Page of Cups - Good News!

This is the second Page I've drawn in two days. Messages of encouragement, clarity and transformation are very welcomed for sure!

Sometimes it's difficult to be hopeful, sensitive, helpful and loyal when we're struggling and can result in tunnel vision or we become myopic, seeing our problems only and focusing solely on ourselves. We might even feel after a loss, or a painful life experience that we've nothing to give anyone. It's been my experience that there's nothing more helpful to me, than reaching out to those who are also struggling.

Help can come in so many forms, and the smallest of kindnesses should never be minimized, as it can mean all the difference to someone else, bringing them happiness, perhaps save a life, that might even be our own.

There's a powerful and beautiful synchronicity that happens when we're in this situation, reaching out to others in difficulty, in that we help ourselves in the process, by giving to another in whatever way possible. When we pay it forward this generosity is hopefully passed on to another, who will in turn, pay it forward.

Moving away from self-preoccupation, to having an awareness of others, is a self-sacrifice that can creatively transform our lives, and that's the good news!

The Emperor - Gratitude For Independence

This Thanksgiving, I am so grateful to be an independent woman. Independence has always been very important to me, and I learned this through the example of my mother. No one gets to an independent state through their own effort. Help, encouragement, the support of family, friends and even those who dissuade and discourage you, can make a person feel even more determined to do it your way, and to stand even more upright, planting your two feet, on solid terra firma. Interdependence is at the heart of independence I believe.

Having had an absentee father for much of my life, my mother, was both mother and father, in many ways. She provided that ethical code the Emperor, that inner father gives, and she imparted spiritual beliefs to me,  fostering a deep self-respect, even though I was years actualizing this in my own personal life, due to my alcohol addiction issues.

The Emperor is an image that symbolizes the experience of fathering, representing our ethical, and spiritual beliefs. We can have material wealth, and success of the Emperor, but it is all in vain if not founded on ethical values of right and wrong, embodied in having an understanding of what it means to have deep sense of humility, and gratitude to those who have generously given to us along our path.