attempts to organise the pantry.  When we first moved in, we decided to use Ikea’s Algot system.  It was cheaper than the Elfa and would get us through until we could afford otherwise if needed.  It also had the correct shelf width we required.   Also, if the Ikea shelving worked well, we could save ourselves some money if we never had to replace it. 

We’d hoped the Ikea system was going to be versatile.  The surprising lack of versatility (Ikea is usually so versatile) with the product’s broader gaps and needing to be screwed in place inhibited adjustments we wanted to make.  Because we thought it would work like the Elfa, we didn’t screw in the down rails – big mistake! 

Our pantry came crashing down while we were watching a TV show.  Refer photos of shelf destruction of the pantry (Algot) and the redone pantry shelves (Elfa).  The fall away wasn’t the first time; the wall-mounts have come off the wall before.  Anyway, unsurprisingly, Ikea discontinued the Algot system in 2020.

The Elfa system (review) works using a split-hook or French cleat.  It’s almost impossible for the down rails to come off the top rail unless the top band or the mounting surface had issues, like an incorrect band fitting or weak wall.  In short, we love it!

Feeling Organised

Today, it was another area of the pantry’s turn to get treated, and this area held our tea, coffee, and kitchen gadgets.  My mental health and energy increased tremendously; It’s such a great feeling to get organised. 

Today's Cards

Shelving. Day 185. In order of appearance. Thunderbolt, Innocence, The Source, Aloneness, Morality, Consciousness, Letting Go, Guidance, Compromise, The Lovers. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

The Cards - Analysis

Carryover Cards

No cards carried over from yesterday.

Cross

Thunderbolt is in the Now influenced by Innocence.  As we know from the past Thunderbolt, is about physical change and getting organised today is that.  Innocence uses (influences) previous changes and differences to guide the process (experience and looking at things anew).

Aloneness in the Distant Past position, the Goal of The Source was created, which is getting back to where it all began and making things work.

My motivator in the Recent Past is I no longer want to work with multiple shelving systems and would like to do it correctly or uniformly, aka Morality.

Moving forward into Future Energy, it is with Consciousness and clarity – it’s good to feel organised.  It’s like the clarity of mind happened.

Base

My Feelings are sadness to have to let go of the old system; it has served us well for many years, but we cannot move on with Letting Go of that which ties us to the past.

Others’ Views is I trust in my inner direction, aka Guidance, and sometimes it’s as simple as changing shelving to organise your mental health.

Compromise is looming in the Hopes & Fears position.   There are still a couple more areas with the old shelving system.  I wanted (hope) to do all the shelving areas today; I fear this isn’t realistic.  Not because of a lack of money but more because time on weekends is precious.

The Outcome position is The Lovers.  The Lovers means working together in harmony for the benefit of each other and others who encounter us.   All because of changing the shelving.

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
End Day 126

Day 184 – The Mesmerising Saxophone

Saturday, 3 July 2021

Saxophone. Day 184. In order of appearance.:The Master, Sorrow, Mind, Beyond Illusion, Existence, Harmony, The Creator, Fighting, The Rebel, Flowering. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

Saxophone Context

My husband and I like to watch YouTube reactionists.  These YouTube clips are of people recording themselves reacting to movies or TV shows.  The reactors provide their thoughts and or critiques of the film or song.  Three of the reactors all mistook the sound of the saxophone in Lethal Weapon as “sexy”.  I think the sax’s mesmerising quality has a sexy connotation but is not solely so.

Okay, I admit when the saxophone sounded, it was to show how Murtagh’s daughter, Rianne, enters dressed to go out, and the sexy music plays.  It’s another moment in the movie when Roger realises his daughter is no longer his little girl.  It’s Martin reaction to Rianne that prompts the realisation.

In addition to mesmerising, the saxophone has a sultry, longing sound drawing the listener’s heart into a void of yearning, which is more than just sex.  Of course, sensuality is often associated with sex but is not sex; it can form a part but not always.  It was also the magical instrument of the 80s for me, although it existed obviously before then. 

Bob Seger’s song Turn the Page has the saxophone, and it’s challenging to find “sexy” although there is sensuality.  The saxophone conveys the singer’s loneliness on the road.  It harks of warmth, longing, and remembrance of home, like squeezing the last bit of water out of a sponge.

Today's Cards

Saxophone. Day 184. In order of appearance.:The Master, Sorrow, Mind, Beyond Illusion, Existence, Harmony, The Creator, Fighting, The Rebel, Flowering. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

The Cards - Saxophone Analysis

Carryover Cards

Only one card carried over from yesterday; Harmony moves from Outcome to Future Energy.

Cross

Today’s Now has The Master.  The Master, like Gautama Buddha accompanied by Ananda weeping over the souls, with Sorrow, who haven’t reached enlightenment because they are too occupied in their Mind.   I’d like to say it could be as simple as the cards telling that story of Buddha; alas, it is not.  My cards, my day.

To look at my day’s main thought against the cards, I’m comfortable in my belief (The Master) about the mesmerising quality of the saxophone.  There is sufficient evidence to support me.  What makes me sad (Sorrow) is how the saxophone seems to have become stereotyped (in the Mind).

In the Distant Past, the saxophone would transport you from one state of being to another, like the chrysalis from caterpillar to butterfly (Beyond Illusion).  In 1987’s, Lethal Weapon, Rianne’s transformation from a little girl to a young woman before her father’s eyes using Martin’s objective eye, using the saxophone to maximum effect on all its emotional levels.

The Recent Past shows the card of Existence which echoes The Master card for comfortableness and humility.

Harmony is listening to your heart and experiencing the connection between body, mind and spirit working together.  The Future Energy position is a continuation of The Master’s serenity and comfortableness within himself.

Base

My Feelings are I am The Creator of my destiny when it comes to saxophone listening.  If this position were the Immediate Future, it would be echoing The Master, Existence and Harmony. 

Almost in complete contradiction to how I’m feeling, Others’ Views of me is that I’m a little touchy or overly sensitive in the card of Fighting.

For Hopes & Fears, the card of The Rebel hopes to continue the current state of being and knows (fears) it’s changing.

The Outcome position has Flowering; lo and behold, it’s a woman comfortable in her sexuality and sensuality and emanates a sense of assurance in who she is – bring it on!

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
End Day 184

Day 183 – Crypto or Cryptocurrency Update

Friday, 2 July, 2021

Crypto. Day 183. In order of appearance.:Receptivity, Ice-olation, Control, Morality, Compromise, No-thingness, The Fool, Past Lives, The Miser, Harmony. Shuffle method was Fan Selection

Crypto Context

Catching up with my cryptocurrency expert leaves me baffled – what have I gotten myself into!  On the upside, crypto keeps me mentally active.

Since 12 June (Day 163), when I bought my first crypto, its world has been baffling me.  Apparently, It’s simple 🤔.  Maybe it’s me that’s simple? – you see, aren’t you proud? I’m calling it “crypto” instead of its whole cryptocurrency!  I still don’t understand how I get money out of it!

There was a Treasure Key competition, which was making me passive income.  From what I could tell, I put in AU$40 and got back US$10.  Later the expert advised, it was part of a competition, not “proper” crypto (but it is – sort of).  Nonetheless, I had fun and learnt from the experience. 

For instance, this type of competition reminded me of the poker/slot machines grouped and linked to a big prize.  Tying together a group of slot machines could have you win not only the money on your device but also the “jackpot” total of all the other machines.

After a few minutes of shuffling crypto from one wallet to buying things and staking coins in different denominations, as I hung up, I thought to myself, how far down the rabbit hole am I prepared to go – blind? 😎  Guess that’s something we will write about as the year progresses.

Today's Cards

Crypto. Day 183. In order of appearance.:Receptivity, Ice-olation, Control, Morality, Compromise, No-thingness, The Fool, Past Lives, The Miser, Harmony. Shuffle method was Fan Selection

The Cards - Crypto Analysis

Carryover Cards

Ooh… three cards carried over from yesterday; Ice-olation moved from Distant Past to Influence, No-thingness moved from Feelings to Future Energy, and The Miser moved from Hopes & Fears to Hopes & Fears.

Cross

Receptivity is the Now is me learning or being open to learning about crypto.  Ice-olation is the influence of Aloneness down the rabbit hole.

Control in the Goal position is me wanting to learn as much as I can about crypto to Control what happens in that space without needing an expert.  Of course, that’s just for the simple stuff.

Morality or doing things the right way is a part of my Distant Past.  When I learn, I want to understand what I’m being told, not just repeating something back. 

Recently (Recent Past), I’ve Compromised the way I learn to just get some traction on the happening.

However, by having Receptivity, it opens up the Future Energy to a potential where the sky is the limit, No-thingness.

Base

My Feelings on crypto is I’m The Fool. Brazenly going where the path leads me with the prospect of making some play money to offset the website – I will need to improve my investment strategy.

Others’ Views is Past Lives. Past Lives relates to Morality in the Distant Past position, and I’m seen as a little old school with the learning, aka I’m asking many questions.

The Miser governs Hopes & Fears and means I hope I don’t get carried away and spend too much on crypto, and the fear is that I’m not investing enough.

Harmony is in the Outcome position.  It means I’ll listen to my heart, or should listen to my heart, where crypto is concerned, and Harmony will ensue.

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
End Day 183

Day 182 – Cat Masks, Lockdown & Mask-wearing

Thursday, 1 July 2021

Masks & Cats. Day 182. Integration, Aloneness, Sorrow, Ice-olation, Sharing, Celebration, No-thingness, The Dream, The Miser, Playfulness

Cat Masks Context

Brad & dog Rover put together playful COVID mask shots. I wondered if a dog can do it, can a couple of cats? So, what happened with cat masks?

While the day at work wasn’t anything special, the company has social channels to post stuff to group connects with you.  One of those channels is for Pets, where people publish things about their various pets and the mischief the furry critters do. 

We’ve been in lockdown, and mask-wearing is mandatory indoors where you can’t social-distance.  One of the owners, Brad (not name), owns a cute and obedient dog, Rover (not name).  Brad put up photos of Rover modelling mask-wear displaying the correct and incorrect ways to wear a mask.

As of the time of writing, I’ve requested permission to post the photos on the website; in fairness, I only asked today 🙄.  Until Brad responds, I don’t have any pictures to post.  Since my focus today was pets wearing masks, and the blog is supposed to reflect the primary aspect of my day, I needed pets wearing masks. 

Our cats, Valentine and Dobby, white and ginger, and full ginger, respectively, become models for cat masks.  The photos have them simulating – as close as possible – the pics by Brad showing Rover.  

Of course, it’s not quite the same as the original, but it’s arguably just as cute, all the same.  I should point out that I took no damage from the cats in making them wear the cat masks, although the sewing needle did give me a bit of a fight!  The cats were also not harmed or bribed to pose.  I was at an advantage capturing them in mid nap 💤.

Cat masks. Lying propped against lounge Cat, Valentine, mask hanging off ear, then under chin, then under nose. Slouching Cat Dobby mask under chin, mask on head, mask correct way.

Today's Cards

Masks & Cats. Day 182. In order of appearance.:Integration, Aloneness, Sorrow, Ice-olation, Sharing, Celebration, No-thingness, The Dream, The Miser, Playfulness. Shuffle method was Fan Selection

Cards Analysis - Cat Masks

Carryover Cards

No cards carried over from yesterday.

Cross

From the Distant Past of Ice-olation (lockdown), Integration is born into the Now and influenced by Aloneness’ energy.  Basically, I was bored (Ice-olation, Aloneness) and feeling sorry for myself in lockdown (Sorrow) and wanted something to do – aka make cat masks (Integrating my creativity and playful side).

The result of cat masks on cats and the photos it generated was Shared (Sharing in Recent Past) with my mother and the Pet channel at work.  To my absolute joy, my mother loved it, and so did the folks at work.  Brad had sparked a couple of people subjecting their furry friends to mask-wearing. 

It was a Celebration (Future Energy) of the companionship our pets provide us but also of the solidarity of lockdown’s purpose.

Base

When doing the cat masks, I’d hoped to share them with family and friends and hoped people on the website would find it fun.  My Feelings in Sharing, I saw the potential of No-thingness, and I’m using the word No-thingness to mean fulfilment of creative possibilities.

Today I don’t mind people seeing me working on The Dream where The Dream is about illusion because portraying cats wearing cat masks is an illusion.

The Miser card appears in the Hopes & Fears spot, and I don’t know how to interpret it.  At the same time, I’m possessive of our purr babies and want to keep it intimate.  Actually, I hope Brad doesn’t mind me riding on his coattails. 🐕‍🦺

Finally, the Outcome card is Playfulness, which is what has happened.  The day was a bit of fun with my “teenage-like” cats and some cat masks.  Fun is playful, right?

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7

  2. Mask Wearing Etiquette for People

Related Links

Day 088 – Lockdown, The Eagles, & Chicken Strips
Day 180 – Adapting to Another Lockdown

End Day 182

June Stats 2021

Statistics for June 2021

Brief Analysis

We reached July, and with it comes the June Stats.  Ordinariness had a spate of appearances in the middle of the month and looked like becoming a regular.  Ordinariness drifted off toward the end of the month; its run in the middle pushed it into the top four cards for highest appearances overall for the year.  Interestingly, The Source remains near the top for the number of appearances-to-date but didn’t make the top positions in June.

Other cards making a splash this month in the limelight in June were Conditioning and Ice-olation., with eight appearances each.  Conditioning’s showed toward the end, while Ice-olation’s occurred across the month.

The card with no appearances was Success, and the cards with only a single appearance were:  Friendliness, The Master, Going with the Flow & Maturity.  So you could say there was no success for me in June. 🥲 

Overall, The Master, Going with the Flow and Maturity are generally shy in making their appearances.  On the other hand, Friendliness is fifth over the year but second last with its appearance in June.

You’ll notice I removed the Top 5 or Top 10 stats graphs; this is because the sorted graphs make it easier to view the top and bottom cards at a glance.

To enhance the graphs visuals, I’ve tried saving the files as JPGs versus PNGs to see whether reducing the size of the JPG to upload it makes it clearer on your device.  From where I’m viewing the graphs from the clarity is better.

If you’re interested in seeing what happened in May click here.

June Stats - By Day By Position

Top three highlighted

Overall Yearly Trend - Highest to Lowest

Sorted By June's Stats - Highest to Lowest

Day 181 – When Something’s Improved Away

Wednesday, 30 June 2021

Improved Away. Day 181. order of appearance. Projections, Compromise, Healing, Harmony, Moment to Moment, Stress, New Vision, The Creator, Receptivity, The Burden. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

Improved Away Context

In a world where IT is constantly evolving, it’s frustrating when a feature you love is “improved away”.  The phrase, I think, was coined in our office to apply to circumstances when an application or product is updated and a helpful feature removed as part of the improvement.

Today, I discovered one of the spreadsheet programs improved away a template I loved.   If memory serves correctly, there was an expense planning format.  The spreadsheet worked differently from a budget.  A budget takes an income and breaks it up into expected costs; its associated report bundles the results into categories.

Once you suspect a favourite or frequently used item has been moved, merged, removed, or bundled with some other things, you might spend some time looking to get the feature back.  Your search engine gets a workout as you seek a solution to the problem the improved away created.

Indeed, removing something from someone that they have become used to is incredibly difficult.  There’s a surprising kind of stress associated with slight separation or loss.  And that’s not just in the IT world, although separating us from our mobile phones has the potential to form into a full-blown phobia or nomophobia (netdoctor).  Try to take anything away that has been beneficial to someone, and you’ll get a fight.  Have you tried taking candy from a toddler – note, not baby, that’s the easy one; now, a toddler is on an entirely different level.

As we head into day one of another three-day lockdown and speak of trying to remove something beneficial, I’m reminded some organisations implemented work from home strategies in response to COVID’s enforcement.  The main reason for this pushback is that people have discovered the convenience of putting a load of washing on while attending a meeting.

Today's Cards

Improved Away. Day 181. order of appearance. Projections, Compromise, Healing, Harmony, Moment to Moment, Stress, New Vision, The Creator, Receptivity, The Burden. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

The Cards - Analysis

Carryover Cards

Two cards carried over from yesterday; Moment to Moment moved from Hopes & Fears to Recent Past, and New Vision stayed in the Feelings position.

Cross

Projections are in the Now influenced by Compromise.  What I forgot to mention above was today was my rostered day off.  However, it is also the end of the financial year in Australia, which equals timesheets, last-minute financial adjustments, and is an arbitrary date that motivates many business decisions.  For your information, the abbreviation we use for the End Of the Financial Year is EOFY. 

