Helplessness or a Choice...

Marriages are made in heaven and you can’t choose where you are born. Old adages which point us towards the helplessness of our fates, and unravel the control we may wish to have over our destiny. So the big question then is, are we that helpless or are these choices we make? If you care to read Brian Weiss’s ‘Many Lives and Many Masters’ – he claims that the soul in its afterlife chooses to be born into specific lifetimes to learn the lessons that it needs most, to move towards ultimate assimilation into the universe – nirvana or salvation as life describes.

The tarots are not silent on this either – the tarot card the World is nothing but a sorting of the chaos and conclusion of cycles of learning. It is a state where you stay suspended in the glory of peace and abundance and enjoy the fruits of having completed a long arduous journey. The fool in its search for this ultimate merging with the universe has lost much and gained wisdom through that loss, he has learnt to use that wisdom to temper his choices and actions, he has died and reinvented himself into a new being and finally arrived at this destination. It is now his time to rest and enjoy the fruits of his labor and bask in the wondrous world of wishes fulfilled. Isn’t that the ultimate goal for all of us in all pursuits in our life?

So how then do we explain our failures to ourselves? The challenge lies in what we describe as a failure… For Rayisa, her failure lies in the grief she carries within herself. An inexplicable heart wrenching, ear splitting screaming grief that wells up most suddenly and unexpectedly. In a perfectly happy moment when she is surrounded by the warmth of love and belongingness, the grief storms into her heart and she begins to feel as if a giant mill stone is pressing down on her chest threatening to push the last breath out of her lungs. She begins to believe that she is all alone and ill fated and even her happiest moments are tainted by the all engulfing pain she has carried within her self.

Rayisa is not alone in this feeling. Many of us share this aloneness we carry within us, which differentiates us from the rest of the seemingly “happy” world. The reasons for this grief can be several; once again a loss of someone you dearly loved, the pain of separation/betrayal by a loved one, just coping with the tattered remnants of a failed relationship or the sheer grief of a robbed childhood, but the grip this shattering emotion has on us is pretty much the same for all the situations described above. The grip is so strong and so enticing that it colors how we perceive the world.

Such is the dilemma that faces Rayisa. In the last decade or so she has visited many a healer, pranic and otherwise, consumed kilos of sugar, tried binging and then alternately starving, crying copiously and then chasing a high life in the hope of numbing the grief she carries within herself. Needless to say she has succeeded – she is anesthetized, she enjoys life to the full, keeps herself busy and is very happy with whom she has turned out to be. But the grief within her has a few tricks up its; every time she is happy she feels something is missing from her life – as if she misses a certain part to herself. She begins to feel dull and just a little less alive. Then comes a cataclysmic event – something that upsets her life and creates upheavals in her otherwise peaceful existence – she is overwhelmed by the circumstances and overcome with distress, natural and otherwise. But to her surprise she feels whole again, she is alive and in a strange way at home. This is familiar ground for Rayisa – an emergency situation she has been trained to cope with… her senses are sharp and adrenalin is pumping. She is ready to cope with what life has to dole out to her even if it is harsh. Such are the games that our emotions can play with us.

Would it be fair of Rayisa to call her life a failure just because she carries grief within her heart? Does it mean that Rayisa will only be whole when miserable? And does it finally imply that she should hate herself for feeling the way she does?

Let’s see what the tarots have to say for her. They say simply, be like the fool – allow yourself the chance to make a fresh new beginning yet again, again and again, no matter how many chances it takes without judging yourself as a failure. No one has been able to make themselves feel better by deriding themselves – the only way is to engage in those things that make you approve of your own self for now – those simple things like reading a book, a drink with friends, or just a warm bath, that give you joy. Remind yourself that this devilish grief belongs to a cataclysmic event in your life – whatever that may be – and is a revisit to the past.

Does that mean that there is no problem to deal with currently? Of course there is – the death card points her to a challenge she needs to face and accept in her present life. She is terribly angry with her husband for not being able to stand up for her time and again in offending situations. She knows he has difficult issues to deal with – but does that mean she is not allowed to be angry? But the cards tell her not to worry – the world has appeared followed by the ace of coins. The world that signifies the settling of all chaos and the ace of coins pointing to a fresh new beginning! The cards are telling her – differentiate between anger with your current circumstances and the grief you can feel in your heart. The intensity of pain you can feel when faced with an upheaval is not commensurate with the reality of the circumstance. Such is the cross people like Rayisa have to bear.

Can Rayisa hate herself for this seeming failure? She has a choice – she can choose to be helpless when faced with this circumstance and hate herself even more, or she can actually just accept herself for who she is. The question Rayisa has to ask herself – who is actually judging her for being who she is? The answer will provide a clue to how she will resolve this. Some people around her perhaps, or maybe the amorphous society at large? Some of these are people who don’t really matter and whose opinion bears no value in her life, yet there may be some who influence her life.

The truth lies in the fact that many such people carry the burden of grief themselves, scratch the surface and there will be an outpouring of lava, and because they are judging themselves harshly for carrying the lava within they will judge Rayisa similarly. Yet others who may seem perfectly at peace are just numb to their own condition, and Rayisa’s forthright acceptance of her own grief threatens to disturb their carefully balanced and fiercely guarded anesthetized state. Naturally she is to be judged and derided.

I think what the tarots point us towards is real mental health and true healing provided by the temperance card. The healing which accepts you for who you are, the strong with the weak, and allows you to be at peace with oneself, not the precarious balance of the two of swords which can be unbalanced by the mere hint/glimpse of reality. Those who are happy within never feel the need to judge others for their crosses and extend the same kindness to others that they do to themselves.


