16 April 2021
Context
Welcome to Day 106!
The morning had me doing some standard office stuff form home. Not quite brave enough yet to follow up on the knife-stabbing email from yesterday with the person who sent it. The email remained unanswered until the end of the day when the sub-mental processing had come up with a reasonable and professional response. By that time, I’d also moved on from my gripe – it’s way too much effort to keep it up. It’s not like we were besties or fast friends.
When it comes to work, I like to keep my options open. The new role doesn’t appear to be going down a path where there’s going to be a lot of job satisfaction. This was okay, because in the back of my head there was still the opportunity to go back to my old role. This betrayal incident and a couple of other things are pushing me to stay in the new job. Basically, opportunities to retreat are becoming fewer, probably the kick I need to move on from what was.
At 10:45am my presence was required at the hospital for a Bone Densitometry (BMD) or bone density test. Not sure what a BMD test involved but the doctor advised it would not be painful. The doctor was right!
It was weird not having to wear a mask into a hospital. Of course, we’re still social distancing and hand-sanitising but the masks are gone – even in hospitals! Fortunately, the COVID cases Australia does have, are visitors in hotel quarantine.
After checking in at reception and filling in all the mandatory paperwork (four forms!). It was interesting to note, when filling in the forms that when asking about my sickness and operations history, I was able to recall the events because of the vacations I was on. Anyway, reception directed me to the radiologist down the hall to the left.
The lovely young radiologist said “hi” then asked me to remove my pants and my bra. She explained, the pants had a zipper and the bra had metal hooks and metal isn’t something that I should be wearing for the scan. The change room was behind me and donned the lovely sleeveless disposable navy “gown”, which was made of medium stiff fabric which you could wear like a bathrobe. Not like those reverse hospital gowns, this was more civilised. So, it wasn’t all bad.
Once in the room there was a hospital bed which reminds me more to a massage table than a hospital bed. It was covered with the usual protective disposable equipment and the machine looked a like one of the hands when depicting Egyptians walking in hieroglyphs. See for yourself, although the DEXA machine pictured looks more modern than the one used today (refer references).
The way the process works is you lie on the bed and the Egyptian arm moves slowly, and in my case, from hips to neck to scan the spine. A minor adjustment to keep the feet apart, the Egyptian arm moves again, and the left hip is scanned. The machine is slow because it needs to send two low x-ray pulses, one into the bone and the other through the soft tissue (radiology info). It wasn’t an unpleasant experience, but as the arm passed the stomach, it gurgled a little.
It was a quick process and the whole scan took about 20 minutes which meant I could head back into the change room and ditch the glamour robe don my pants and bra. Although don’t think I’ll be searching the clothes shops for the gown anytime soon.
Back on the work front, there’s a discussion going on at work about working from home. The work from home has become so common place that it appears that some are taking the working from home as a right rather than a privilege. There are at least two starting points: 1. Is that you go to work as the default position, unless agreed otherwise
2. Is that you work from home as the default position and only go to work as agreed.
The latter is where working from home is perceived as a right with flexibility and the former is perceived of as a privilege with flexibility. My stance is the first option, in the future option two may become the norm but for now, I fear and feel that I’m clinging to the past on this one. As long as flexibility plays a part in both points-of-view the foundational stance shouldn’t matter.
Let’s see what the cards have to say!
Today's Cards
The Cards - Analysis
Success is the only card to carry over from yesterday it has moved from the Now position to the Feelings position.
Change is in the Now position and the first thing that popped to mind was “winds of change”. Not sure what it means, exactly, just that’s what was in my head when the card was dealt. Change is influenced by Slowing Down and crowned by the Goal of Transformation.
Based on the shift in the work environment around a few things with thing Slowing Down there has been the opportunity to assess the recent job Change and ability to go back. Transformation card as Goal seems to indicate, in my head at least I’m not going back and will become determined to make the new role work. It’s always interesting to wonder to what end.
Distant Past has the card of Creativity. The Creativity in Osho’s book is about how you look at things. Much like a painter will paint what they see and even though you may be looking at the same object, what the painter paints is an interpretation through their eyes. In the Distant Past me viewing things in different ways has contributed to the Change that is now occurring. This would be the way I view working relationships.
In viewing things differently, quite often the perspective has and in the Recent Past made me feel like The Outsider, especially in the moving on. This creates a certain trepidation in me whereas a fallback position my Future Energy might be to Cling to the Past.
At present, Feelings/ Immediate Future have the card of Success. It’s interesting that the view I’m adopting towards the Change that’s occurring is one of Success. Success is a bit scary and there very well could be a momentary solace in Clinging to the Past.
Others’ Views is “I’m dreaming” as reflected by The Dream card. This could be a lot of things around the work environment at the moment. There is a strong possibility where the way I view the world is through rose-coloured glasses – the view’s not totally wrong.
The Hopes & Fears position has the card of Innocence. Hoping that my experience continues to earn me support and fearing that my naivety or “dreaming” does not work against me.
In the end, the Outcome card is Silence. Silence is the card is the silence after a storm, not the calm inside the storm but the silence once the storm has stopped. It’s the moment where you take the opportunity to reassess.
In summary, Creativity was what started the storm, Change its beginning, Slowing Down its calm centre and Transformation the disruptive tail. During the storm it felt like there was no-one there in The Outsider. Surviving the storm is Success. Others view the Success as The Dream and Innocence is the ability to weather the storm. Until finally Silence falls and the damage can be assessed. But like with any death (Transformation) there will be an energy of Clinging to the Past.
What can I say? The analogy worked today 😁.
References
Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
