(Note: I was clumsy and deleted the original post by accident. I managed to find the text again and repost it, but all comments were lost, I am so sorry for that! I had read & replied to each comment; they were much appreciated!)
I'd like to apologize for the depressing tone of some of my recent posts. I know it must be boring for others to read about someone else's journey in the dark... sadness and grief are solitary experiences, regardless of the amount of people you share your feelings with.
Because cartomancy is such an important aspect of my personal journey, I always try to see my experiences from the perspective of a reader. I believe that oracles like the Tarot and the Playing Cards are a symbolic synthesis of our lives... in learning from life, we learn about them. Cards gain new colors, new depths as our life is enriched by experiences, even when they are bad ones.
But knowing this doesn't make it any easier for me. I don't feel relieved or hopeful because I know this. Knowing things rationally helps you to maintain a drama-free perspective of the facts but it does not cure you.
The Four Queens wrote a very interesting post about how a person can get caught in asking Tarot the same question over and over again. I think we all agree that this is a damaging behavior. Usually brings no clarity or insight, keeps the painful subject alive and strong inside one's heart. Keeps one attached to the grief. Leads to stagnation. Looking back is important, but eventually one must look forward too.
As a reader I agree with all that she wrote. but as I sent her my reply, I realized that right now I am on the other side of the fence. In a sense, this experience of pain is helping me to understand what many people who ask for readings are feeling when they come to me desperate, asking the same thing they asked last week. I know because I have felt the urge to do this lately.... I control myself, but the impulse is here, inside me.
Some days are easier than others, but usually I wake up wondering why do I even bother opening my eyes. If this is the rest of my life, then please take me. It's a recurrent thought. Rationally I know my life will probably improve, but try convincing my heart of that. All it sees is a tunnel, with no light at the end.
I used to have a 'just move on please!' attitude towards other people's pain. I understood what they felt in a theoretical level and thought that I had to fix them. So I did all I could to help them to get better quickly and, when it didn't work, I became frustrated. Now I understand why it didn't work. My vision has changed; I have changed.
I understand now that when I want to ask the cards if he will return to me, it's not just about him. It's about me. It's a way of asking, will I love again? Will someone love me? Will I smile again? Will my heart be whole again? When I cry alone and let the memories repeat in my mind like a broken record, the tears are not just a tribute to his absence. They are for me. For my death, for the death of my innocence, for the death of my heart. I mourn his decision, but I also mourn myself. The self that I lost.
And now I can see this in others too. When they return with the same question, I feel their anxiety deeply inside myself and I know (even if they are not aware), that it's not just about the other. It's about them. They want to know how they can go on after being crushed. By insisting on the same subject, they hope that the cause of pain will magically cease to exist. Hopelessness does that you. It makes you feel that only a miracle can bring you back to life, and you hold onto that possibility of a miracle with all your strength. But that's not how things work. We must learn to give up of things we never wanted to yield, and this is a cruel lesson.
You don't simply walk away from it.
Perhaps the most difficult part in reading cards is helping the querent to see that. I am not saying that we must wallow in self-pity and never never take any steps towards recovery. But we have to understand that death takes its time... the blow may be sudden, but there's no mercy killer for the pain that follows. It's not helpful to simply assume the others aren't helping themselves and urge them to move on... even if it's the quickest solution, it it's not always possible. If their pain is real, then they haven't simply lost a person, a job, a dream, a situation. They have lost the hope of being whole, of trusting, of smiling again. They have lost parts of themselves.
I am not glad for what I am going through, but it has certainly made me kinder and more patient towards others.
Hudes Tarot © US Games Systems, Inc.
I don't know if this helps you at all, but I haven't found your posts to be unpleasant at all. I know that sounds weird considering the difficulty of the topics you're facing, but honestly I don't find them to be a drag.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I know this makes me sound like a big jerk, but I actually find constant cheerfulness to be more of a drain than expressing honest emotions (the painful ones, the strong, intense ones, etc) as they come up. If we only posted when we were feeling together, cheerful and calm--well, I don't think we'd learn nearly as much from one another.
So your blog is a healing balm for us, too, since we get that sense that you're human and we're all human together. You know what I mean?
Lots of Love. Mercy killing of the pain would be nice sometimes, though...hehee.
XO,
MM
Oh Hannah, thank you so much for this comment! You know, I am very happy that you think my sad posts can be helpful to others. I do not share my experiences here simply to vent or for the sake of making them public. For me, writing is a way to understand what I am living. And I always hope others can learn a bit from my words too, or at least feel that they are not alone in their doubts and dark times.
DeleteI think that sadness has to be lived, it's part of the human experience, but it must not be excessively dramatized. I try to not sound like a drama queen, believing my pain to be the navel of the universe.
Still, I am afraid that the constant sad tone will make people tired. If I cannot be cheerful sometimes I should at least write some neutral posts once in a while, LOL! ;)
Marina, I don't have much time to read blogs, but this post reminds me why I should sign up for yours. It's one of the best things I've read on a blog in years. Perhaps wisdom is never possible for our kind (the ever-seeking, ever-struggling kind---humankind), but if it is possible to approach it, you are approaching.
ReplyDelete"Approaching wisdom" is a lifelong enterprise, but certain people are more suited to it or capable of it than others. They are the people who both feel and think, people in whom sensibility and sense are combined. Those who "feel" deeply but never actively reflect upon those feelings will never approach wisdom; those who reflect endlessly without feeling may not approach, either, for, as you've learned and posted above, empathy can color our views and give us new eyes to see.