So, she knows that she does carry the burden of grief – but the world indicates that it will pass – there will be a resolution – but in the meantime she needs to be kind to herself. She has to learn to approve of the helpless, fragile and sensitive Rayisa as much as she does the Rayisa who loves to live life to its full. Only then will Rayisa have come a full circle and completed her journey from the fool to the world.

lost souls...

At one time I believed that all the lost souls were drawn to me like a moth to a flame. I could walk into a gathering and many a pair of searching eyes would zone in on me and there I would be engaged in a disarming conversation with some of them. I thought it was a special talent. It was the ability to provide unconditional acceptance and support that made me who I am. The lost souls would find a sanctuary like no other and never before, and draw from my strength to become bigger and better. Little did I know that rather than a talent it was a quality that was seriously detrimental to my well being? This very talent I needed to recover from to make me stronger within my own self. Yet again it was the age-old suspension of my being clamoring to be a whole. The lost souls resonated with that suspension and were enveloped in its chaos. This synchrony instead of making me feel stronger only served the purpose of splitting me further apart.

Let me introduce you to some such souls. The magician; I met the magician when I was 15. With his silver tongued demeanor he painted the vision of the upright solid gent who forced all others into a faded comparison. Just his strong shining presence paled the rest of the world into a faded yellow. With my very own chaotic suspension, his apparent solidity helped me imagine that I depended on him for support. But true to himself, there he was, the master manipulator – who specialized in helping you believe things that others saw as apparent lies. So strong was the presence that I spun a world of fantasy around myself and him – a fantastic, him-centric world that did not really exist but was designed to make him feel stronger than ever. He drew from my imagined and real world its life blood and slowly and steadily helped erase the boundaries of my security. Frankly I only had myself to blame for the miseries I brought upon myself.

She sought me in a group of the le miserables. She the eternal clinging twine completely absorbed the essence of my need. We were two kindred souls intertwined by our blues. Needless to say we were inseparable. Our inner selves, our experiences in childhood, our emotional chaos all congealed into one large gelatinous mass that threatened choke all the reality of our lives. So strong was the bond that even our miseries became one. I regretted my better circumstance and tried my utmost best to provide what I could to make up for what fortune had favored me with. But it needed to be a timed relationship because reality cannot survive this fusion. Even if one is conjoined, individuality and its demands exert there pressure on the relationship. Both wish to negotiate their own perspective and the lines of “either my way or the high way” are drawn.

He was the spoilt, golden prince and he loved to be loved. And so I like many others did just that… adored him; I loved him till my heart broke into two. I loved him so strongly that I couldn’t separate myself from his wishes. And then we became adults. The golden prince could not find the missing pieces to himself. He had many encounters with the Hierophant and its guidance/assistance to access the various parts to himself, but he was too afraid to look into the compartments within his soul lest one of them turn into the proverbial Pandora’s box. As for me – I could love him no more. My grown self could not help but realize that there was no chance of completion from a source which was so fragmented by itself. The Hierophant could not be the strong man or the emperor of my life. I had no option but to nurse my disappointments and make a curtain call.

The list of lost souls I have been fused with is endless but here is one more that deserves a special mention. She is the Queen of the Universe or so we all believe. Her regal ways and commanding airs have a clear impact on all of us. We all dance to the tune she plays. We dance and we dance till the soles of our feet bleed and the sweat pours of our backs. We bend over backwards, we bend over front forward, we laugh and we joke, we cry and we cajole, we hurt and we forgive, we beg and we plead and it goes on and on like the whirling windmill buffeted by the strong winds of her command. And we never tire. Till the Strong edifice, the Queen is strong no more. Our hearts break to see the object of our slavish reverence so crestfallen only to realize that we have still to continue the never ending dance of subservience.

Do we grudge her this in her hour of need? Frankly No. At least I don’t – My heart breaks every time I see the Tower fallen and the power wrested from the Queen and I wish that she would be the Queen of yore again. But what of the ministers that surround her. They in their otherwise impoverished state maybe ineffective but today have reared their ugly heads for who they are. They have surrounded us with negativity of manipulation, deceit and surreptitiousness. The otherwise subservient minions have today changed the culture of the kingdom to that of insidious means. I am naturally forced to think – which one did I prefer the absolute dance of slavery or this manipulative murky mulch that seems to engulf all in darkness. Frankly I do not have a clear preference.

On our journey through life we meet all kinds of people – some whole and some lost. But it is the LOST souls that leave an imprint in our memories. Ever wondered why? I have come to the conclusion because their apparent weakness resonates with something within us. We are drawn to engage with such people because we find the same lost vestiges within us. The tarots have always prescribed that the path to salvation is to embrace the strength with your failings. No one can hope to move on in life without confronting and accepting those demons.

So I have a choice here – I can choose to talk about them with hatred and hurt that they have caused me with their actions or embrace them as a part of my life that taught me lessons about myself. Of course, embracing does not mean exposing yourself to the same pattern of hurt again and again, rather learning not to repeat the same mistake and protecting your self from self inflicted flagellation and pain. My uncle recently told me – life is governed by a 90-10 rule. We have as little as 10% control over the things that happen to us but have 90% control over how we react to those circumstances. By managing our reaction we can therefore hold our fate in the palms of our hands.

