I want to introduce readers to the Tarot by pulling a card to meditate on from time to time. I do not use this process as a daily practice, but you can, especially if you are learning the Tarot. The card above comes from the Osho Zen Tarot, an Eastern Zen Buddhist influenced deck. It is good that this card is the first one I pulled because it shows the very different direction this Tarot deck takes from the traditional Western deck. In a traditional Western Tarot, this card would be the Hierophant (or Learned Scholar). In the West the pinnacle of the development of the mind is to "fill it up" (PhD's, JD's, and lots of other letters after your name). This cards shows that the pinnacle of development in the East is to EMPTY the mind. This card was a good draw for me and an excellent card to use to demonstrate the helpfulness of Tarot in your personal life.
Before I write about the specifics of my day and how this card proved helpful, let me point out that I prefer to use the cards as a psychological (and not psychic) tool. Others may use them in a psychic capacity, but I use them as, essentially, Art Therapy (or sophisticated pictograms). The cards present me with an image and a meaning (from the study of the deck) and I let my intuition take flight and see where I go inside myself, with the card or cards as my guide(s). I am a "practical" Tarot reader, and not a mystic. When I read for others I help them follow a similar process to get them to pay attention to the card and not me, the reader. So, here's my story with regard to this card today.
As usual, my day begins fairly early. I was up by 6AM and started blogging and visiting Facebook. In my home there are 3 children, my daughter, who is 5 and my friend's daughters who are 5 and 10. Her 5 year old pops up like popcorn at 8AM sharp, and was up almost 2 hours before her sister came down stairs. Not long after her sister came down, my friend came to tell me she thought she heard my daughter crying upstairs, but wasn't sure. I rushed upstairs to check on her and she was indeed crying. When I asked her what was wrong, she told me her leg was hurting and it was painful to stand. She was very upset and a little scared, so I asked her some questions to try to determine how it felt and were it hurt. She told me the front of her leg was bothering her and I could see a bruise from what looked like, most likely, a charlie horse rough housing with the 10 year old. As it turned out, they had been playing hard yesterday and she had actually cut the bottom of her foot. The cut did not look like anything deep, but it did have the appearance of a puncture and the leg that was hurting was the one with the injured foot. So, I'm concerned immediately about tetanus.
I ask my daughter if she would like to go to the doctor and have him/her look at her leg and her foot. She says she would, so off we go. Needless to say, my stress level is up a few notches wondering if she's going to be in need of a tetanus shot and if I missed something regarding her foot injury. My mind can go to some pretty dark scenarios pretty fast. We went to the doctor and they did confirm it was a puncture, but he did not see any debris in the wound or increased redness around the cut. He also agreed that the leg was most likely sore from a deep bruise or strain. He could not say 100% she did not need a tetanus shot though and left it to my discretion. Thanks, right?! I've chosen to observe her and see if the wound has any problems by tomorrow and if she starts to show signs of a fever. I suspect its just a basic cut and bruised leg. Even so, my mind was off and running.
So, when I drew the No-Thingness card, I knew I needed to empty my mind. From the book of the deck, "In the beginning is nature, in the end is nature, so why in the middle do you make so much fuss? Why, in the middle, becoming so worried, so anxious, so ambitious - why create such despair?" Why indeed did I create such despair even as I worked to find answers and the answer so far is just a little life ... a little cut, and run of the mill bruise on the thigh. Why couldn't I hold a lower level of concern until I had reason to hold a higher level of concern? I do not mean to imply that I wish I had not taken her to the doctor, but to question how I LET MYSELF FEEL through my thoughts as if she had tetanus already. It's not easy in a world filled with fear-mongering; we get conditioned to go to dark places before we even now if we need to go to dark places. It's a shame really. After I drew the card, I took some deep breaths, breathing out the negative assumptions and the worry.
My daughter has spent the rest of the day resting at home and playing gently, which is very hard for her. She likes to go, go, go, and go hard. She also informed me that "ice cream would make it feel better," which I am sure, it did :-).
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