The depth of your suffering has been great because the depth of your mind and heart are great. All sentient creatures can suffer, but it sometimes seems that those who reflect and analyze the most also suffer more acutely, too.
I happened upon this post in reading a review you posted for the LS saints oracles, so perhaps I will not be entirely remiss in pointing to the New Testament tradition (Acts, 1 Peter, etc) of "suffering well." In 1Peter 4:12, the author writes: "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you."
Later, he tells us to rejoice in suffering, but that may be too much to ask when the suffering is not in service of one's God, of some godly ideal. But the bit that stands out to me is "as though some strange thing were happening to you." I expect suffering because it is built into the nature of existence; the complex brains we humans have are the source of our triumphs and the source of our turmoil, in that we have the presence of mind to recognize that we will and do suffer, that we will perish. This special knowledge is what spurs us to create and innovate, but it also can swallow us whole.
The distinction you draw between hopelessness and desperation is a particularly salient one. And yet, upon reading this "hopeless" post, I can't help but sense great vitality and renewal. How can this be? Perhaps the frozen, numbed part of the suffered soul (as opposed to the warmly, actively suffering one) has journeyed so deep into winter that it is incubating something far beneath, something deep in a hibernation that cannot be sensed on the surface. Only when the ice is abruptly cracked and shattered (perhaps by some violent Tower moment?) will that sleeping beast emerge in all its gushing, vibrant power and energy.
As you know, I had a very brief episode of suffering not too long ago. Whatever Peter meant by suffering well for Christ, I am convinced that I suffered well for my own sake. The temporal limits of the episode were short and closely bounded, but the vividness of the pain at the time impressed itself upon me, and taught me. That suffering WAS "strange" to me--foreign to me-- because I'd never experienced its kind before, and looking back, I am moved and almost thrilled by all I gained from its "strangeness," and from reflection upon it.
I haven't read your other "negative" posts (and I hope you won't stop writing them for fear of boring or repelling casual readers), but in reading this one, I believe you are indeed suffering well. Dare I urge you to suffer more, or at least progressively well? It's an odd thing to wish someone; "feel better!" or "I'm sending positive thoughts your way!" are more common, and more understandable. Yet, this is the message I feel you deserve, as you continue to feel pain and reflect upon it: you continue to suffer, and may you suffer well.
Chiriku
Hi Chiriku!
DeleteThank you so much for stopping by, and also for your very careful response to my post. I am very happy to know that you think I am heading towards wisdom... sometimes I feel like I am constantly bumping my heads into walls. But I am driven by an urgent need to understand what I live. For me it's not enough to experience - I must retain something of it. That's also why it's hard for me to 'seize the day'. I'm often going back and forth in my meditations about what is happening to me.
I simply LOVED the Biblical quote you shared, thank you so much! Life puts difficult things in our path to help us to build our character, our strength, our tolerance to pain and frustration. It humbles s, and helps us to connect to others, to be kinder to them in our moments of happiness.
I do think I am getting something out of all this. I refuse to believe otherwise, though some days still feel very bleak and hopeless to me. The more time passes, the closer I feel to an understand of what I am supposed to do... who I must become. Not because someone else told me to change, but because I cannot exist anymore as I used to be.
As Anaïs Nin said in her book, 'House of Incest': "When human pain has struck me fiercely, when anger has corroded me, I rise, I always rise after the crucifixion, and I am in terror of my ascensions". That is how I feel. I will rise, and though it terrifies me, I know it's the only way I can go.
Marina,
DeleteI'm glad you found the verse of some interest. I found that Nin quote of GREAT interest; thank you for sharing. Is ascension the only way we can go, though, really? It seems to me there are other ways, other choices we could make. Ascension is so hard, so hard. The entitled three-year old within me cries out, "But I don't WANNA! You can't make me!" Kicking and screaming towards life change, I go or am dragged. It hurts more to put up resistance; maybe the frozen, numbed way is the way to go after all.
I don't believe that life (or a higher power) puts trials in our paths for a reason, but I acknowledge that trials are the nature of existence, and believe that we can turn them into "a reason;" we can impart meaning to them through our reactions.
I'm going to go back and read your other "negative" posts. I am entering a period of acute suffering, one that I guessed was coming, given that the situation was a ticking time bomb from the start. Now the fuse has begun to burn and true suffering begins. Returning to the idea of life or the universe "putting" trials in our paths, I do not believe my brief episode of suffering earlier this year was "put" there as a warm-up to prime me for this new, far more intense anguish. But, I choose to give it purpose and reason--to perceive it as a warm-up, as something that has helped prepare me to suffer well during the true catastrophes that await me, that await us all.
"I cannot exist anymore as I used to be." Another interesting quote. This time from you yourself...
I stumbled on this post today, and found it strangely comforting. If it's true that misery loves company, then I feel just a little less alone after reading this. I have no idea what has proceeded this, but when you say, "If their pain is real, then they haven't simply lost a person, a job, a dream, a situation. They have lost the hope of being whole, of trusting, of smiling again. They have lost parts of themselves." I felt a small bit of relief that someone out there in the world understands that depth of pain and loss.
ReplyDeleteI'm extremely new to the pagan community, and it's much too long of a story to tell here. My blog is at paganquest.wordpress.com and I invite you to take a look. I'm facing a devastating life change/event and also renewing a long-forgotten interest in Tarot. I will also stop by here and peruse your blog as well.
Blessings.