it's like gym for your soul...

My clients must get sick of me telling them to start meditating. They frequently talk about how they just can't stop thinking. How they just keep overthinking. How they worry about their kids, their jobs, their partners.

Ah. The bullying mind!

Of course, we're human and very few of us who live an average human life are going to rid ourselves of all worry. But it honestly doesn't have to be this painful.

What most of us aren’t taught - and should be! - is that the mind is a tool.

We think that the mind is us, that the crazy rushing river of thoughts between our ears is what we actually are. Sub-consciously, many of us fear that if that never-ending stream of chatter ceases, so do we.

But. The mind is simply a tool that helps us to work out how to get stuff. Like a computer does. Or Anthony Robbins.

We let the mind run roughshod over us and when we do, it’s like those cartoons you see where someone unskilled starts a chainsaw and runs round the yard chopping shit up as they struggle to get control of it.

The very best thing you can do to tame your rampaging mind is learn meditation. Meditation is gym for both the mind and the soul. It strengthens both your ability to concentrate your thoughts and your ability to clear your mind when complete calm is needed.

There are a lot of different types of meditation and a lot of different ways to learn. I always recommend people start with YouTube. Just search guided meditations and listen to a few different ones till something floats your boat.

Five minutes a day is far more useful to you than a half hour on Saturday morning. It's about making that small daily silence a habit. One day, you will find it has become so habitual, it will happen automatically during a crisis and the other people involved will say to you, 'How can you be so calm?'

It's because you'll have trained your mind to react as needed in the meditation room in the same way a weightlifter trains their body to react in the gym.

Just make a start. Put the word out to The Universe that you are ready to start stopping your thoughts - just for a while, here and there - and the path to blissful quiet in your head will open before you.


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it's like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die...

Humans are complicated. We're like walking talking symbols of Oppositional Defiance Disorder. We routinely both love and hate our significant others - partners, parents, kids - at the same time.

I often see people who are looking for intuitive guidance from the cards on how to resolve, or at least, live with these destructive dilemmas. A reading can help with the specifics of an individual case, but in the mean time, there are certain truths that can help in every situation.

Whether it's someone you love who is in your life everyday, or a stranger passing through your life, you can stop drinking the poison and experience less of the corrosive emotion of hate.

1) Understand that we are all born guiltless and that life then happens to us. Life is hard and it often twists people. If the person has done something unforgivable, try not take it personally - by that I mean that, it's them, not you.

2) Understand that nobody, except a very sick individual, gets out of bed in the morning and thinks now whose life can I cock up today? Everybody thinks they are doing what they have to do to survive.

3) Understand that letting go of your hatred helps you, not them. To say, I'm not going to be angry about this anymore is not the same as saying What you did to me was okay. It is more like saying, I'm not going to let you keep doing it to me.

4) Symbolic visualisation of what you want your emotions to do helps enormously. The human brain thrives on visual plans and wants to do what you instruct it to do. It LOVES symbols - flags, dreams and music tell us this very clearly.

5) Meditation is the greatest tool you can use to calm destructive emotion and there are many places on the net where you can learn to do it for free.

You can imagine a balloon with the object of your hate inside and release that balloon to float away out of your sight. This symbolic imagination tells your brain that you don't want to think about that person anymore. It will work soon enough if you persist.

You can imagine that hatred as a yukky poison that fills your body which you then let drain away out of you through your fingers and toes. This tells your brain that your resentment is toxic and it shouldn't allow poisonous crap to hang around in your mind because that also affects your body.

If that person is still in your life and you are forced to unpleasant confrontations, you can imagine yourself as being surrounded by a shield which protects you from any 'bad vibes' that might come from them. This tells your brain to disregard input from that person.

You may be thinking How can these things help me? It's all imagination.

Well, great news - so are your emotions!

Yes, it's true - your emotions are all in your head. Which is not the same as saying they are not real, it just means that you are in charge of them. Yes, they are an unruly bunch and when they are running very high, it takes effort and clear thinking to keep them civilised, but still, they are yours to command.

If you have been very wronged, it can take time to heal and release your hatred - but while ever you are making the effort to let it go rather than to hold on to it, you are moving forward towards freedom and happiness.



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magic is all around us, every single day...

Just a quick reminder. 

You are a marvel!

You started as a miracle when two invisible cells found each other in the dark of your mother's body and for better or worse, bound together in the holy matrimony that is you!

Then your amazingness continued to grow as you were built - inside your mother's body! - using some mysterious blueprint science calls DNA.

So, think about this. Two cells - one from Mother, one from Dad - find each other in the pitch black, become one and begin to build every single organ in your body by dividing itself over and over again.

So. Once that cell has divided, how do those two halves know what to become? I mean, some of them will become heart cells and some of them will become brain cells. How do they know which is which? Is there a team picking thing going on in there?

'Okay! You. You. And... you! Over here - you're on the kidney team.'

That gob-smacking process used the material of your mother's body to create you. Think about it. Where else did all the stuff that was you when you were born come from? It came from your mother's body - not just what she consumed, but what she actually already was. This is why women get so tired being pregnant. They are literally growing a machine more complex than any other on earth IN THEIR BODY.

