Today’s card is from an oracle deck. It reminds me that I must stand my ground if I am to guard what is important to me. There are times when I will have to call on others for help as well. The horn in this angel’s hand isn’t in use, but there is potential.
Sentinel. The one who watches. This guardian’s job isn’t to attack. It is to stand and keep watch. And that is what I must do for my own happiness and emotional health. I have to guard my joy.
There is a type of person who looks for the good in everything and everyone. There is a type of person who looks for the worst and expects bad to happen. There is a type of person who walks a middle ground.
I’m not the last although I do try to be. I know bad shit happens. I took a pretty nasty fall yesterday that I am still suffering from today. But I’d rather focus on my good knee than on the bad if I can. Oh, I can wallow with the best of them. I just can’t allow myself to stay in the wallowing. If I do, I become unhappy. Worse, I get mean. And I don’t like mean people–myself especially.
So what I’m trying to get at is that we all have sharp, critical inner voices. When it’s a habit to be that way, it can color our world with unhappiness because nothing is ever good enough. How awful it must be to live like that. I mean, think about it. If nothing you do will ever meet standards (set by you or someone else), then what does it matter? Why keep on keeping on?
That depressed attitude…that “I just won’t keep trying” isn’t how I want to live my life. I’ll choose to be around people who see the good. People who seek joy. People who understand that unhappy things are just blips that go away. People who show me that they get what it means to chase their bliss.
Those are the sentinels I’ll gather up. Here’s to being a part of an army of joy seekers. Sentinels who will guard my back as I guard theirs. People who will remind when I’ve lost my joy and point the way to get it back.
Seek joy, y’all. It’s an urgent thing. Pass it on.
Sentinel, Graven Images Oracle, Galde Press, 2007