Life in the Tower

My dreams, lately, have been scattered and surreal. You may suppose that all dreams are that way, but really, mine often have a very particular storyline, so the fact that they have lately felt disconnected and staccato-ed, is, I think, some testament to some kind of discomposure.

I also have been reading Tarot cards lately, and I keep pulling up The Tower. It's a jarring card, but not necessarily bad. It's more like a wild card that just yells "SURPRISE!" It speaks of some structure or situation that comes tumbling down. Something being thrown out of joint, or wiped out. It can speak of loss, but not always the bad kind. When we are stuck in a tower, sometimes we need something or someone to tear us out of it.

It can reference anything from being jarred out of a bad work situation, to falling in love–to be "struck by lighting" because of meeting someone. The bolt of lighting is often seen as the hand of God, as are the golden raindrops around it: representations of the Hebrew letter yod, symbolic of the same. The card is scary, but usually only when we are afraid to change, even if the change is good.

Some people, in fact, get this card when they're going to have a baby (hee hee, which makes the look on the faces of those people tumbling much funnier). But rest assured–that is definitely not my situation at the moment!

I do feel, though, for whatever reason, like I am falling, and where I will land, no one can say. Maybe I will get somewhere I would not have otherwise gone, however.

The Tower is part of the Major Araca, the big, fat suit of 22 cards that discuss the archetypal roles we are required to play in order to achieve spiritual growth. Usually that means you can't avoid these cards; they are part of your karmic destiny. Sorry! Transformation is a real bitch.

By the way, if you ever want to pick up a pack and start reading, anyone can. They operate on the principle of the collective unconscious–the same sort of thing that makes you dream of the future, etc. You may find it interesting, in fact, to google Carl Jung and the Tarot and see why he was so fascinated with it, but he's one of my history heroes so, you know, I'm a bit biased.

karmic high school never ends

today i read an insightful editorial on cnn's belief blog, offering a priest's philosophical take on the value we can pull away from economic recession.

i do not consider myself particularly religious, but mostly because i am touched by the religious stories and customs of many faiths, and it's been my understanding that you're not allowed to claim to love religion unless you follow only one (ironic, no?). yet all faiths contain the same critical stories, the ones that teach us how to grow. in this case, the priest focused on the lessons of religion in not only how to build, but how to rebuild when everything is broken. how to build better after breaking down–a kind of growth that only comes from experiencing total failure, helplessness, and despair.

in Christianity, this is realized through humility and repentance. in Hinduism, this might be the work of Kali, the goddess who destroys all that is useless and outdated, making room for new growth. in astrology, it's recognized as the planetary alignment we are in now–when Saturn, the great teacher, is turned direct, forcing us to slow down, recognize our flaws, and go back to square one and work twice as hard to get to where we thought we were.

obviously, no one enjoys this kind of spiritual life lesson. in fact, the universe seems to be pretty damn good at picking the one thing you'd like least to have to deal with, and (surprise!) pushes you head-first into it, until you surrender yourself and are forced to become more flexible, more enterprising, and more tolerant. finally you admit that the way you are doing things just doesn't work anymore, and new ways and thoughts will have to take their place.

likewise this Catholic priest, while naturally channeling his thoughts through his Catholic background, insisted that suffering and loss are as much a nourishment of the soul, as are just rewards. this is because suffering teaches us empathy, and how to be receptive to others.

if you've ever met someone who you've tried to share something troubling or traumatic with, and they brush it off or tell you it's no big deal, they've probably just never had a major traumatic experience themselves, and have no concept of what that means. or if they've had one, they haven't taken in the lesson. they are probably not the best listener, either. whenever a catastrophic moment such as you've experienced finally does happen to them, though, they will experience total loss for the first time. it will then be in their power to take one of two paths: blame the world for this "unsuccessful" moment, further alienating themselves. or they can break down and admit vulnerability, reach out to others and learn to have compassion for difficult moments in life.

when we suffer, we have the opportunity to find each other. we also have the opportunity to realize where we were overconfident in our predictions, where we misjudged a situation, and where we have to go back to build better. even if the mistakes made weren't directly ours, we may still have to learn where and how to place trust. this is true in our individual lives as much as it in the economy. it's so hard to see this retracing-our-steps as a positive thing; you just want to get it right the first time and be done. nothing is more frustrating than feeling like you're going back to learn the same lesson again.

