Do you sabotage your own happiness?

We're sitting on our back lawn, smoking, and my sister, da'Renegade Mama (dRM), heaves a sigh.

"I don't know why I do this!  I'm at the 11th hour again with my homework, and now I'm dreading doing it because I'll have to pull an all-nighter to get it done.  It doesn't make any sense because I LOVE what I'm studying!  Everything I read for school, every paper I write, every assignment is highly fulfilling and interesting ... and yet I put it off and put it off and treat it like a duty until I resent it and have to grind my way through the task!"

She goes on..

"And if anyone asked me what my number one favorite thing is in the world, I'd answer that it's playing with my kids.  Playing with them - wrestling and dancing and jumping on the trampoline and throwing frisbees.  And how often do you see me do that?'

I shrug my shoulders.  "Like two or three times a week," I reply.

"Right!  But if it's my favorite thing, why don't I do it every day?!?"

We sit in silence for a few moments.

I add, "I love running.  Like, love LOVE it.  And I can't remember the last time I went running."

"So why do we sabotage all of our happiness by avoiding the very things that make us happy," dRM wonders aloud.

That's a good question!

I hear this question quite a bit actually.  At the coffee/metaphysical shop I work at, I chat with customers a lot.  We get into what's going on in their lives and I invariably hear, "I should read more - learning more about this new age stuff is so fulfilling to me!" or "I should meditate more.  When I do, I feel so much better, but I just don't, even when I have the time and will to."  On and on.  Just yesterday, one of my housemates, Papasan, mused that he put off his homework all weekend, and spent the whole weekend drenched in guilt, and when he finally did the homework - which only took him about an hour - he felt light, happy and free as a bird!

Can you think, right now, of things that you absolutely love that you never do, even when you have the time and resources to do them?

What is it in our culture/belief systems, our biology, or psychology makes this sabotage so commonplace?

I have a few thoughts, but I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

First, I think culturally, we give a lot of power to guilt and "hard work" and are veritably terrified of hedonism.  By hard work, I'm referring to forcing oneself to put their nose to the grindstone, use discipline, and dig their way through something.  My dad used to always say when we were little "Great people do hard things".  If something makes us happy and we enjoy doing it it feels wrong to us, or at the very least suspicious.  I can't just enjoy myself day-in-and-day-out reading books and going running - that would make me a hedonist!  Our culture teaches us that too much enjoyment and pleasure is small-minded, wicked, or wasteful.  So we limit our enjoyment, even if limiting it gets in the way of our personal development.

Maybe that sounds far-fetched to you.  But let me ask you this - how often do you choose to do the hard things before the easy things just to "get them over with"?  I do it all the time when I eat.  I always eat my least-favorite part of a meal first, and save the best for last.  Guess what happens?  I feel full halfway through the meal and still haven't even tasted my favorite part of it.  So now I'm in a conundrum - do I stop eating and miss out on what I was most looking forward to, or gorge myself?  Do you do the same thing?  Do you stay up until bedtime doing your least favorite things, and then you have to choose between getting the sleep your body craves or reading that book you've been dying to get to?

I think we are afraid of too much happiness because we are taught to be afraid of hedonism.  I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

This brings us to my second thought on the topic, which is that we have unrealistic expectations for the things we love.  Because absence makes the heart grow fonder, we begin to believe that the things we love are 100% easy and delightful from start to finish.  That's simply not true!  Let's go back to me and my love of running.  What I love about running is feeling powerful and strong, feeling the blood coursing through my body and my muscles feeling fatigued and still taking me miles and miles further.  I love the power that comes from setting my mind to the task and the physical reward of having a strong mind.  But right now, I'm out of shape, so running doesn't do that for me.  Right now, running makes me feel weak, slow and fat.  So when I go running, it does the exact opposite of what my expectations for it are.  Because my expectations are unrealistic.  Running is challenging and takes a lot of focus and dedication.  And only after consistently applying focus and dedication to the challenge do the rewards present themselves.

