Spiritual Memoir #9: Drifting Away to New Worlds

For an explanation of this Spiritual Memoir

blog series, see THIS post.

Radiant Rider Waite deck

Tarot Card: Four of Swords

(See pics in this post from various decks)

My Interpretations of the Card

"Rest in the stillness of the Divine, by silencing thoughts and words."

Isn't tarot so weird?  Last time I wrote on the five, six and seven of swords, and today I pull the immediately preceding card: the four of swords.  I have to admit, I'm kinda wishing I could get another Major Arcana card ... but they just aren't coming.  Oh well.  This is a really good card, and I have a good memoir to go with it!  :)

I feel like the four of swords is easily misunderstood.  I find it to be by far the most peaceful swords card, and my first gut instinct every time I see it is: rest.  Time to rest.  

In the Rider Waite symbolism there is a golden coffin in a church or castle (as evidenced by the stained-glass window).  The coffin has a statue on it representing the figure inside - a soldier.  There is also the symbol of a sword on the side of the coffin, and three swords on the wall.  I imagine this is the funeral of a great warrior, who won three battles (swords on the wall), and surrendered nobly in the forth battle (sword on the coffin).

Of course, the card doesn't symbolize death or "the end", because it's only card four - six more swords cards follow it.  So why does it look like death?

Sun and Moon Tarot

My answer is that it isn't showing death, but the peace that comes from surrender, and that winning with swords (or words and thoughts) is not nearly as noble as laying them down, and shielding ourselves from battle ... say, by covering ourselves in a sarcophagus.  I like to imagine that this soldier is going to be buried with the last sword - buried with a single thought, a single word.  Buried not in total silence, but in pure focus, pure commitment, to the solitary sword he values most - that solitary thought.

Look at the gorgeous Sun and Moon Tarot's depiction - ah, yea!  Blue skies, open possibilities, and instead of the swords being on top of the character in the picture, she's resting on top of them.  This makes me think of "sleeping on it", or not arguing or thinking about a problem without a night to sleep and process the situation subconsciously.  I also like this picture, because it makes me think of yoga. 

Spiritual Memoir: Four of Swords

Around 2008 or 2009, I was invited to attend a discussion with "The Avarians".  I had no idea what that meant, except that my friend Holly Semanoff and her husband, Mike Semanoff, were going to talk about some spiritual experience they had with connecting to higher beings - to angels or ascended spirits.  I went with my sisters to the discussion event.

It turns out, Holly and Mike actually channel the words of a group of ascended beings, who call themselves the Avarians.  When you go to an Avarians event, you sit with a group of people, with Holly facing you, and she and Mike take a few deep breaths and focus/meditate, and then Holly speaks the words of the Avarians, in their delightfully accented voice.  If you'd like to learn more about them (and I recommend you do!), you can see their website here: http://www.theavarians.com/.  

So I'm at this event, and Holly and Mike do their thing, and Holly starts talking for the Avarians, and they have all kinds of messages of love and hope and peacefulness, and it's cool.  Then, they say, "We want to share a tool with you - a meditation."  As directed, the whole room closes their eyes and focuses on their breathing, and so on.  Throughout the whole meditation, I feel only half-focused, because I wasn't really listening to what they were saying, or thinking about anything else.  I think I was just really tired.  Eventually I started to doze off.  After a few minutes, I heard the Avarians (through the voice of Holly), say something like "And now, feel your consciousness come back to this room...," and they guided us through slowly waking up, blah blah blah.  I, personally just pepped right up, thinking, "Woops, that was a waste of my time, I just dozed off."  Then after everyone else was back, the Avarians said some more stuff.

I don't know exactly when I realized it, but it was while I was still at the Avarians session, I know for sure ... I suddenly, somehow, had a realization that I had not dozed off or fallen asleep.  I had, suddenly, a stream of memories of thoughts I'd experienced during the meditation.  I remembered, suddenly, that I had been "thinking" about being swaddled or wrapped up in a warm blanket, while in a dark room or cave with indigo/black walls, and cradled in the arms of someone.  Or someones.  Even now, I can see/feel it in my mind.  The person(s) holding me was lighter blue in color, and brighter than the bluish-purple-black walls, but not bright like a light.  Just lighter, like normal light.  I had felt warm and comforted and relaxed...