hmm. but what about those expensive tickets you bought, or that thoughtless comment you made? here's where you probably begin to recognize that you haven't really learned the lesson–or not entirely. this may even be the moment where you begin to recognize that you might be experiencing this lesson repeatedly throughout your life, karmically, built up in different stages and manifesting in different contexts, but always reminding you that you pretty much never stop growing. we'll always be spiritual students, our whole lives. karmically speaking, high school never does end.

it's hard for us to see this as necessary, but the mind and the soul, like the body, need constant rejuvenation. you know when you go to the gym and lift some weights, and then your muscles kill? you've essentially torn the muscle tissue to train it to build back tougher and thicker. but if you only lift weights for a week, don't expect that to set you up for life, especially if you like to hit up the bar on a regular basis. those guns need attention.

* photo of Kali is courtesy of Sanjay Patel's Little Book of Hindu Deities.

be happy

i have been in a stressful state all week, for various reasons, but one of the biggest, of course, being a general anxiety and misery for the japanese. and yet, they have shown astonishing and admirable patience and humanity in the way they've worked together to help each other.

my dreams have consequently been likewise bizarre and uncomfortable, always too vague to leave me remembering much but a sense of uneasiness; and i keep waking up in the middle of the night, tense with the realization that the world isn't safe.

this afternoon, however, after a day of about 1% of sunlight, i was sitting on the floor of my bedroom with my back to the radiator. my cats were doing likewise, which, by the way, makes it quite crowded around the radiator. but sitting there i looked out my window and happened to see patches of blue sky, straining to break through the racing clouds. it was so small, but i confess my chest actually tightened a bit at the sight. blue sky!

generally i am a cheerful person, singing to myself while walking down the sidewalk, etc. but from habits developed from past experiences, i tend to believe that if i can control enough factors around me by analyzing (or stressing over) them to the tiniest minutiae, then nothing can ever go wrong. of course this isn't true. i remember talking to one of my dear friends about a year ago about a situation that was troubling me, and which i could not stop stressing over. she asked me why i felt the need to be so preoccupied with it, and i said (and i still admit i kind of believe this) that if i at least prepared myself for all possible outcomes of this situation, then it would save me some of the pain of rather having a shock if a negative outcome should occur.

she looked at me kindly and grinned and said "no it won't."

and she's right. it wouldn't save me. you can prepare and prepare for pain, but it's still pain. is that sad-sounding? i've realized that a kind of freedom comes from that thought, though, which is what my friend was getting at: if you can only prepare so much, then what will you do with the rest of your time?

and that answer is always easy: be happy.

so to help you be happy, here's a lovely picture of surely some of the happiest spring flowers, daffodils:

protected

for some reason, i was worrying lately about the future, and about finding the right person to marry and settle down with. what if it just doesn't happen? it's a bit frightening sometimes, to think of the possibility of never marrying, or of being alone. i mean, for all of the empowering messages out there for women to break away from this obsession, in reality i think most people, men and women, fear not finding their soulmate. or they fear being without love in general.

and yet, i was reminded of a conversation that i had earlier today with a friend who i was driving to the airport. in the car we fell to talking about the respective moments of our lives that were particularly painful–we talked about losing people we love. i was remembering that i'd had several dreams in which i'd encountered and been comforted by the people i'd lost, and my friend had had the same happen to her. it is a reminder to me that there are so many kinds of love that are important, and romantic is only one of them. the love for family is sometimes even stronger.

it made me realize that, no matter how frightening it may feel to be alone, it's better to do so rather than to compromise yourself with someone who isn't right for you. because you never are alone. i really believe that. they are always with you–the friends and family you've lost. they come in dreams and in waking moments, where feelings or physical signs remind you of their constant presence.

dreams… i believe that dreams are truth, and our loved ones protect us through them, and through their presence in our waking world, wherever we go.

i used to be afraid of the dark because i thought i was alone, but i see now so clearly that that isn't true. in eat, pray, love, elizabeth gilbert learns about the balinese belief in the Four Brothers. each person is born with four invisible brothers who follow you throughout your life to protect you. the four brothers represent the four virtues of indonesian life: intelligence, friendship, strength and poetry; and yet they are very real. in fact, at night, they stand around your bed and fight off evil demons that may try and attack you.