Now, returning to dRM's lamentations.  Playing with her kids is FUN ... for about 1/3 of the experience.  But it also includes being out in super-hot or super-cold weather, changing flat tires on bikes, packing around snacks and taking incessant potty breaks, and the kicker, managing 4 beautiful grommets fighting over each other for mom's attention.  And, of course, with kids, if you play with them once, then for the next week, every five minutes they're wondering why you aren't ready to swing from the chandeliers with them again - it sets a precedent that is challenging to live up to.

So yes, the things that make us happy truly do bring a lot to our lives, but they also often require dedication and challenge.  That taints them for us.  Why not just settle for the happy memories instead of dredging through the effort for the payout?

Finally, we tend in our culture to have an all-or-nothing attitude about pretty much everything.  I can't have fun until I'm in perfect physical shape and have the perfect wardrobe, home and appliances to match the level of happiness I aspire to; I can't convince people (or myself) that I'm happy if I'm fat, single or poor!  I have to have it all in order to experience any happiness whatsoever!  And even if I do things I love, because I'm fat/single/poor/etc. I couldn't even enjoy them because I'd know I'm falling short of the dream!

I can't just go running when I feel like it, I must go every day and be continually improving my pace and distance.  We can't just do the same thing over and over with the kids - we have to innovate more fun activities!  And I can't enjoy this book until my house is perfectly clean and my inbox is cleared out and I've prepared a 100% raw, organic, vegan dinner.  Then, and ONLY THEN can I actually enjoy it!

Not true.

We are so overloaded with guilt for what we don't do, that we don't allow ourselves to enjoy the things we want to do.  Is it impossible to "have it all?"  Probably not.  But it's unreasonable to hold happiness at bay until we have it all.  Wouldn't you rather have "some of it all" and every day experience those things that make you most happy - and become a truly happy person - than finally achieve it all and have lived years or decades in stress and guilt?

I say, cook your kids ramen for dinner once a week so that you have time to play with them, if playing with them makes you truly happy.  Eat the dessert you love and gain a little weight if eating dessert rocks your world.  Choose happiness over other things regularly, even if it means cutting corners, and then from a happy place find ways to improve areas of your life that you feel merit improvement.

Does this mean I condone a full-fledged hedonistic lifestyle?  No.  It isn't black or white like that.  Be a hedonist two or three hours a day, and with the time that's left, go back to chipping away at the grindstone.  There's a time and a place for seeking pleasure, and I think that time comes around at least once a day.  Be balanced with where you get your pleasure from - sometimes a fabulous TV show, sometimes skipping through the park, sometimes chatting with a friend for three hours - but not always all of it.  Just dedicate two or three hours to doing whatever it is you love, every day, no matter what.  Inject happiness in your life, then build from that base.

And finally, for those really grueling tasks there are psychological happiness games you can play to make them more fun.  Only do them to music you love.  Do them in your favorite pair of underwear that you reserve for special occasions.  Allow yourself to eat one bite of your favorite food for every math problem you finish.

In our home, with four small children, dRM and Risseroo made one small change of verbiage that changed the kids' entire paradigm about their chores.  "Do your chores," we'd say, "you can't play on the Kindle until your chores are done."  Then we experienced about an hour of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.  So one day, dRM and Riss decided to call chores "life skills."  They told the kids that they needed to practice their life skills every day in order to be ready for adulthood.  The change was astonishing.  The kids started arriving home from school with, "When do we get to do our life skills?"  After dinner, we'd say, "Ok, you can come watch us play Donkey Kong" (because Riss and I play so amazingly that the kids are overcome with joy at simply watching us play ... he he he) and the older girls made faces at us and said, "Nuh-uh!  We haven't done our life skills yet!"  Um, the 7 and 5 year-olds reminded us that they hadn't done their chores yet.

