Tuesday 23 September 2008

Restriction

I think most of you know that I start each week by turning 3 Tarot cards, and I use these 3 cards as a focus for my meditations for the week. I interpret each card with the other and use them as a kind of spiritual life coaching. It's a way that I am used to opening to Deity and through them I feel Deity speaks right into the heart of me. It's something I've done for some time now, it's even got to the stage where I am wondering whether I should begin to tweak and alter the way I spend time with Them before each day truly begins. It's something I've pondered for some time, but, for the moment at least, this is how I have been working.

This week the cards have been tough, and have challenged me to the core. I know that I've been growing of late, I have a real sense of spiritual development and I am aware of growing stronger, and closer to Source. However, this week there has been a strong word from the Lord and Lady of how I need to move forward if I am to continue this path and grow ever closer to Them.

These words are timely, as they have come with the arrival of Autumn Equinox. A time of growing introspection, a time of taking stock, gathering in, not retreating, but recognising growth and also doing some final husbandry. The cards this week have all been about this.

To be honest, and honesty and transparency is one the aims of my blog, I don't seek to present myself as something I am not, when I looked at them I groaned! I so wanted something lovely and fluffy, but no, not this time! I spoke of Air on my last entry, and Air can cut like a knife, a chilling blast that can separate flesh from the bone, and something of that blast has hit me with the cards this week.

Restriction has come up a lot for me this past year, and this week the cards have spoken of this once again. Restriction, but combined with self limiting, negative thought patterns, so the restriction comes not from external sources, but from within. There is something here around developing a keener, more attuned concentration, and a learning to filter out the negative rubbish that my chattering mind can bombard me with at times, and really see myself as I truly am. I've embraced so much of my True Self in recent months, and this is the truth about me that I need to invest in and feed - if that makes sense. Not in some kind of blind denial, but in a real and genuine intention to allow the light of my Higher Self to pervade all of me.

My trust and confidence in myself as a spiritual and magickal being has really grown in recent months, but the Lord and Lady have caused me to pause this week and check out, once again, just where that confidence is placed - is it in what I see as a growing ability, or is it in my relationship with Them. Relationship is part of the core of my spiritual path, and there has been something of a gentle reminder this week.

But then I turned the Tower, and to be honest, that floored me somewhat, as it's a card that has often spoken to me of destruction of something that I have been building, perhaps due to going off course. It momentarily confused me. As I paused and listened to the voice of the Lord and Lady I began to hear what it was they were saying, especially as I read the cards together, as they should be read. The message here was simple - don't underestimate my own intrinsic power. There was something here of taking up my own personal responsibility, but in way that recognises my own ability to create, and destroy, to build up, or to knock down - and this includes myself. As a spiritual and magickal being I create my own reality, I forge my own way ahead, so I cannot always point the finger when things go wrong, rather I have to examine myself, and see what it was about me, within me or of me that allowed that to happen - how did I leave myself open to that attack? If attack indeed it was. If something is not the way I want it or the way I think it should be, if it's causing an internal conflict or causing me to behave in a way or a manner that is not of my own true self, then something isn't right and I need to make it right, but I make it right not from some kind of brutal force, or effort, but from stepping into my rightful place on the web, and from operating from my true will - stepping into who I am.

So my restriction, my internal conflicts, my mind games, my mental conflicts come from me and my responses. It's a further and deeper call to see Source in and of all things and to respond accordingly, not from this body, this ego, but from my own true self.

This is a real challenge, a tough call, but it's part of the call to the deeper things of spirit.

5 comments:

Mary said...

Deep self-reflection takes us to dark places sometimes, doesn't it? On the surface, it seems so much easier to take the path of least resistance, to just ignore those Towers and Swords. But somehow Deity always seems to turn our attention to where it needs to be. Sometimes that comes gently, sometimes we're shaken.

Baring ourselves and becoming more transparent is so difficult! I can't do it on my blog (or maybe I can't and just won't?). I'm far more comfortable with fluff! When I'm writing, the only time I really feel that I'm revealing my true Self is in my poetry.

With the amount of chatter we're constantly bombarded with in our modern lives, it's a wonder that any of us can find that quiet, still reflective voice within.

Andy said...

I agree, Mary, we are bombarded with so much that our inner voice, the voice of Spirit, is so easily drowned out. I think we owe it to ourselves to find that space and make that time – how can we grow otherwise? Sometimes I feel so tired when I’m in my morning meditation, but each time something new comes to me. It’s always worth that effort.

And I guess we need the Towers and Swords! My path has always been one of transformation, of growing closer to Source, and at times it feels like I can actually feel those fires of transformation! It’s like being in Ceridwen’s cauldron! But again, this is a process that I would not want to miss out on. The growing pains can hurt, but I do want to grow and I have learned that no matter how clever I may think I am, there’s no such thing as a shortcut!

And poetry is a wonderful way of creative self expression, don’t knock it! You have a wonderful gift there.

Aura said...

The path of the priest/priestess although rewarding in so many ways is by no means an easy one is it? Times for deep introspection and seeing our shadow selves, working with that is a balancing act so it should be that it would come to you in your reading at the time of Equinox. Deity will show us just what we need to be shown even if we aren't so comfortable with it and perhaps that's the whole point, facing why it is we aren't comfortable with it.

I popped over here after posting my own blog about a dream and after reading your blog the timing of my dream and how I feel what I feel about it makes so much more sense!! Seems like facing our fears, our doubts and our true intentions is theme this equinox week? There really is a time and place for everything and the Deities seem to agree.

I absolutely love this : "just where that confidence is placed - is it in what I see as a growing ability, or is it in my relationship with Them." I want to ask people this now about themselves...

Andy said...

Yes, Priestessaura, it is a balancing act in the sense that I think part of my call as witch or magickal being, is to bring that balance into this material plane. You're also right about it being a timely reminder! I think the closer we get to Source, the more we see ourselves reflected and thus the work of transformation becomes more intense, as it were. So many times I have a feeling of 'being back at the drawing board' only to realise that this time around things are going deeper, and they need to be. My path is a living, dynamic, active path, so transformation, inner alchemy, will be a constant reality.

This is an exciting time for me. Things are really moving and I'll be posting about that in a day or so!

Anonymous said...

Andy,
You've given me much food for thought with this post. Of late, I have been faced with a few bumps in the road, and I have been thinking along the same lines as you have been in terms of "stepping into who I am" as you wrote, in order to deal with these issues in a way that will really resolve them rather than just postponing further conflict. Thanks so much for this thoughtful post.

On another topic, I want to thank you for letting me know that my blog has been difficult for you to read due to the color scheme. I hope you'll stop by again now that I've changed it up a bit and let me know what you think of the the new look.

Blessings,
Sabrina