So my inner dialogue can be – “No matter what circumstances are currently impacting my life, they are less important than how I react to them. Accordingly, I have a lot more control over what happens next than you realize. Instead of trying to demonstrate my survival skills or self-sufficiency to anyone else, I need to focus on strengthening my own foundations. It's not about what others think; it's about my integrity.”

I began writing this with a song that exemplifies LOST SOULS for me and so I end with it.

“How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl,
Year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.”
Roger Waters - Pink Floyd

when deafness surrounds you...

Our entire generation goes misty eyed about the song “The Sounds of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel, which talks about human dependence on technology robbing real communication between people. So true, but something I am also supporting through this blog. But today I am thinking about a slightly more perturbing predicament – imagine a surreal situation where you are screaming in a room full of people surrounded by voices, chatter and the clinging and clanging of real life, but no-one can hear. You scream and you scream, your face turns purple, your breath runs out and the shrillness of your own screeches in your ears makes you fear the cacophony you must be creating, but all those around you continue about their chores as if you and your sounds do no exist. In short, you are surrounded by deafness. Doesn’t it sound like the scary reproduction of B grade horror film – I am afraid I will have to disappoint you, this is real.

Meet Rani, she will tell you about herself. She is a 15 year old very fierce young girl, very smart and way ahead of other students in her grade. She has an idyllic home, loving parents, a sister and doting grandparents. All outsiders who look at her talk about, how she has all that she possibly could want! And she does… Scratch the surface and you will find pain in the young girl’s eyes, why? Rani’s parents encourage their children to talk to them, and so Rani shares the adolescent realities of her world with them.

She tries to talk about the pressures she faces in life, the terrible struggle to stay popular in her school, the social pressures of conforming to the traditions of her family, the do’s and don’ts of good behavior, keeping up the style quotient, her troubles with boys, her emotional upheavals – you name it and she has tried. Each time she opens a little core of her being she finds herself facing judgments and analysis that does not make sense to her. Keeping up with the Joneses is so important in her family that they forget to accommodate for the blossoming eccentricities of their daughter. So much so, that only those opinions and sharing are validated that fit in with their world view, anything slightly different is dismissed as irrelevant crazy ravings of adolescent hormones. Despite having everything she could possibly desire, Rani finds herself getting alienated from her idyllic home.

She soon finds herself feeling run down, ill and racked with weird anxieties and phobias. Her parents are naturally concerned, but after the doctor assures them that Rani is physically fit, they dismiss her illnesses as psychosomatic symptoms of adolescence. For a family that believes in love and support, they can only extend their deafness to their special child.

Rani grows into a strong young woman who has internalized the deafness that surrounds her by being an aggressive person with a distinct difficulty in listening to others herself. She carries that anger within her and extends it to others through rejecting their pleas for a real connection. She works as a really successful career woman in a bank, but is not known for her compassion.

Rani meets Saroj at a club. Saroj is a typical suburban mom. Busy with parenting her little son, they meet at the swimming pool on a weekend and become great friends. They soon discover that Saroj is Rani’s colleague’s (at the bank) wife. Saroj looks forward to coffee weekends with Rani, she feels that Rani’s intensity compliments her milder view of the world. Soon they are really close friends and share confidences with each other.

Saroj’s soothing manner calms Rani and allows her an opportunity to listen to someone else for a change. She sees her friend’s wonderful happy little home and is a little wistful that she has never attempted such a life for herself. They both often laugh that for two people from worlds so far away from each other, they seem to get along so famously.

One day Saroj tells her that her beautiful family is not so wonderful after all. Her accomplished husband and she have experienced great difficulty forming a bond. An overly interfering mother-in-law has prevented the young couple from having a moment of peace. There marital life has been so strife torn that they have not been able to forge that trust that spouses should share before they have their offspring. Saroj’s mildness of manner and conventional upbringing stops her from leaving her home and child. She attempts to explain time and again to her husband, that they should distance themselves just a little from his family of origin and find space for their marital life. But his overwhelming filial love prevents him from seeing sense. Saroj is afraid that this will adversely affect her son and his psyche.

She has tried to communicate this difficulty to her mother in law and their family, but ends up getting adjudged as just “different’ and ‘troubled’. Instead of helping the young wife they end up encouraging their son’s behavior as normal and Saroj’s behavior as ranting of a mad woman. As long as Saroj, tows the line and never every questions the rationale of the family she shall be a good human being else, she is a sinner and a person to be shunned. Support be damned to hell, she ends up being the odd freak to mistrusted and doubted at all times. Despite being in a family she ends up being alone.

Rani hears Saroj’s story and realizes – what they have in common? What is that bond that draws them close? Why despite all the freakish differences they end up finding solace in each other’s company – they share the same distress – the distress of having been surrounded by deafness. Screaming and screaming yourself hollow, to have someone hear but no one does. Why – because people around them do not wish to hear anything that disturbs their own construct of reality, any stimuli which will make them question the logic of their actions threatens to disturb the carefully balanced house of cards they have created for themselves. They have sold their soul to their own ideas and can only hear sounds of silence.

“And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls"
And whispered in the sounds of silence”

Rani listens in wonder that despite being a sufferer of similar circumstance both their reactions to life have been so definitively different. She shares her story with Saroj – this is perhaps the first time she is telling someone. Saroj hears her and is shaken that her friend with a predilection for strong words and strong statements could be actually hiding a vulnerable child underneath. She convinces Rani – that they should pay a visit to a Tarot healer she has heard of for guidance. Rani who is pretty dismissive of such an idea initially, gives in to her friends wish and decides to accompany her albeit with severe doubt about the worth of such an endeavor. Here’s the guidance that they both receive from the tarots.