So when it's time to clean your house, are you cleaning, or loving on your home?  How different would it be to say, "I'm gonna show some love to my toilet that I'm so grateful takes our waste far, far away," instead of, "Gotta clean the toilets ... *sigh* ... again ..."  Or, "I get my blood pumping every morning and clear my pores for perfect skin," instead of "I'm gonna go sweat like a pig at the gym."  Try it.  It works.  What chores in your life can become your life skills?

One last thing that I have recently rediscovered.  Do it now.  When something pops into your mind and makes sense, just take action right away.  Don't give yourself time to think through whether or not you want to do it and when you should start.  If it pops in your mind that you haven't played with your kids for a while and you kind of miss it ... stand right up and find your offspring and initiate play.  Even if only for 2 minutes.  If you suddenly get the urge to crack into your work or homework, before thinking about it, stand right up and do it.  I had this happen to me last week.  Risseroo goes to the gym every morning at 7.  One afternoon, I was reading a book, and paused with the thought, "I could totally go to the gym with her and it would be fun.  My biggest holdup with working out is that I don't follow through unless I have someone to go with that I'm just a little bit accountable to, and here's someone right in my house that I adore who goes every morning at a reasonable hour, and I'm not going.  Why?"  Then I decided I'd think about it for another day or two to decide if I really wanted to do it or not.  A few hours later, Riss and I were out back smoking, and the thought popped into my mind again, and I realized that I had no reason to not start immediately, except for pure procrastination.  So I said, "I think I want to start going to the gym with you."  Riss said, "Yay!  Awesome!"  And then I said, "Wake me up tomorrow.  I want to start tomorrow."

And I've gone to the gym with her every day since.

If I had paused to think about it for a few days, I would have not even started by now, or probably ever.  And today I ran 3 miles on the treadmill and we did 45 minutes of lifting weights.  Did you hear that?  I went RUNNING today.  And I clocked a reasonable distance for starting up, so I didn't feel fat or slow, but I felt strong!  Going to the gym with Riss is one of the highlights of my day - even though I wake up a full 5 hours earlier than normal for me (yes, I usually wake up around noon).

So whatever this post is making you think of, do it now.  One small step in that direction you're thinking of - you don't have to take on the whole enchilada, but set it in motion now.  No more planning or contemplating, just step towards happiness.  And make sure five or six times a day you consciously take more small steps towards your happiness.

Because wouldn't you rather be happy than anything else?

The Individual in a Village

I was raised in a household where independence was the most treasured and rewarded trait. I could be smart, funny, athletic, or kind and it never held any luster unless I did it with an independent spirit.

My father was the firstborn son to a 16-year old girl. His mother, my grandma Ovard, subsequently had 3 more children. She never graduated high school, never pursued a career, and barely struggled to feed her family. At the ripe age of 18 Dad joined the Army and became the breadwinner for his mother and siblings.

Through the years he cared for Grandma, and all of his siblings at one time or another, while raising a family of 8 children. This made him tough, and fortunately he was clever as well, and made a fortune for himself. Over the years his toughness has peeled away to reveal a tender and loving man who cares deeply for the welfare of others.

But being the youngest of the 8 children in my family, I was raised in an impoverished household. And as the money began to flow into my father's life, he very much hid it from us kids. He wanted us to experience the roughness of life in the hopes that we'd toughen up like he had.

At the baffling age of 13 I was told that I'd had to earn money for any new clothes I may want, including socks and underwear. I was encouraged to buy my own deodorant and face wash. My parents spent money on me in the form of private tutors, who would come into my home and teach me French, oboe and art lessons as I wore the clothing my neighbors had handed down to my older siblings. My father would talk to local day care centers and have me work 30 hours a week in the summers as a "volunteer" while he'd pay me hourly for my work. I tutored other kids during the school year and he'd pay me hourly for that.