So... what the fuck?  What the hell is that?  I have no memory of actually thinking that, but a "memory of having thought about it..."  - like, what does that even mean?!?!  I don't know.  I just don't remember thinking it, I don't remember "being" somewhere else, I don't remember seeing anything like it ever before in my life (like in a movie or something).  But it was clearly in my memory - fresh.  It felt very real, very personal, and actually very subtle.  Maybe it was imagination ... but no, it was a memory.  I can tell the difference between imagination and memory in my mind.

All of this "remembering" happened while I was still sitting and listening to the Avarians/Holly.  As I tried to figure out what the hell was going on, I had a clear, confident knowing in my mind: I just had an out-of-body experience.  My consciousness experienced something that my body didn't, and I haven't experienced it in this life before, so I didn't know what to call it.  It wasn't a thought and it wasn't a physical experience.  The best label I have for it, "memory" is nice, but not accurate.  My consciousness left my body.  

Whoa.

I know all of this happened still during the event, because at the end of the event, Holly said she had some CDs that explain more about what the Avarians are, and a special meditation essential oil blend.  I was so stunned by that weird "blacking-out-just-kidding-that-was-superconsciousness" experience that I bought one of everything, went home listened to everything religiously, did all of the meditations on the CDs every day for a few weeks ... and never was able to duplicate the experience.  I have attended over a dozen Avarians events since then, and never experienced anything remotely like that again.

Until about a month ago.

April 1, 2012, the same Holly invited me to take her Conscious Breathing for Enlightenment class, which is a mix of her years and years of experience with yoga, and the input and recommendations of the Avarians.  I was really excited about the class - and even cut down my smoking tremendously to prepare for it (didn't quit though...ha ha!).  At the end of the class, we did a 30-minute Chakra Dhyana meditation.  All during the meditation, I remember being conscious, hearing everything, participating in all of the chants and breathing, etc.  I remember when we were at the heart chakra, Holly came up and was touching my back, and I'm pretty sure she was sending me Reiki or something similar.  It felt easier to breath all of a sudden, and my muscles felt less tired (I have terrible posture, so sitting up straight makes my back muscles burn pretty quickly).

I remember the meditation ending.  And I remember being disappointed that nothing "big" happened (like, you know, an explosion of Kundalini or a visitation from God).  Then as other people were talking about their experiences and the electricity they felt through their bodies (which I did not feel), I experienced a memory.  A memory of being back in a purple-blue-black cave room during the meditation.  I saw random flashes of thoughts and experiences.  None of it made sense.  A person, a war, voices, fire ... just little muddled flashes in the indigo cave.  It was like a memory within a memory - I had a memory of being in this cave place and flipping through memories in my mind - memories that are totally foreign to me and my life.

What does all of this mean?  I have no idea!  Ha ha!  I have two guesses, that may be simultaneously right or individually right, or dead wrong:

1. I'm just experiencing different levels of consciousness.  The "indigo cave", actually feels like it could be inside my mind, and indigo is the color of the third-eye chakra, so maybe in my mind I've experience some type of intuitive consciousness or something.
2. I actually think it's possible I may be accessing past life memories or experiences.  Yes, I believe in reincarnation, and I believe in being able to tap into consciousness of the "big picture" and not just this life's experiences.

One thing I know for sure though, I didn't imagine it.  And I don't know how to replicate it, except possibly through better, more intense meditation exercises.  (Read: Holly Sue ... get ... off ... ass ... and ... start ... meditating ... more ... regularly).  I am excited for my meditation retreat next month - maybe I'll get a better idea of what's going on here!  Oh, and next week, I'm getting a first Reiki attunement, and maybe that will help bust down any grime in my energetic system that blocks me from accessing this on my own.

Arcus Arcanum Tarot

Ok, now tying it back to the four of swords - I like the card in the Arcus Arcanum tarot.  Here, the man sits and thinks, and the sentinels of his mind step aside, so that he has access to the wisdom of a High Priestess.  His thoughts part, and he accesses a divine source of knowing, which supersedes his logical thinking.  Beautiful imagery!