So, why did I raise the day off?  Well, timesheets needed completion, which I forgot to do yesterday, and I had scheduled a meeting I was going to attend.  As a Compromise, I decided to hand over my meeting notes to another invitee (ooh, Projections can me handing over something) and let them run the session, but I would log in to do my timesheets.

Healing is in the Goal position.  My Healing was going to take the form of catching up on work. 

In the Distant Past is Harmony, Day 179 had the Harmony card in the Future Energy spot and has moved from there into the Distant Past over two days?  On Day 179, I had been frustrated by events where I needed to justify someone else’s actions, unpleasant and left me on tenterhooks but happened in the meantime to create a time of Harmony.

Moment to Moment is in the Recent Past, continuing the harmonious feel and leading me into Projections, leading to an environment with a Future Energy of Stress.  The Stress is most likely me needing to have a difficult discussion with the person involved.

Base

New Vision has stayed the Feelings spot since yesterday.  Yesterday, New Vision was about getting to my source or core.  Today, New Vision relates to a new way of existing and opening up.  However, there’s the possibility I’m opening up because I’m projecting my feelings of trust onto someone else.

Others see me as The Creator, and The Creator in Osho describes it as being able to enrich his own life and those of others (p.48).  I like the idea.

Hopes & Fears has in the card of Receptivity.  Receptivity echoes the opening up of New Vision; there’s the fear of abuse for being trusting with any opening up.  The hope for the opening up is that trust will breed itself and others are able to confide and trust in your generosity.

The final outcome is The Burden.  The Burden in this case is the need for me to action something I’d rather not.   Maybe the discussion with the person I’d been justifying – we’ll see, it might be something completely different.

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
End Day 181

Day 180 – Adapting to Another Lockdown

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Another Lockdown. Day 180. order of appearance. The Source, The Outsider, Slowing Down, Intensity, Schizophrenia, Inner Voice, New Vision, No-thingness, Moment to Moment, Rebirth. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

Another Lockdown Context

Thanks to COVID-19, Delta Strain, being detected – not – the Queensland’s Premier announced Queensland was heading into another lockdown, and again it will be for three days.  Luckily we had done the weekly shopping, and my husband didn’t ask for chicken strips like back on Day 88, 29 March 2021.  By the way, a state’s premier is about the equivalent of what a governor is in the USA.

Rather than racing to the supermarket to get groceries, I could work calmly.  This time the only thing we were short on was cat food.  So, I grabbed my mask and headed to the pet store rather than the supermarket.  It was nowhere near as busy as it had been last time.  There were also no opportunities to make ‘forever friends’. 

Some pet food had gone, but there also had a great special on Greenies (cat teeth cleaning treats) at a quarter of their usual price!  Special aside, I grabbed what was needed and headed for the door. 

What a change in pace visiting the pet store was when compared to the previous lockdown’s business.  Wow!  It’s almost a letdown.  Maybe I should have gone to the supermarket to pick up some things, just to make sure there was going to be another lockdown.  The normality of the pet store was just too … well, normal.

So, what else can I write about … cricket noises.  I looked around, twiddled thumbs and …  there … were … more … cricket noises.

Hmmm.  That’s it, then.  It’s over to the analysis.

Just kidding.  Because I knew my husband would need to work from home, in between meetings, I set up his office space.  Before you begin thinking “how sweet”, it wasn’t sweetness; it was so I didn’t lose the way I operate 😏.

Today's Cards

Another Lockdown. Day 180. The Source, The Outsider, Slowing Down, Intensity, Schizophrenia, Inner Voice, New Vision, No-thingness, Moment to Moment, Rebirth

The Cards - Analysis

Carryover Cards

No cards carried over from yesterday.

Cross

The Source is in the Now influenced by The Outsider.  Oh yeah, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about where my “fear of missing out”, FOMO, might come from.  These two cards perfectly demonstrate this activity.  The Source is my makeup; where inside me is this stupid trigger for inclusion?   How deep does it run?  And how do I get rid of it?  All questions asked by someone who feels like The Outsider, except maybe the last one. 

Slowing Down is in the Goal position, and with the lockdown, it looks like the Slowing Down is almost guaranteed. 

The Distant Past has Intensity, which I see as me getting involved with everything that interests me and thus overextending myself.  This getting engaged with everything has strong links to The Source, my source, and could be part of the foundations for the FOMO.

Schizophrenia in the Recent Past suggests a dilemma between wanting to be included in everything and appreciating its unfeasibility.  In reality, stupidly, if I stop to look at who and what some of those activities and people are, I’m not a good fit!  Argh!!! See, I recognise it.  Why doesn’t recognising it not give me the power to stop it?

Future Energy has Inner Voice, suggesting I will connect with my inner voice.

Base

New Vision is the card that reflects my Feelings about connecting to The Source.  The belief is in connecting to my core; I’ll better understand my emotions and their intensity.

The blank card of No-thingness reflects Others’ Views; this could mean other people do not have an opinion or do not see my struggle – good.  Although No-thingness can also suggest a potential, I cannot reconcile this definition to today’s layout.

The struggle between wanting and not wanting inclusion is draining, and I hope I can take each moment as it arrives, as suggested by the Moment to Moment card.  Moment to Moment is about being connected but not held hostage by emotion.  The corresponding fear is I’ll never be able to move past it because it is somehow linked intrinsically to a part of my makeup.

Rebirth in the Outcome position is a peculiar card following my fears 😢, but I think this indicates the topic of FOMO will be reborn.  I do like the image of the boy breaking away from the lion.

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
End Day 180

Day 179 – Making Excuses for Others

Monday, 28 June 2021

Excuses. Day 179. order of appearance. Totality, Ice-olation, Completion, Existence, Consciousness, Harmony, Conditioning, Aloneness, Ripeness, Fighting. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

Excuses Context

When it comes to people, I care about, and there are many, I get protective and sometimes feel I need to make excuses or justify why they do things the way they do.  Making those excuses are because not all the people I care about, care about social nuances.

Why does how someone behaves even matter?  It depends upon the situation, mainly in a social family and friend situation, it’s not an issue.  When you bring over a new friend, Mary (not name), for dinner, they’re shy and don’t offer to help with the dishes.  Later, once your friend has gone home, you need to justify why they didn’t.  By the way, this isn’t what happened today but something similar from my point of view.

In the example of not doing the dishes, when I went to Mary’s place for dinner, and I got up to do the words, they growled at me for even insinuating to do them.  I was their guest, and it wasn’t right for the guest to do the dishes. Justifying Mary’s actions to my family as her being polite by not offering got a slew of mockery.

This kind of justification constantly brings forward an internal battle, and it depresses me.  You try so hard to defend sometimes the indefensible, that it is exhausting.  In the past, there have been one or two “boyfriends” where I’ve felt I had to justify their actions or inaction to others I love.  To quote Kamal, a singer in the 70’s (?) “why are people so unkind?”.  The question is certainly something many people have pondered. 

Today's Cards

Excuses. Day 179. order of appearance. Totality, Ice-olation, Completion, Existence, Consciousness, Harmony, Conditioning, Aloneness, Ripeness, Fighting. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

The Cards - Excuses Analysis

Carryover Cards

Only one card carried over from yesterday; Conditioning moved from Others’ Views to Feelings.

Cross Excuses

Totality is in the Now influenced by Ice-olation.  Totality being the commitment, I throw myself into protecting Mary with excuses and Ice-olation in not knowing 100% whether I should be “a” defending her or “b” having a quiet talk to her about it”.

My Goal was Completion; I just want to end the justification cycle but don’t know how to change the situation.

In the Distant Past, I have been at ease with my Existence and connection to the world.  More recently (Recent Past), Consciousness has crept in, and I’ve realised why making excuses is draining.  I’m not true to myself.

Future Energy suggests a way of working out the impossible by having the Harmony card.

Base

Conditioning needs to break if my Feelings on today’s situation are correct.  I do agree.

Others view me as being alone (Aloneness), in my view, maybe?

In the Hopes & Fears position, Ripeness says I am ready to wish (hope) I could move on from worrying about what others think.  At the same time, I fear not worrying (fear) about what others believe will lead to a breakdown of intolerance.

Finally, Fighting is in the Outcome position and is my tenterhooks warning card to tell me to be extra careful when dealing with people, as I might be on the tired side and say something I might regret.

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
End Day 179

Day 178 – Tech takes Time with Crypto

Sunday, 27 June 2021

Grateful. Day 178. order of appearance. Rebirth, Morality, The Outsider, Trust, Beyond Illusion, Understanding, Sorrow, Conditioning, Mind, Silence. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

Tech takes Time Context

Last night Stew and I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get an old (not that old) laptop of Stew’s working.  After four to five painful hours of hoping the machine would come good, we realised it would just take time.  Tech takes time.

Time to rebuild the second “old” computer.  Stew wiped the device, including the operating system.  His second “old” computer got a complete rebuild from the operating system up.  From the first moment of logging in, the rebuilt machine was humming along nicely.  A working computer first thing in the morning is a positive way to start the day.

All the applications set up quickly, and within a few clicks, everything was working smoothly.  Yay!  In the murky haze of two tired people last night, there was an activity we thought would take place at 2:00 pm Sunday.  It wasn’t until high noon, 12:00 pm, when we (Stew and I) realised it wasn’t until Monday 2:00 pm the event would occur. 

Once again, tech takes time.  It’s ironic since technology usually speeds things up.  If the event weren’t going to happen until Monday, it would give my husband and me time to get home and get organised for the work week ahead.

From the realisation that tech would take time, packing activities went smoothly.  It doesn’t do good storytelling if there’s no drama or suspense or even a juicy bit of griping.  So, it’s on to the analysis.

Today's Cards

Grateful. Day 178. order of appearance. Rebirth, Morality, The Outsider, Trust, Beyond Illusion, Understanding, Sorrow, Conditioning, Mind, Silence. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

The Cards - Analysis

Carryover Cards

Two cards carried over from yesterday; Understanding moved from Recent Past to Future Energy, and Conditioning moved from Hopes & Fears to Others’ Views.

Tech Cross

After a good night’s sleep, the card in the Now position is Rebirth influenced by doing things correctly, Morality.

Rebirth and Morality makes a lot of sense in taking a shortcut with the computer; the computer needed to be reformatted and not just had its users deleted.  Had we done things correctly, we could have saved ourselves some agony.  Or, if we trusted our instincts and acted when the tech was taking its time last night, things might have gone differently.  Ah, hindsight is such a wonderful way of retrograde guilt. However, without mistakes, we don’t learn as well.  In fairness, it should have worked. 

The Outsider is in the Goal position and represents how I still stood in the knowledge of the cryptocurrency (crypto) world. 

Distant Past shows my Trust in the actions and guidance of my sensei in the crypto world has been absolute.

More recently (Recent Past), overnight, I think I’ve gone Beyond Illusion and somehow gained a better Understanding (Future Energy) of the crypto tech world for myself – not much, just a bit more to allow me to think for myself. 

Learning is all about getting those initial hooks installed into the memory to reference upon which to build.  It’s about making sure you get the right base hooks.

Base

My Feelings are of Sorrow.  On numerous occasions, I referred to this card as the self-pity card, and there has undoubtedly been a little bit of that because sometimes.  Needing to learn and needing to be patient can be overwhelming.

Others’ Views is I’m a subject of Conditioning regarding cryptocurrency or possibly knowing Stew, who is not a fan of Apple, Apple.  Maybe I’ve been a little Apple-washed (brainwashed by Apple that Apple is the best).  Stew could be correct, but realistically I love and dislike most technology because tech takes time I’d like to spend elsewhere when it’s not working.

Mind is in Hopes & Fears, and if you look at the image on the card, you’d see the brain overloaded and looks like tech short-circuiting.  My Mind IS shorting with all the information, and I hope I’ve not learnt something that needs to be unlearnt (the fear).  You know, like last time it was all Panthers, and now, it’s all Sharks.  Who knows, maybe next time it’ll be tunas or baboons! 🐒

Finally, we reach the Outcome of Silence.  It is fitting to try and control the overloaded Mind by sitting quietly and letting the new information settle.

I’m looking forward to the Silence!

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7

Related Links

Panther crypto

Day 134 – Bitcoin

Day 163 – My first cryptocurrency 

End Day 178

Day 177 – Gifts that Come at a Cost

Saturday, 26 June 2021

Gifts. Day 177. In order of appearance.:Traveling, Turning In, Experiencing, Guidance, Understanding, Inner Voice, Exhaustion, Change, Conditioning, Creativity. Shuffle method was Standard Shuffle

Gifts Context

A spontaneous trip to the Tweed Coast has me receiving gifts, a relatively new laptop.  After the first four hours of it being mine, I realised there was a cost to pay.

Gifts that Come at a Cost

When a friend gives you a gaming laptop they’re no longer using; it’s important to not just wipe user data but to reload the operating system.  Trust me, not doing the wipe can cause you pain.

The gift of the laptop was incredibly generous.  Okay, so I paid a small amount for it, but it would be worth it. Wouldn’t it?  This weekend we went to my bestie’s place.  Her husband is the one who has been helping me with cryptocurrency. 

Because I use many Apple products, it’s difficult for Stew to help me navigate around the screen and environment, even if he had visual access to my machine.  His old laptop became my new laptop.  This new laptop was going to make my life easier.   Stew was going to help set up everything and be ready when I went home.

Setting up was anticipated to take a long time because applications needed installation and new links established.  When it comes to technology, you get used to a level of responsiveness and expect the same responsiveness everywhere.  If the responsiveness isn’t delivering, you can become impatient.  

There comes the point where you are mockingly banging your head on the keyboard because of the PCs slowness.  You can literally make a cup of tea/ coffee between clicks on the screen.  I am not kidding!  Argh!!!  Because it was a gift, I didn’t want to bag/ rag on the computer’s slowness too much, and certainly not in anything but a joking tone.

There’s also an additional level of expectation if you’re the gift giver that the gift you give will function as well as it always had for you.  When it’s not performing as expected, you’re a little embarrassed.  Then between gift giver and receiver, exhausted and tired, the tension can build.

Realising the Gift is Broken

Even the most optimistic soul needs to know when to call it a day.  There was a little bit of tension, but neither one of us wanted to upset the other.  After all, we respected each other enough to feel the moment and then let it go.  

Late that night, Stew suspected his error.  Realising you’ve made an error in not reinstalling the operating system has just caused a delay.  Of course, it’s an older laptop, so it might also have processing issues. 

Luckily for me, Stew had a second spare laptop!  Wow!  Overnight Stew set to give the new old machine to do a complete wipe and reset.  You know the saying, if at first, you don’t succeed, try, try and try again and then quit – there’s no point making a fool of yourself!

What impressed me was that we did curb our tension; I suspect that we both realised it’s late and the computer was the cause of frustration.  Not getting upset by it, just impatience; I feel it helped us both.

Hopefully, things will look better in the morning.  🥱

Today's Cards

Gifts. Day 177. In order of appearance.:Traveling, Turning In, Experiencing, Guidance, Understanding, Inner Voice, Exhaustion, Change, Conditioning, Creativity. Shuffle method was Standard Shuffle

The Cards - Analysis

Carryover Cards

Two cards carried over from yesterday; Change moved from Future Energy to Others’ Views, and Conditioning moved from Distant Past to Hopes & Fears.

Cross gifts

Travelling in the Now describes the travel neatly to my friends’ place.  The journey was an impromptu excursion for the weekend.

Turning In is the Influence position.  When my friend called and said we should come down to get the laptop and do it this weekend because some of the cryptocurrency needed investing in a certain way – I went.

I like to think my decision wasn’t motivated this weekend by money.  But that’s probably a lie, I tell myself.  Just because I don’t think about money, all the time doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a hold on me.  This motivation made me reflect (Turning In) on my substance.

As it worked out, Goal wise I’m also motivated by Experiencing new and spontaneous activities.  An unplanned trip to the Tweed Coast was the best activity to tick that box.  It also provided an opportunity to confirm some advice I’d received in the Distant Past for Guidance on cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrency is such a rapidly changing world.  Last time, Day 163, it was all about getting Panthers and Sharks.  This time it’s ditching the Panthers and buy more Sharks!  That would be great if I knew what it all meant.

With much heavy thinking and asking many stupid questions in the Recent Past, I gained a glimmer of Understanding.  Comprehension is what drove the travel.  Get it? “Drove” is what you do as part of travel. 

Now that I have Understanding the Future Energy, it tells me to listen to my Inner Voice on what to do next.

Base

My Feelings are of Exhaustion.  Before the impromptu travel, I was looking forward to catching up on writing articles and sleep.  I enjoy being with my friends, but there are times when taking a much needed time to recover from the week’s ravages is necessary.

