A Two Handed Spread.

A spread for when you are of two minds, when your actions don't match your thoughts, or when you are both certain and uncertain.

Mix up the cards well and good, letting the randomness of the universe in to play. When it is done, spread the cards out face down, close your eyes, and pass your hands over the array.

You will be using both hands for this spread. One of those hands is more likely to write and take the lead on things. The other sits back and supports. Decide which is which and continue.

Let your writing hand seek the knowledge that your conscious mind needs. This is the part of you that thinks it knows everything. It speaks in a small voice that it amplifies into an authority. It says that it’s in charge. Take care of this voice. It is very vulnerable and usually scared. It needs your love. Let your hand find a card that will let you protect and guide this part of you.

Pick your card and set it aside face down.

Let your silent hand seek the knowledge that you need deep down. While your conscious mind is talking, there is another part of you that is taking in the world. This part does not speak in words, but if you pay attention, you will find its soft voice reverberates in your bones and breath. This part will do what it will. Know that it loves you. Let your hand find the card that will help you earn its trust.

Pick your card and set it aside face down.

Put the rest of the deck back together, ordering the universe around you again.

Turn your two cards over at the same time.

A Church Without A Roof

©Robert Potts

Redwoods are a communal species. While they can grow from seed, more often they grow from shoots sent up from the roots of older trees. They form communities growing together in various arrangements. Whatever architectural style the trees choose, semicircle or something else, there is a distinctive feel to a cathedral of redwoods that isn't present in a grove or stand. I mean, sometimes you come up to a bunch of redwoods and they're just a bunch of redwoods, nice and beautiful. And other times you walk in and your whole spirit is lifted to heaven.

The Spread of Darkness

The way of depression is the sinking into that which is below, where Malkuth, the realm of the physical plane becomes even more of itself. There is treasure here. Having the dark places be a part of you, means being the movement for that which is more still, the truth for that which holds its secrets close, the fire for that which has found itself fallen.

But how can we come to do that?

At the top of the Tree, above Kether, there are three bright emanations, waves of light that gain in their lightness as they move out of our ability to perceive even the hint of their existence. These are the ain, the ain soph, and the ain soph aur if you’re googling. 

They are mirrored in a darkness that lies along the farther shore, the deeper shore.

The Deal:
Pick three cards using any method you want. Lay them out as your heart desires.

The Bright Darkness
What we know but cannot see or say. What brought us to this place, the reason we are here at this time, asking this question.

The Thick Darkness
Here the body moves through dense time, resistance, apathy, forgetfulness, disconnection. There are things we would be free of if we could.

The Grace at the Bottom
Total release, where our faith lies (you might be surprised) and where we rest and remember and find ourselves whole again.

In living with depression, we have few life affirming ways to work with the still, hopeless, stagnant energies we find ourselves straddled with. And most of the advice for how to deal with depression center on getting as far away from those energies as possible. 

That would be lovely if we had the energy to get off the couch. Depression is a dampening, a forced going in that can feel like a prison. The idea of getting away sounds like too much trouble because our energies are too drained, too attenuated. 

But there is still energy to be had. There is still the possibility of movement. There is still some note of volatility that can be sensed, its intelligence listened to. Though often it speaks of sad things, and meaningless things, and loneliness, it can still be the fuel for alchemical change. 

There are processes available in deep depression. Putrefaction, the sloppy, sluggy process that turns whatever is weak and futile into jelly, needs no more energy than using a remote or checking messages on your phone. 

If you find you have some heat, perhaps a bit of anger at your lot, or an itch of dissatisfaction, or anything that makes you want to move, you might try one of the deeper fermentations. Rather than letting your resentments merely simmer, let them bubble up like yeast, bringing air and light into the depression.

Meditations:
Awareness

Fresh Fruit

The Devil

As in the Tarot Card.

All the majors are, for me, neither good nor bad. They are all Good, as in part of the Law. The Devil is a wonderful friend. He prepares you to have your illusions of bondage torn away. He makes it possible for you to feel those chains and to desire to be rid of them. He is the part of g*d that allows us to alchemize even the most tawdry of experiences. Like the experience of feeling separate, or fearing the dark, or wanting to feel good even when we know we are destroying ourselves. The Devil is what allows us to take those experiences and do something Good with them. Among other things.

Driving to the Unaffected Coast

I think a lot about the wounds I carry. It has never seemed very fruitful to think of the injustice of it. There are always others worse off. I am never completely innocent or less deserving of receiving a random share of unfairnesses. But looking forward, I can see in the wounds, the possibility of something else. By staying with the pain, I can sometimes open up to something amazing, a connection, a feeling of being larger than I thought I was. Each wound becomes an opportunity to do this thing. 


 Also, hammocks are awesome. 

 

A Parliament, Sudden and Momentary

It was mid-afternoon,
still and bland.
The sunlight clear,
the day's tasks lay undone.

And then, a small rustle turned huge
as a parliament blew in, filling
the big-leaf maples in my backyard.
They swept in and suddenly
the trees were heavy with black bodies,
swaying and flapping their wings
they yelled and cackled.
They were a great wind,
swirling up from somewhere,
forcing my attention to them.

I could not understand their dialogue.
I don't know what matter of great import
was being debated, but the arguments
flew back and forth with a fury.
I could only imagine what political maneuvers
were in play, what family houses held
their honor on the line, what epic crow
poem was being enacted before my eyes.

 Then they were gone.
A few stragglers
  came through
 over the next hour,
but they were too late
for the main event and
for the most part no one paid them much attention.

2 of Pentacles

In martial arts we are taught that being tense slows us down. When we force stillness upon ourselves, we hold our bodies in place by pushing inward from all directions. Isometric. It takes a lot of work to do this bit of nothing, and it slows down your response time. Any time you decide to move in one direction, you must first relax everything that's pushing you elsewhere. But if you start relaxed, you can immediately move in any direction quickly, as needed.