Three of Wands - The Work Ahead

It was my mother's Birthday yesterday. She would have been 103 years old. My mother was my mentor, my inspiration. She had a saying, that she would often repeat to me. " You can only go down so far, before you start to come back up." My mother set a great example for me, of what is means to have inner strength, fortitude, perseverance, and persistence.

 I heard something today from Marie Foleo. She spoke of what her mother use to say. " Everything is figureoutable." This has stayed with me all day.

When we have a dream, and a goal it can be overwhelming, and we can begin to doubt that we are ever going to be able to achieve it. It helps a whole lot to be aware of how to break things down in measurable, realistic, achievable steps, and objectives. Many of us grow up not knowing how to do this, and have to learn it from someone who has been there, and continue learning.

Tonight after drawing the Three of Wands, it became clear to me. It was an affirmation and a confirmation as  being a positive and hopeful card, indicating the initial stages of substantive ideas or project, and the satisfaction that comes with this, but at the same time, it clearly points to the work ahead. The card is a good reminder that the follow through is going to involve  creative confidence at the start, but then creative potential and fulfillment can come to a stand still, if we can't accept and allow for the tests that challenge and stretch our ideas as individuals. We cannot allow ourselves to give up, all because we are feeling overwhelmed and burdened by fear of failure or perhaps fear of success.

This is what life is like, lots of emotional ups and downs, hurdles to jump over, and under. We must find ways to go around, bob and weave. But we need to keep going, keep hands on the plow, and our eyes on the prize. Because I know, understand and believe that everything is figureoutable, and you can only go so far down before you start to come back up. This allows us to negotiate from a position of strength.

Five of Pentacles - I Can't See The Forest For The Trees

Well now isn't this a fine howdy doo!  I drew the The Five of Pentacles this morning. I admit, my immediate gut reaction to this card, no matter how many times I look at it,  my reaction it always negative. It looks gloomy, dark with just enough impending doom to make me jump into bed and pull up the covers over my head! But that's just me.

When I am experiencing negative events especially fear surround financial insecurity, I can go into a quick panic mode and so I have to consciously take action to resolve whatever it is I am dealing with. So I did this this morning and I am feeling much better now. I reached out only to find there really was absolutely no need to panic. Seems this is a lesson I have a hard time learning because it comes up for me more often than I would like or perhaps it is a life long lesson to be learned.

The Five of Pentacles presents an individual focusing on their own distress and failing to see that help is at hand. Oh ya that's the card for me today!

When I think about panic I always reflect on when I got certified as a SCUBA diver. It was emphatically expressed to us over and over, to overcome panic, because it could kill us. As well, we had to plan our dive plans, and dive our our dive plans. We could make mistakes on our dive plans when being taking our exam to get certified as this would be an immediate fail, because this could kill you too. There is an important life lesson here for me I believe that I need to apply. Breathe deep, breathe in, breathe out, don't panic, and make a plan. Breathing is essential to staying calm, considering we need about 80% of our oxygen for our brains to function properly. It's only when we are in a relaxed state, when we can concentrate and make the right decisions.

Panic ensues when we lose faith in ourselves I believe, not unlike Daedalus did. He confused his self-value is  with his material security, and he lost his sense of direction. When this happens we can start again and reorient ourselves to the outer and inner level.

Next time I draw the Five of Pentacles, I hope I'll see it in a positive new light.

Five of Wands - Intuition

When I was a child, I always sensed the presence of the Creator, the God of my understanding, even though it wasn't developed in the way it is now, the presence was there. An innocent trust was what defined my faith, and the way it was manifested, was through my intuition. My intuition was greatly affected by outside factors, and forces beyond my control, and diminished greatly for a time, and I lost my way in my adolescence and early adult life.

Like Jason, it seemed I constantly was fighting that dragon.  Fortunately I never completely lost my faith, and perhaps I was too stubborn to let people, places, and things to overpower me, and I held on, regardless of what was happening. Fortunately I have had many rallying helpers like Medea, akin to the High Priestess, who embodies the feminine power of intuition and instinct, to assist me in my dragon fights.

 We can have a creative vision, but the realities of life, in the form of the dragon represent the powers of the earth  resisting change. These can be found in the many material limitations, be it money, physical restrictions due to illness, or fatigue, and can coincide with fear of failure, inertia or apathy, that often are the cause of trouble, and struggle within the inner or outer self. These obstacles that arise, cannot be avoided in life, and accommodations or compromise must be made, while still maintaining the integrity of our creative visions, and lost treasure, like the Golden Fleece.