Perhaps my questions stopped, or maybe I’d conveyed a level of knowledge when it came to the gift, but Others’ Views is that I have a Change afoot or I am changing.

Hopes & Fears were Conditioning in the Distant Past yesterday, but today steps in for hope and fear.  Conditioning is about stepping away from the artificial ego. It’s the one to gets upset before you’ve had a chance to think about things.  I hope to not succumb to my fake alter ego and fear I don’t have enough control over my mind to shift old habits.

 Conditioning is also about training your mind to be more focused and more receptive.  To do this, you need to use your Creativity, which is the link to your intuition.

The final card is Creativity.  Creativity is required to piece together the new information into an accessible and logical format.

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
End Day 177

Day 176 – Metaphysical Bladder Control

Friday, 25 June 2021

Metaphysical bladder control. Day 176. order of appearance. The Creator, Innocence, Beyond Illusion, Conditioning, Suppression, Change, Control, Existence, Rebirth, Participation. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

Metaphysical Context

On Day 173, I wrote about incontinence and the woes of having the buttocks surrender to gravity.  Today, the thoughts are back, but I’ve decided to look at the metaphysical aspects.

Can Men get Pee-leak?

But first, I thought I wondered how men managed to have pee-leak.  The outlet is smaller than the primary one women have, and if women work at their PC muscles with pelvic floor exercises such as Kegel, it can prevent leakage.  So, do men leak as they get older?

I consulted an expert, my husband, being qualified by having the opposite to me.  He said simply, there’s nothing to control at the outflow point.  Ah, this makes sense.  However, doing a couple of browser searches revealed men could also use exercises like Kegel to control their bladder, too (Healthlinkbc).  Who’d a thunk it!

A Metaphysical Look at Pee-leak

You really do learn something new every day.  If I move away from the slightly depressing physical elements of pee-leak and look at the metaphysical, maybe things will pick up.  Looking at the mental patterning or conditioning might help to improve motivation and subsequently the physical aspects.  

My favourite go-to person for metaphysical advice on ailments is Louise L. Hay.  Specifically, The List says, “Incontinence is Emotional overflow.  Years of controlling the emotions” (p.200, You Can Heal Your Life).   Whereas, Annette Noontil says, “[i]ncontinence [is you feel] guilty of not being loyal to yourself to go after your goals, because you do not know how to obtain your goals or wants.  If old – Thinking that you are too old to go after new things” (p.67, The Body is the Barometer of the Soul).

So, not much help from Louise or Annette, just more hard work.  Stop controlling my emotions and be loyal to myself and pursue my goals – I thought this is what I was doing.  Oh, wait a minute, for me, it’s to continue doing what I’m doing.  I might just include those PC/ pelvic floor exercises as a backup.  Then I’m pursuing my goal of not wanting to smell like pee when I become older.  🧐 

Today's Cards

Metaphysical bladder control Day 176. order of appearance. The Creator, Innocence, Beyond Illusion, Conditioning, Suppression, Change, Control, Existence, Rebirth, Participation. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

The Cards - Analysis

Carryover Cards

Only one card carried over from yesterday; Innocence moved from Goal to Influence.

Metaphysical Cross

I’m going to break with my usual format and begin in the Distant Past with Conditioning and, ooh, breaking with tradition.  The Conditioning card is about breaking away from the perception that this is how things get done.  

Although the cards laid in a particular order, the story’s telling doesn’t have to begin with the first card selected.  Sure, it helps if you’re reading for someone to start at the Now and thread your way back to the origins.  But this is me reading for myself, and sometimes trying a new perspective might enhance the experience. 

The other thing to remember is I’m breaking my Conditioning, not anybody else’s.  In light of today’s musings, my Distant Past would be too polite to ask about elimination areas of the body. 

However, when you want to break out of illusion and go Beyond Illusion, and Beyond Illusion is the first wing-flaps of a butterfly you need to create. Those initial wing-flaps are also a little tentative as I try out and voice the new questions.

Today in the Now is The Creator.  The Creator is the potter moulding clay; his influence is Innocence.  Innocence is looking at things in a new light with a fresh perspective.  A new view is what I discovered about the metaphysical aspects of pee-leak.  I’m pleased with the information.

Recently (Recent Past), I’ve been suppressing (Suppression) my curiosity, not so much the interest but the vocalisation of thoughts.

The Creator is working to mould things in a new way, and the Future Energy spot shows the card of Change.

Base

Control is an intriguing card to show up in the Feelings position.  It works on a couple of levels, one being the purely physical aspect of disciplining myself to do the exercises required.  On the non-physical, Control can also limit spontaneity and appear dull and lifeless (Osho, p.94). 

Position eight is Others’ Views and holds the card of Existence, which is about being unique and humble.  It’s what our physicality makes us, isn’t it?

Hopes & Fears holds Rebirth. Here’s hoping that the Change is pleasant and doesn’t put me onto another learning circuit.  The last sentence also encompasses the fear which the hope is trying to avoid.

Finally, the Outcome card is Participation.  Perhaps, we can avoid the expectations that incontinence is an inevitable part of the ageing process if we participate in physical and metaphysical exercises.

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
End Day 176

Day 175 – On Finishing Things

Thursday, 24 June 2021

Finishing Things. Day 175. Tabled list: order of appearance. Traveling, Ice-olation, Innocence, Past Lives, Politics, Turning In, Consciousness, Harmony, The Fool, Abundance. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

Finishing Context

Liz’s comment on finishing things hits too close to home and triggers reflection asking whether I’ve moved on from similar past incidents.

Sometimes, you gotta ask yourself, “Have I changed?”   And on Day 175, I chat with a lady at work, Liz, who said that Leo’s don’t often end up finishing things.  Liz’s comment was in response to my lament over not keeping pace with the posts and how previously something similar had happened. 

My excuse for not finishing the previous attempt was at that time, I’d met my husband, and you know, getting entangled with a new love can be time-consuming 💗. So when I started the experiment the time before, I reasoned myself out of finishing it since it was an experiment for me, and no one else would care if I completed it.

I can’t speak for other Leos, but for me, at least, there’s a string of unfinished projects in my past.  But my husband, sister, mother, and friends also have a list of outstanding tasks.  Their star signs are Pisces, Taurus, Aries, Taureans, Virgos, Water and Air signs. 

That doesn’t mean I don’t finish things. But I get it.  It’s the constant generation of ideas and inventions that lead me from enthusiasm to enthusiasm, and as soon as it gets hard, it’s “honey, I’ve got an idea”.  Honey makes an inaudible sigh as he gets ready to firefight the next potentially bad idea.

Finishing Things

At work, I finalise processes, which I’m the only one who bothers to complete.  So moving away from the tail end and moving onto the next thing is easy. Take project management; for example, it requires a complete document or a document to articulate the state of the final project handover.  This completion document is difficult to write, especially when the next shiny project is being run-up backed by the authority of the CEO.  However, if there’s no one pushing for the document, it doesn’t get done, myself included.

At the end of a workshop writing the post-workshop review can help future seminars.  It’s something I’m particularly passionate about because it has helped me many times.  A group of facilitators can add to the central repository for post-event reviews, but only three have done so in the last four years.

Liz is intuitive and picked up I needed a kick in the pants rather than looking for an excuse to shut down the experiment – yet again.  However, I feel bad that she found it necessary to drag all Leos into the generic bag to convey the message. Shutting it down would only mean letting myself down and adding to more things to beat me up over.

It’s like when you’re trying to tell a specific person something, but to avoid singling them out, you take the opportunity to educate everyone.  It might have been something like that.

Justification for not Finishing Things

This talk of completing things right after saying I have a list of uncompleted tasks at home is simply me trying to be fair in my assessment of the statement used to judge all Leos and myself.  I’m not a fan of being boxed into the Leo box (or any star sign box) in this way, except the information wasn’t limiting.  The statement found a home; that’s why I’m justifying it, but its level worked without causing my hackles to go up.

There’s a friend in my past, Maddy, who I’d briefly reconnected with at a funeral.  Maddy was still as beautiful as before, but she’d somehow grown into her elegance.  Her poise and posture spoke to me at the funeral before recognising her.  Never one to be fat, but my memory of her was that she had been more hourglass-like instead of tall and slender – not anymore!  It turns out her love of yoga seemed to have changed her body shape.

At the funeral, my exercise included yoga, running and gym, and she replied, “you were always into that”.  Although not said in a nasty or bitchy way, I felt the judgement was like a stereotype of my past from which I hadn’t grown.  I automatically bristled because somehow, it made me feel like she was my mother and I was a naïve kid.

Then, shocked at me for bristling at a well-meaning comment, at the end of the day, made me mad at myself.  It’s the same trigger response Maddy had always managed to elicit in the 90s and again so many years later.  Maybe the comment showed just how much things hadn’t changed.   I felt terrible about my response.  We probably drifted apart because of the limiting statement, my answer to them, and my response.

General Statements that Make Me Arc Up

Ginger kitten arcing its back.

Now I’m not sure why the comment Liz made didn’t cause me to arc as much as Maddy’s remark had, but I’m hoping I’ve grown since Maddy and I caught up.  Following my advice in the FAQs, “what you hear is for you to hear; how you deal with what you hear is up to you”.  In this case, it reminds me everyone is different and different isn’t wrong; this statement applies to me and others.  By the way, to “arc up” or “arc” are Australian slang terms referring to how a cat arches its back when it’s had a fright.

General statements or stereotyping based on whatever mechanism, whether it be star signs, eye colour, shoe size, blood type, or a researched questionnaire, need to be interpreted with flexibility when it comes to people.   While a four-category bucket may seem incredibly limiting, it can also provide a lot more freedom – or can it?  That’s something to ponder another day.

Today's Cards

Finishing Things. Day 175. Tabled list: order of appearance. Traveling, Ice-olation, Innocence, Past Lives, Politics, Turning In, Consciousness, Harmony, The Fool, Abundance. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

The Cards - Analysis

Carryover Cards

Two cards carried over from yesterday; Politics moved from Now to Recent Past, and Abundance moved from Feelings to Outcome.

Cross

Travelling is in the Now influenced by Ice-olation.  The Goal card has Innocence, and Past Lives is, appropriately, in the Distant Past.   Politics flowed nicely from yesterday’s Now to today’s Recent Past. So today, I’m able to advise that Politics was me trying to be diplomatic when I heard Liz’s comment.   

I saw myself arc up but, while not fully taking some of the heat out of my response, I managed to siphon off some of the heat while logic caught up.  The comment has encouraged Turning In in Future Energy to assess the remark’s validity. 

Base

The Consciousness card in the Feelings position verifies the awareness of the time of the comment.

Interestingly, Others’ Views – in this case, Liz’s – indicates I could pull off the awareness and take some of the heat out of my response because Harmony appeared.  Phew!  See, this position is helpful to see if what you intended to happen was indeed interpreted that way.

The Fool trusts regardless of the fall; I fear that I’m fooling myself with the interpretation of the Harmony card, but without another barometer, I hope and trust, like The Fool, that everything is as it seems.

Finally, Abundance is in the Outcome position.  Abundance in this spot seems to indicate things are going to get moving again.  Indeed, here I am writing more freely, and I’ve finished for the day. 😉

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
End Day 126

Day 174 – Sibling Rivalry Between Countries

Wednesday, 23 June 2021

Sibling Rivalry. Day 174. layout: order of appearance. Politics, Integration, Creativity, Maturity, Patience, Comparison, Abundance, Participation, Clinging to the Past, Postponement. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

Sibling Rivalry Context

Talking to Tabya about my New Zealand (NZ) ski trip was exciting – Day 170.  It became disturbing when sibling rivalry was worse than I thought.   Tabya mentioned she had lived in NZ.  My comments went along the lines of, “Wow!  What a fantastic experience to live in NZ!”.  Tabya agreed it was impressive and beautiful, and she had lived on the North Island.

The discussion took on a darker tone when Tabya mentioned New Zealanders don’t like Australians.  “Really?” was my response began, follow up with “it’s in that joking but seriously competitive way, right?”.  To which Tabya replied with “no.  It’s more like hatred.  Don’t get me wrong, New Zealanders love Australian money, but there’s an underlying resentment as well.”.    I was seriously dismayed.

Rivalry from the Beginning

Ever since the early days, New Zealanders and Australians have been kind of siblings.  Even the rivalry for who is the older could generate some debate.  For instance, the first European to land in Australia was Willem Janszoon in 1606.  He didn’t do much and left.   Dirk Hartog left after leaving a plate with his name on it in 1616.  William Dampier landed in Australia in 1688, documented some flora and fauna and left.  In 1769 James Cook landed, and Australia was born to the British motherland.

Abel Tasman landed in New Zealand in 1642, had a look around, didn’t get along with the Māori natives and left.  In 1770 James Cook landed and began negotiations with the British motherland.  New Zealand is the leaner and fitter sibling, while Australia is the larger and older other.  Since the first couple of visitors to Australian shores don’t really count and Abel Tasman’s visit to New Zealand is also a non-plus event, we’ll use Captain Cook‘s visit as the start point.  This way, I can say Australia is the older 😏. 

Rivalry to the Max!

So, you see, even about the landing dates it could get competitive.  When it comes to sports on the world stage, Australia punches above its weight. If that’s the case for Australia, then it’s even more impressive with the number of victories New Zealand has.  The sibling rivalry, I thought, was limited to sports. 

It was undoubtedly the case when a former boss of mine would receive phone calls from across the pond from his NZ counterpart, ribbing him about the poor performance Australia put up in the latest: cricket, rugby, netball, the under three crying marathons, chip-eating, eye-blinking, dog show, ant race or whatever contest you can think of was on between the two countries.  Likewise, my former boss would ring back when the reverse was true.   

Note, I’ve taken some creative liberties with the events to give you an idea of how competitive it could get between the two.  Nobody really wants to win the under three crying marathons!

The rivalry is well known; it’s even made it to Geography Now YouTube episodes; I can’t remember which one – so check out both Australia & New Zealand!

Sibling Rivalry Thoughts

This discussion made me think of sibling rivalry and what might make it happen.  In one of the self-help books, I’d read that it’s all about energy, or more accurately, getting it.  Getting attention manifests itself as attention-seeking.  The theory went if we get someone’s attention, we get their energy or “power”. 

The book went on to say how we needed to transition from the watchful attention our parents gave us as children to know how to obtain energy from the world around us. Getting power from beauty and existence as a whole; examples were from trees, plants, oceans, lakes, rivers, and animals were a transitionary stage from people to animals to nature. 

I understand this notion when it comes to sibling rivalry; if I want the attention of my mother and my sister does likewise, and the other gets that attention, one of us might feel like they’re missing out.  It’s where the FOMO (fear of missing out), jealousy, resentment come from and learning to become centred and mindful of when you seek validation reduces the dependence on other people’s attention.

An extension to seeking out energy from a different source other than your parents or friends is competition.  You compete to win.  Winning attracts attention which is synonymous with energy. 

Another side effect of a competition is it makes competitors seek out improvements. Each party understands that it needs to come against a worthy adversary for it to feel successful.  Without a worthy opponent, you can get lazy.  Maybe this is why Australia and New Zealand do so well?

Conclusion

Of course, when you want to remember what book this all comes from, the book’s name escapes you (me).   Maybe many books contained similar information, and I just smooshed it all together into my brain. 

I’m also not sure how sibling rivalry would work with countries.  Is it because Australia gets all the attention when eyes focus down-under because of its size and deadly animals when NZ is arguably proportionally just as accomplished without the fatal animals? 

Does this mean Canada is the NZ to America?  And is America the older sibling to Australia, who thinks they gave the middle finger to “mum” but is secretly still trying to win approval by showing how rich and happy they are to be living away from home?  Nah… just playfully speculating.

In any case, I’m hoping Tabya is wrong, and it’s only a select few who feel this way, and it’s not pervasive and entrenched into the psyche.  At the very least, I’m an Australian bringing in money 💰.

Today's Cards

Sibling Rivalry. Day 174. Tabled list: order of appearance. Politics, Integration, Creativity, Maturity, Patience, Comparison, Abundance, Participation, Clinging to the Past, Postponement. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

The Cards - Analysis

Carryover Cards

No cards carried over from yesterday.

Cross

Politics is in the Now influenced by Integration.  The layout of these two cards makes sense to me.  Tabya’s comments took me aback and put a pinprick into a softened balloon (it doesn’t quite burst but begins to let the air out slowly). 

Politics was the mask I wore to show this hadn’t quite affected me, and I was buying time to sort out my thoughts as I worked on integrating this new piece of information into my view of NZ.  Hopefully, before my opinion deflated.

