When did we stop pointing at stars and planets? Or perhaps the better question is why did we stop? Why has it become such a rare occasion to point up to the vast open space and wonder at our own divinity by witnessing the universe unfold? Didn’t our philosophies, religions, belief systems and ideas that we hold on to so strongly begin with people who did just that? Put a child under an unpolluted sky at night and watch them point. They will tell you exactly what it is we have forgotten.

When did our reality become so boxed in? We strive to live in boxes, sleep on boxes, talk to one another through boxes, go from one place to the other in moving boxes, spend our days watching ‘life’ through boxes by clicking boxes, show our appreciation by giving things in little boxes and finally say ‘good bye’ by placing our loved ones in boxes. I even write this blog on a box by typing on little boxes!

These boxes are nothing but prisons. Nothing in the natural world is based on a box with straight lines. As Alan Watts beautifully put it “nature is wiggly”.

So why is it most of the things in our lives are based on boxes drawn with straight lines?

I wish we could spend more time pointing at stars and making up beautiful stories through our imagination, inspired by an expansive “wiggly” universe. Instead we spend our lives placing one another into crude boxes and then point at them as separate, when what they truly represent is the box we ourselves are imprisoned in.

Perhaps this image by a 15th century artist better describes our dire predicament…

To begin with, I must point out that the Tarot cards are neither ‘evil’ nor ‘good’ for they have no will. They do not foretell any absolute destiny be it positive or negative. They do not decide if you discover riches, find ‘true love’ or fall with a terrible illness; they will however tell you if you are operating on a frequency that will attract any of those things, and what you must do to if you wish continue on or change your path.

Essentially there is a trinity or duality of frequencies in the present moment interacting with one another to relay information, knowledge and wisdom. First there is the seeker asking a question, next there are the cards and finally there is the medium or reader by which the answer is relayed, usually sporting a purple bandana with smokey eyes (kidding!). If the seeker is able, he or she might not need a medium, which in terms of the Tarot is a reader doing his or her own readings. When I used to read for others and play the role of medium, I would stress to the seeker that I do not employ any magic and that I am devoid of any special abilities beyond a sensitivity to the frequency that exists between the cards and the seeker. The advantage of having a third entity in the mix is useful when you feel you might be biased in your own reading, especially for people with very dominant left brains.

Death
Without a doubt, this is the most feared card of the Tarot. If Death showed up in any reading I did a major shift in frequency came with it, followed by an “OH NO! What does that mean?”. I always had to pause the reading for a bit, calm the seeker by explaining the implied meaning of the card outside the context of the spread, and hope we return to the initial frequency by which we began the reading.

Death is feared by society in every context, we do not want things to end but with birth there comes death, just as we arrive into this world we must leave it. Can the card mean an actual death?Yes it can. We welcome the birth and run from the harsh truth that death is inevitable. The sooner we can accept this truth the sooner we can embrace life in all its glory. Death and birth are not separate and they will never be separate, they are polarities that exist inclusively of one another.

A beautiful saying comes to mind when I see the Death card, ‘nothing is constant except change’. I personally love that saying, there is so much wonderful raw truth to it, which embodies all that the Death card stands for. The card tells us that something has come or is coming an end. It doesn’t have mean a mortal death at all though, it could be an end to a draining relationship, a period of sorrow, an unfulfilling job or even an illness.

“Let go” the reaper whispers as he rides his horse between the grieving souls, “embrace the change”. It’s ok to grieve, it is part of the process, just don’t resist it, otherwise you might not be able to witness what is to come.


The Devil
First we must remove any preconditioned reactions to this card in terms of the biblical devil, that infamous evil fallen angel who holds a vendetta against the human race. The half-goat half-man image belongs to the rustic Greek god Pan, god of goats, sheep, shepherds, music, beasts and of human nature. Rustic gods are wild and bonded with nature and are part animal just like Pan.

The Devil is the only card in the Major Arcana that deals with our carnal human desires, anything we might consider taboo in a ‘civilized’ society. Just by looking at the card we see an image of the Lovers bonded with tails, one tail on passionate fire and the other made of an intoxicating grape vine, in other words sex and drugs! We can also include all our primal needs too such as food, power and entertainment. Please note that here we speak of the consumption of food and sex as acts purely for the sake of enjoyment not survival.

The card reminds us that primal desires exist, granted not everyone has the same urges and the enjoyment that comes from food is not the same as the need for power but they can both bind us in the form of addictions if we allow them to. The irony of this card is that if our desires become forms of escape we become their prisoners and we find ourselves in bondage to the very things that we believe can grant us a sense of freedom. I am not a therapist but I will confidently say that addiction is not an illness, but it can and often will lead to it. Addiction to smoking might manifest into a cancer, alcoholism could lead to liver damage and over eating can cause obesity.

But the Fool comes to realize what is so blatantly obvious but not apparent at first glance because of the seemingly dark and taboo nature of the image. The man and the woman’s hands are free and the chains around their necks are loose. The first step is realizing that the choice to indulge in taboos is ours, just as the power to slip the chains off and let them go is also our own. We need not burry our urges in some dark corner of our mind in the hope no one will discover them, they exist in us and are a part of what makes us human. If we do try to deny them, there is a chance they might grow stronger darker and manifest into things, actions and attitudes that will harm us and those around us. If we have a human desire that is our own and will not cause harm to anyone or anything else, then why not indulge?

The Devil says “come to my party if you wish to experience it and you know you want to, but if you don’t leave by your own will you’ll remain in bondage, the choice is yours…”


The Hanged Man
The Hanged Man is the story of the Norse god Odin and his spiritual quest for wisdom. In secret he takes the form of a fragile human by relinquishing his immortal godly powers. He then hangs himself upside down from one leg from the Tree of Wisdom.