When I was 16, I was in college already and needed a car. I got a job working at Arby's and a job working at Uncle Sam's Army Navy Outdoor, AND I was attending school full-time. Since I didn't have a car, my mom would drive me to college, pick me up and drop me off and Arby's then pick me up later and drop me off at Uncle Sam's. It has been a consistent pattern in my life to work several jobs at a time. Later that year, my Dad told me I'd have to start paying for my own college as well.

I moved out at 17. It took me until I was 21 to get my bachelor's degree, and I did it incurring very little debt. Just working a lot. I'd live with my sisters or rent a cheap room. I learned to wait tables - a great source of income for the independent spirit.

To this day, I have this belief that I must prove my independence to the world. I struggle to ask for help from anyone that isn't a very, very close friend. I'm the girl who carries all of the groceries into the house in one load, while my hands turn purple, to prove I can do it myself, and I can do it without any waste of time.

This streak has affected many areas of my life. I struggle with fashion. I find it crippling to be identified with the trendy crowd. I've been known to keep my hair very short and sometimes shaved (at the moment it's very long though). Social situations terrify me. How do I mingle with others as I obsessively fret over my need to be independent of others? I have employees now and I find it absolutely impossible to delegate tasks to them. Etcetera. I go to a bar or club and look for ways to be "distracted" out of socializing. I proudly go to movies or dinner alone, after rejecting a friend's invitation to join them.

In my study of the Tarot, I have recently studied the Hierophant card of the Major Arcana. Pictured here is the card from the Universal Waite deck (my favorite deck at the moment).

A quick review: In the Fool's journey he meets an active male, passive male, active female, and passive female - his parents and beginning influences and introductions to life.

The next stage is to meet the Hierophant. The Hierophant is depicted as a religious leader, with two acolytes - or attendants - engaged in an initiation ceremony. The Hierophant sits above them, in his tiered crown, holding the power to accept or reject them as members of his fold.

This card represents the stage in life when one finds organizations, clubs, schools, social circles, religions, etc. that they would like to belong to. There are rules, though, and qualifications that must be met before admittance into these institutions. It lies in the hands of each of us to decide how badly we want to belong and to willingly rise to the standards. Think of young college students eagerly going through initiation into a fraternity.

Many people, in their formative years, encounter this experience of the Hierophant, and indulge in it. They work hard and get on the teams, or they buy the clothes that help them fit in. They learn the skills that get them jobs or practice the video games to *pawn* their opponents. In the culture I was raised in, in Utah, a lot of the pressure is to fit into the prominent LDS religion. Who's going to be called as a leader in the church? Who can be considered worthy, humble, penitent, knowledgeable, Christlike, etc.? Who wears clothing that is modest and decent? Who can cook and clean and care for children? All of these questions lead to the true question at hand: who meets up to the standards?

It was all often a struggle for me. I'm very competitive, by virtue of my independence, and so instead of being initiated into the societies of my youth, I challenged them all. (It's the Artemis in me.) I searched in life for things to not belong to - places where I would stand out. Independent.

Unfortunately for me, though I am an individual, I still belong to a village. I've rarely accepted that in my life. I've never embraced it unless I got to be the big leader. It was a critical stage of my development that got skipped. I jumped from Dad's rigid lessons in independence (The Emperor, card 4) straight to my personal independence (The Lovers, card 6).

As I discussed in my last post, the Lovers card is tied to the story of the Garden of Eden. When Eve partook of the fruit directly disobeying her father's orders she became responsible for her actions. For the first time in her existence, she was independent. The Lovers card shows the transition from childlike innocence, to adult independence.

In life, until we become masters of love, and masters at approaching all situations from a space of love, there is an eternal debate between the Hierophant and the Lovers. One says "follow me" (Hierophant) while the other says "make your own path" (the Lovers). Both options are appropriate in life, depending on the situation. Sometimes, enlisting a person to train us, teach us, hold us in accountability and in our excellence is a powerful option. At other times going it alone, learning through trial and error, and taking risks brings great rewards. The problem is that by nature we tend to choose a favorite. My favorite choice is the independent Lovers card. In fact, I almost never even let the Hierophant make an appearance in my life. I've completely tuned out to him.