The Goal is Creativity.  Blending new information into a worldview requires Creativity on how best to make it fit without losing the affection I have for the relationship between Australia and NZ.

In the Distant Past is Maturity and in the Recent Past is Patience.  Being an adult means not succumbing to the emotions of what others have to say, even if you don’t like what it is they have said.  The trick is to acknowledge the feelings.  In the Distant Past, controlling my emotions at times like these is a lesson I’ve had to learn repeatedly, especially when I’m protective over something I believe.

Patience, I applied it to my circumstances.  One of the things I was thinking was I would need to wait and see for myself when I reached NZ.

Possibly, predictably Comparison is in the Future Energy position.  Thanks to the discussion, I will constantly watch anyone from NZ and compare them to what I’ve learned.  And as we know, comparisons are unhelpful, for it gains me nothing but some wariness.

Base

So, what are my Feelings toward Politics which I seem to have in Abundance?  Perhaps it’s the Maturity of knowing when not to react.  After all, Tabya thought she was helping me. 

Others’ Views has Participation.  I see this card as participating in travel and acknowledging the information in the conversation without buying or rejecting it.  In short, the jury’s out until I’ve visited.

Hopes & Fears has Clinging to the Past.  This card in this position makes sense to me because I’m clinging to the warm fuzzy feeling of NZ and Australia being mutually respectful sibling rivals, both being fiercely competitive, knowing it will drive ourselves and make others better.  It’s why I believe the two countries are so successful – we push each other – or so I hope.  Fear is “please don’t let it be otherwise”.

Finally, the Outcome is Postponement, which I’ve been doing on posting this blog as I try to remember the books from which my thoughts came.

 

(published ten days later and still couldn’t remember!)

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7

  2. Geography Now, Australia (Friendzone) 

  3. Geography Now, New Zealand (Friendzone) 

End Day 126

Day 173 – All Work and No Play

Tuesday, 22 June 2021

Day 173. Tabled list: order of appearance. New Vision, The Burden, Letting Go, Ice-olation, The Miser, The Lovers, Thunderbolt, The Source, Adventure, Consciousness. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

No Play Context

All work and no play sends my mind to the depressing thoughts of getting older and the squeamish topic of incontinence.  Eww…

Every now and again, I get into these moods where I feel my life is all work and no play.  I then live on the “edge” by not doing routine things, for which I pay for the result later.  It’s a form of self-sabotage.  The other thing I do is think about the ageing process, specifically, incontinence – which is the only word in my notebook against today’s date.

Not a pleasant subject, and some of what I might write might gross you out.  Suppose you’re keen to become disgusted read on.  Otherwise, I recommend catching up on another post 🤧.

The Wayward Thoughts of No Play

Presumably, this note is not referring to the amount of dribble you occasionally hear in meetings.  Don’t get me wrong; I love dribble 😃.  Of late, however, incontinence is something that’s been on my mind.  I suppose it’s not just incontinence; it’s also constipation (but let’s focus on one today). 

Because all work and no play makes me restless, the words and phrases uttered by people ring in my head.  For instance, “old people smell like pee”, or concerning someone’s nan (passed away now), she had painful urinary tract infections, my grandmother missing the toilet bowl.  While the occasional not reaching the toilet as an adult might be down to poor timing or laughing too hard.  Or, if you’re like me, you’ll get absorbed in what you’re doing and ignore your body’s hints until the very last minute.

Possibly the reason it plays on my mind is my butt dropping.  To be expected, gravity and all. A comment in Endgame about Chris Evans’ ass, while hilarious, reminded me of a comment by a Hollywood female, missing out on a role because her arse had dropped an inch.  Yes.  It could be sour grapes or bad Hollywood.  Whatever the reason, exposure to the comments triggered the tangent thought process in me.

What does a dropping butt have to do with pee smell?  Well, when the butt is high, there’s room to pee freely; as the butt drops, it begins to impact on the space you have to pee, thus potentially rerouting the stream’s path – potentially leaving you smelling of pee if you don’t thoroughly wipe.   At this point, I’m weirded out by writing about it – another day.  But it’s certainly a motivating factor to increase my exercise.  Then how do you tighten the skin? Argh!

Upside

While it’s easy to get depressed over something like ageing, it’s worthwhile remembering, like the comments uttered by Danny Devito’s character, Eddie in Jumanji – The Next Level, ‘[g]etting old is a gift. I forget that sometimes, but it is.’ because it’s better than the alternative.  So, enjoy the moment and maybe a sense of curiosity with dashes of humour thrown it might make the process of ageing easier.

Today's Cards

Day 173. Tabled list: order of appearance. New Vision, The Burden, Letting Go, Ice-olation, The Miser, The Lovers, Thunderbolt, The Source, Adventure, Consciousness. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

The Cards - Analysis

Carryover Cards

Only one card carried over from yesterday; The Source moved from Distant Past to Others’ Views.

Cross

New Vision (Now) is either struggling to be born because of or despite The Burden (Influence) laid upon it.  The New Vision is the result of aiming of Letting Go (Goal).  Ice-olation in the Distant Past reeks of my depression and recently forces The Miser (Recent Past) to the surface, but diamonds form under pressure. 

The Lovers Future Energy of communion, awareness, and connection produces a union that is not just for themselves, but the relationship fosters compassion around them.  Thus, implying the New Vision will bring about an environment beneficial for more than just the people immediately involved.

Base

Thunderbolt is symbolic of change and represents my feelings (Feelings) about the New Vision.  It’s a shakeup because Ice-olation cannot continue to exist.

Once again, others view me as connecting to The Source.  My guess is others’ views (Others’ Views) are that I am calm and balanced.

The New Vision brings about hopes for a new Adventure because it’s not something I’ve done before.  But, on the flip side, Adventures also has an element of the unknown and fear is born from uncertainty.

Consciousness in the Outcome position echoes the card of The Lovers in its awareness and implies the Future Energy’s Consciousness has universal implications – just look at the image on the card.

That’s it for a day where it seemed like it was all work and no play

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
  2. My Soul Embrace FAQ
End Day 173

Day 172 – Ordinariness has a Downside

Monday, 21 June 2021

Day 172. Tabled list: order of appearance. Ordinariness, Totality, Experiencing, The Source, The Dream, Celebration, Exhaustion, Breakthrough, Guidance, Comparison. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

Ordinary Context

My notebook didn’t have any notes for today.  Once again, I turn to the cards to help me out, but all they have for me is Ordinariness.

Being the Monday and looking at my work calendar, it’s pretty busy with meetings, but on the whole, just ordinary.  The weekend’s highs and lows would have an impact on my energy.  Keeping my head down and bum up, as they say.

Yesterday, Day 171, I didn’t have notes in my notebook since I’m writing this retrospectively after a couple of days, and I still don’t have notes scribbled down.  The cards are going to need to prompt me yet again on what to write. 

Work has kept me busy, and I haven’t had much time to venture beyond surviving the day-to-day.

So, let’s start.

Today's Cards

Day 172. Tabled list: order of appearance. Ordinariness, Totality, Experiencing, The Source, The Dream, Celebration, Exhaustion, Breakthrough, Guidance, Comparison. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

The Cards - Analysis

Carryover Cards

No cards carried over from yesterday.

Cross

The Now position is Ordinariness, which supports the description above about the day simply being a day.  Totality influences Ordinariness and the submersion of my energy into operating within the everyday routine.  See, didn’t I say it wasn’t exciting?

The Goal spot is Experiencing.  Experiencing is about making the ordinary extraordinary and viewing life with wonder daily.  It reminds me of the movie 50 First Dates with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore (2004), where Lucy faces each day with a fresh perspective.  Or is it more like Groundhog Day with Bill Murray and Andie McDowell, where Bill Murray tackles every Groundhog Day like an opportunity to experience life differently?

Ordinariness came from my Distant Past when I connected or wished to connect to my essence, soul, or The Source.  I associated Ordinariness with easy, but that’s not the case – alas, a downside 😟.

More recently, in the Recent Past, I have been looking at the events in my life naively.  The Dream card represents illusion, one out of which comes the card in the Now position.

From the Now, there is cause for Celebration – because I manage to get through meetings and take pressure off myself?

Base

I know that living the ordinary life is tiring when you commit, and consequently, I feel (Feelings) Exhaustion.   There is a word of caution from Osho with this card, “The message of this card is not just about being a workaholic … [it is also about setting up] unnatural routines for ourselves, and in doing so, keep the chaotic and spontaneous away” (p 94).  Oh, I hear you!

Others’ Views is I’ve experienced a Breakthrough.  Could the Breakthrough be me booking a holiday overseas?  It is pretty exciting when someone you know decides to venture beyond your local council’s boundaries.  How the world had changed since mid-2019 when overseas trips talk was all the rage!

I hope for Guidance, especially around setting up the web page and how to tackle moving forward when the daily blogs in conjunction with an entirely ordinary life, reduce my spontaneity.  Of the Hopes & Fears, fear is of finding the wrong kind of Guidance I might latch onto because it’s telling me what I want to hear.  You know, the path of least resistance.

Finally, Comparison is in the Outcome position.  Comparing my day to other days is ironic since I strive for the ordinary all the time.  The difference here is the typical day is so packed with routine, I’ve boxed myself – which in this case, was today’s downside.  This boxing of myself might be why I arced up yesterday (refer Day 180) when our money-spending habit changed.   

Is it me, or does Ordinariness seem to have made its presence felt?

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7

  2. 50 First Dates (2004) 

  3. Groundhog Day (1993) 

End Day 172

Day 171 – New Computer More Spending

Sunday, 20 June 2021

Analysis one. Day 171. Tabled list: order of appearance. Control, Trust, Politics, Possibilities, Inner Voice, Morality, Conditioning, Sorrow, Clinging to the Past, Compromise. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

New Computer Context

After spending money on the NZ trip yesterday, my husband decides to buy a new computer; my emotions were slow to get on board.

When trying to write about today’s post, I struggled with what happened; my notebook for today’s date was a big blank.  My husband set about buying a new computer; this challenged the miser in me to want to hang on to our money a little longer, especially since we paid for the whole New Zealand ski trip yesterday.  I didn’t want to be a wet blanket, so I didn’t say anything.

Today's Cards

Analysis One. Control, Trust, Politics, Possibilities, Inner Voice, Morality, Conditioning, Sorrow, Clinging to the Past, Compromise

The Cards - Analysis

Carryover Cards

Only one card carried over from yesterday; Control moved from Other’s Views to Now.

Cross

After the heady high of booking travel to New Zealand yesterday, Control is in the Now position influenced by Trust.  Basically, spending the money means we are no longer umming and ahhing about whether we should or shouldn’t travel.  It’s now in the lap of the gods as to what happens next, or we just need to Trust and hand over Control.

Politics is the Goal.  It’s showing one face while feeling another.  Perhaps this is regarding my husband wanting to buy his replacement computer.  It died a few weeks ago, and he’s been making do, and hot on the heels of the booked travel he wants to spend money on a new computer too. 

Logically, I don’t mind and waiting a week wouldn’t make a difference in this case and on the surface, I’m supportive, while underneath, I rather keep the money an extra week.  It’s not even my gut; it’s the miser coming out in me.

The Distant Past holds Possibilities; possibilities for travel, possibilities for a new computer; everywhere you looked at one time, there were possibilities.

We are moving forward from the options to the more Recent Past of Inner Voice. That would be the Inner Voice telling me the computer purchase is fine. 

Being okay with buying the PC led to the Future Energy of Morality, and Morality is about doing things correctly.

Base

My Feelings on the purchase of a new computer are Conditioning and falling prey to the miser who wants to hoard everything.  By playing “politics”, I was able to put on the face of the person I wanted to get to while the emotions caught up.  My mind was forward-thinking (breaking Conditioning), my intuition knew my mind was right in this instance, but my Feelings needed time to catch up.  

Others’ Views of me is one of Sorrow.  Although Osho uses Ananda’s experience of crying once a year for the people who didn’t reach enlightenment, I see this card as my self-pity card.  Maybe seeing me full of woe for my mixed emotions is how I’m perceived.

Ahh.  Here we go, Clinging to the Past, is in the Hopes & Fears place.  I’ve mentioned the two-faced Politics card and about hoarding things, aka Clinging to the Past.  I want to hold on to something and fear the hanging on to it too closely makes it disappear quicker.  I hope for a balance between the two.  Sometimes I wonder where carefree spending Michaela went – oh, that’s right, she got a mortgage!

Finally, the day saw the Outcome of Compromise.  Compromise is the resentful meeting in the middle where a “balance” is reached, albeit sacrifice on both sides.  In the end, the store didn’t have the computer my husband wanted; I then felt bad that he didn’t get the new computer he wanted.  It was a merry-go-sorry moment when this was the discovery. 

That merry-go-sorry is in this situation what Compromise means; got the trip, the computer will have to wait, just like I thought I wanted.  Why am I sad for my husband then?  And, why didn’t I realise I’d feel this way earlier?

In the end, the analysis turned out to be fruitful and jogged my memory.  I suppose it was only yesterday 😉.

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
End Day 171

Day 170 – We’re Going to Book NZ (New Zealand)!

Saturday, 19 June 2021

Day 170. Cards in order of appearance. The Miser, Letting Go, Going with the Flow, Integration, Slowing Down, Ordinariness, Consciousness, Control, Laziness, Playfulness. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

Booking New Zealand Context

While travelling abroad has always had risks, in COVID times, it’s even riskier.  In Australia, COVID-19 has settled down.  There are a few pockets where COVID flares up, but these incidents are traceable.  Each year my husband and I try to go skiing, and we like to trying different resorts.  Every year we ponder visiting New Zealand.  This year we’re going to book NZ.

We married in the snow in 2016.  My nephew, ring bearer, has wanted to join our ski trips ever since.  It was his first exposure to skiing, and ever since his first “whoopie”, or was it “yippee?” he’s insinuated himself into our travel plans.  We don’t mind.  It’s fun to borrow my nephew to give my sister and brother-in-law a break. 

But going skiing can be expensive, and I consciously try to avoid placing the burden on my sister, particularly if we go overseas.   If we travel overseas, my sister wants to come too, not to go skiing but to sightsee.  The additional person increases journey cost, and therefore not ideal for my sister’s bank balance.

COVID adds difficulty to planning activities, especially if you’re planning a trip overseas, even if it is only a three-and-a-half-hour flight.  So this year, after some deliberation, it’s going to be just hubby and me.  We also decided we wouldn’t organise our travel, like usual, but we would book NZ via a travel agent.

After lunch, we approached Flight Centre at the local shopping centre to look at our options.  The lovely Renae helped find the perfect travel dates, accommodation, ski rental, lift passes and travel insurance.  And before you can say New Zealand Ski Holiday, we had paid.  Now the anticipation begins, and hopefully, COVID keeps its nose out of our travel.

Today's Cards

Booking for New Zealand Ski Trip

The Cards - Analysis

Carryover Cards

Three cards carried over from yesterday; Ordinariness moved from Influence to Future Energy, Control moved from Future Energy to Others’ Views, and Playfulness moved from Other’s Views to Outcome.  Well, well, well, look at Ordinariness causing a domino effect!

It’s like the words of the counting nursery rhyme, Ten in the Bed,

There were ten in the bed
And the little one said,
"Roll over! Roll over!"
So they all rolled over and
one fell out

All Nursery Rhymes

Cross to Book NZ

The Miser is in the Now influenced by Letting Go.  Ha, ha, ha!  It is no surprise for The Miser to appear after Letting Go a large amount of money for a ski trip.   

Going with the Flow occupies the Goal spot.  And, indeed, Going with the Flow, as in not having any definitive expectations on what today’s outcome was going to be, is what transpired.  The whole experience of booking NZ through the travel agent went smoothly, and it felt right to let the money go.

For the travel to eventuate, a lot of things in the Distant Past needed Integration. And in the more Recent Past, I have chosen to slow down (Slowing Down). 

Slowing Down creates the Future Energy of Ordinariness, which is the full appreciation of the little things in life, providing the opportunity to smell the roses.

Base to Book NZ

Consciousness is in the Feelings spot. Or simply put, it’s me knowingly spending money and deliberately making myself The Miser.  (It was only for a short time 😁).

Others’ Views of me is I like to be in Control or the one calling the shots.  Maybe.

My biggest fear is Laziness, but it’s also what I greatly desire (hope).  It’s appropriate then the Hopes and Fears position is occupied by said card.  Okay.  That’s the easy thing to say, but how does it relate to today’s travel booking?  Perhaps I am fearful I will pin my focus on the travel moment and forget to live in the now?  And at same longing and obsessing are what I hope for to make time go faster.  As a consequence, I might rest on what I have accomplished to date without further effort.

