Author: taraadmin

My life began in Tasmania and will forever be shaped by that simple fact. Living on an island has its own romance. Yet it also can be a world cut off by the very sea I loved, from the 'outside' world. This is the real reason I write: to create links between people. Current major work is a play written for the people of the Latrobe Valley, Dying For a Laugh. My other interests are poetry, minimalist biographies, very short stories, social commentaries, and on the back burner is a historic novel that awaits my return.
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TAROT READING FOR AUSTRALIA 02/04/2020 Part 3

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What Will Be On the Other Side of This:

We know from the first two parts of the reading, that Australia does not just coast through this global upheaval with a brave ‘She’ll be right mate’ and come out the other side unscathed. We know that there will be a collective suffering that will change us forever as a country. What we also know though is that this nation does have a core energetic response to crisis that will help us all. This nation is not naive. It is both ancient and young. After the worst passes and we begin to find our feet again, much will have changed for us on an individual, social and collective level.

We left part two of the reading with the pensive energy of the 7 of Pentacles. The enforced slowdown, probably lock down (not called at the time of writing) will have sent us all inward, to have a long hard look at life and how we live, what is important and what needs to be left behind.

The third part of the reading begins with the 6 of Cups. We have moved from the earlier confusion, mistrust and complex emotional responses of the 7 of Cups, through the experience and the sorrow and we have had a chance to reflect. The 6 of Cups is a nostalgic card, taking us back to earlier times, when life was simpler, where the cups contained daisies, symbols of innocence and not the nightmarish creatures of the 7 of Cups we began with. As the waters in the canals of Venice were able to settle and the silt sink and clarity return without the relentless movement of humans consuming experiences, so too is it with our emotions. We might realise how much we took for granted, how many things we believed to be important that actually were not.

Next to this card is the 4 of Pentacles. We began with nostalgia, the ‘you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone’ hindsight of the 6 of Cups. We will also have lived through some quite significant financial shock as our day to day, week to week existence threw our nonchalant ways in our faces. The 4 of Pentacles I sometimes see as a miserly energy; someone holds his or her wealth with a tight grip, feet planted on two coins, one over the heart and the other over the head and this certainly is one way to read this card here.

We know from history that experiences like the Great Depression of the 1920s leaves a collective psychic imprint of lack, to which we might respond by hoarding and holding tight to ‘stuff’ but the feeling I get from this card, is that we are going to know what we need to support ourselves, (coins under the feet) and we are going to know what true treasure is, (coin over the heart) and what is of real value (coin on our heads). I can’t help but smile, thinking that ‘corona’ means crown.

The following two cards are extremely positive. Wands is the suit of fire, of passion and life force. 6 is the number of success, communication, cooperation and harmony.

‘We are all in this together’ was our global hashtag reminder of solidarity and connection as artificial divisions crumbled under the relentless energy of the virus.

The final card is the 3 of Cups. Cups, in the element of water, relates to emotions and relationships while the number three relates to collaborative and creative growth. We will have learned a better way to relate to each other.

I think the hierarchical and patriarchal energies will have collapsed to be replaced with a very different way of being with each other. I certainly hope this is so.

So there it is, a tale of pain and change. I for one look forward to the new society that we create together.

 

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TAROT READING FOR AUSTRALIA 02/04/2020 Part 2

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What is ahead for our Nation?

We are going through major upheaval as a country, as a nation, as inhabitants of Earth and sometimes, the uncertainty is very difficult to deal with. This second reading hopefully, will help us to prepare for what is ahead.

For those of you who have not read part 1 of this reading, I strongly suggest you do, so that you are more prepared to read this. Here is the link:

https://www.taraacie.com/four-energies-tarot-reading-for-australia-02042020/

Before I go into this reading, I want to remind you of that at our very heart, Australia as a nation will not become victims to fear and all the chaos that fear creates. We have had our problems. The initial fear and shock brought out the dark angel in many, causing a bizarre raid on our supermarkets and stores in a fear induced coma of self preservation that left all of us stunned.

However, we are better than that and there will be stories of kindness and compassion emerging from these days that we can be much happier with.

We are going to need to find our better angels in the days weeks, perhaps even months ahead. We are going to need to find compassion for each other. We are going to need to be strong and find resilience. Remember, always remember, that no matter how rough the waters get around us, we can find and access the place of stillness within, the peace that bypasses all our human understanding. We have the fearlessness of the Fool and we are going to need it.

If Spirit uses hashtags they would be #weareallinthistogether and #thereisenough and possibly #focusiseverything.

The cards drawn are all swords. Swords are the element of air and relate closely to thoughts and communication.

The first is 2 of Swords. Blindfolded and with swords crossed against the body, the figure represents the situation we are now in. The blindfold suggests to me that we need to take our focus off the unfolding and relentless barrage of bad news. We all know how the media operates. Drama creates ratings but it also creates overwhelm and even despair if we take it in day after day. We have emergency alerts and daily updates. That actually is enough.