What is the trend in your life? Do you like to belong, or do you relish your separateness? Are you a member of your village, or are the you the individual living amongst villagers? Perhaps it depends on the circumstances? Do you flip-flop between the two?

Based on my study of the Tarot, the key is to learn a balance here. There are steps to achieving this. Once the balance is achieved, you will be stable enough to look inside of yourself and take the time to discover what's making you tick the way you do. But you (and I) have to stabilize and balance our urges to either belong or stand out, before we can have enough peace to look inside. This step of balance and stability is the next card in the Major Arcana: The Chariot.

The charioteer, using no reins whatsoever, keeps his chariot moving forward, because his horses (or sphinxes) pull him as a team, completely balanced.

In my life, one horse pulled all of the weight, while the other was blindfolded and chained up. That is to say, my desire for independence has completely guided me. I've never given any power to the possibility of belonging to a village. And because of that, when one horse pulls all of the weight, the chariot runs in circles.

Do you feel in your life like you're going in circles? Take a look and think about it.

The first step to achieving the balance of the chariot is to learn to acknowledge the Lovers in you, and the Hierophant in you, in every situation. Honor both possibilities. One way to do this is to imagine Eve sitting on one of your shoulders, and the Hierophant sitting on the other. When Eve says, "Break away! You can do it alone! Go for it!" pause to hear the Hierophant say, "Maybe you should find someone to help you with this. Why re-invent the wheel?" Recognition of the possibilities is the first key.

And then, let go of your favorite. Don't be afraid of offending the Hierophants in your life. Don't be afraid of offending Eve's independent nature. Sit in between the two possibilities - sit in your chariot, keeping both horses close and ready to run and choose your path. You'll find that when you sit neutral between these possibilities, the two options will happily work together to follow your will. There is no struggle between them, though they're opposites. When you're in charge, they let you choose the path.

Look at all three of these cards again. Notice in the Hierophant card there are three people, with the Hierophant in the commander's seat. Now look at the Lovers card - there are three people, with the Angel in the commander's seat (the Angel allows Eve to make her choice, then closes the gates of the Garden behind her as she's kicked out). And the Chariot card. Who sits in command there? One man, two sphinxes - two mysterious possibilities in life. And in the Chariot card, you sit in command. I sit in command. We call the shots.

In this case it is the most empowered position to be in.

And shouldn't that satisfy my thirst for independence as much as anything? It is my belief that independence one of the weaker imitations of empowerment. It's a substitute, and a poor one.

And as I reflect on that, I wonder to myself if that's what my dad was trying to teach me all along. Yeah, I think his intention was to empower me, and I misinterpreted it. It was never about independence.

Is that true for you?

Adam and Eve - bringing shadow to LIFE!

Genesis 3: 1-7


1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
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2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden;

3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the Garden, God hast said: Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall surely not die;

5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

7 And the eyes of them both were opened ...

(Source - The Holy Bible, King James Version)


It's long been wondered what really happened in the Garden of Eden. What it really means. In fact, even the Rider-Waite-Smith version of the Tarot shows an undeniable reference to this on the Lovers card of the Major Arcana. The symbolism is undeniable, the man and woman, naked, with the woman standing before a tree wrapped in a serpent. Perhaps the angel behind them is Cherubim with his flaming sword (the Sun) protecting the Tree of Life (mentioned at the end of Genesis, ch 3).

Adam stands before the burning tree, Eden gone, representing what is often referred to as the "Fall of Man" (not the fall of Woman).

Just the other day I was talking with someone for some reason about the Garden of Eden and what it was all about. What's with the serpent (aka Satan?). What was he doing there? Why was he interested in tempting Eve?