so maybe i have four brothers who watch over my life. or maybe i have my grandparents, my favorite sixth grade teacher, the wonderful woman from my church who died of cancer so long ago now. or maybe it's a combination of all of them.

vision

today, during my rep visit to the whitfield school, i was struck by a beautiful painting done by a student.

i had come a little early so i had to wait in the front hallway for someone from the college center to come and greet me. as i waited, i noticed the piece hung on the right wall near the front entrance, so i wandered over to observe more closely. once i started to look, i couldn't seem to stop.

when you first perceive a piece of art, your initial reaction is never intellectual, it's emotional. or at least, it's my opinion that if the art truly came from the soul, then that's what you see when you regard it. but it is always so, i think.

this was the sort of painting that you fall into. the brushstrokes are wide and curving outward, the body of the painting a range of deep midnight blue to aquamarine, as if the whole canvas encompasses the world and all of existence-and so this one did, actually.

it was a painting of all the major world religions, in harmony with each other. unfolded upon this blue-mother-sea canvas were six petals, like the peals of an orange, with a depiction of a mosque or temple or church, each in its own holy shrine. the holy places were all connected by a thick stretch of blue beneath them, and by intricate lines that wound around the painting and in between. the tips of each petal blurred alternately from white into yellow, orange and brown, or from white into blue and black: the spectrum of day and night. the whole seemed to express the sacred unity of purpose underlying all faiths, but the experience of beholding it i really only describe feebly. next to the painting the student had written a description and interpretation of her belief that every faith is essentially the same. i couldn't believe that a high school student had done this.

i had to tear my eyes away from looking, because at some point i felt that even though i were legitimately supposed to be entertaining myself, i had somehow sunken into a reverie that would have made it extremely difficult to suddenly spring back into my extroverted side as soon as my guidance counselor walked around the corner.

but i thought about that painting all day today, and about the relative idealism of a teenager; would she practice that wide-spreading love that we feel so freely when we're younger, before we're tested by all of the hypocrisy and cynicism of the world? how will we practice the values that we claim to believe?

i saw eternity the other night

like a great ring of pure and endless light,

all calm, as it was bright,

and round beneath it, time is hours, days, years

driven by the spheres

like a vast shadow mov'd, in which the world

and all her train were hurl'd...

not only meaningful but sacred

traveling for the college so far this fall has made me deeply miss being a student. i don't mean that i don't love my job--rather, the opposite: that everywhere i go, i meet students who are on the brink of such a tremblingly exciting moment of their lives, and most of them don't even realize it. i didn't.

it makes me consider the thoughts that run through the minds of the students whom i meet. what about the ones who don't see college as a natural next step--not because they have other ambitions, but because they've been told that they're never going to amount to anything, or that they won't be supported in their efforts to get a college degree-financially or in spirit? what about those who really can't afford it? am i an elitist to feel sorry for these young people who won't be able to gain a degree?

being a graduate of a nationally ranked college myself, i of course have the biased opinion that, unless you are extremely motivated and talented, eschewing a college education is the equivalent of cutting off both of your hands. it doesn't mean that you can't succeed and have an incredible life--obviously a majority of the world does--but that so many doors will be closed to you unless you can prove through some other fashion that you've learned how to think. and yet, for all that my college fervently believes it can inspire young people to sense the world around them, i know that it's not the only means by which to do so, nor does every graduate leave with a profound concept of their place in the greater order. still, as one of my friends reflected when we were seniors, wondering why graduation was such a depressing prospect, college is "where you become who you're going to be."

another friend sent me a copy of the commencement speech of a writer who recently committed suicide, david foster wallace. i know--that's horrible, but his words were so haunting, not only because he said them before ending his own life, but because he grasped so clearly that an education--whether attained at college or in your back yard--is ultimately the culmination of your discovery that you alone hold the power to choose what direction your life will take:

"but if you've really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options. it will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, loud, slow, consumer-hell-type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars -- compassion, love, the sub-surface unity of all things. not that that mystical stuff's necessarily true: the only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see it. you get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. you get to decide what to worship..."

~ek-onkar satnam~