At last I have a reason to meditate. At 67 years of age, with all the adult years engaged directly or indirectly in spiritual study, including meditation, I’ve never had a specific personal need to meditate. 

Truth is, I enjoy my own thoughts overmuch. I found little in the quietness to compensate for the effort to silence my personal inward chatter. Meditating is entertaining in its own right, for sure, but still hasn’t been important enough to make it a big piece of my practice. And I do have a practice.
But now, as of today meditation has become more important to me than entertaining myself with my own thoughts. Indeed, I find I very much want to have greater, more frequent access to my intuition, my insights, and messages from my guides. None of these resides in my mental chatter. Meditation seems like it will be the key to opening my third eye, and giving me greater access to these more subtle ideas. 

A quiet mind creates the space for less-directed messages to come in. So now that I’ve made the messages a priority, meditation is equally a priority. 

Makes sense to me.

You are not unique. In the ways that you may be unique, you add your uniqueness to the story the cards depict. It’s a story of humans and their lives. How could it not be your story. The Arcana are the people who populate human life, humans. The number cards represent energies, forces of life. They show what’s happening to the people.

So I shuffle. Play with the cards. Deal them out. There I am, in the middle of all this busy living. How to make sense of it. 

It’s a conversation between me and the cards I’m dealt. What other meaning could I possibly bring to this than my own meaning. 

Tarot is always right because it can’t possibly be wrong. Because it’s you interacting with the cards. It could be tea leaves as well, or the lines on your palm. 

It’s helpful because it is a mirror. Sometimes it’s easier to see in a mirror. 

In some instances, my recovery from Polio being one such instance, forcing a reluctant child to do something they abhor to do isnt mean. But most times that’s all it is: mean. I remember when toddler Erin became what we call a “picky eater”. She also began an odd eating routine, in which some days, sometimes several consecutive days, she fasted. The other days she ate voraciously, if selectively. Nothing on her plate could have any contact, including drippings with the others. 
I called my pediatrician. He said in his forty years as a pediatrician he had never once seen a child starve by choice. 
My parents would have forced me relentlessly to eat as they wanted me to eat. Unfortunately this frequently occurred and often led to dire consequences. 
My parents were wrong, but there is a silver lining: I’ve always been clear in almost all cases not to follow their example. 
But I have to give credit where credit is due. My mother forced me to do every bit of the daily routine and sequencing of exercise and rest the Physical Therapist at the hospital recommended. 
I of course resisted, but my mother insisted, no exceptions. The doctor at the hospital told my mother I would never walk again. My mother was having none of it. She pushed me off of the crutches, refused to allow surgery. She was my hero. And I’m still walking. And grateful at a depth … well I have nothing to compare it to. Love. Gratitude and love. 
So there are times when a child’s displeasure is simply irrelevant. But those other times …

The roses are coming along nicely. A Robin is looking around for a nest. I want her/him to nest where I can see them. I hope it’s not too late. I’ll put out some nesting material to entice her. I have no idea whether that is ignorant and lame or a good idea. Please weigh in my dear treasured wildlife biologists. Your input enriches my world.

Update: The. At Maggie is a bird killer. So far from enticing her I’m just hoping she nests where I can see her with binoculars.

Humpty Trumpty built a GREAT wall. 

Climbed up on top to show he was TALL (BIGLY). 

Humpty sat down to write a new TWEETSULT.

The wall began trembling and soon he did FALL,

down on the MEXICAN side of the wall. 

That is all.

Make me a gift

Of the wrapping on

A neatly bound parcel of fear.

Teach me the posture 

Of acid composure 

The taste of an unshed tear.

Pull out the water!

Push out the air!

Leave only the innocence … bare

In a delicate lacework of memories, 

Confound, for a moment, the snare.

My body and I have gotten along better since I stopped thinking it was me, all of me, and nothing more of me. 
After 67 years of living and decades of healing I now think of my body as a space suit. It’s what I gotta have on to be in this world. 
My body is a creation of this world. Transient, mortal, helped along by survival instincts the human body is eminently suitable for this world. 

As my body ages, I’m more and more aware that my consciousness hasn’t. My consciousness (how I occur to myself, who I am for myself) is 25, even though my body is 67 and pretty beat up (life does that). 

I’m too old to dismiss the temporary nature of this body. It gives me daily reminders. I remember when I could just not think about life being transient. That is called 25.

But I must also say that I am very happy despite the chronic physical pain and the progressive decline of some of my body parts and systems. 

Used to get me down. Thankfully I’ve made progress with my mind. I choose happiness and self-agency every chance I get, every time I can. 

With practice the happiness has long since become my baseline. Now that’s something to be happy about. I have so much to be happy about. 

It’s not luck. 

It’s a choice. My maker endowed me with free will, not so I would be good, but so I would be powerful in the face of so many challenges and setbacks common in this life. 

I stand up taller,  I stress and suffer far less when I have a choice, even if it isn’t total and absolute choice over absolutely everything. I look for choice and welcome it even when its scope does not change a physicality. 

Subjectively my experience of life is qualitatively better, much better when I am “at choice.” Cheers me up even when it’s not objectively true. 

My mind is often a brat, frightened, lazy and indifferent, argumentative. I had to discipline my mind first. Nor am I done. 

But I’ve learned I can talk it into just about anything. So I create affirmations and repeat them over and over again. Meanwhile my mind is annoyed and incredulous at worst and at first,  and at best amused. 

In the end, my mind yields to my insistence. It bends to my will, my patience and my persistence. And when that moment comes, when my mind believes the words it is reciting, why then it’s just true. 

Say Hallelujah 

Say Amen