This is why women can loose teeth when pregnant - if she isn't consuming enough calcium or if, for some reason, the calcium she is consuming is not bio-available, Life takes the calcium from her teeth and bones to build her baby's teeth and bones. That's why pregnant women are so often anemic - Life takes the iron from her blood to build the baby's blood.

Creepy - and yet, phenomenal, spectacular, astonishing!

But this is not a post about what mothers give up for their kids. It's a pleasure and an honour to do Life's work for her - or at least, it should be.

This post is about what a miracle you are, as is every single person you will meet today, as is every creature you see in your travels. Even spiders and snakes. And I don't mean 'miracle' in the religious sense of the word. I mean it in the 'Holy %$#*! That's unbelievable' sense of the word.

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I long for the day we all give the miracle of all Life the deep respect and love it is due. We need to stop fighting and killing each other and all the other incredible creatures we share this planet with.



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how I learned to stop worrying and love The Tower

The Tower's meaning changes and grows with us.

The Tower: Change is coming, ready or not. 

Of course many of you will recognise the title as a play on the title of Stanley Kubrick's hilariously terrifying satire about war: Dr Strangelove or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb.

With lightning striking at its crumbling rooftop and people leaping from its windows like some medieval 911 scenario, The Tower has a very dodgy reputation as tarot cards go. It forms, along with Death and The Devil, what I call 'The Tripod of Terror'. These are cards that, as a reader, I'm really not that thrilled to see come out in a reading.

But not because they're terrible cards that necessarily mean death and destruction are coming your way. I just hate to see them because too many clients know only just enough about tarot to be scared of them.

I wish I had a dollar for every time I've turned a card to reveal The Tower only to hear my client make a sound as though they'd been punched in the stomach.

OOF!

I stop my very important work of laying out the cards, and look up to see them staring at The Tower as though it's a crime scene photo. I generally laugh then and say, 'Let me guess - you get your cards read a lot, but you don't read yourself?' And I'm generally right.

The surface reading of The Tower - in the little paper booklet that comes with every pack of tarot cards and contains one sentence on each of the 78 cards in your deck- will be something like:

CATASTROPHE! THE SKY IS FALLING! RUN! RUN AWAY! RUN FAR FAR AWAY.

But the reality is far more nuanced and hopeful than that.

Yes, The Tower does indeed usually tell us that it's time to let go of something. But it rarely means that you are going to lose everything without warning - which is how a lot of beginners see it. To me, the main lesson of The Tower is to grasp everything in your life lightly - because it all passes away.

When the time comes to let go of something - be it a job, a location or a relationship - be prepared to let it go. If you don't let go when the time comes to let go, The Universe has a nasty habit of reefing it out of your grasp.

"Give it up gracefully" says Life, "or I'll be forced to take it from you."

That is always the most painful option.

As the old hippie song goes - To everything there is a season, turn turn turn... If you want to see some crazy go-go dancers and hear some of those pretty harmonies from the 1960s, take a moment to listen to The Byrds tweeting out some timeless wisdom. To everything, there is a season...

My own favourite story of The Tower and how it can play out in real life happened like this:

Many years ago, before I'd gotten better acquainted with The Tower, when I was still afraid of that bolt of lightening that would come out of nowhere and lay waste to my life, I laid out some cards regarding a crucial creative grant I'd applied for. My career would be set back by years by failure in this matter!

BAM! Out came The Tower along with several other cards that would normally refer to my creative endeavours.

Dammit. Dammit dammit dammit. I wasn't getting the grant. Obviously. I was so bummed. I felt like I'd already heard the bad news and right away, I began the work of getting over it.

The next day, I had a practice session with my music partners, Dougy and Laurence. I own a beautiful rare old Maton classical guitar, considered one of the best guitars ever made in Australia. I've had it since I was 16 years old when I swapped it for my Yamaha semi-acoustic. Believe me, I got the best side of that deal.

I loved that guitar and couldn't imagine playing anything else. There were problems though, and I'd been thinking of getting another guitar for a while. Since I'd been jamming with Laurence and Dougy, my gentle nylon string was overwhelmed by the sound of their pushy steel strings.

But I held off. I couldn't let go of my Maton.

You know what's coming, don't you?

There I was, standing with my beloved guitar across my belly, slung on its strap around my shoulder. As we talked about what to play next, I rested my crossed arms atop the body, not a care in the world.

Until the guitar strap broke. With the weight of my arms on top of her pushing towards the ground, I didn't have a hope of saving her. She smashed to the floor, totally unplayable. I was inconsolable. That guitar was like my third child.

But we had a gig to play in 2 days time. I didn't have time to grieve her. I had to buy a new guitar.

So, guess what? I loved my new guitar. I should have bought it earlier so that Ms Maton didn't need to be sacrificed to my inability to let go of the old. My musical ability progressed out of sight with an updated tool of trade.

I was able to find someone to patch my first love up. She's playable. I love her still and play her often - but she'll never be the same.

This was vintage Tower action. Like all cards, there are nuances and different interpretations depending on the issue under discussion, but at base, The Tower teaches us to let go and be ready for anything. It can foretell a broken guitar or a car accident - but it can also foretell the love of your life or a lottery win, depending on the cards surrounding it.

Change is coming whether you like it or not. Be flexible.

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