Saroj’s Reading

The first layer of her reading says simply – Saroj is coping with severe disappointment at the hands of her family, though a path will soon appear to help her forsake her disappointments and move away from unrest. The cards advice her, to be strong and adamant in the face of adversity and to stand steadfastly besides herself. Any hurried flurry of action can result in the misbalance of the carefully balanced swords. She is living holding her emotions tightly in control and any desperate and impulsive act will only succeed in disturbing her sense of balance.

The second layer focuses Saroj on a simple fact – judgment day is near. “The Angel hands the Fool a small trumpet. The Fool is hesitant, but he knows that this is a final decision. Either to go forward, or stay where he is. He blows, and the trumpet's song echoes across the sky, its vibrations seeming to crack open the Earth. From under the Fool's feet, memories rise. Images of his innocent youth, challenges, loves, failures, losses, success, disillusionment and wisdom. For the first time, he does not try to leave them, ignore or forget them, but accepts them”. Judgment tells her that a moving will only happen if she lets go of the hurts – destiny will deal with those that have harmed – and to feel mercy for herself and others (temperance).

She can find solace and wellness in her strengths – the conversations she has with her friends (page of wands), the appreciation she receives within her group of friends and in society (the 3 of cups), the hard work she is capable of – maybe even try a new opportunity for work and the creativity she has within herself (ace of wands). Embracing these strengths she will regenerate and renew herself. She will provide self nourishment to herself (the empress).

Once she does that justice shall have its day – those that have harmed shall pay dearly for the harm done unto her and her relationship with her husband shall be restored to what it should have been – she will find complete love (2 of cups).

Rani heard and it thought to herself – something any psychologist could have told her. And then it was her turn. She wanted to test the tarots – without telling the reader about herself – get a reading which would help her.

Rani’s reading
The reading begins with the advice – “take hurried action – do not deliberate too much act on an impulse and find a counselor/therapist or a healer to consult with. This is a journey you cannot make alone.” The cards advice Rani to find help through a trained professional who will help her move towards finding love – to find the blessing that we may allow love to flow into our lives. Above all Rani needs to learn to allow herself to be loved – her logical/rational mind overrides her vulnerability – she will definitely need to help to accept that about herself and then feel safe to let others see it.

The second step tells her to show mercy (temperance) to herself and others – to be less harsh in her judgments of other people and reality – to move beyond the betrayal (7 of cups) that her family’s deafness has meted out to her. Once she does that the star will restore her hope for love (refer my earlier post on betrayal for the complete meaning of the star). She has already lost her childhood – she now needs to change the inherited spectacles she uses to look at life and develop a new perspective that comes from wisdom and having survived trying circumstances (hanged man). Only when she gives up her attachment to the earlier way of judging others will she find peace. When faced with adversity in childhood we tend to absorb it as a part of our identity; which them becomes a construct to be questioned.

The last part of the cards deliver a more trying message for Rani – she needs to work hard at managing both her confident and the dark side to herself (chariot). It is a struggle that will not come easy. She will only be able to win the battle through determined effort and realization that it is in times of uncertainty (the moon) that her instincts kick in. She needs to watch herself in insecure situations and learn to accept that she may be vulnerable and that being deaf and aggressive to others view is only one way to dealing with it. The message of love she has learnt from the ace of cups and temperance, in the first part is another manner of dealing with uncertain times.

Given all that she has the full potential of developing into the independent, successful and peaceful individual like the queen of pentacles.

The drive back home...
Rani and Saroj are amazed – they have a lot to think about. The tarot readings have provided the guidance they needed. They ride home in silence. It is needless to say that they will certainly think about this at every alone moment they find.

They have both tried to tell others what they really wanted – a hearing – in more ways than one – but the one thing they forgot to provide – extend that hearing to their own selves.

"Fools", said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you
" But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the wells of silence…

do they see your love...

I have been toying with the idea of what to write about for the past few days. Love is always easy, for a person like me who has toyed with it, grappled with it and suffered as well with it, there is always, a load to say. But I am going to change course this time and write about a lecture I have been delivering for several years now at various schools in Delhi. Career choices – or the lack of choices thereof!

In between, working with others and setting up my own training firm, I worked with a dear friend, on a project very close to our hearts. Helping young people find out what they would like to do. We called it Playshops – it was aimed at helping young people discover aspects of their own talents they had as yet not experienced. We based it on the concept of Multiple Intelligences, a brain child of Dr. Howard Gardner, someone I have always been impressed with. Several such workshops and programs have sprung in this country since but what stays in my mind is the experience of the kids.

As adults, teachers and parents we are very well versed and acutely aware of our experiences & feelings about our children’s choices. The most relaxed and the unstressed parent/guardian has only one summative assessment of this discussion – uncertainty, helplessness and feeling out of control. In one simple word severe ANXIETY. Loud and clear, overwhelmingly so… It is this anxiety about our own helplessness that makes us react in various ways to our children’s choices.

Some of us try to talk and advice our children, some others enroll them in additional coaching, sports, music, dance, art, drama, etc. etc. the list in endless; while yet others try to control TV watching time, on the phone time, face book time, yahoo messenger time, study times, even sleeping times. Frankly whichever route you follow, however cool you think you are, it finally is all about coping with anxiety, and that too our own. This does not mean that we should stop doing what we do as parents, even if I were to suggest, so what? We would not be able to help ourselves. Our concern for our offspring is a nature’s way of telling us that we are parents and it is or job to ensure that the offspring flies away from the nest. So what then can be done to help us? Well, let’s take the first step.