Finally, we reach the Outcome of Playfulness.  Good Outcome.  It’s why we booked NZ!  Okay.  It’s an opportunity to get away, too.

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
  2. Link to Day 005, where I mention Aussies skiing in Switzerland
End Day 170

Day 169 – Ageing, Dying and NDE

18 June 2021

Day 169. Tabled list: order of appearance. We are the World, Ordinariness, Thunderbolt, Suppression, Transformation, Control, Patience, Playfulness, Ice-olation, Ripeness. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

Ageing Context

Today, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about ageing. It’s something I think about a lot.  When I was younger, I’d heard from Buddhists that the fear of dying is what unites us and overcoming this fear would bring peace.  Similarly, in the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, fear is described on pages 3-4.  If this were true, then I wanted to get over the fear to live my life.

Careful What You Wish

By that time in my life, I’d had a bit of experience with the phrase, ‘be careful what you wish for but not enough to watch my thoughts on the matter.  At the time, I’d wished there was a way of dying without dying, without causing anxiety for those I love, and avoid pain – pain I thought was what scared me most.  Ideally, I wished the process of ‘trying out the death experience’ should be as close to going to sleep as possible.

I wanted to experience dying or close to it so I could eliminate the fear of it.  Simple, right?  And so it was, I received a near-death experience or NDE on my travels.  All elements of my wish fulfilled.  True.  For a long time, the NDE satisfied my curiosity about death, and it allowed me to live happily. 

Then I began to get older.  The body shape changed, things started to drop, and birthmark-like spots appeared.  At no point did I realise it wasn’t the dying people feared; it was the ageing process. It’s the scary possibility of becoming one of the people you felt empathy for because the age they were was so far away from your own.

As you become older, your wisdom increases a little but so potentially do some of your fears.  This thought prompted the thoughts of not just the body showing signs of Ageing but also the mind.  The assumption is because the body is Ageing, so then might the brain.

Ageing a Different Way

What if the mind continues to grow in a way that outgrows the body’s capacity to hold it?  Stay with me :), remember when you were a teen, and you knew everything there was to know?  You thought your parents had grown out of touch with reality?  But somehow, your grandparents were able to understand you?  What if your grandparents were going through a similar stage, but an experience cycle further along?

I mean, by experience cycle between the ages 0-9, you experience cycles from a never seen before perspective.  Then, from the ages ten to 19, the pattern sort of repeats itself, but you’re exposed to similar experiences, but this time with consciousness for the first time. Then, finally, when you get to the age of twenty to twenty-nine, your affairs are more profound, and this time you have some tools, knowledge, or both on how to tackle things, including the unexpected, and so on it goes.

Each of these is cycles; you can liken then to playing a computer game like Mario Bros; when you first start, the activities are manageable. As you become accomplished, the level increases in complexity to challenge you to grow your skills.  In a sense, you ‘level up your ‘experience cycle’.  At each stage of increasing your agility and adaptability, you improve.

Responsibilities of Ageing

Someone younger can never know what it’s like to be older.  Therefore, it is the responsibility of the older person to tolerate the younger and educate and prepare where they can.  Remember, when you were in your teens, you thought you knew it all; how to solve world hunger, how we could run the country better, and you thought your parents didn’t know how to have fun anymore.

What if by the time you’re in your later years, you once again ‘level up in a way where those younger than you cannot understand you.  At 50, are we still the teenagers of old to someone who is 80?  Still, assuming we know what is best for our elders without knowing what it’s like to be there, but simply judging their physical and mental interactions?  Could some of the elders’ changes begin to play with timelines differently from what we can relate at a younger age?  Should we be supporting a safe environment without assuming the place their in is ‘unnatural’?

Today's Cards

Ageing & Dying. Day 169. Tabled list: order of appearance. We are the World, Ordinariness, Thunderbolt, Suppression, Transformation, Control, Patience, Playfulness, Ice-olation, Ripeness. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

The Cards - Analysis

Carryover Cards

Only one card carried over from yesterday, but Thunderbolt remained in the Goal position.  Thunderbolt over two days suggests a shakeup over an extended period.

Cross

We are the World is in the Now influenced by Ordinariness.  Ordinariness has visited a lot in the past seven days.

Thunderbolt is in the Goal position and has visited frequently in the last couple of days as well.  Suppression in the Distant Past is a good indicator of denial or even suffering from depression. When I get depressed, it appears because I haven’t been looking at something I need to look at; sometimes that’s because it would mean upsetting someone I love or changing who I am; either way, I’m not being true to myself and suppressing my inner light results.

A Transformation in the Recent Past probably means something I was suppressing has either surfaced and changed the way I am regardless of my attempts to hide it.  Is it something that has emerged, and given the thinking about ageing, it’s probably been something I’ve been ignoring.  Or it’s something I haven’t wanted to look at and has made its way to the surface without the ability to rebury it.  Transformation is much like being born and unable to return to the womb.

With We are the World emerging from the Transformation is seems a bonding or community spirit has resulted when living every day. So it looks like; however, I’m trying to establish some Control if the Future Energy card is any indication.

Base

My Feelings on the subject is that it’s just a matter of waiting to see what evolves, Patience.  Ageing as you get older is one of those things you don’t necessarily want to hurry along.

On the outside, Others’ Views are those of Playfulness which would be trying to simply enjoy each moment as it arrives and live life to its fullest. 

Probably the thing that scares me isolating (Ice-location) myself from the world and unable to connect to those around me.  This fear comes from years of suppressing parts of who I am, even to those I love the most. It’s not so much a thing these days, but I know I’m good at it. My hope is I’m not hiding anything from myself which will surprise me.

Finally, the Outcome spot has the Ripeness card.  Interesting the Ripeness card has shown up when I have ageing on my mind.  The time is right for me to explore the topic, and perhaps, I need to simply surrender to the experience of ageing rather than fighting it.  However, I need to find a way to live as part of the world and not try to look like a doddering old fool while behind the scenes allowing myself moments to be so.

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
  2. Rinpoche, Sogyal, 1988, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Random House, UK (Link to bookstore)
End Day 169

Day 168 – A Touching Theory on Snoring

17 June 2021

Day 168. Snoring: order of appearance. Receptivity, Sharing, Thunderbolt, Abundance, Stress, Harmony, Awareness, Completion, Sorrow, Postponement. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

Snoring Context

My husband’s snoring reawakened my long-time theory of why snoring happens. Sure there are others, but I’m allowed to play with ideas too.

For some time, I’ve pondered what snoring might mean.  So, I’ve come up with a theory.  At its core, the idea suggests snoring is a protective mechanism from when we lived in caves or surrounded by unsafe environments.  The more vulnerable we feel we are, the more likely the snore. 

Writing just the analysis is coming up, I promise, as there were some days when notes simply don’t exist for me to write anything on.  And the days were so dull anyway.

The Snoring Theory Begins

If I look up Louise L Hay’s ‘The List’, snoring’s possible cause is the ‘stubborn refusal to let go of old patterns’ (p.215).  Annette Noontil, on the other hand, suggests it might be the ‘rebelling at what you are regrouping for yourself in the universe – not being devoted to self.’.  My theory is a little more basic, perhaps, and goes back to ‘caveman’ days.

My theory goes to before personkind lived in communities, and there was a simple family dynamic of a woman, man and two children, one a toddler the other at the breast.  The man went out hunting; the woman stayed home with the children and gathered whatever was available close to the agreed shelter.

Presuming if the man went hunting for several days, he might be on his own.  By the way, the renewal of my interest in this topic – apart from the fact my husband snores regularly – is the reality show Naked & Afraid.  The TV show puts a man and a woman out in a wilderness with nothing but a traditional item of choice to survive.  It’s incredibly raw – no food, no water, no clothes for typically 21 days.  My survival skills in those conditions would last until it was time for the first-morning tea!  And that’s an optimistic view of events.

Let’s get back to my story.  Back to a man and a woman separated for a couple of nights, it is unfeasible to go without sleep.  So I’m going to follow the man’s journey for a moment.  First, the man creates a boma, a protective shelter, or finds a cave his experience tells him is safe.  Then, he builds a fire if he’s able.  

The Vulnerability of Sleep

So, the man falls asleep and let’s presume the area where the man is sleeping has night predators.  Loud noises tend to scare off these wild beasts.  What is snoring?  A loud noise.  What does a cave do sometimes?  It makes the loud noise noisier!  Hence, providing a level of protection while the man is asleep.  Snoring provides a small degree of protection from the beasts, hopefully enough to keep them at bay, while some valuable shut-eye happens.

The idea crossed my mind when our cats were kittens.  As kittens, their exposure to noises of this kind was non-existent.  Initially, when my husband began snoring, the kittens were startled by the sudden noise.  The cats’ were particularly alert when the snoring was arrhythmical, lacking in regularity.  It wasn’t just the cat’s who struggled with the times the snoring was arrhythmical!  💤

Also, my husband’s snoring gets louder and even more irregular (if that’s possible) the more vulnerable his situation, like when he’s sick.  Thus, adding to my idea that those who snore do so when there is some vulnerability.

Ammunition to Snoring

Another part of the theory came together when the topic came up with my stepmother-in-law lamenting about my father-in-law’s snoring.  Unfortunately, my father-in-law failed to see what the problem was because, being in the navy, he’d slept with a boatload of snoring men, and it never bothered him any.

Despite our tough adult exteriors, I believe we’re still children inside.  Otherwise, why is it when you turn 50, physiology aside, you don’t FEEL any different than when you were a teen or in your 20s?

So, a boatload of seamen away from shore, away from home, heading toward a potential war makes sense most would be snoring.  By the way, there’s another protective mechanism, and it’s the complete reverse of snoring – it’s silence.  In the jungle, a wild beast can smell you, so silence is riskier.  And on a boat, unless you trust everyone and the situation, snoring is a solid option.

Touching Moments

Being far from a saint, I have been in several relationships over the years.  Some of the relationships were sexual, while others were simply physical companionship.  And I’ve had this idea for some years, and during some of those relationships, when the snoring woke me or kept me awake, I would test the concept by seeing what happened if I touched them while they snored.

Again, I made some assumptions.  The first was that touch; for most people, it was welcomed, at least by the ones I knew.  Supposing it goes back to when we were babes in our mothers’ arms or lying in the cot and our parents lay a comforting hand on us while we slept.  Likewise, I sought to do the same.  It was amusing.  Touch the shoulder gently, and the snoring stopped, lift the hand, and the snoring began.  Stop, start, stop, start! It was like playing with a light switch.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t touch their shoulders long enough to get to sleep without falling asleep first. 

With this theory, it’s easier to accept my husband’s snoring.  I think of him protecting me from predators.  Let’s face it; if you were a burglar and heard arrhythmic snoring, you wouldn’t know if my husband was waking up or going back to sleep.  You’d think twice, wouldn’t you?

Anyway, I could write more, but I try to discipline myself to stop when time runs out. So I didn’t get to writing about the woman or when communities of cave-dwellers come together.  Nor did I get to look up any of the ‘sciency’ facts on search engine-like.  There are still a few days to go before the 365 days of Tarot finishes; when I’m seeking out ideas or even without needing to, I’ll probably revisit the topic.

Today's Cards

The Cards - Analysis

Carryover Cards

Two cards carried over from yesterday; Thunderbolt moved from Recent Past to Goal, and Postponement moved from Influence to Outcome.

Cross

Receptivity is in the Now influenced by Sharing.  For a moment, there I had to do a double-take to make sure I had the right day because Day 166 began with the same two cards in the same order – weird!  So what does it mean in light of today’s musings?  I’m being receptive to new ideas and sharing them with you. But, of course, the argument presented is not fact because my “research” is minimal.

Hmmm.  Thunderbolt in the Goal position?  Thunderbolt means I’m looking to change things up.  The reading might not go the way I thought it might along the snoring lines.  Oh, well.

Abundance in the Distant Past is a contrast to Stress in the Recent Past.  It makes you wonder what happened.  If my goal is to change things up, and Thunderbolt suggests it is, then I think it might be the pain in my chest from the push-ups (Day 153).  At first, it worried me.  That’s the first thing to which all of these cards can relate.  As you can appreciate, having chest pain can be stressful.  My heart rate was regular, thank you iPhone app.  So, with the heart rate stable, I just monitored the area for worsening, but it easy up, and I switched to squats.

Future Energy is Harmony.  Isn’t that nice?  It’s about me connecting with my heart – in this case; it seems quite literally.

Base

My Feelings are those of Awareness as I open up another aspect amid the Thunderbolt’s reshuffling.   Now I would love to tell you what the reshuffle is, but my notes have run out 🤔. 

Others’ Views show that I’m making progress and have completed an aspect of my life.  Hence the card of Completion’s appearance.

Hope is that I don’t get depressed over the change and the corresponding fear is that Sorrow, like depression and despair, are the cause of the shift from Abundance to Stress.

Finally, the card of Postponement is in the Outcome position. So here I sit, wanting to delay uploading my writing until tomorrow.  Guess not.   It’s true; what difference would it make to do it now, since it’s late already?

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
  2. Hay, Lousie L, You Can Heal Your Life, Gift Edition, Published: 1st September 1999, ISBN: 9781561706280
End Day 168

Day 167 – Dream of an Avalanche

16 June 2021

Day 167 - Avalanche Dream cards. Ordinariness, Postponement, The Miser, Patience, Thunderbolt, The Master, Conditioning, Moment to Moment, Trust, New Vision

Dream Context

Today I awoke unpleasantly.  It was not waking into the “real” world by an alarm but waking from a dream world shock.  It’s not even like the dream I had was unpleasant or nightmare-like, but on reflection, it certainly would have been classified as such.  Dreams, even unpleasant ones, I believe are reflections of our inner processes.  It’s like your mind is a house (or palace), and every now and again, you need to do some spring cleaning.   

 

My dream occurs in a location similar to one of my mother’s paintings, except at the end of winter.  Mum’s pictures appear to be full spring or summer.

Dream - Image has picture of wooden water trough and pump in valley in spring with snow-capped mountains

The Dream

There was a bustling village at the foot of the mountains, which reminded me of Switzerland or Germany.   The villagers went about their business when an avalanche got detonated.  As the avalanche’s roar came closer to the village, the villagers calmly moved their livestock and children toward the road out of town; women grabbed the children and men the livestock.

 

The town knew an avalanche situation; after all, they were seasoned hands familiar with the territory and terrain.  So they sent a sound to warn the outlying fields the village was evacuating.  Now, as the villagers moved out of town, at the edge was what I assumed was a trap laid out by helmeted military of a first or second world war ilk. 

 

These military men began indiscriminately shooting.  I thought it was at the villagers, but even as a witness within the dream and as its observer, I wasn’t sure at what exactly.  It was like an old-fashioned movie where you see flashes from the guns but don’t see where the bullets have gone. 

 

Inside the dream, I watched from behind a bush.  Not yet reaching the evacuating hordes in response to the siren, waylaid by a wayward cow as I was.  In the dream, I felt I was a boy aged about nine years old.  And as I neared the exiting villagers, from behind a bush big enough to hide me, I saw a long, dark, sleek car appear; it was limousine-like.  

 

Although not seeing anyone get shot or seeing anything get destroyed, I was stunned and unsure how to act.  Not from the horror, but my ambivalence toward everything in the scene while remaining hidden.  It was also a little bit exciting.  Then, unable to move or decide what to do next, the alarm went.

Reading a Dream

For as long as I can remember, I have been analysing my dreams.  On the odd occasion, I interpreted dreams for others, including random strangers at parties and even on community radio for a while.  Unlike tarot reading, it’s crucial to understand how a person “feels” about elements in their dream.  It’s useless to go by how I feel about the details in someone else’s dream.

 

Sure, the elements have similar connotations, but my reaction to them might be completely different.  For instance, water, water forms, or fluids in dreams usually relate to emotions.  If you can’t swim, you may find falling into a public swimming pool horrific.  But, on the other hand, if you can swim, you may find falling into the pool fun. 

 

Hmmm.  There’s the whole thing of whether you’re comfortable with your emotions or not involved with that too.  Here’s a random thought to explore:  Are people who learnt to swim more comfortable with their feelings?  I might do a poll on this one day.   

 

One of the critical things to remember when looking or trying to analyse a dream is not to get “freaked out” of what happened or how you reacted to it within the dreamscape.  The other thing to remember is that unless you’re prescient, all the aspects displayed in the dreamworld are aspects of yourself.

