My Promo-Mentors Writing Challenge| What I Have Learned!

Thank you @futurethinker for creating another awesome writing challenge, here is my submission 😉

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An event that changed me, when was it?

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I was still living in New York, and this event took place in October 1998. I decided to make an appointment for a tarot reading with a professional. I was brought up in a strict Christian home, and such things were considered an abomination.

In the year 1998, I was married and already a mother of three girls. I no longer observed the tenets of Christianity and yet I was apprehensive about exploring other religious views. I had personal struggles I was dealing with and needed guidance, going to the pastor or psychologist just wasn’t working for me.

I remember that day clearly. I no longer smoke cigarettes now, only the occasional cigar, but I did back then. Camels were my favorite brand at the time. I must’ve smoked at least six cigarettes as I waited to be seen. All the while the voices in my head roared demanding my head on a platter for choosing to see a tarot reader.

I never backed down from a personal challenge. So naturally, the intense terror in my bones became motivation to confront these feelings head-on. I knew it was something that I would have to work on consistently every day. Patience, love, and compassion became the tools in my arsenal.

On that day, my heart was racing and my palms sweaty. My coat had become too heavy and I longed to take it off. But the winters are extremely cold in New York, and I didn’t want to get sick. But despite how my body, emotions, and mind were reacting, there was something about tarot that drew me in, captivated and stirred emotions in me long forgotten.

Now, I realize that some of the images in tarot make people uncomfortable. Movies have done a superb job, in portraying tarot readers as crazy gypsies, foretelling the future and warning about doom, death, and curses. Still, a small still voice whispered that there was so much more to reading tarot than how it was being portrayed.

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What happened?

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Finally, the hour had arrived for my reading. To my surprise, I met a jovial woman mature in years and from outward appearances, normal. No funny gypsy type clothing or a huge crystal ball in her office. She did, however, have beautiful gemstones on her table and her deck of tarot cards. Perfuming the air was frankincense and myrrh. Inviting me to take a seat, she asked that I close my eyes and breathe deeply three times. She must have seen how nervous I was. Offering me a cup of warm tea, she continues.

We joined hands to make the empathic connection and after shuffling my cards, bam! She already knew the question I had come to seek guidance for. She even whispered deeply specific personal information before I had even the slightest chance to ask my question. One of the beautiful things about the reading was her ability to simply identify the problem and provide me with short and long-term practical solutions so that I could finally resolve it. It deeply changed me, because it was the first time I walked away feeling empowered.

Gods didn’t control my destiny, I did, with my beliefs, actions or lack thereof. She didn’t offer quick fixes, but the opportunity to take personal responsibility for my role to play in the events surrounding my life, and ways to change the direction I was on.

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What I learned?

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It was this event that spurred me into studying tarot and in 2007, I started out reading for fun. I never claimed to be a psychic or to foretell the future. But in my experience, I was able to tap into something larger than myself. Some call it the divine, higher self, the collective unconscious or intuition. All of us can tap into this, in fact, we do more often than we realize, we just call it our “gut instinct”.

The tarot cards are a universal language and their images invoke a collective patterning that we all share through the archetypes. Through these archetypes, we can find guidance on how to personally transform our lives.

In my years of studying tarot, I discovered that our skin is the biggest sponge there is, absorbing stimuli from the environment. The body then works in the most miraculous ways to provide us with feedback about the people we connect with, our environment, and even the health of our body. When we learn to trust and pay attention to the signals our bodies give us all the time, we discover just how deeply connected, we are to each other.

I have had the pleasure of reading tarot professionally for people, I don’t anymore. My clients have always walked away deeply satisfied with the advice that I was able to receive, and secret things I was able to uncover.

One client had issues with infertility, it was my first time reading for her. Her reading was about career, and as I read the messages being unlocked in the cards for her, my intuition spoke, and I trusted. As a bonus, I was able to receive detailed specific information about her infertility issue but most importantly I encouraged her to seek guidance from a medical professional.

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Meet the Universal Archetype known as The Hermit

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Hermit represents the archetypal wise sage in all of us regardless of age. We all have access to this powerful key of the subconscious mind in our sleep. He often appears as the old man, a Merlin type figure. The Wise Sage shares his knowledge with those minds that are willing and open to receive it. His goal is to elevate conscious thought, help minds to move past the limitations of their own perception.

Conflicts and cruelty of all kinds have all been in one way or another justified because of the level of perception of an individual or group of “like-minded” individuals. “Like-minded” individuals that believe that because “others” perceive things as they do, then their way is the only correct way. What fools we make of ourselves when we choose to hold to our precious illusions – perceptions. How much sweeter would it be if we saw differences as the unique flavors of consciousness? How beautiful would it be to see the insights of another that seem different from our own, as an invitation, to elevate ourselves as a person and as a community.

What makes this Wise Sage a powerful archetype, is that he has harvested wisdom from the deep garden of his experiences. He knows his knowledge and understanding is not the truth, but only one unique way of perceiving and experiencing life.

You will find that our deep need to withdraw is one of the traits of this wise sage. As we withdraw from hustle and bustle of life and open the door to our mind, we discover the delights of our own internal retreat. There all along waiting for us to remember how to swim deep in the oceanic waves of conscious and unconscious energy. Here we heal, integrate and remember our true authentic expression because we have finally learned to recognize our own song amid the sea of voices.

Yes, to unlock this wise sage archetype, you will need to go beyond the barriers of your own self-based definitions and limitations and even risk appearing foolish and insane to those around you.

He may appear as a crazy mystic to your logical mind, but his advice will always be sound and practical. His mind over the years has been molded and refined by the chisel and hammer of life, and this has been our experience collectively.

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Header photo was taken from pixabay, all other photos taken by me.

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