This situation is going to be a turning point for the media worldwide I feel, and it will be a very different entity as we emerge on the other side of this. But for now, turn off your televisions, disengage from social media, at least for part of each day. With that blindfold on, we can go inside ourselves and find a quiet place in which we can settle our minds. ‘Hold steady’ is the message I am hearing very clearly. It is not foolish to take your eyes off the horror. You know when you hear an emergency siren and you automatically find yourself looking? Don’t. Just don’t.

Two is the number for balance and harmony. See the way the figure is protecting itself in this posture? We too need to take the protective measures that have been brought in, seriously. Please do not fall prey to the ‘police state’ narrative. Write your own. If the term ‘lockdown’ frightens you, change it. Call your time at home a Staycation. Call it Safe Sanctuary. Write your own script. Protect yourself and do not be frightened.

The second card is one I am coming to think of as the ‘quarantine’ card! Four is the number of structure, stability and foundation.

Here the figure needs to retreat and to rest in order to be restored to strength. See also the swords are still there, but hanging in a row. They have been put down. Again, I hear the message to lay our our own swords (thoughts) down. Disengage and rest. Know this: in spite of all you see hear and feel, it is ok to rest, to turn off, tune out of the trauma frequency and to sleep. See the position of the hands? In the yogic tradition it is the Anjali Mudra, a direct way to take us into our hearts and out of our minds and to centre ourselves. How beautiful!

We need to engage in this self care. That the cards answering my question begin with the need to protect ourselves, to centre ourselves, to quarantine ourselves in our safe sanctuaries is important. I know the cards well and hear the message that I will not sugar coat. I say this with love and I say it with tenderness, but we need to realise that not all of us will come out of this alive, so live intentionally; keep bringing yourself out of your mind and back into your hearts.

The third card in this conversation is the 6 of Swords. Remembering that I am reading for Australia as a collective and not for individuals I see what lies ahead with an aching heart. The 6 of Swords is a tender card. The boat is leaving the shore. The figures sitting on the boat are bowed. The sorrow is palpable. Sorrow is part of the human experience. It comes to us all, one way or another. The swords point down in the boat are there as an acknowledgment of the deep sorrow that has been experienced. Deep sorrow becomes part of the very fabric of who we are. It gives us depth. This card appears when a person, or in this case, a nation has to finally move on from some loss or hurt that is still deeply felt but new shores call. Not all of us will be in this position. If we are not, then we can be the third figure in the image, the ferryman. We need to not only hold steady through this event, we have to be ready to help those who need us to keep the boat moving when they can not. This card always acknowledges the reality of suffering and the beginning of a new and better stage of this journey of life. We need to hold the vision and the destination and make sure that destination is reached safely. There will be much rebuilding to do.

The fourth card is 9 of Swords. We probably have all experienced this on an individual level some time in our lives; this tormented sleep, this constant replaying in our exhausted minds. Remember though, that 9 indicates the ending of a cycle. Our dear nation is not going to get through this unscathed. But the nightmare will end. Remember that.

The final card in this second part of the reading represents a deep reflection on all the practical aspects of the nation’s life. Pentacles is the element of earth. It concerns itself with all those important everyday aspects of life: our work, our finances, where and how we live. It is intensely practical.

Life post Covid 19 will not return to how it was before. We will not have endured it for nothing. Everything now is up for review and re-creation. And the character in this card has a gentle, thoughtful smile on his face. I do not think the fast paced, frenetic pace pre virus is one we will return to.

We will have learned to much.

I am reminded of the saying ‘Change happens for two reasons: either we learn so much that we want to, or we hurt too much not to.’

 

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FOUR ENERGIES TAROT READING FOR AUSTRALIA 02/04/2020

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Today I thought I would like to do a Tarot reading for Australia and share it with you all.

There are three parts to this reading so I will be succinct.

I began with drawing cards that show the major energies: two representing what at a conscious level assists us and what we need to know might trip us up and two cards representing the same but at a subconscious level. The spread has one central card that represents the country’s main energy at this time, which is The Fool. To those of you unfamiliar with Tarot, the main message of the Fool is being free of fear, which is a wonderful card in this situation.

It is not a Pollyanna fearlessness that the Fool represents, rather the freedom that comes when you are unafraid and trusting that the road will rise up to meet you; the energy of stepping into the unknown. Very briefly, there are two polarities in this situation; fear or love. One is helpful and one is not.

The surrounding cards show that as a country we are very aware of the realities. At a conscious level we are feeling grief, shock and sorrow, represented by the Three of Swords. We are also struggling with knowing we don’t know everything we want to: (The Moon). This is the card of mystery and I always see it as a blessing that the light is not too bright. Some things are too hard to look at with a floodlight and the moonlight is gentler. Be careful though as the subconscious can play tricks of you. Both cards are guided by the Fool. The Fool understands that the sorrow is real, hearts will be broken during this process but does not allow this to be crippling. The Fool also tempers some of the more difficult aspects of the Moon.