For a brief moment let’s forget about ourselves and think this from the other protagonist’s point of view. Let’s hear our children speak. I am basing this on my work with several adolescents in the past years and of course my own teenage years. I am going to tell you the story of Firoza.

Firoza is a passionate young girl, who loves her dreams and fantasies. She loves her friends, her parents, her sibling and of course her school. She also loves to hang out with her friends, go for movies, and appear cool. It is very important to her that people should appreciate her for who she is but in the heart of hearts she does not really have a grip on who that Firoza really is. In fact she is looking for her. So if you can provide her with an experience that will bring her closer to that truth she will be attracted to you.

She believes that her parents are afraid that she will fail in a multitude of ways – not secure enough marks to get an admission into a great college, maybe not be offered the right choice of subjects in school, will fall in love with the wrong guy and fritter away precious years in frivolous pursuits. She is acutely aware that people watch her and she performs for their benefit. She mirrors what she sees in their eyes. If she sees derision she plays out her worst self, if there is anxiety she will play the devil’s advocate and if there is cynosure she will be defiant. But, the minute she see love and appreciation, she will dissolve into the beautiful little baby you first held in your arms and demand the same love and attention that you are so desperate to give.

The truth is she is extremely sensitive to your dialogues. Firoza came to me for a reading; I met her some years ago at a program and have always felt close to her since. She asked me to find out what her mother and father felt about her. A strange request–I asked her what do you think? – She replied – “of course they love me – but I want to know what they think about me?” The cards were spread – the empress and the 4 of cups followed by the high priestess and the hierophant.

The story was simple her mother loved her with the unconditional, nurturing love of the empress and was an important figure in her life but as yet she felt bored and unsettled (4 of cups). She had a lot going for her in her life symbolized by the 3 cups in front of her and more was being magically offered by the hand but inner discontent prevented her from being able to see it effectively. The high priestess stood for potential as yet undiscovered and a need to develop powers of intuition and natural insight. This clearly indicated the need for her mother to transit from being the nurturing provider alone, to being an “unobtrusive guide” who would help her on the journey of self discovery. This is much like the counselor who helps you hear your internal dialogue without allowing her own personality and reactions to come in the way. The hierophant’s role was that for her father to be a rather more obvious guide or a teacher who would help her make choices without attempting to control the outcome.

I remember this reading as I introspected – how in much in contrast this is to our own methods for controlling the environment for coping with our ANXIETY.

Coming back to Firoza, the cards asked her to address her anxiety through the 8 of swords. They advise that fear of unknown is worse that the fear of a real fear. So we embarked on this exercise – Let’s name it. She made a list of all her fears, here’s what she came up with:

Fear of:

1. Death,
2. Stomach upset,
3. Inability to stay popular,
4. Not being able to hold attention,
5. Not being liked,
6. Being misunderstood,
7. Love and being in love,
8. Loss and partings,
9. Rejection,
10. Being dismissed,
11. Losing people,
12. Being clingy,
13. Being angry,
14. Being hurt,
15. Being aggressive,
16. Trying too hard,
17. Talking too much,
18. Having to explain myself,
19. Having to fight, and
20. Losing when up against someone else.

Are you surprised, no shocked that such a little person can feel so many things? There’s more in store. The tarots went on to advice her to explore what she wanted from her parents specially her mother.

Here’s what Firoza said: “My parents are a part of my life in a million shreds. Their opinions and their voice are a part of my being. There are just those little bits of myself fused with each of these million shreds of my parent’s wishes that just hang together in suspension. These shreds function in a synchrony to make me who I am. If there is a disagreement or a conflict with my parent the synchrony gets disturbed. In fact it is they who have taught me the rhythm to this synchrony. Is it that impossible then to believe that the very thought of being in a disharmony with them can separate the shreds of my being?”

And here we are as parents doubting the impact of our words on our children. Firoza is clearly telling us that above all she likes harmony. In fact she needs to be in harmony. So whatever you may do – career choices, choice of subjects, moral dilemmas – help her keep her balance and be the high priestess to her confused mind. Let her find those little bits of herself in the suspension so that she can soon become a whole.

The tarots always end on two counts – a child is like the fool card. An adolescent is like the Greek God Dyonysus, the god of free spirit, an over-turner of bounds of tradition and restriction. He is like the child discovering life for the first time. He is trusting, innocent and ignorant of the travails that await him and as yet ready to take a leap of faith into the future. Walk with him and you will surprise yourself by what you learn as he travels the path of knowledge, development and self awareness.

As Firoza summed this up beautifully – “I know I want to be a Firoza who stands for the Tarot Cards the Sun, the Star, the Moon and the World! I want to be a person capable of unbridled love – Firoza is a beautiful color – my color that is feminine, happy, charming, ever hopeful and supremely confident. Though I don’t want to be Firoza the stone – because stones are opaque and unmoving and I am translucent and fluid with God alone knows what all that is inside me.”

is forgiveness a passive act…?