I've heard possible explanations for it, but as I pondered it the other day, I had an idea come up for me. I'd like to share it with you.

The Bible states that God created all creatures and that "it was good." (Ch1, Verses 24-25). It specifically mentions "creeping things." That to me sounds like serpents. God intentionally put serpents in the garden, and when he did, he thought of them as "good." So why would a good creature, intentionally put into the Garden by the creator himself, tempt Eve to disobey? It doesn't make sense. Even if you don't take the scripture literally, the verses clearly insinuate that God only allowed in the Garden - in his "perfect world" - exactly what he wanted in the Garden. Briars and thorns weren't introduced until after the disobedience. If we assume that the Serpent truly was Satan, I can't see that he "snuck in" to God's sanctuary. He had to be there with the permission of God. And what is a sanctuary riddled with temptation and "evil". No, the serpent wasn't evil. He was the most "clever" but not evil.

Now the first five books of the bible were supposedly written by Moses. If I remember correctly (and I may not) these writings were carried around in the Ark of the Covenant. These writing didn't reach the European or American continents en masse, as books of religious doctrine hundreds if not thousands of years after they were written. In the meantime, cultures thrived across the planet that had no access to the Adam and Eve story. These cultures had their own interpretation of the symbolism of the serpent. Interestingly enough, snakes were often associated with fertility, birth, life and eternity. They also have access to hidden things, hidden information, and secrets. I'm not really seeing any culture that views snakes as evil, or vessels for the evil lord Satan. Source

So let's put two and two together here. A snake tempts Eve to eat the fruit, become mortal, introduce pain and suffering into the earth, lose her innocence perhaps through sex and be ejected from the Garden of Eden. Ok. And snakes have long mythology of being associated with fertility, birth, life and eternity. Sounds to me like one clever creature. Sounds to me like that creature's temptation served Eve to fulfill a commandment to multiply and replenish the Earth.
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Let's change gears. I want to return to the vision I had as I pondered Adam and Eve several days ago.

If I'm in a room, a normal room, let's say I'm in your bedroom, and I shine a really bright spotlight in the room, what happens to the darkness? Does it disappear? Think about it.

I argue that darkness does not disappear. It gathers. It gathers into deeper, darker shadows. The more light I shine, the harder it is to see into the shadows. The shadows in that room become impenetrable. Now if I take everything out of the room, and it's empty, sure, there will be almost no shadow, just feint shadows on the walls, but what good is an empty room? An empty room is beside the point. I want a fullfillinig room, so it has to have substance.

Do we agree that the shadow gathers into deep, dark shadows?

Now, let's say I take that light away. What happens to the darkness? It spreads all over the room. And there's always enough darkness to go around. All light WILL leave the room. There is such a thing as pure dark. There is no such thing as pure light, unless it is actively and equally shined from every possible angle, with no objects to block the light.

It's interesting about darkness, isn't it? And the more accustomed we become to light, the harder it is to penetrate and see into darkness. The less light there is, the more perceptible darkness becomes.

Darkness is like a teenager. The harder you fight against it, the more mysterious it becomes. But you can't leave it unattended or it will take over everything. You have to find a balance with it. Enough light so that you can function, but little enough light that you can look into it and see what's there.
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So let's go back to the Garden of Eden. Oh, everything in the Garden was oh so light, oh so bright. Everything was so bright and so perfect, that let's pretend darkness got cornered into one spot. Darkness was cornered into the holes of the earth. The rabbit holes, the gopher holes, etc. Now mythologically the serpent can be seen as a messenger from the underground. A messenger from the Earth. God (male diety) created Earth (female diety), to be the womb of his creations. Likewise, Adam (male) was given Eve (female) to be the womb of his posterity. Light (male) gives us an opportunity to see into the dark wombs of our souls (female) so that we can become enlightened and we can learn and grow. So the serpent, messenger of the dark underworld, crawls upon Mother Earth, once Father Sky has given his commandment, and approaches the woman. Says "Yo, if light keeps darkness cornered like this there will never be the power of life on this planet. You gotta let the dark (female) mingle with the light (male) so that this Earth serves it's purpose."