 

People, both good and bad, are simply elements of you personified.  In mine, the village people, the helmeted gunmen, the boy, the avalanche and even the timeline are aspects of me.  So it’s not just the humans who belong to you; it’s everything!

 

Dreamscapes are different worlds and deserve appreciation and love. However, sometimes the hard to look at dreams are where you’re doing the most emotional growth or work.

Dream - Swiss Valley with cows, water trough & pump

My Interpretation of My Dream

My mother is from Switzerland, my father from Hungary, and I lived in Germany until I was four.  Therefore, these two countries have a strong influence—specifically, the countryside aspects where my d-grandmother lived.  D-grandmother is my writing shortcut for dad’s mother or grandmother on my dad’s side, just as m-grandmother is my grandmother on my mother’s side.

 

Around the age of eight or nine, our family went to a Christmas party where they had a raffle, and if you had a raffle token, you got a prize for matching the drawn number. So when the emcee called a ticket, I saw a token with the corresponding number and colour at my feet.  Excitedly, I ran up and collected a prize and took it back to my parents.

 

Therefore, my dream is about money concepts and relates to my purchase of cryptocurrency on Day 163.  The notion is so foreign from anything my parents, teachers or even the society I grew up in could convey to me.  In a sense, I’ve had to lay waste to what I had taken comfort in and rebuild where necessary, but this will take time.

 

The unknown damage is why I didn’t see buildings or people destroyed; I had just assumed it was happening.   In some snow area villages in Switzerland in the past, snow could sit on the mountain for a lifetime and not become an avalanche.   Nowadays, they forcefully detonate them as a safety precaution.

 

My feelings regarding snow and avalanches are, I love snow but am scared of the power of an avalanche, never entirely sure if one is survivable or not.

The Clues in a Dream

The dream gave me clues about its content.  It has something to do with:

    1. the values instilled in me by my parental and cultural upbringing
    2. what I adopted around the age of nine
    3. what I found comforting and old-fashioned but still functional
    4. my emotions around the idea I adopted as indicated by the avalanche. Avalanches are a water form in the shape of snow,
    5. a radical idea I have recently adopted, but I’m unsure whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing
    6. changing the direction. The village structures collapsed once the snow melts, and the foundations will still exist
    7. nature protecting me
    8. the road, cows, and transport survived, suggesting some notions still apply
    9. transportation has a new form, and a limo-like car spells “potentially fancy.”

Today's Cards

Day 162. Tabled list: position number, description, and daily card.1 is Now Ripeness. 2 is Influence Sharing. 3 is Goal Ordinariness. 4 is Distant Past Silence. 5 is Recent Past Transformation. 6 is Future Energy Ice-olation. 7 is Feelings or Immediate Future Aloneness. 8 is Others' Views Thunderbolt. 9 is Hope & Fears Change. 10 is Outcome Harmony. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

The Cards - Analysis

Carryover Cards

No cards carried over from yesterday.

Analysis

Cross

Ordinariness is in the Now influenced by Postponement. The Goal of The Miser seeks to hang onto something in uncertainty.  Patience in the Distant Past has contributed to the blissful Ordinariness state.

Thunderbolt in the Recent Past shows a significant change has occurred.

From a significant physical world shift to ordinary life with a Future Energy of The Master, who encompasses both physical and metaphysical without bonds tying him to either.  Free energy.

Base

Feelings spot has the Conditioning card, in which I break old world beliefs and structures for myself.  Thus, Conditioning echoes The Master card.

 

Others’ Views are that I move from Moment to Moment; again, this aligns with Conditioning, Ordinariness and The Master.  All these cards are cards that move at their own pace and follow their mind.

 

Hopes & Fears is Trust.  I hope that my Trust in my instincts is valid, and my fear is I have trusted the wrong impulse.

 

Finally, the Outcome card is New Vision.  The New Vision aligns nicely with the analysis of the dream and the minor but significant purchase of cryptocurrency for myself.  Little quantity, but the “trusting” leap into the unknown. 

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
End Day 167

Day 166 – Time to Face Reality

15 June 2021

Day 166. Face Reality. Cross: Receptivity, Sharing, Morality, Clinging to the Past, Rebirth, Ice-olation, Base: Innocence, Celebration, Suppression, Compromise, standard shuffle

Face Reality Context

As the year progresses, I struggle to reach my goal of posting daily; I needed to face reality and be receptive to sharing differently.

 

For those of you who have been regular readers, you may have noticed that I’ve been struggling to keep up with daily posts.   Since the update on Day 161, I have had a few issues with my template and site setup.   For instance, the home page menu has disappeared, and the menu on the blog pages (above) has two menus that overlap each other.  It’s time for me to face reality.

Time I Faced Reality

I’m not a web developer, and the three times I’ve tried to get one, it took more time away from what I wanted to do.  Yes.  It’s my fault for being particular about the design and its look and feel.  Ironically, I wanted a better look and have ended up cobbling something together, which I’m happy with but am positive is not proper development 😏.

 

Obviously, I need to fix the template issues. However, spending time trying to fix these, even if I snag an excellent developer, will still take me away from writing. So, for the next few weeks, I’m trying to say there will be less content, and I will simply focus on the cards and their analysis. 

 

By the way, I fully expect writing in the analysis will blow out, and again this is where I need to learn to keep stricter time limits on my writing.  The first wealth is health, and it would be incredibly hypocritical of me to write about health and well-being if I didn’t practice what I preached.

Learning Lessons

I expected managing a website to be easy 😉 – clearly, I didn’t face reality. So, philosophically, there’s a learning in this for me; hopefully, I learn the right thing. But, unfortunately, sometimes there are so many options, and you can pick the wrong lesson through anger or despair. 

 

For instance, my football team loses; I could learn the opposing team are a bunch of scumbags and foster an antagonism toward them and their supporters.  Or I could understand that losing hurts; it is part of the game, losing can keep you humble, or realise that you need intense competition to get the buzz of a deserved win. 

 

Other lessons might include you needing to face reality, fierce competition sometimes means your team will lose, or you may need to learn how to handle your emotions if your friend supports the “scumbags” who just beat your team 😇.

 

The part where I thought I’d struggle was writing ideas, which is not the case.  Instead, there’s too much to write each day – even on days when there isn’t much happening.  It is pretty impressive how we underestimate what happens in our “ordinary” lives.

Today's Cards

Day 166. Tabled list: position number, description, and daily card.1 is Now Receptivity. 2 is Influence Sharing. 3 is Goal Morality. 4 is Distant Past Clinging to the Past. 5 is Recent Past Rebirth. 6 is Future Energy Ice-olation. 7 is Feelings or Immediate Future Innocence. 8 is Others' Views Celebration. 9 is Hope & Fears Suppression. 10 is Outcome Compromise. Shuffle method was Standard Shuffle

The Cards - Analysis

Carryover Cards

No cards carried over from yesterday.

The Face Reality Cross

Receptivity is in the Now influenced by Sharing. I want to be open and share everything I have with anyone willing to listen.  If you come across the website, then it is meant for you to come across.  What you do with the information you glean from it is up to you. 

 

In light of today’s apology, Morality sits in the Goal position, indicating that my focus was to do the right thing.

 

In the past, I was Clinging to the Past, hoping to catch up and hoping to deliver everything a full-time writer and blogger can provide.  But I am not them; I am only me and can only be me. 

 

Recently (Recent Past), a renaissance around the site occurred until Day 161 put me back a few steps.  The Rebirth was short-lived.  I am down, but I’m not out!  It will take a little time for me to get back up to date.  Who knows, perhaps my process and writing will improve.  

 

The Rebirth made me realise that I needed Receptivity to surrender to a self-inflicted process blocking me from Sharing.  Being comfortable with surrender is difficult; to me, it feels like Ice-olation, the card of today’s Future Energy position. 

 

Ice-olation is locking me away and making it difficult for others to reach me.  It’s not my preferred mode, but it works like a defence mechanism.  It’ll pass.

Base

My Feelings are that of Innocence.  Osho’s words on this card are lovely, “The innocence of children is beautiful, but ignorant.  It will be replaced by mistrust and doubt as the child grows…  But the innocence of a life lived fully has a quality of wisdom and acceptance of the ever-changing wonder of life” (p.40).  The website adjustment is about experiencing the ever-changing wonder of life.

 

Others’ Views see me as having cause for Celebration. For example, maybe people are happy for me to be open to new ideas, changes, acceptance – viewed in this light, it is cause for Celebration.

 

Hopes and Fears – Okay, the biggest fear is I’m hiding something from myself.  Am I pretending to be honest with myself, or am I honest with myself?  Would I lie to me?  Hiding me from me is Suppression.  Hoping my experience is genuine and freedom from Suppression of self emerges.

 

Finally, argh!  Compromise in the Outcome spot.  Yuk!  Guess that’s what I’m proposing, though; keep the website going at the expense of quality.  The project manager’s enemy strikes again. 

 

In project management, there’s the time-cost-quality loop.  If you don’t have time, quality suffers; if you don’t have money, quality suffers.  In this case, because the website doesn’t produce money (as yet), meaning time is spent earning it elsewhere, and the site’s quality suffers as a result.  Grumble.  Oh, wait a minute.  Does that mean the cards are right?  Hmmm.  Guess so.

Update to Day 006

When trying to work out what went wrong with the website update, I came across Day 006 and gave it a refresh.  The layout’s better because I’ve broken it up into sections.  I got Grammarly to check the grammar – it should be easier to read.  It was also fun to reminisce. 

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
End Day 166

Day 165 – The Soothing Gantt Chart

14 June 2021

Day 165. Celtic Cross Layout: 1 is Now Guidance. 2 is Influence No-thingness. 3 is Goal Change. 4 is Distant Past Friendliness. 5 is Recent Past Transformation. 6 is Future Energy Healing. 7 is Feelings or Immediate Future Ordinariness. 8 is Others' Views Totality. 9 is Hope & Fears The Outsider. 10 is Outcome Moment to Moment

Context

It was a day with back-to-back meetings, but I discovered a soothing way to use a project tool, the Gantt table in MS Project.

 

Not much was happening today as it’s a busy Monday with back-to-back meetings.  There’s a comfort in being able just to get things done.  And I don’t know how many times I’m going to write that Gantt charts are super and soothing for many people in my daily work life. 

 

You see, in my previous role as a project manager, I hardly ever used a Gantt chart provided by the (industry standard?) Microsoft Project application.  Mostly, it wasn’t necessary as a spreadsheet did everything I needed it to do, and the organisation had an alternative application it preferred to use for resource levelling.  Over time, the skill for using the alternative application dissipated, and the application became cumbersome in untrained hands.  Therefore, a spreadsheet became a good alternative.

 

Now that I’ve moved to pipeline management (work stack management), I’ve started using MS Project to capture meeting minutes.  Yes, it’s an unconventional use for the tool.  But it has a task, start, end, progress, dependency, notes and assignee columns, all of which I’d use for standard actions and decisions.  In the project planner, decisions can be captured as milestones if you want or need to get precise. 

 

It has the advantage of creating a master project to pull all the smaller pieces into it.  A more significant benefit is the option of putting data into Power BI and producing a holistic work stack view (I’m not there yet, I’ve heard you can do this). 

The Soothing Gantt Chart

Why do I refer to it as soothing?  Quite simply, it’s because typing up in the flow with dates and who needs to do them, and if you negotiate the timing and the resource (person doing the work) successfully, everyone is happy with the outcome.

 

So far, the Gantt table is working well, and I’m going to keep using it for work for the next month or so to find out how it pans out.  One of the surprising benefits was the process’s reception by recipients.  Simply display the planner, capture the items with agreement from participating parties, screenshot the result, and send it to all attendees.  At the next meeting, talk about the progress and voila!  Easy!

 

One minor hiccup with using it; our service management tool doesn’t allow uploading the project extension.  Not letting this extension means duplication because I need to print to PDF and attach it rather than uploading the data.  Not necessarily all bad as PDF’s are more portable.  Yes, it’s an attempt at an IT joke – PDF the “P” in PDF stands for Portable. Here’s a sad face representing the groan you’re making after reading that☹️.

 

For me to get there, I will need to get time to do some of the training.  The dual benefit of this knowledge is it can also help me with my tarot card statistics.

Today's Cards

Day 165. Tabled list: position number, description, and daily card.1 is Now Guidance. 2 is Influence No-thingness. 3 is Goal Change. 4 is Distant Past Friendliness. 5 is Recent Past Transformation. 6 is Future Energy Healing. 7 is Feelings or Immediate Future Ordinariness. 8 is Others' Views Totality. 9 is Hope & Fears The Outsider. 10 is Outcome Moment to Moment. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

The Cards - Analysis

Carryover Cards

Wow! Four cards carried over from yesterday; Guidance moved from Recent Past into the Now; Healing moved from Outcome to Future Energy; Ordinariness moved from Goal to Feelings, and Totality moved from Future Energy into Others’ Views.

Cross

Guidance is in the Now influenced by the No-thingness of potential.  From my perspective, necessity being the mother of invention, I turned to a skillset for pipeline management I hadn’t thought I would use.  Guidance is listening to my inner voice in today’s layout, and No-thingness is all about the blank canvas or potential.  

 

The Goal is Change, and the Past positions of Distant and Recent have Friendliness and Transformation, respectively.  Remember what I was saying about necessity?  Well, the Goal of Change indicates searching for a way to streamline a painful process and make it more efficient.  By communicating with other areas (Friendliness) and getting their ideas, not about what I wanted to do with the application, I could transform the seeds of an idea into something workable. 

 

We will move from Guidance to Healing in the Future Energy.  Above, I mentioned the process was painful, and Healing is about the removal of pain.

Base

Ordinariness is in the Feelings position is like the moment described by Osho as you “fall together” (p.151).  What Osho means by “fall together” is when you’re alone and realise there is no one else to be anything other than yourself to, you relax (p.151).  Being at one with myself is soothing, and how I felt when the tool to use was already in my grasp.

 

Others’ Views has the card of Totality.  Totality is how others might see Ordinariness.  So, today, the inside me matches the outside me.

 

The Outsider in the Hopes & Fears position indicates me feeling my somewhat unusual approach makes me different.  The difference, I’m hoping, is not so great to be noticed disapprovingly.  Strangely, it’s the disapproving by others, I fear.

 

In the end, Moment by Moment is the Outcome.  Taking each moment as it appears and not focussing on my surroundings but being of them will result.  Is there any other way to be?  🤔

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
  2. Day 084 – Scope Creep has other Project Management views.
End Day 165

Day 164 – Customer Service and Passing Away

13 June 2021

Day 164. Celtic Cross Layout: 1 is Now Guidance. 2 is Influence No-thingness. 3 is Goal Change. 4 is Distant Past Friendliness. 5 is Recent Past Transformation. 6 is Future Energy Healing. 7 is Feelings or Immediate Future Ordinariness. 8 is Others' Views Totality. 9 is Hope & Fears The Outsider. 10 is Outcome Moment to Moment

Context

On Day 157, we talked about the possibility of my mum moving in with us, and on Day 098, it was about flight cancellations and customer service with my mum and Webjet.  Today we talk about them again.  When it comes to Webjet, it’s about good service being frustrating, and where my mum is concerned, we broach the unpleasant topic of her passing away.

 

 

It will be interesting to see what the cards have to say about my feelings today as they were all over the place.  In April, we dealt with Webjet and sorted out the latest COVID outbreak’s impact on my mother’s travel.   After eight hours of waiting, accumulated frustrations, which no longer occurs on a phone line but a chat window, we thought the rescheduling was over bar (except) the travelling. 

 

When my mum contacted me today, I almost collapsed crying; I couldn’t take another eight hours of frustration.  So, just when you relaxed, there was another customer service hurdle.   This time the hiccup is an email asking my mum to use her airline credits, which we thought we had used to rebook.  There are confirmation emails, e-tickets and everything right through to the airline says she’s ready to go.  Just to be clear, the tickets wouldn’t be available if you hadn’t paid.

 

After a mutual agreement, my mother and I decided nothing would happen until Tuesday.  At this point, we could navigate the murky waters of excellent but frustrating customer service.

From Customer Service to Passing Away

The discussion of moving in with me arose and panned out finance wise with my sister.  It’s not an easy or pleasant topic to discuss with your mother because it means you need to face the reality of your mortality.  You need to face the fact your mother (parent) is going to one day die. 

 

Of course, you don’t want to think of anyone you love passing away; it also brings up the uncomfortable reminder you too will pass.  Trying to work out the best way for my mother to move in with me and divide the estate upon her passing is about as blunt and delicate a subject you can tackle on a Sunday.   The discussion about my mother’s money also makes me doubly uncomfortable. 