By suspending himself in such a vulnerable position he truly lets go and embraces what will come to him. He hangs upside down and sees the world from a different perspective not that from the top looking down. He could not eat or drink and suspended all judgement all in the pursuit of wisdom. He favored true divinity instead of power over others.

Odin’s story reminds me of Mahtma Ghandi and his famous saying, “Be the change you want to see in the world”. Ghandi relinquished his power and fasted as a peaceful form of protest to free his people. Ghandi fought for a cause he believed in and he did it by being strong enough to use his own vulnerability. In a world where tyranny is all too present and violent force towards others is used as a means of protection, the story of the Hanged Man brought me much needed inspiration.

In all honesty, maybe there isn’t much confusion with the last card in terms of the seeker but rather the story associated with the card. Each card contains beautiful symbolism that is essentially constant throughout the Tarot card spectrum. With some cards however the stories are sometimes altered depending on the medium or even the source and artist of the card. I wanted to talk about this card because the story behind the Hanged Man touched me on a very deep level. There are tons of sources over the net if you wish to explore further and get yourself familiar with the different cards.

The images I used are from the Rider-Waite Tarot deck, although there are dozens of different decks, I have become comfortable with this deck and even though I’ve tried I still have a hard time buying another deck by a different artist.

Tags: Death, hanged man, the devil, Pan, letting go, Odin

Last night I wrote with my non dominant hand in my dream diary asking my self to become aware with any dream I have during the night. I went to bed with a lot of childlike enthusiasm at about 10:30pm, which is generally quite early for me only to wake up at 2:37am sweating with fearful ideas trying to penetrate my waking mind.

I will continue from the point everything seemed relatively ‘comfortable’ however bizarre. My brother and I were shopping in a large supermarket somewhere in Canada. We each had a trolley and were strolling about picking up groceries. At one point we were looking for a special vintage cheese with a yellow and black wrapper. I couldn’t make out what type it was at the start but after what seemed to be a long investigation we deduced that it was some sort of Edam cheese. Things only got stranger when we decided to locate an indigenous Canadian tribe using a red laser, created for such curious endeavors by aiming it at the country’s map. At first it didn’t seem to work, which my impatient brother happened to point out. After a few seconds though a red dot appeared on the East, where the Canadian border meets the Atlantic ocean, then another up on the extreme north and then more at other locations but mostly in the North.

A few moments later our parents arrived to our location which morphed into a large open hall with no walls, just a wide open floor space that ended with sharp edges on all four sides. The space also had couches scattered randomly and scarcely. My mother walked past me with a serious frown trying to avoid eye contact with me and told me that my x-rays came back and ‘they’ had found a tumor. My father was also avoiding contact but kept mumbling what seemed to be humorous comments of encouragement. My best friend was there with his wife, both sitting on a couch also looking very serious but they did not know, so I decided to keep the info from them. The atmosphere became darker, at which point my aunt’s ex husband walks up to me with what seemed like a small patch on his forehead trying to convince me that it’s ‘ok’. He was trying to explain how he was through a similar situation and all I have to do it remove that part of my brain. I responded angrily and refused to listen to such an extreme solution. He then snapped by saying, “You can’t expect to eat a piece of grass that a cow has shat on to get better!” referring to what I would actually consider a treatment. I walked off furiously screaming back that I would eat every plant I can get my hands on and never remove a part of my precious brain. I kept on walking into my waking state.

This was not the kind of dream I was planning on having. I know better though. Our subconscious operates very differently to our conscious brain, it communicates through symbols not language. There was some serious symbolism for me here and I needed to calm down and find out what it was. I could have woken up feeling like the first thing I should do is head down to the hospital and book myself for an MRI. A part of me was definitely fearful but I resisted. I took a deep breath and scanned my past few weeks looking for an answer. By honestly reflecting on oneself it doesn’t take long to figure your dreams out, I will always stress this point. Dreams come in so many forms and they can have warnings, lessons, fantasies and they always contain raw honesty, which makes them a no nonsense source of Spark.

Two weeks ago during a night out with friends, I was listening to someone talk so passionately about surfing. I have never surfed, but the thought of it makes my heart melt and has done for as long as I can remember. I can give a million and one reasons why I never did, in the end the truth is they are all just excuses. I want to surf more than any other activity, I do not care to ride motorcycles, climb mountains or ski slopes, I just want to surf! I will discuss this in the future along with Pieces and Neptune but for now I just want to mention that it is a conversation I want to have with the sea.

During that conversation with my friend I mentioned, I actually had the audacity to say that if I was to fall ill with cancer I would drop everything and travel to surf. I was drunk and emotional but what a stupid thing to say! I am a man that believes we manifest our own world by thinking it. I look outwards into a 3 dimensional universe that extends with us at the center. I regretted what I had said the night before and my conscious mind thought it away, however my subconscious still had to hammer in a message.

It was clear there was more my mind was trying to tell me. If I want to do something in my life, if it means so much and I could feel it deep within myself, I need to do it. Work and the responsibilities that come with it shouldn’t be the priority I set for my life. My life is too precious to not follow my own gut! If I want to do something that will bring me happiness and joy it shouldn’t be put off. I’m not going to drop everything, jump on a plane to some beach and begin surfing as one might expect from a Hollywood script. I can achieve that desire and still operate everything else that is happening in my life in harmony. I must create that reality by first acknowledging its vital importance to my psychological and spiritual well being. Life is what we make of it, and the dreams we have can be a definitive guide to where we truly want to be heading. I don’t know what wisdom surfing a wave will bring but I do know from a very powerful inner source that it will be crucial in my life journey.

Tags: Dream Meanings, Fear, Positivity, Surfing