All religious scriptures instruct the sinner to beg for forgiveness and kneel at the feet of god in abject submission and all shall be forgiven. Your soul will be redeemed and you will be able to find a spot for yourself in heaven. One kind of forgiveness – I have done this, begged for deliverance from retribution time and again from the lord and been forgiven. I am sure all of us have found ourselves caught in whirlpool of emotions, when faced with our own wrong doings and battled with ourselves and god to accept our own failings. An inner turmoil most of us experience regularly… But today I want to speak about another kind of forgiveness - forgiving others. Do you think is hard to ask for forgiveness? - You don’t know the beginning of it my friend, it’s even harder to forgive someone who has willfully harmed you and shows no acknowledgment or repentance for the same. And is it necessary for you forgive them in the first place? A dilemma I have spent many years battling with.

The wrong doers can come in many forms; someone you love, a primary care giver, a spouse or a partner, a friend, a colleague; the list extends to encompass any every one of those relationships we negotiate with. The issue is not who the person is but how you are affected.

Let me begin with a story. Once upon a time there was a young girl who married a wonderful man to escape the tediousness and boredom of her other life. They lived in a nuclear family and hoped to make a wonderful haven for themselves. And they did… but for the fact that the young girl was troubled by demons within her. The slightest hint of insecurity would throw her into the throws of rage. She would be so consumed by it that it would take her days to come back to a state where she recognized herself again. Needless to say the wonderful man could not continue to be of support to her forever. He found the demons too hard to face. As hard as he tried, his own difficulties would not allow him to make sense of what was happening around them. He left – to save himself and his sanity… No one blamed him, after all the demons were too hard to bear. The young girl bore the brunt of the responsibility for the failure of the relationship.

Who would you ask her to forgive, the wonderful man, herself or the demons of her past? And would it be a passive act? The card that immediately comes to my head is Justice – the scales of justice are always balanced – you shall get what you deserve. A message given loud and clear by the departing of her husband! The avenging angel stands punished. But yet again a twist in the tale, who will wield the card of justice? Is society the wielder of the sword of justice or is there a higher sword than that? Is the justice meted out by our own inner conscience higher than that of the outer world? The tarots teach us just that.

The justice card is illustrated by a story, where there once was a competition between the goddess of intelligence Athene and the god of the oceans Posieden; both were asked to present a gift to mankind and the most useful gift of all would declare the winner. Posieden struck the ground and produced a horse, the first of its kind and everyone was sure that nothing better could be produced. Athene provided an olive tree – the oil of the fruit would provide mankind with nourishment and warmth, while the olive branch was a symbol of peace, when the steed was a symbol of war. Athene was declared the winner and Athens was named after her. A lesson mankind must never forget, learn to assess their own actions with rational judgments, for reason to override emotion to balance things in life.

The young woman’s fate is sealed. Her husband unwittingly has entered into a relationship fraught by troubles from the past – he does not deserve to deal with this and hence is correct in leaving her. However another look at this situation – his wife is suffering from problems from the past could be any trauma – a neglected childhood, emotionally unstable primary relationships, a betrayal by a loved one and maybe even abuse. She has obviously not learned to trust and hence the slightest of insecurities makes her fly into a self protective rage. Certainly not exemplary behavior but also not a deliberate one, is he now correct to leave? Are relationships only about a wonderful haven? And are wonderful havens never to be disturbed by tumultuous situations? If the society was to wield the sword of justice – they would end up doing a great wrong.

This is exactly what justice teaches the young girl – balance your life and assess what is wrong with you? Find out what alienates you from the current circumstances – what are those demons that control your being – spell them out and face them. Accept that your behavior is inappropriate but before you punish yourself for losing your husband also assess his failings. Has he been such a great spouse – is he completely in the right while you are in the wrong? Possibly not – there must be something about him that triggers insecurity – sit together and assess this for yourselves. Once the analysis is done and the cards are on the table wield the next card – justice tempered with mercy – the Temperance.

Temperance or forgiveness says – “first and foremost forgive your own self. Anger can never be dealt with by directing more anger at yourself, it can only be mitigated by compassion. So accept that just as you were not responsible for the actions of the demons in your past, you are not responsible for your husband’s action. As a child you could not have done anything to prevent what was happening to you and hence are not responsible for what happened. A fact – forgive yourself.” Only when the young girl stops taking responsibility will it be placed where it rightfully belongs.

The story further unfolds, she works hard at understanding why she reacts the way she does – replaces all the voices of alarm with self soothing and healing mechanisms, but alas the one thing that stays with her – her desire to seek revenge. Her life does not seem meaningful unless those that harmed her pay for what they did. She embarks on the journey to confront the perpetrators of harm and draw solace in the fact that they will be pained. What begins as a war of justice turns its tables on her. Each time she confronts the demons, they become more powerful. Why? By her acts of aggression she is playing out the drama of the past where the demons appear less demonic in comparison to the angry young girl. Also they become stronger in the knowledge that they can still affect her. So what then is the solution for the young girl to right the wrong within her…?

Even though she has found forgiveness and healing for herself, is it important to forgive the demons of her past? The temperance is a card of balance, balancing of the good with the bad. The young girl does not need to forgive them because she is on a spiritual journey to salvation but for a very tangible and necessary benefit. The cards say “As long as you carry anger for an event or a person with you – you continue to identify with that event and stay connected to it. Only when anger is diffused does the connection sever and you grow to be a bigger and better person. The first step to diffusing anger – develop your own self and hold your power within you – you will find the hold that the event had on you will fade. Also magically the perpetrators of abuse stay powerful as long as they know you are affected – the day they lose their power to impact your life they begin to appear in the correct perspective, as they really are, weak and corrupt.” Once she makes these realizations she will find it hard to allow them to stay powerful and even forgive them. She will have a whole life without.