And, going back to the Rider Waite imagery, when I entered these trance-like meditative states, it was like I went into the sarcophagus - isolated from the myriad thoughts bouncing off the walls, and sat with one thought, one intention, one purpose.  I sat in silence, and was inside my mind - the home of thoughts - but out of range of the thoughts themselves.  And I found peace, connection, knowingness.  But before all of that came the stillness.

A final thought ...  I think a lot about how Gandhi did one full day a week of silence.  

"In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness."

-Mohandas "Mahatma" Gandhi

Caroline Myss talks in her book Entering the Castle about silence (p.39): 

"This quality of silence allows you to engage in discernment.  You carry this silence within you, even when you are with others.  It allows you to hold your center amid the chaos in life; it keeps you clear so that you do not do or say things you will regret or make decisions out of fear.  Silence is a learned practice that requires far more than just not talking..."

I think of this four of swords card as the card of internal silence.  Quiet and resting on the outside too, but also parting the swords in our minds, sealing the sarcophagus around us, and experiencing that powerful, beautiful silence that has a new, completely different experience to show us.  I'll let you know when my new experiences start making a little more sense... :)

On joy and contentment, and the spirituality of unemployment

The other day I was writing a quick message to an old, dear friend of mine, just catching him up on the going-ons of my life.  I wrote something, which seemed natural at the time, but when I reviewed the note later, this statement jumped out at me as pretty interesting; I wrote:

"I have been happier in my life, but I've never felt more *at peace* in my life. It's a very interesting thing."

Apparently, it is a thematic contemplation for me, for just a few days earlier I had done a tarot reading for a friend of mine and wrote these words to her:

"True joy comes from the mundane. Remember that. *Fixes* come from the exciting and novel things in life, and usually involve a crash."

It has me wondering and thinking about the nature of the relationship between peace and happiness, joy and contentment.

I live now with my sister, 'da Renegade Mama (dRM), and her four children (and my two children...er cats).  dRM is pursuing an undergraduate degree in Philosophy, and so we discuss philosophical things together quite a bit, and even at times I read her texts to keep up.

Plato has become a favorite of ours, specifically The Republic, and the quest for justice.  What is justice, how do we achieve it?  A teacher of dRMs (Michael Minch) stated in her Political Philosophy class that "peace is the fruit of justice."  That justice, or contentment, is to be pursued as the path for a society or person to know peace.  Relating this to the Biblical thought that "by their fruits ye shall know them," I believe a society or a person may be identified for their justice and well-being as is indicated by their degree of peace.  (And, as a very unpatriotic American, I do see my country's inability to stay away from conflict, war, threats, mudslinging, and general fear as indicative of our thoughtlessness with regard to justice, and our disdain for contentment as evidenced by our non-satiation and competitiveness.  I digress...)

A common philosophical argument (Hobbes, Rousseau, Kant, etc.), too, is that joy and happiness are spikes of events but that contentment, justice, and consequently peace are the underlying core of well-being, both for a person and a society.

Relating this to my life, I have recently made a commitment to simplicity and have decided to shed the shackles of competitiveness and "keeping up with the Joneses;" I have decided to not "work" and to live off of gifts and alms, and dedicate my time and energy towards community building, support of friends and family members, and spending a lot of time doing nothing.  I keep my slate relatively clear of commitments, and am therefore free to spontaneously listen to inner promptings to take actions, or stay inactive and just think, ponder, or relax mindlessly.  I also only "work" for no pay - I have let everyone that I offer my time to know that I neither want nor expect monetary remuneration, or any form of exchange.  Thus, my aspirations and commitments are not placed in areas of greatest achievement and return-on-time-investment, but instead on following my inner guidance and personal interests.  It's an experiment.

I'm not perfect with it - I have a lot of ingrained habits that I have to fight daily, the most potent of which is heaping judgment and guilt upon myself.  "I should be doing more," "I'm lazy and a slacker," "I'm a burden on society," and so forth, constantly barrage my otherwise peaceful and contented mind.  But I'm making progress.

