The Star - Don't Let The Bastards Grind You Down

The quote that I often hear repeated "Don't let the bastards grind you down" is a good way to describe this Major Arcana card, The Star. Here we see hope and inspiration embodied in the image of Pandora who in myth opened the chest which Zeus maliciously gave to mankind and now Pandora has released all the Spites.

This card embodies the experience of hope, meaning and faith giving this promise in the midst of difficulties.

 I thought the above quote was attributed to Viktor Frankl, who survived the Nazi concentration camp and wrote Man's Search For Meaning. I think he would have certainly identified with this outlook when he said " “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

These quotes I believe describe what it means to let go.

Saint Francis of Assisi described letting go well.

"Wear the world as a loose garment, which touches us in a few places and there lightly” – St. Francis of Assisi

This is what I have found I've had to do throughout so many times throughout my life and it has become my own personal philosophy and perspective towards life in general. I've learned to wear the world as a loose garment and I've had to change myself and my attitude toward the situations I couldn't change.

 It sounds simple enough, but it isn't. It's an attitude and skill I've had to practice and continue to make it a life long habit. For me it's about learning to detach with love. Before recovery I was attached to just about everything; my hyper-vigilance and waiting for the other shoe to drop, attached to the past and the future, and attached to my misery and all that it entailed.

I'm so very grateful  every day, that I was introduced to the philosophy of letting go and that star of Hope.

Page of Swords - Choosing Our Response

I said yesterday during a reading that I didn't much like this card, the Page of Wands that I drew a few times, and did again today for my daily draw. The reason I had a negative response to this card was because, I imagined a person(s) engaging in hurtful and spiteful gossip, someone irritable, full of resentment and who is emotionally immature regardless of their age and it made me angry to think of others being so hurtful toward those, they know nothing about, nor their circumstance in life. We all have our own life story, and we are all carrying our own burdens.


Many of these hurtful folk are emotionally arrested in their development in one way or another, and are very uninformed. But looking closer, I saw that it was simply my opinion in relation to some of the readings I was doing for clients. I realized even more than before, that there are no bad cards, but I was judgmental in my response.

I am also one of those individuals who believes that there are also no bad people.There is however certainly bad and appalling behaviour that causes great suffering throughout the world.
I know this sounds naive and even foolish to some, but for me, it's not about taking another person's inventory in judgement, but about talking my own inventory, and about choosing my response to people hurting others or myself.

People are not born behaving badly, they become this way a result of what has happened to them in their own lives, and how they have chosen to respond to it all. There is always the hope they will choose to change their behaviour. In the mean time, I can always choose how to respond to others who are hurtful with forgiveness and without resentment. I know this is much easier said, but it can be and is done.

I spent yesterday with a group a beautiful strong women doing a Tarot reading for each one. I was deeply touched by them and was reminded how the bond between us was very much about our shared human search for meaning. We all are asking the question why things happen to us. I am of the opinion that the question of how we choose to respond to what happens to us in life, is the more important question to ask.

I was so glad to hear that there would be a program on CBC Radio this morning about Viktor Frankl
and his incredible life changing book, Man's Search For Meaning. This is a book I have never read, but I soon will, because fortunately I was able to find it available online, and I downloaded it in a PDF and I am very much looking forward to reading it. I am certain it will help me to answer that question of how to respond to what happens in my life.