So at a conscious level, we are doing as well as could be hoped for.

Moving to the subconscious level, we have the Hanged Man assisting us. Even if we are not consciously aware of it, we recognise that we are in a difficult position and we know that ‘It is what if is’. We are to a degree helpless, but safe, if we don’t struggle. This is a time to be patient and there is something else that is sheer magic about seeing this card in this position for our country’s psyche. The Hanged Man is the archetype for gaining wisdom and enlightenment. Many of us are blessed with the chance to experience the world slowing down, stopping even. Even for those of us who still have to work (and huge gratitude and awareness of that sacrifice by the way) are experiencing a slowing down. In this slowing, this unfamiliar stillness, can be found all kinds of wisdom. I probably don’t need to dwell on that; I am sure we are all finding out what is important and what isn’t.

The energy to be aware of that may be a hindrance in our collective subconscious is represented by the 7 of Cups. The imagery in the Rider Waite Deck shows seven cups containing all kinds of strange things. The cups represent our emotions, seven is the number of reflection and analysis and together there is the very real problem of not knowing what is real and what is not.

This is when I think of all the competing narratives flooding social media. Its a bit like choose your own dystopian nightmare in many ways. Once again I am so grateful that at our core, we are a country that is inherently brave and optimistic. The Fool to me has a Christ like energy; wise but fearless no matter how dark the night.

This is only part one of the reading, but I will leave it here so as not to overwhelm you.

The next reading answers my next question: Show me what we as a country, as a community are facing. The third part looks into the highest possible timeline to see how this country of ours will fare. And as I finish writing part 1 I hear on the radio the lyrics… ‘Oh Sherrie, our love holds on, hold on’. So hold on people.

 

 

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TANGLED.

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This is a story of awakening.

Love which has an opposite, says Eckhart Tolle is not love, but entanglement.

Of course they were compatible, so long as they understood their roles. Hers was simply to adore and obey him. His was to monitor her to make sure standards didn’t slip and to reward or punish her accordingly.

Yet she was a free soul who had told him from the start it would never happen.

Obey? You are not a god.

Yet she made him one; such was the force of his expectations  and ability to spin gossamer chains and her own unseen need to abdicate all her personal responsibility. Deep down she knew. He was her little god. In truth she was used to handing her power over, in fact, she preferred to, and her words were only brittle bits of bravado. She had learned so young to believe she could grow in the shadows. Give them what they needed or they’d take it anyway.  Or worse punish her and reject her, then shame her for crying.

How she dreaded the rejection! The withdrawals, the confusion. I love you but you are difficult so I have to punish you. It’s really all your own fault. And no one came to teach her. The invisible programming ran deep and unseen, so she repeated the pattern over and over, holding on in quiet desperation, suffocating the very life out of what she treasured with her unconscious clinging.

He taught her that she didn’t have to think and she relaxed. He would explain it all. All she had to do was nod and rearrange her own flawed thinking.  Never need, never ask and most of all, never question.

And how she loved him, every inch of his complicated self. Every gesture.

Yet standards did slip. This and that hurts and disappoints me she would tell him, on those rare occasions where she she tried to speak truthfully.

I’m not responsible for your feelings, he’d tell her. If she argued the lecture would increase in length and volume and faster than lightning he’d grow cold and distant, withdraw his love until she learned that he was not to be questioned. He simply could not bear to be. It undid him in ways he could not survive. She knew this, yet made no allowances.

Your emotions are not logical he told her, the irony of his argument lost on both of them.

Like the only person who had ever suffered, his own wounds had shrunk him to an existence of survival. And he could not survive if he had to consider her needs and feelings. They were compatible. So long as she followed the unwritten rules of the function of her role.

I’m not a role! She begged for breath.

Not knowing how to stop this cycle, not even seeing the cycle, they healed and broke and healed again around each other, until he, no longer seeing his god like status in her eyes, suffocated by her need for him, grew angry and withdrew more, until finally, sick and tired of her incompetence at adoration, and desperate for air, cut her off and threw her away.

 

Deep inside her were other old wounds, not of his making. Finally alone with herself, broken beyond recognition, she searched for answers. Her search led her to see ancient wounds that had wormed right to her bones, through every cell.

She stayed there, eyes closed, clutching the beauty of her memories not yet ready to bear the grief she had slowed down but never stopped. Entangled beyond extraction.

‘You must make peace with yourself’ her doctor told her.

So what is it that is at war within me, she wondered, knowing that somehow he had been able to see into her heart, to that dark battlefield where she remained, fighting for something long gone.

And so it began.

 

~taraacie~

 

For help with working on untangling yourself within a relationship, this will be of interest to you.