Musing:Concrete, Chicken and Ants

lessonsAs a Tarot reader who coaches others through the cards, I have learned that there is always a lesson for me in each reading. Sometimes it is an image in a card — perhaps something in the background nudges my subconscious. Or my client will respond something that resonates in me. Often something comes to me out of the blue and I know that it is the Universe talking to both me and the person I’m reading for. And more often than not, I offer up my internal ETERNAL whine “But I don’t wanna think about that yet!”

For most of us, it is human nature to try to avoid unpleasant things.

Well guess what? I do have to think about it and I have to decide if I am going to be Chicken Little or the ant. I can see all of you shaking your heads and telling me there is no ant in Chicken Little. HA! Ye of little faith keep reading. And stick with me because this is one of Arwen’s rambling posts.

Now that I have you thinking about poultry and insects, let’s jump to construction, shall we? Dizzy yet? It is my firm belief that Tarot readings are not set in concrete. They are not stagnant. Simply put, Tarot readings must be fluid due to the very nature of the Universe. I have a standard spiel when talking to a new querent. It goes like this:

“The Tarot is not set in concrete. You can make changes if you don’t like something coming up. You are in control. Think of it this way. If you were driving a car and the map said ‘Bridge Out Ahead’, what idiot keeps driving, right? You pull the car over and you look for another way. You CHANGE what you are doing.”

That’s very important when considering a reading. Look for another way. If you do a health spread (and Arwen doesn’t do health spreads, y’all) and the Tower shows up, you have two choices. You can do the Chicken Little routine running and screaming about the inevitability of your health doing a total dive on you. Or you can change that outcome.

BUT ARWEN! I can’t change the cards! The Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuniverse put it there so I just have to suffer through, right?

Whoa. Victim Check — Aisle Inner Self please! (That’s me paging the Universal stock boy to your inner attitude because baby, it needs some cleaning up!)

Of course you can change it. Or at least alter–prepare–get ready. Instead of Chicken Little you can be the ant from The Grasshopper and the Ant. Yeah, yeah! I hear all you groaning out there. Hush. The ant knew winter was coming so he prepared by making sure his daily routine included getting ready for the inevitable. He put something aside for that proverbial snowy day.

Hey look! I got back ’round to the poultry and insects, didn’t I. Told you so! When I get a lesson from the Universe via the cards, my mouth or my customer’s mouth, I pay attention. It’s a little survival trick I’ve learned over the years. I can change my actions when I see something coming up. I can change my patterns when I see something repeating itself. The real trick is actually learning the lesson, not just recognizing that there is one.

What lessons have you gotten from the Universe lately? Are you listening or are you sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming “LALALALA HAPPY PLACE HAPPY PLACE” as loudly as you can?

bridgeout

Let me know how that works for you, okay?

3 thoughts on “Musing:Concrete, Chicken and Ants”

  1. I always gave a similar disclaimer. Mine ran along the lines of:

    “The future is not carved in stone. The cards can point to things that you may not be aware of and can tell you what is likely to happen based on past and current events. You have the power to take control and make changes to the present if you don’t like the indicated future.”

    (It’s been a while since I did readings for the public, but that’s fairly close.)

  2. And mine was something like: Tarot is like a river, it has a strong flow in a particular direction. If you jump in and just float, you will end up downstream in the direction of the flow, whether you like it or not. However, if you jump in and don’t like what you see downstream, you can turn around, put in an effort, and swim upstream against the tide. It will be a lot harder, a lot more work because the tide will still try and drag you downstream, but you can do it. You just have to work at it.

    I have one particular regular client who always ends up in tears because her life doesn’t change; I keep saying to her: what you’ve been doing for the last 12 years obviously hasn’t worked for 12 years. So it’s going to continue to not work. If you want a different outcome, you have to make different choices and take different actions. Well, guess what …

  3. I think it very important to make sure the client understand that they have Free Will. I have told them that when you have a reading the influence it may have on their life is that it can cause them to look where they have not thought to look before. That the cards allow them to explore beyond normal perception which can help them gain a more positive outlook, and facilitate a greater understanding of themselves and their situation and in turn, empower them to make a better choice for theirself.

    I also remind them that the cards will show what the possibilities are but to remember that we also have free will, so those possibilities are changeable and depend on the choices we make. In other words our future is always in our own hands, depending on what actions we take today, they create tomorrow for us.

    So when they cards show something that is not necessarily desirable I also look to see how the cards could suggest to them an alternative point of action – then the choice is theirs to decided which direction they wish to take.

    Helen´s last blog post..Bohemian Gothic – 4 cups

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