Monday, 2 August 2021
Essential Context
Well, we’re in lockdown, and my husband is working from home again. It’s nice to have him here; we work well together in the same place (in different rooms). A pre-meeting chat on my work front sees me react to an indignant remark about a tarot reader considering herself an essential service.
Working in a very “corporate” world, I had agreed that I wouldn’t consider a tarot reader an “essential service”. To my astonishment, I caught myself making the automatic, unthinking response. It was a societally acceptable response, but how much thought had gone into it.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not that much of a rebel that I need to buck societal nuances for the sake of it – anymore. 😏 The response was flippant, and I had even owned I was a tarot reader. But following it with I didn’t consider it an essential service. Then again, it’s not my living. I knew when the words left my mouth; I was about to give myself a serious chat.
The warning comes from years of flippant, definitive stances I’ve taken, only to wind up on the reverse and proven, not necessarily wrong, but certainly had my extreme view adjusted. It’s like in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade (1989), where everything Dr Indiana Jones (Indy) tells the students about archaeology, later, literally comes to pass.
So forget any ideas you've got about lost cities, exotic travel, and digging up the world. You do not follow maps to buried treasure and "X" never, ever, marks the spot.
Thinking on Automatic Responses
Likewise, I thought about Tarot readers and automatic responses about “essential services” after the meeting. Here go the questions: “why would she think the classification could apply to her?”, “why do people really go to tarot readers?”, “what can a tarot reader offer in times like the pandemic?”. My friend Pauline succinctly told me once she simply needed to talk it out, and the cards seemed to be a conduit for me to get the information from her.
So, then I played a scenario over in my head of a woman (Sandy, for story purposes) whose husband had lost his job to COVID, they were okay for the moment, but Sandy was worried about the future. Now psychologists don’t deal with speculation on the future – that’s for stockbrokers, crypto experts, weather personnel and psychics.
On an inner level, Sandy knows the future is mercurial. Having the ability to talk about her worries to someone who might find that light at the end of the tunnel is worth it to her.
So, tarot readers provide minor stress relief and hope amidst dark times. If Sandy were lucky to find a talented reader, they might even get assistance. For instance, a tarot reader had once intuited a phone number for the Blue Mountains Meditation Retreat to help me manage my anger.
Because life is cyclical in waves of happiness and sadness, the tarot reader might stop at a lighter point. There’s always sunshine after rain, right? Providing an outlet to someone in times of distress equals mental well-being. In some respects, you could view a Tarot reader as an essential service. There, now I’ve thought about it.
Today's Cards
The Cards - Essential Analysis
Carryover Cards
No cards carried over from yesterday.
Cross
The Lovers is in the Now influenced by Aloneness, which I read as a union of the self. The harmonious working together to foster outcomes bigger than the sum of the two parts.
Ripeness is a state of readiness and reflects today’s Goal. I’m sensing that the Yin cycle (refer to Day 193) is beginning to hit its awareness as dormant words, like “tarot”, are returning without my prompting. For example, in the pre-meeting chat.
Participation is in the Recent Past and provides the foundation for The Lovers to continue a similar vibe. Participation is collaboration, and The Lovers is the union of participation between two people instead of a small group; that would be the meeting.
Totality in the Distant Past probably reminds me of old bad habits like making unthinking or poorly thought-out remarks.
Future Energy is Integration, and you can see the progression from the Recent Past. It moves from the separate individuals participating in an activity to The Lovers, a union of energy, which brings about Integration. In other words, the answer isn’t as cut and dry as we’d like it to be but by integrating the idea of essential with non-essential, we take the elements of the truth in both and work with the result.
Base
My Feelings are like those of The Master when it comes to this topic. People believe The Master sits comfortably with his emotions, looking at issues neutrally, neither with passion nor dispassion.
Others’ Views is that I’m Experiencing life and potentially growth in this case.
Hopes & Fears has Guilt. Did you know the last time Guilt made an appearance was 53 days ago? Anyway, I fear that I may have given others the wrong impression of my views on the topic. I hope in future; Guilt doesn’t happen by avoiding unthinking remarks.
Silence is the Outcome, suggesting perhaps that the Guilt stops and Silence with inner peace appears. If we’re talking about the remark and my thoughts on it, it would seem I will be content with my conclusion.
References
- Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