If Adam's rib had always stayed inside of his body, he never would have had a fertile womb to gestate his posterity. The rib had to come out. The rib becomes female. Likewise, the darkness of the Earth's womb had to be allowed to roam on Earth. Mother Earth sent her umbilical cord (serpent) to connect to her child (Eve) and teach her how to own her power as a woman.

Eve partook of the fruit, and instantly light and darkness existed in a balance upon the Earth! The seen and the unseen mingled! The unconscious - Adam and Eve's innocent souls - connected to their minds, their egoes, and they realized they were naked! It was like Eve plugged in and everything finally sprang to life AND death! What a miracle!

And for those of us believing this all has to do with sex, that's fantastic. Think about it: the light (phallus) enters darkness (womb) and the balance of the two, the partnership of opposites creates new life. Bingo!
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And so now we live in a world of darkness and light. We're on this crusade, it seems, to destroy darkness and live only in light. Sounds flat and boring to me. Not only that, we all know that darkness doesn't destroy, it just gathers. Is it any wonder that the world has lived primarily in patriarchal order for so many years? It is any wonder that pagan religions of Europe who celebrated the Goddess are considered "dark and evil" by patriarchal cultures - cultures obsessed with "overcoming darkness?" Funny! Darkness isn't here to be overcome! It's here to be explored! It's here to feed creativity (womb) and imagination! The most effective way of exploring darkness is by approaching it with some light. Balance. Balance. Balance.

As a woman, by the way, I am NOT insinuating that because women are represented by darkness that is makes them evil. To associate darkness with evil is to completely miss the point of this blog. Darkness is simply the counterbalance to light. Period. This association with women is cross-cultural anyways. In Greek mythology Apollo and Artemis were twins, with Apollo (male) ruling the sun, and Artemis (female) ruling the moon. Women's menstruation follows closely the cycles of the moons as well. And there's no missing the physiolocial fact that male genitalia is outside of the body (exposed to light) while female genitalia is hidden inside of her body (darkness). Etc, etc.


One last image that I'd like to share from the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot. The Devil card. Notice its similarities to the Lovers card presented above. Notice, if you dare, that both male and female are equally at risk of choosing bondage in life. It's not about the serpent. It never is. In fact, these two people could easily free themselves from bondage - their chains are not tight. But they are comfortable here, so comfortable, in fact, that they're naked - nothing to hide. These two have never had their consciousness awakened - they're still staring blankly off into space. I imagine this card representing Adam and Eve had they stayed in the Garden. Neutralized, simplified, unprogressing. If you stare too long at the sun, your eyes go blind. If you stare too long at the sun and go blind ... darkness wins and takes over. You lose light forever.
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God asks Adam and Eve what happened. Eve says "the serpent beguiled me." God curses Eve and the serpent. Eve is told to be accountable to her husband. Sounds like a perfect ending for a patriarchal story. Sounds like the reaction of a male diety. Does it change my feelings about the story? Nope. Our Earth carries the burdens of rainforests AND deserts. She lives in a constant balance of light AND darkness. She allows seasons of summer AND winter. All at the same time, all at once. In a perfect balance. Feel free to call that a curse, I call it a beautiful miracle, and I enjoy climbing her mountains and living in her valleys.


Her deep pains of labor, much like a woman's childlabor, is her opportunity to explore pain and sacrifice. Her connection to these depths are like the mysteries of the ocean. The serpent crawls upon it's belly, it's "curse," keeping ever in close contact with the womb of all life ("From dust to dust...").


Well, whatever. Call it a curse. That's ok. I'm still awed and honored to be a part of it!