Balance

"Yes, you just have to be balanced Andy, don't you?" snapped a staff member a few years. I was trying to explain why I had written his reference in the way that I had, and he wasn't at all pleased. I think it meant that he didn't get the job, but I had to provide the reality, the balance, in his reference, not to have done so would have been pretty reckless.

This all came back to me this morning as I turned two tarot cards that seem to be polar opposites, one speaking of the need for action, and the other speaking of the need for rest. As I first looked, I was confused, but then the truth of the situation soon became apparent. As a Hedge Witch I am called to 'stand between' - between the world, between light and dark, day and night, justice and injustice - I am called to bring that balance, and sometimes to actually be that balance itself.

I find it incredible that I turned these cards in the week that is taking me to the Solstice Point! That place of perfect balance.

We've been talking a lot recently on our blogs about perhaps thinking too much when we should be actually doing something, and I agree that if we all do is think, then nothing will ever get done. However, I am convinced that what we do, especially when we're talking from a spiritual perspective, should come from a place of rest, a place of calm, a place of deep conviction, experience, knowledge and spiritual power.

I was once involved with a local Goddess movement, and I really thought that this group had something. I soon became disappointed when I began to look closer at the centre of this group, because what I found was not a powerful spiritual centre at all, but a core of questionable motives and general mistrust, suspicion and fighting. The ceremonies and rituals conducted came not from a spiritual centre, but from this fractured centre, there was no place of rest at the core, so things began to falter.

This is what the two cards were saying very powerfully to me this morning. I can be so reactionary, I can leap before I think, speak before I think, move into a place of stress and lose perspective, when at my core what I need is this place of rest. This rest isn't passive and it isn't inactive, it's proactive. It brings growth and it brings action, but it brings these things from a hub, from a centre that is at peace with self and with the One Divine Life. It comes from a place of connection that is aware of that connection, living in that connection and experiencing that connection. Not from a spiritual neurosis, but from a spiritual centre - a reservoir of spiritual energy.

There are echoes here of 'the essence of me' being at the core of all I do, and this isn't about rushing and doing, it's about a sincere knowledge and awareness of self, true self, and of my own true will, and this comes from a deep and personal relationship with the One Divine Life as revealed to me by the Lord and Lady.

So many opposing factors vie for my attention and place demands upon me on a daily basis, but I can choose to operate from this place of calm and this place of calm is a place of strength. I can set the scene as opposed to being ruled by unfolding events, I create my own reality. I do not have to operate from a place of turmoil and angst, I can move from a place of calm that inspires growth and development.

So it is all about balance. Yes, I have to move, there's action to take, I cannot be inactive, but I move from a place of calm, a place of rest, and this is a place of assurance and confidence in who I am, who I am called to be and the tradition in which I have my roots.

This balance is a place of personal power.