And instead of fighting, struggling, and as The Avarians call it "moving through the nails, the sharp glass of life" - which is flatly dismissed as unnecessary - I increasingly feel peaceful.  Not elated, not joyful, not even happy necessarily, but calm.  I no longer feel like I need to control my life, or need to fight to maintain control, or even need to work towards a certain direction, because I see that the only thing fighting against me is my own mind, my self-imposed guilt.

It may sound like I've stepped right onto the wide path of laziness and ease, which to an extent I guess is true.  But I have found a razor's edge of spiritual insight and attunement that I can follow easily if I keep my mind and intentions purely focused on releasing guilt and listening for intuition and guidance.

I do still have moments of joy and elation.  I have little sprinkles of them throughout the day, mostly when I feel noticed, acknowledged and praised.  But I'm finding that they aren't worth seeking; they aren't worth the effort, because they're fleeting, and instead of fueling more compassion and kindness in me, they leave me feeling unsatiated - hungry for more.

And finally, I have found a lot of opportunity to offer small tidbits of peace, acceptance and forgiveness to people around me who are fighting for survival.  Little opportunities, here and there, to stop and listen to people, to jump in when they're struggling, and to employ my skills and expertise towards their challenges.  

The word "vocation" comes from the Latin root vocationem which means "spiritual calling."  Would we feel the world was more just, would we experience greater contentment, and would the world be at greater peace if we chose to spend the majority of our time - if we chose our vocation - based on the calling of our spirit?

The big question that comes up, of course, is how, then, will we pay our bills?  How will we eat, clothe ourselves, and find shelter?  These are legitimately scary questions to face.  I have had three conversations/witnesses in my life that have answered this question to me:

1. Personal revelation.  My first answer came when I did a little seance and some automatic writing and got a message from Spirit Guides. I will post the revelation in my next blog.
2. About a week later, my sister out of the blue said, "You should read these two articles by Hugh Nibley that were assigned to me in class today.  They were so interesting!"  (Hugh Nibley was a renowned LDS scholar).  The articles are untitled "Work we must, but the lunch is free" (Click here for full text) and "But what kind of work?" (Click here for full text).  In short, Nibley argues that God and Jesus have commanded us to share with each other and not worry about how the bills will get paid.  Just follow the spiritual call and it will all be taken care of.
3. Just a few short days after that, The Avarians (Click here for more info) had a channeling event at a shop I volunteer at.  They spoke of following the Divine Calling, and upon following the material things we need will manifest through the power of our own creation.  It basically matches Jesus' teaching in the New Testament to consider the lilies of the field, for the rich man to drop all money and follow Him, and his command to his disciples to carry neither an extra coat or a sack of coins, and not to think beforehand of what they would say, but to just walk forward and trust.  If they did so, He promised they'd be taken care of.

So I'm experimenting with that as well.  So far it's working.  I have a free house to live in, free food, some really magnificent friends gave me a free car, and every now and then people give me gift cards for clothes, gift certificates for restaurants, and straight-up cash.  Totally unsolicited, people just hand me cash now and then.  It's only been six weeks of living like this, maybe the novelty of it will wear off, I don't know - but so far it's working.  Why not just trust it and keep going?

I don't hope or expect to have wealth and riches come from this.  I anticipate a relatively Spartan way of life.  And that's ok with me - I don't really care at this point in my life in having things, going places, experiencing grand adventures, or looking cool or put-together.  (We currently sleep 6 people to one bedroom, and I gotta admit - it's perfectly fine.  Everyone else in the world - outside of the US and other highly developed nations - sleeps together in one room, so it's actually quite normal.) 

I have certain tastes and indulgences too that may eventually go away (smoking and drinking) because they aren't exactly necessary for my survival, and may or may not be detrimental to my spiritual well-being (I'm not that worried about my physical well-being, but we'll get to that another time).  For now, I accept what is provided and use it as I see fit.  I make a point not to pray for, "call forth," or request anything coming my way.  I'm just trusting.  Letting it be.  And it's working.  

And I feel at peace.  Which is kinda a new thing for me.  I like it.