Pulling Cards with my Partner, Betsy, This Morning

In Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes a Crisis (New Consciousness Readers) by Stanislav Grof and Christina Grof (Paperback - Sep 1, 1989), there is a chapter on Shamans.  In the chapter "When Insanity is a Blessing: The Message of Shamanism", Holger Kalweit writes about the years of suffering many spiritual leaders must go through to complete the Shamanic journey, literally years and years of illness, mental and/or physical, before they become wisdom teachers for their tribe/community.  I bought this book after I suffered a severe panic attack almost a year ago to the day.  The attack was completely debilitating requiring the EMS to come to me off the highway and nearly two weeks of bed rest.  Even when I emerged to a low level of functioning, I admitted myself into the hospital experiencing chest pains within another two weeks.  At the hospital I had an episode where I blacked out from stress. They were required to release me the next day because they could find nothing wrong with my heart.  They did, however, set up a stress test for me.  Concurrently, my doctor's office had found an elevated bilirubin count in my blood test, indicating a possible problem with my liver.  Oh, and I was in the first stage of my Uranus Opposition.  I asked my doctor if I could be inducing my problems due to my anxiety and stress.  He said it was possible, but they could not test for it.  Everything else, they could and would test, and they did.


I took my stress test and passed with flying colors ... excellent health for a man my age (41).  Due to my health concerns I made a radical change in my diet to organic foods and water, fresh squeezed juice.  In fact, my body out right rejected processed food and artificial drinks; I even quit drinking sweet tea ... completely.  Even so, I was still feeling very sick and my doctor ordered a liver/spleen ultrasound.  In the time before the ultrasound I was reading up on some dietary issues and noted that the lemon juice I was drinking would act as a cleanser for my liver, flushing toxins out.  I even found a connection with bilirubins right before my test.  I decided to stop drinking the lemon juice a day or two before my test.  Once again, the test were negative; I was fine.  I told the doctor about my discovery with regard to the lemon juice and he suggested I stay off it for two weeks and have them retest my blood.  And, as you can presume, I was fine, my bilirubin count was back to normal.  In the end I had no physical aliments; my mind was causing the heart attack simulation and my cleansing diet was forcing toxins into my body so I could purge them.  In the end ... and still to this day ... its all in my mind.


I do want to say and compliment my doctors; they did their job wonderfully for what they do.  But in the end, after we went down the list of physical problems we reached the bottom of the list ... the problem is psychological.  At the peak of the crisis I got an emergency ration of anti-anxiety medication, which I grudgingly took.  In my home aspirin expires before it is all used up.  This fact is even more the case now that I'm on a very healthy diet.  I have not actually been sick (cold, flu, or other virus) in almost a year.  When I have felt a little ill coming on, some rest and minimal preventative medicine do the trick.  So how to deal with the anxiety ... my mind in crisis.  The drugs were ok for a short term, immediate fix to a severe attack, but not the long term direction I wanted to go.  At my doctor's suggestion and those of good friends who have had psychological counseling, I decided to see a psychologist.  I also asked my good friend and fellow professional astrologer Darrell Steen to look at my chart.  Both proved immensely helpful.  In the end, in my case, it has been the astrology that has been the most valuable.  To put it bluntly, I'm in a personal astrological sh*t storm that I will have to endure and persevere through for about 8 more years (yes, you read that right, 8 years).  This information brings me back to the chapter referred to at the beginning of this post.  


I know we want quick fixes in our world of high speed; I want them sometimes too.  But my mind and spirit are going through a major shift.  And it has been books on spirituality and astrology that have been the most helpful ... and at the top of the list is the Liquid Light of Sex: Kundalini, Astrology, and the Key Life Transitions by Barbara Hand Clow (Paperback - Sep 1, 2001).  This book talks explicitly about the Uranus Opposition, which will begin to end for me after October of this year.  For those of you with astrological knowledge here's the shorthand of my long term storm - Transiting Neptune is square my Natal Neptune and Transiting Pluto is square my Natal Venus (then my Mercury, Eris, Saturn, North Node, and finally my Sun ... all in Aries).  Oh, and I got to have Transiting Saturn roll over my Natal Uranus and Pluto about a year ago (at, guess what time!).  All this explanation brings me to the reading that is the catalyst for this post.

Since my original severe attack, I have faced bouts with general anxiety and some days of extreme anxiety.    Throughout this process I have pulled cards and so has Betsy.  The source of the anxiety appears to be responsibility ... feeling overwhelmed by responsibility.  We drew cards this morning and here's what came up.  The first question asked was what is Philip feeling, I drew the 7 of Fire (Stress) and Betsy drew the 10 of Fire (Suppression):

Painfully fitting cards, clearly reflecting my feelings and her interpretation of my feelings.  So the next question we posed was, "What does Philip need to do?"  I drew the 2 of Fire (Possibilities) and she drew the 3 of Fire (Experiencing).

Now the cards identifying my current feelings were dead on; painfully so.  The cards drawn to answer the question, "what to do?" are also fire cards, suggesting, even demanding action.  My card leads me to interpret my situation as one where I have choices even if the stress makes me feel as if I do not.  I need distance (the eagle peering down from a high vantage point) to see choices.  Betsy's card is one of my favorites in this deck because it shows the mingling of energy fields between the woman and the tree.  As part of my therapy, as suggested in the book Shamanic Spirit: A Practical Guide to Personal Fulfillment by Kenneth Meadows (Paperback - Apr 9, 2004), I walked through a local park and touched the trees, asking for healing energy.  I have lapsed on that action and chose to walk barefoot in the grass of my backyard to reconnect with the grounding energy of the earth.  I also know I need to "experience" this anxiety, which I believe to be connected to struggles in this life time and a past one (especially one in India 1500 years ago when I committed suicide by drowning; my daughter's soul now is my daughter's soul from that life time ... but that's another blog entry entirely).  So, in the vein of the 2 of Fire, I pursued some time to meditate, to pull back, which helped me to be grateful for all that I currently have and see that I am not trapped.  To apply the 3 of Fire, I have found ways to experience the four elements to help with my feelings, sitting under a fan in my office (air), swimming with my daughter at the pool (water), staring at flame while meditating (fire), and walking barefoot in my back yard to feel the grass and earth on my bare skin (earth).  These actions (fire) have helped immensely.


In the end, if you have made it to the end of this entry, I wanted most to share one of the practical applications I have for the tarot in my life, especially in times of deep crisis.  More than anything I have learned and continue to learn from my difficult journey; I can feel my old self, my "serious" self dying, and a new self being born.  As you can guess the death of one and birth of the other is not a quick or simple process; the one being released wants to hold on and the one being born is not so sure about this current world and its behaviors.  I can only say how grateful I am to have astrology and tarot as tools to help me, as well as, and more importantly the loving support of Betsy, my daughter, my parents, my friends and the wise professionalism of my psychologist and doctor.