 

As far as I’m concerned, she earned it and should be able to spend it.  In much the same way as the cryptocurrency of yesterday, I’m not counting on getting anything from her.  I want her to live a happy and fulfilling life with her hard-earned money.  My sister’s a little more pragmatic and realistic when it comes to these situations; I cloud my judgement with emotions.

 

After speculating on some theories on how this might work fairly, my mother and I again decided to postpone the discussion until we could meet up with my sister.  There was no point in having a conversation involving all of us without all of us being present.  There’s a challenge waiting to happen. 😄

Today's Cards

Day 164. Tabled list: position number, description, and daily card.1 is Now The Creator. 2 is Influence Beyond Illusion. 3 is Goal Ordinariness. 4 is Distant Past Ripeness. 5 is Recent Past Guidance. 6 is Future Energy Totality. 7 is Feelings or Immediate Future The Fool. 8 is Others' Views Thunderbolt. 9 is Hope & Fears Celebration. 10 is Outcome Healing. Shuffle method was Standard Shuffle

The Cards - Analysis

Carryover Cards

Two cards carried over from yesterday; Ordinariness moved from Future Energy to Goal, and Ripeness moved from Hopes & Fears to Distant Past.

Analysis

Cross

The Creator sits in the Now influenced by the card of Beyond Illusion.  Ordinariness has shown up for the third day in a row and is back in the Goal position.  Ripeness has also joined us for the third day running and is in the Distant Past, moving from Hopes & Fears yesterday and the Now spot the day before.

 

More recently, in the Recent Past is Guidance.  The Now is formed by the Distant Past through the Recent Past and creates Future Energy of Totality.

 

So what does it all mean within the context of today?  I think it means the reality (Beyond Illusion) of moving in with my mother, which I created (The Creator), has come from a time for a change.  This decision occurred in the past, where my mum’s age (Ripeness – of the situation, not her age 🤔) has meant we need to look at her living location (Ordinariness of everyday life) as she gets older.  The Guidance component is the discussion my mother and I need to have with my sister.

 

As my mum ages, Future Energy will need all of us to commit with Totality to whatever decision my mother decides is suitable for her.

 

Note, the cards also draw a parallel to the customer service with Webjet, the analysis here would just get too complicated and too messy to write about, so I will let it go.

Base

My Feelings toward The Creator is she (me) is The Fool.  Beyond the superficial “fool” meaning of heading off into the unknown with romantic notions that everything will work out okay, The Fool’s ideas sometimes pay off because of their intention’s innocence.

 

Others’ Views show in the Thunderbolt card, and it’s a big move for me – but most likely all concerned too. 

 

Celebration is something which I do hope for, like my feelings, is everything will work out for the best.  Realistically, the fear of things not moving quickly enough or creating complications opposite a celebration is also on my mind.  So, having the Celebration card in the Hopes & Fears position is apt.

 

Finally, Healing is in the Outcome position, suggesting there has been a wound needing attention.

 

Again, the parallel with the flight rebooking and revisiting the customer service to resolve the outstanding issue will “heal” the unresolved airline credit.

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
End Day 164

Day 163 – My First Cryptocurrency

12 June 2021

Day 163. Celtic Cross Layout: 1 is Now Schizophrenia. 2 is Influence Awareness. 3 is Goal Receptivity. 4 is Distant Past Change. 5 is Recent Past The Source. 6 is Future Energy Ordinariness. 7 is Feelings or Immediate Future We are the World. 8 is Others' Views The Outsider. 9 is Hope & Fears Ripeness. 10 is Outcome Abundance

Context

A couple of friends visited, and Steve is big into cryptocurrency.  On Day 134, I talked about Bitcoin and some of the terms involved with cryptocurrency.  Now that Steve and Susie visited and explained it, I was ready to throw in some play money.  This play money was the minimum amount requested because I like to manage my risk.

 

I view my involvement with cryptocurrency as a hybrid of the stock market with its shares and gambling.  Some would argue that the stock market and gambling are one and the same thing.  However, the best way for me to understand something is by “doing” it.  And if I’m going to do something risky, I need to manage the risk.  Part of risk management is knowing myself/ yourself. 

 

So, my attitude toward cryptocurrency until I know more is to treat it the same way I would treat buying shares or putting money into the pokies (pokies is Australian for “poker machines” or slot machines).  The way I manage my risk is not to invest anything you’re not prepared to lose.  For instance, if I go to the casino, I would allocate the sum of money usually spent on a night at the movies, a theme park or something of a similar ilk.  Then I bank on not seeing a single cent returned to me.

 

Many years ago, in Perth with my ex-husband, some friends took us to a casino.  My husband, George and I decided to spend $20 each.  After we finished the $20, we met in the coffee lounge with our friend, “lift legend” Brad.  Although lift legend is the current terminology in Queensland, it used to be “designated driver”, basically it was someone who didn’t consume alcohol and would make sure you go home safely.  As I said, 😎 legend and risk mitigator.

Managing Cryptocurrency Risk

My ex and I circuited the floor, he found a game, and I got drawn to Craps.  It took me 10 minutes to work out where to place the chip!  I felt bad leaving the legend alone in the lounge and put a two-dollar bet expecting to lose.  The plan was to keep doing this until my $20 was gone.    

 

Anyway, the next couple disappeared the same way.  Then the money stayed the same, two dollars on two dollars off it went this way for about five minutes.  I doubled the stakes and won and got paid the same by the house.  This stake doubling kept going until I had about $100.  At this point, my ex dropped by and asked if I had any money; I handed him $80.  There was $20 on the table.   

 

An hour and a half had passed, and I was still going; my husband had dropped by three more times.  Each time he walked away with money from my original $20.  Since the spot my token was occupying was “safe” and kept earning money, I moved my chips to the 33 to 1 area – and won!   The ex-husband received another chunk of cash.  Again, everything, excluding what was on the table.

 

After two hours, I gave up and wanted to go somewhere riskier.  By now, lift legend risk manager Brad wasn’t starved for companionship anymore.  So, I went to the pokies to spend the last ten dollars.  Usually a sure-fire way of losing money – but not this day.  After spending another 15-20 minutes watching the spin.  I’d had enough.  A guy rocked up beside me, and I asked if he wanted the machine, money and all.  Predictably, he was initially reluctant but accepted my offering.

Coffee Lounge

Four hours later, our companion in the coffee lounge got my presence and without my $20.00.  I realised that winning streaks like the one I had makes people feel like they’re in control.  It’s part of the reason I gave the guy at the slot machine the rest of the $20.  You go to the casino not to get rich quickly or plan on winning; you need and plan to have a good time.  Four hours for me and my ex on $20 was pretty good, but it could just as easily have been five minutes.

Today's Cards

Day 163. Tabled list: position number, description, and daily card.1 is Now Schizophrenia. 2 is Influence Awareness. 3 is Goal Receptivity. 4 is Distant Past Change. 5 is Recent Past The Source. 6 is Future Energy Ordinariness. 7 is Feelings or Immediate Future We are the World. 8 is Others' Views The Outsider. 9 is Hope & Fears Ripeness. 10 is Outcome Abundance. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

The Cards - Analysis

Carryover Cards

Three cards carried over from yesterday; Change moved from Hopes & Fears to Distant Past, Ordinariness moved from Goal to Future Energy, and Ripeness moved from Now to Hopes & Fears.

Cross

Schizophrenia is in the Now influenced by Awareness with the Goal of Receptivity prevailing.  This one is easy; I was in two minds about whether to invest in cryptocurrency.  It was Steve’s coaching that brought about awareness of what to do with cryptocurrency.  

 

My goal was to be receptive to the idea.  A Change, this size, would have been rejected out of hand, by me, in the Distant Past.  Yesterday’s position lacks relevance for today’s situation.

 

The Source is in the Recent Past and means that I have recently connected with an inner curiosity as a driving force.

 

Future Energy has the card of Ordinariness.  Yesterday it was about wanting to reach the state of Ordinariness; since the card has moved into the Future Energy spot, some form of Ordinariness is possible.

Base

Feelings have the card of We are the World, which means working together and reaching the combined goal.

 

Others’ Views is I’m The Outsider.  I certainly feel like The Outsider when it comes to cryptocurrency, and I feel privileged that Steve was so generous with his assistance.

 

Ripeness which sat in yesterday’s Now position, is in today’s Hopes & Fears.  I hope that the cryptocurrency works out and that the Ripeness of my knowledge is enough.  The reverse applies to my fears on the subject. 

 

Finally, the Outcome position has an Abundance.  Hmmm.  This card should have appeared in the Hopes & Fears position!  Guess it’s better as an Outcome card 😄.  Wonder whether the card is referring to friendship or cryptocurrency. 

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
  2. Queensland Lift Legend Campaign
End Day 163

Day 162 – Sore Throat and Statistics

11 June 2021

Day 162. Celtic Cross Layout: 1 is Now Schizophrenia. 2 is Influence Awareness. 3 is Goal Receptivity. 4 is Distant Past Change. 5 is Recent Past The Source. 6 is Future Energy Ordinariness. 7 is Feelings or Immediate Future We are the World. 8 is Others' Views The Outsider. 9 is Hope & Fears Ripeness. 10 is Outcome Abundance

Sore Throat Context

It was a very quiet day today, as I once again felt sorry for myself on the lounge.  These days, much of my time seems to be on recovering from this or that ailment.  For example, yesterday afternoon, I got a sore throat.  Since I haven’t been out or contacted anyone, and COVID not being in the area, I simply self-isolated. 

 

I spent the day mindlessly playing with May’s statistics for the website. Because formatting and playing with colours and numbers are relaxing for me, the activity is fun and soothing, especially when there’s no pressure to produce them.  

 

The statistics proved interesting as an overall pattern for the month appeared.  In previous time-poor months, I hadn’t looked that closely at emerging trends.  In January, the top three cards were: Moment to Moment, Flowering, and Control, with Moment to Moment having nine appearances and Flowering and Control, each having eight appearances.

 

Looking back at January, my focus was initially on getting the website up and running, while toward the end of the month, my focus switched to the broken ankle.  In Osho’s words, Moment to Moment “… challenges us to move away from our preoccupations with other spaces and other times, and stay alert to what is happening in the here and now” (p.140).

 

In the copying and pasting, I discovered the data uploaded in previous months might be incorrect. Unfortunately, my mind was too befuddled to think straight on the matter, especially since it might be a calculation error.  So, I gave up for the day.  I’ll catch it when I do June’s stats.  This leaving thing until the end of the month won’t work; knowing me, I’ll probably get back to it after I’ve had a break.

Today's Cards

Day 162. Tabled list: position number, description, and daily card.1 is Now Ripeness. 2 is Influence Sharing. 3 is Goal Ordinariness. 4 is Distant Past Silence. 5 is Recent Past Transformation. 6 is Future Energy Ice-olation. 7 is Feelings or Immediate Future Aloneness. 8 is Others' Views Thunderbolt. 9 is Hope & Fears Change. 10 is Outcome Harmony. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

The Cards - Analysis

Carryover Cards

No cards carried over from yesterday.

Cross

Ripeness is in the Now position influenced by Sharing.  Given I have got a sore throat, it means I’m withholding things I want to say, putting me in the place of being “ripe” to “share” information.

 

The Goal is Ordinariness.  Peaceful, get on with your life without bothering anyone or anyone bothering you/ me.

 

Silence has the light at the end of the tunnel and is the card of the Distant Past where darkness seemed intimidating, but by listening and being quiet, Ripeness grew.

 

More recently, in the Recent Past, there has been a Transformation.  I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about cryptocurrency and sustaining the website without resorting to advertising.  Although some advertising can be worthwhile and tasteful, there are times when it’s simply over the top rude.  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know something subtle but relevant has changed, but for the life of me, I cannot identify it to communicate it. 

 

Ice-olation is the card of Future Energy; this means I’m likely to feel overwhelmed.

Base

In the Feelings or Immediate Future is Aloneness.  I do feel alone on my journey because I cannot speak to someone else about what I am experiencing – even those in the industry.  As soon as you begin to build a website and try to go it alone because you can’t find a developer you trust, it seems everywhere is the presumption you want to BECOME a developer.  Heck no!  It’s hard work.  Doing both content and development is hard work, particularly since I’m muddling about.

 

Others’ Views has the Thunderbolt card signalling to me; the perception others have is that I am changing the way I do things.  I’m thinking of the work environment when I think I’ve been taking charge of whatever aspects I can get away with – more than ever before. 😄   It might be why I have a sore throat; maybe I’ve been saying too much?

 

I’m hoping for a Change to occur in me, which will motivate me to get more time miraculously, but I’m fearful it will be the wrong kind of Change.  Usually, any wishing for Change comes with downtime, which I no longer want to afford – no more sore throat woes for me!

 

The Outcome has Harmony.  Harmony echoes the Silence card because it encourages listening to your heart, and clarity happens when the mind is silent.  

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
End Day 162

Day 161 – Website Panic Stations!

10 June 2021

Day 161. Celtic Cross Layout: 1 is Now Letting Go. 2 is Influence Courage. 3 is Goal Stress. 4 is Distant Past Past Lives. 5 is Recent Past We are the World. 6 is Future Energy Guilt. 7 is Feelings or Immediate Future Intensity. 8 is Others' Views Integration. 9 is Hope & Fears Laziness. 10 is Outcome Existence

Context

Okay.  It was good, but then it was P-A-N-I-C stations!  Or should I say panic stations?  I’d been running behind on my writing my blogs.  Sure, I’d been taking notes daily, but that doesn’t get it into the typed format for anyone else to read.  I needed discipline.

 

With a clarity of mind akin to a samurai warrior or a very focussed house cat, I pursued my objective of getting up to date.  Following Henry Ford’s production line footsteps, I copied tabs and headed each one with the appropriate day, moved onto photo editing, blitzed the data into Excel and typed a sketchy overview to guide my writing.  Then it was save, save, save!  Boom!  Done.

The Panic Begins

While I’m on a roll, I just saw the theme template come through and thought, why not get it out of the way too.  Ah.  Hmmm.  What?  What is this blank screen?  Why can’t I get into WordPress?  It’s not like back on Day 118 with technology down again, is it?  No, it was a different error back then.  Wait.  Do I get to panic yet?  Okay, there might be something else I can try.  How about going to the hosting provider and access the site from that angle? 

I got you now, you rascally, mischievous system.  Bah-b-ow-ng! (The last spelling meant to be a sound made of game shows if you get the answer wrong).  Now, I’m really worried!  OMG, when was my last backup?

Errrrr …  Did I pay my invoice to keep my site running?  Rustle, rustle.  Okay, you caught me out; it’s not in paper form but imagine, if you will, me rifling through my emails like someone rifling through papers.  Yes.  Yes, I did.  Well, that’s not the problem then.

It looks like it’s time to contact the help centre and potentially look stupid.  Okay.  The help centre responded quicker than I thought, but by now, it was late.  The solution the help desk advised on was to perform an update on a plug-in in WordPress.  Hmmm.  This advice is like asking you to send an email when you cannot open your email application.

The advice came with some instructions and another plug-in, which once followed and installed, would solve everything.    Yeah, right.

Instructions to Panic

Looking at the instructions was like looking at instructions to panic.  There was a whole lot of acronyms and words I didn’t understand beyond a cursory, “oh, I’ve seen that somewhere before” kind of way.  Instead of panicking, I decided to take a deep breath and venture into the scary world of the hosting program.  Argh!  Wish me luck.

 

Tentatively, I clicked on this …. Escape, escape, escape!  Clicked on that … Escape, escape, escape!  Big frowny face! ☹️ AW… I don’t want to do this; it’s all code and scary-looking.  “Back away from the scary-looking code, mam.”.   Phew! 

 

Then it dawned on me, as dawn rapidly approached, I could leave this or contact Bluehost assistance; they’ve been helpful in the past.   At this point, I chose to have a momentary self-pity minute before I continued to click until I felt confident to act on the instructions to panic.  Luckily, Bluehost have made it simple.  There was an easy-to-use panel away from the code.  I was ready to move.

 

It worked!  Hooray!  Hooray!  Hooray!  I’d lost my data and my posts plus a night of writing.  Further behind the eight-ball than ever.  🎱

Today's Cards

Day 161. Tabled list: position number, description, and daily card.1 is Now Letting Go. 2 is Influence Courage. 3 is Goal Stress. 4 is Distant Past Past Lives. 5 is Recent Past We are the World. 6 is Future Energy Guilt. 7 is Feelings or Immediate Future Intensity. 8 is Others' Views Integration. 9 is Hope & Fears Laziness. 10 is Outcome Existence. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

The Cards - Analysis

Carryover Cards

There were no carry over cards from yesterday.