As for the wonderful husband – well, he will have to work harder to be the wonderful support he promises to be whilst she works on calming the demons within her. They will both learn to forgive each other.

Does the act of forgiveness appear passive? Quite to the contrary – any process which requires such soul searching and active change of thought can never be a passive exercise. A lesson I have taught myself again and again. Life has taught me to see everything etched in sharp outlines and difficulty in seeing the grays. A long time ago I found it hard to accept a line of an evangelical poem – “lord give me the strength to accept the hardships so that I may be reasonably happy in this life and eternally happy in my life with you”. It seemed to negate my quest for revenge – for all the wrongs done unto me, only to learn that the path of forgiveness is a far more arduous and powerful one. It is actually in forgiveness that I have found peace because the demons no longer are powerful enough to control the way I live my life.

power games - take 1

What if you are feeling targeted and the in the vortex of an onslaught from an extremely aggressive person? What if you have grown up to be a person who is dumbfounded in the face of this onslaught? What do you do at such times to wrest power back within your grip? Do the cards have anything to say about this?

Sure as always they give ready advice to you. Separate yourself from the person. In situations like these we tend to become one with the perpetrator, his words become reality, his judgments take on a dimension larger than your own meek voice and his opinions about you become much larger in proportion than the vision of your own self. Such is the power of onslaught. Draw inwards like the hermit – and think through who you are – are you a creative person, are you fair, sensitive, loving, intelligent and effervescent? How do you describe yourself? Does your own description match the messages that the perpetrator is giving you, or is it just the force of impact that drives you away from standing by yourself? Ask yourself these questions… In just the act of asking you will find that you are able to connect with who you are and distance the negative messages reaching out to you.

Next figure out - why are you being attacked? Is it something you did or is it the inner experience of the other person to an event that he could not resolve for himself? The answer lies in the five’s – the 5 of wands and the 5 of swords. Extreme jealousy & competition is prevalent in the environment making the perpetrator furiously angry with the circumstance. More than the anger being directed at you – it is his powerlessness that drives him to attack. Ha… a situation which had its beginning in making you powerless is actually insidiously about the attacker’s own helplessness and dis-empowerment.

The cards conclude their advice to you with the strength and death. Both cards teach forbearance – and patience. It is not the weak that walk the path of restraint and acceptance. This path less traveled is for the higher souls. Not a song sung in a eulogy for you, just because you were at the receiving end but the truth. It is easier to retaliate and get the better or worse of the other person. Worse still it is simpler to give in to the onslaught and abandon yourself completely. It is far harder to control your own demons and accept that this is a painful circumstance but one to be dealt with complete submission because the more you push against the factors that demand this change from you the more likely you are to be in pain. Silence is a powerful weapon it can fell a fierce adversary far better than words can. Accept it and bear it.

In such situations you will find that the perpetrator is backed by others whose insidious maneuvers are far more lethal than the ‘in your face’ ones. Same emotions (jealousy & conflict of the 5’s) can be portrayed by a quieter less aggressive person who can easily victimize you without appearing in the wrong. The fact – an aggressive person accepts responsibility for being the wrong doer the quiet manipulator doesn’t. SO the recipient of aggression in the second case walks away with an equal amount of damage as in the first case, without knowing what or who to blame. The blame will in most of these situation turn on your own self.

Cards yet again preach the same process as the first.

1. Separate yourself
2. Ask yourself why are you being attacked?
3. Forbearance & acceptance

With one minor difference… DO not stay silent because such a person needs to be told that you are on to them and you will not allow their machinations to get the better of you… Surely but quietly, using the strength card, let the Machiavellian manipulator know that you know what he is saying but do not agree with it. Do not be the fall guy for other people’s poor motivations.

The tarot teaches lessons which allow us to grow as people. This growth is ALWAYS about learning that the same weapon cannot work in all forms of combat – As the earthly emperor you have to learn that real power is about knowing who you are and standing firmly for yourself and those that you love. Power can never be taken away from you by the aggressive perpetrator or the manipulator if you can hear the voice of your soul.

All things in life come in a balance. The good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the loving & the hated so on and so forth. So do the powerful and the powerless – it’s all about seeing it the right way –If you are powerful within your own self no earthly maneuverings can wrest that from you. You will even have the affirmations that your wronged soul looks for once you have stopped craving for them.

I guess today I was at the receiving end, hence such insight into how it works… or is it just another way of unraveling an emotional knot for myself.

uncertainty does not rest easy...

I can write about love, separation, anger and cataclysm but writing about uncertainty is so elusive. Thoughts that form in my head and waft away before they crystallize! Is it that you lose touch with this feeling as you grow older or is it just something that I don’t want to unearth from the depths of my mind. Perhaps it was my life’s circumstances that prevented me from handling uncertainty well but the word itself threatens to disturb the tentative vestiges of peace within me.

Uncertainty presents itself in various circumstances in life. It begins with a first glimpse as an infant, when unsure of the next meal you cry, to the first crush, then waiting for innumerable successes & failures and finally uncertainty in shouldering the responsibility of one’s decisions. Each time we are faced with this emotion – we think “this is the worst it can get” but there are always surprises in store for us as we grow.

Out of all the various types of uncertainties of life finding a relationship stands out as the most significant of all. Many young persons have posed this question for me “am I going to meet someone this year?” The problem is there is no perfect answer. What if the tarots say yes? The next question will be – “will this person be ‘the one’?” If the tarots yet again answer yes, “will I marry him/her?” – Sure say the tarots – so then “will we be happy together?”... So on and so forth. Therefore even though we feel that we will be satisfied with the answer to whichever ‘will’ we are asking for, the truth is far from it. Knowing full well that we are in a vicious cycle, it still does not deter us from asking the question.

The tarots are there to help in coping with uncertainty, whenever it presents itself. A young person asked me, “Do you think there is anybody, who does not have someone for them?” The tarots don’t believe that some of us are born to be lonely. The cards are based on the karmic cycle of life from the Fool at birth to salvation with the World. The journey is incomplete without learning to negotiate relationships and find completeness within oneself, a lesson only learnt when you have loved and lost, only to love again. As a reader I have never met any person who does not have the hope for finding someone – perhaps only those who stop looking either because they tire of the search or they don’t need to anymore, choose not to be with someone. Then also it is a choice you make – therefore the anxiety about the uncertainty that I will not find someone suitable/compatible is baseless.

Let me illustrate this with several examples. Two men once came to me – they were friends and felt that a serious relationship was elusive and seemingly impossible for them. One of them was a very confident, handsome young man who was surprised that at age 34 he was still single. He told me that his friends accused him of being extremely snooty and vain about his dashing looks – “no one was good enough for him”. The cards surmised – the 6 of cups, the world, 5 of coins, the 4 of wands and the 9 of swords, followed by advice in the form of 2 of wands, the hierophant, strength, and temperance.

This is an aside, to my tarot reader friends. All cards should be read in a sequence and build a story related to the cards moving forward rather than looking backwards. Look for a holistic picture that a spread tells you rather than a piece-meal approach.

The story goes: he was far too stuck in the past and unable to embrace the future without letting go of conditioning from the past (6 of cups). The world signifies in this case a life overseas – which had resulted in him feeling uprooted and lost (5 of coins) and depressed (9 of swords) when he had shifted homes there (4 of wands). All in all, a rather traumatic shift to a foreign locale in the past! Further probing revealed that this in fact was true he had moved there when his parents separated and felt he had lost a part to himself then.

The advice was clear – the 2 of wands implying before you hurry into a pursuit wait – wait and look at what life is offering you, take stock of what you have and what you want, do not hurry into any action. The next card the hierophant teaches us a simple lesson – a need for finding missing parts to your own self. Once again all the cards are unanimous in their statement – you cannot have a meaningful relationship with anyone until you feel whole by your own self. This was followed by strength which simply put means control the demons of self loathing and excesses within you; give your self the quiet time to let the hierophant figure out who you are and what you want. The final card temperance says the same thing that healing would happen and options for relationships would reveal themselves to him.

The cards here teach us an important lesson, often what appear is not. A snobbish looking person maybe as troubled as a humble one and outward robustness often does not tell the inner tale a person experiences.

The second young man, a simple, suggestible and earnest looking soul had a different tale to tell. He had met many people and had a close relationship with a woman he really liked but was unable to commit to. Hence, he continued to look for love elsewhere. The cards reassured him in their own way. The first part told him that since he had already decided that he could not commit, he should treat it as a relationship concluded and stop distracting himself from moving on. The 5 of cups, the queen of swords, the ace of swords, 5 of wands and the 2 of cups; cards explained that the young man had experienced some grief (5 of cups) associated with the queen of swords, and he should slice this entanglement out of his life by the deciding ace of swords and hanging on to this relationship posed a distraction (5 of wands) which pulls him away from finding real intimacy elsewhere.

The cards next indicated that he would meet a queen of wands soon, someone he has known awhile (6 of cups) and that perhaps he will be able to form a relationship with a person who helps him feel secure (the temperance) and makes him feel stronger for himself (the emperor). That someone who will be the strength in his life, quite unlike the queen of swords with her slightly more fickle and self centered pursuits…

The cards helped both the persons cope with their uncertainty differently – in the first case, to understand that the feeling of uncertainty had become one with his self, due to earlier experiences while in the second case the uncertainty was induced by a relationship which had run its course but not as yet been expunged from life.

In most cases the cards indicate that uncertainty induces fear and hence the only way to cope with the fear is to name it, once you have identified the exact root cause of the fear, you will be able to find the necessary solutions and the fear of uncertainty will lose its hold on you.

It is so easy to dwell on the feeling when discussing others but yet my own inability to cope with panic every time I am faced with it is quite explicable. Through a gazillion experiences; waiting for a boyfriend to call, waiting to hear about an examination result, an unresolved fight with a spouse, an unexecuted decision, waiting to catch a flight… and many more, I have accepted that severe anxiety in coping with uncertainty is 2nd nature for a person like me. I don’t think that this is the time to analyze why I am that way or what has caused such a reaction, but to understand what the cards say to me. They have always told me to teach myself acceptance.

What if you are an anxiety prone individual who finds it harder than others to deal with uncertainty? Will beating yourself about it make it easier? Will it make the palpitations, the sweating and the purging lesser? Not at all! SO might as well accept that this is me, I really cannot punish myself for this, instead I will anticipate that I WILL have this reaction when faced with any uncertainty and hence will plan to deal with it.

For me, I have found my answer in a simple strategy – I work as hard as I can on anything that I am undertaking and then let it hang suspended in my brain for a while without punishing myself about anxiety that I experience too much. I know that after a period of rest my brain or the universe, whatever you wish to call it, will pop a solution that is the best for me and I will be able to make sense of the chaos. I am sure you have heard of it – it is called serendipity.