Cross

Based on tonight’s experience, Letting Go is what I need to do at the moment.  Hence, Letting Go starts the reading in the Now.  To let go of writing for the night required Courage, playing in the website’s hosting area and potentially wiping most of what I’d written was also scary, and it too needed Courage. 

 

I’m not sure I would wish to set myself up to have the Stress card as a Goal, but alas, I have. Pretty sure the details are apparent.

 

Past Lives is in the Distant Past and suggests it was the moment in the past when I chose to select this particular plug-in, which triggered today’s event.

 

The Recent Past has We are the World which is descriptive of the working relationship with this plug-in until today – primarily since I’ve found a couple of shortcuts to setting up multiple days.

 

Future Energy shows the card of Guilt.  The Guilt about me not disciplining myself every night to write, rather than relying on the weekends to catch up.

Base

Intensity is the raw unconstrained energy lashing out trying to cling to a life ring, which is what my Feelings were when it became apparent I would need to let go.

 

Others’ Views is that I successfully integrated (Integration) or balanced my work life with the website work.  Ah, appearances can be perspective.

 

Oh my, it’s Laziness in the Hopes & Fears position. I want (hope) to be lazy but am scared that my Laziness will cost me the hard-earned support I’ve achieved to date.

 

The Outcome is Existence.  You can only do what you can do and no more.  Recognising it’s all just small stuff might be the key to not panicking and acknowledging your uniqueness.

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
End Day 161

Day 160 – Flu Jab makes Husband Sad

9 June 2021

Day 160. Celtic Cross Layout: 1 is Now The Dream. 2 is Influence Rebirth. 3 is Goal The Miser. 4 is Distant Past Exhaustion. 5 is Recent Past Silence. 6 is Future Energy Sharing. 7 is Feelings or Immediate Future Flowering. 8 is Others' Views Conditioning. 9 is Hope & Fears Totality. 10 is Outcome The Outsider

Flu Context

My husband still had a headache from yesterday’s AstraZeneca flu shot, but the lady at work who also had the flu jab at the same time, was older didn’t have any side effects whatsoever.  While feeling a little headachy, my husband was okay to go to work – or so he thought.

 

Once at work, he started to fatigue, and his boss and team sent him home.  The paracetamol kept the headache at bay, but nothing helped his energy levels.  When I came home, he was watching YouTube and not playing his latest PlayStation game!  I knew things had to be serious!

 

A lady, I mentioned at work, who also had the AstraZeneca flu jab (injection) on the same day at about the same time (different locations); she is about 12-15 years older than my husband.  Then my husband mentioned the older adults have a better reaction to the AstraZeneca jab.  Hmmm, is a “better” the right word for having “no reaction”?  That’s what I mean by a better reaction.  In any case, AstraZeneca and The Lancet support my husband’s comments.  

Why was the Flu Slower in Older Adults?

Then I wondered why that might be; could it be like with Swine Flu that was simply living through some of the previous outbreaks or pandemics their immunity is more robust (2009).  If previous exposure were the reason for the COVID-19 flu, we would’ve heard by now.  From what I read of Influenza Pandemics on the History of Vaccines site, the flu pandemics occur when there is an antigenic shift and goes global (antigenic = provokes the immune response by foreign substance or toxins – Apple).

 

Alternatively, it could be because the older immune system processes the vaccine slower, which gives the body time to adapt.  Either way, there’s an advantage to getting older you didn’t expect!

 

It reminds me of when I was trekking the Annapurna foothills in Nepal, and the guide told the group to take the climb slowly.  Raj said the fitter people were more likely to get altitude sickness than those less fit.  The reason for this was if you progressed up the mountain slowly, your body got time to adjust to the levels of oxygen at that height. 

 

Raj also cheekily put in older people coped with the climb better because they’re constantly stopping to look at the view.  There was a little bit of a wink in his smile because older people wouldn’t typically bound up the mountainside.

 

So, it appears my husband just wasn’t old enough to be symptom-free.  He has also taken a leaf out of my book and decided he will be better tomorrow. Yeah.  That’s it.  Full stop, better tomorrow.  Most of what he’s heard is it’s a 24-hour thing; most of what I’ve heard is that it could be up to two weeks.  He did look better by the end of the day.

Today's Cards

Day 160. Tabled list: position number, description, and daily card.1 is Now The Dream. 2 is Influence Rebirth. 3 is Goal The Miser. 4 is Distant Past Exhaustion. 5 is Recent Past Silence. 6 is Future Energy Sharing. 7 is Feelings or Immediate Future Flowering. 8 is Others' Views Conditioning. 9 is Hope & Fears Totality. 10 is Outcome The Outsider. Shuffle method was Standard Shuffle

The Cards - Analysis

Carryover Cards

No cards carried over cards from yesterday.

Cross

The Dream is in the Now and represents delusion which Rebirth influences. The Miser sits in the Goal position and probably relates to how much of myself I feel like I’m giving at present. Aware in the Distant Past, there was Exhaustion.  

 

More in the Recent Past has been Silence, and it has made me reassess or question what I want to do.  This assessment leads to the Future Energy card of Sharing, indicating that I’m not comfortable with The Miser as a general principle.

Base

Flowering in the Feelings or Immediate Future spot supports where Sharing springs.

 

Others’ Views has Conditioning, and I’m really at a loss as to what this might mean in the context of today’s thoughts.

 

From the Hopes & Fears aspect, the card is Totality. I’m afraid (fear) that I cannot commit to the website in the way that I would like.  While not receiving my undivided attention, I hope my contribution is with Totality, or it is evident it is at least with heart and soul.

 

I’m sitting on the fence regarding the flu vaccinations; The Outsider card reflects this in the Outcome position. The Outsider image clearly shows that if I choose inclusion, I simply need to get the jab.  But first, let’s only have one person in the household sick by choice. 😀

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7

  2. Alexis Madrigal, 2009, Old People May Be Immune to Swine Flu,  Wired, Published Online 

  3. Kara Rogers, 2006, 1968 flu pandemic

  4. 2011, Influenza Pandemics, The History of Vaccines, Published Online

  5. AstraZeneca, 2020, COVID-19 vaccine AZD1222 is better tolerated in older adults than younger adults with similar immune responses across all age groups, AstraZeneca Media Centre. Published Online

  6. Maheshi N Ramasamy, DPhil et al., 2020, Safety and immunogenicity of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine administered in a prime-boost regimen in young and old adults (COV002): a single-blind, randomised, controlled, phase 2/3 trial, The Lancet, Published Online

End Day 160

Day 159 – The Latest Marshmallows Craze

8 June 2021

Day 159. Celtic Cross Layout: 1 is Now Aloneness. 2 is Influence Sorrow. 3 is Goal Past Lives. 4 is Distant Past Existence. 5 is Recent Past Creativity. 6 is Future Energy Abundance. 7 is Feelings or Immediate Future Postponement. 8 is Others' Views Healing. 9 is Hope & Fears Control. 10 is Outcome Guidance

Marshmallows Context

Marshmallows the spongy sweet treat and which get eaten in all sorts of creative ways.  My husband gets his first AstraZeneca shot.

 

I used to be a coffee drinker until one day; I went to have an allergy test for inexplicable stomach pain. It turns out one of my highest allergies is coffee.  Note, when travelling through South America, the cramps didn’t appear. My guess, it’s a difference in the processing of the beans.  

 

Bacon was also high on the list of allergies, which might explain why a vegetarian diet suited me better.  It’s not the reason for the change in dietary preferences; finding out made it easier to switch.

 

Nonetheless, when the office contributed to raising funds for Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea (Cancer Research Fundraising, Day 145), there was a packet of marshmallows leftover.  The marshmallows were placed in a jar and left in the floor’s kitchen.  It was hot chocolate time, and how good is a cup of hot chocolate with some marshmallows on the top?!  Yum! 

 

When I returned to work, after working a couple of days at home, the marshmallows had almost disappeared.  After making some inquiries, coffees, not hot chocolates, used the marshmallows.  There is a different technique to using marshmallows with coffee; you need to put the marshmallows in the bottom of the cup and let the coffee from the pod machine run over it.  The gooey goodness of the marshmallow is apparently what makes it so good.

 

Not being a coffee drinker myself, I cannot advise whether this does nor doesn’t taste good. Nor can I say if the marshmallows replace sugar.  All I know is the method and how the floor of coffee drinkers consumes the modified version – at least over the cooler months (presumably).   

Husband Jab Day

Well, my husband went off to have his first AstraZeneca vaccination today. It seems to have gone well.  His only complaints were an ache in his right arm like someone had punched or “jabbed” him there.  It felt like a “corky”, and instead of in the thigh, it was in his arm.  And a slight low-grade headache. 

 

That’s not bad.  My husband has only just turned 50, so he has only just scraped into getting the jab.  At this stage, he’s well enough to go to work tomorrow.  Aside from these two effects, all went well with him commenting he didn’t even feel the needle and would not have known he had it except for the speck of blood on the cotton ball.

 

Between us, we have decided to split the vaccinations to avoid both of us suffering from potential side effects at the same time.  I also get to avoid a needle for a little longer. 😏

Marshmallows not Tree Felling

Apart from the latest coffee craze and my husband going for his COVID vaccination, the trees behind our house, some five Australian and six American floors tall, were cut down (on Day 113, I mentioned it might happen). My heart ached to see them go, and I’m not sure anyone else’s did – apart from the birds who had been living in the tree now sitting on top of our fence watching the tree’s dismantling. I wish the craze would be with marshmallows and not tree-cutting. 

 

 

There’s a part of me that cried, yet I knew the one with white-ants or termites had to go – it would be only a matter of time before it caused damage either to my neighbours’ houses or ours.  Sadly, you can’t even get an emoji that looks like a gum tree – so here’s a palm tree instead. 🌴

 

Side note: Australian buildings typically have a “ground” floor which Americans refer to as the first floor.  For example, if an American TV show says someone fell from the second floor, in Australia, that’s our first floor.  Note, some architects and companies have built buildings with the American numbering in lifts (oops, lifts are also known as elevators), which can sometimes get mildly confusing.

Today's Cards

Day 159. Tabled list: position number, description, and daily card.1 is Now Aloneness. 2 is Influence Sorrow. 3 is Goal Past Lives. 4 is Distant Past Existence. 5 is Recent Past Creativity. 6 is Future Energy Abundance. 7 is Feelings or Immediate Future Postponement. 8 is Others' Views Healing. 9 is Hope & Fears Control. 10 is Outcome Guidance. Shuffle method was Washing Machine

The Cards - Analysis

Carryover Cards

Only one card carried over from yesterday, and Guidance stays in the Outcome position.

Analysis

Today’s cards seem disjointed.  The Cross seems to focus on the felled trees, and the Base appears to focus on my husband’s vaccination and how it makes me feel.

Cross

Aloneness has Sorrow as an influence, and Past Lives inhabits the Goal.  The Distant Past of Existence births Creativity, Aloneness and paves the way for Abundance.

 

I feel alone in my Sorrow (sadness) for the felled trees.  This sentiment is, of course, not mine alone, even though it feels that way.  I often felt at one in my Existence with the trees. Especially in the Distant Past, during my meditations on the back deck beneath their shade.

 

On the bright side, removing the trees with termites (one was severely so) has been spared from causing potential damage to people and property.  The removal of the trees has also opened up the sky.  There’s now an Abundance of light, which is also pretty.  Thankfully, some trees remained.

Base

It appears that the cards have spotted the ruse of avoiding the “jab” because Postponement is in the Feelings spot.

 

Others’ Views see me as undergoing Healing or assisting with my husband’s Healing.

 

Hopes & Fears has Control. I fear I have no control over whether to be vaccinated or not and hope there is enough flexibility for me to come to it in my own time.  Sensing the right time to act is important to me, especially when it comes to my body and what happens to it, so I hate being pushed. 

 

My body, my choice. It’s like being swept along with a crowd, and you just want a moment to think.  I usually come around; it just takes me a little longer.  Taking a bit of time or even questioning the process seems like it earns you a frown from some.  Not everybody is the same; some patience and tolerance would be nice.

 

Finally, the Outcome position has Guidance.  Guidance is about listening to your inner voice and finding out which direction you need to take.

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
  2. AstraZeneca, 2020, COVID-19 vaccine AZD1222 is better tolerated in older adults than younger adults with similar immune responses across all age groups, AstraZeneca Media Centre. Published Online
End Day 126

Day 158 – An Awkward Pantyhose Day

7 June 2021

Day 158. Celtic Cross Layout: 1 is Now Aloneness. 2 is Influence Sorrow. 3 is Goal Past Lives. 4 is Distant Past Existence. 5 is Recent Past Creativity. 6 is Future Energy Abundance. 7 is Feelings or Immediate Future Postponement. 8 is Others' Views Healing. 9 is Hope & Fears Control. 10 is Outcome Guidance

Pantyhose Context

Life was simple, get up, go to work, come home, go to bed. There was only one fly in the ointment in an otherwise ordinary day – pantyhose.

 

This blog is about how some pantyhose just don’t fit properly. You have read the pack; you meet the height, you’re the right weight, and still, the crutch either hangs down between your thighs, digs into the sides of your “hoo-ha”, or the waist sits in the underarms.

 

Add to the situation the annoying habit that sometimes, before you’ve even managed to leave the seat, you’ve put a ladder in them!  If you’ve treated yourself and bought a luxurious feeling pair of Denier 15s with a satin sheen and feel “oh so nice!” it’s a massive disappointment and a waste of dollars.  Fortunately, I usually buy two pairs – just in case.

 

Yet I persist, and I need to ask myself, “why?”. Why do I keep purchasing pantyhose?  Quite simply, stockings add an extra layer of warmth in winter. Or, if you work in a cold air-conditioned office, the additional layer can make all the difference between chattering teeth and teeth merely clenched.

 

Some of my friends avoid stockings like they avoid COVID hotspots.  Apart from the additional layer of warmth, pantyhose with control tops also help a slightly rounded or protruding belly (cough! it’s more than slightly), stop the tops of the thighs from rubbing together, and help you fit into shoes better.  No, not the control tops, just stockings in general.  

 

Let’s face it, I also feel sexier and in control when I’m wearing pantyhose with my good skirts or dresses.

 

Anyway, that’s the most annoying thing to happen today, wrecking a brand-new pair of pantyhose and the second pair having a crutch drop.  Am I disappointed much?  You betchya!

Today's Cards

Day 158. Tabled list: position number, description, and daily card.1 is Now The Creator. 2 is Influence Participation. 3 is Goal Letting Go. 4 is Distant Past No-thingness. 5 is Recent Past Silence. 6 is Future Energy The Dream. 7 is Feelings or Immediate Future Politics. 8 is Others' Views Intensity. 9 is Hope & Fears Suppression. 10 is Outcome Guidance. Shuffle method was Standard Shuffle

The Cards - Analysis

Carryover Cards

One carryover card from yesterday; No-thingness moved from Influence to Distant Past position.

Cross

The Creator is in the Now influenced by Participation; this means simply living (Participation) has told me I needed to become The Creator of a new look – something which didn’t involve wearing pantyhose.

 

Letting Go sits aptly in the Goal position, meaning I needed to let go of what I had hoped to wear and switch to something I simply had to make do with, which in the end was probably a better solution.

 

By No-thingness moving from the Influence to the Distant Past position suggests a time when similar situations developed resilience and the growth of The Creator.

 

The Recent Past is Silence. Silence is the light at the end of the darkness, the “aha” or “bing” of a lightbulb moment.  When you realise all your pantyhose aren’t going to work for you and you realise you have something better to wear which doesn’t involve stockings.

 

In the end, The Dream of illusion probably means you’re kidding yourself with it showing up in Future Energy.

Base

Politics probably means my Feelings on the subject are I’m putting a happy face on the situation while inwardly wishing things had gone better with the stockings. But, unfortunately, it looks like there’s a reason the Goal position has Letting Go.

 

Others’ Views has the card of Intensity.  The Rebel is a card of control and knowing one’s capabilities and moving forward with clarity and intention uninfluenced by societal constraints in a grown-up manner.  On the other hand, Intensity is simply a teenager with energy following their gut whether it is informed or uninformed.  The teenager is how others perceive me.

 

Suppression is in the Hopes & Fears spot.  Suppression echoes my Feelings of Politics. I hope I’m not suppressing my wish to wear stockings, and fear suppressing is what I’m doing.

 

Finally, the Outcome position has Guidance, and it supports the card of Silence because you can most clearly listen to your inner self in the Silence.

References

  1. Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
End Day 158
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