Tastiest Dish Card of the Week; 28th April 2014

 

 

 

This week I’m feeling under the weather, so I decided to pick a deck that “says it all”  with words and a picture.  This week’s card shares a timely message.

The tastiest, best recipes you can ever make are those that come together with an inspiration some lazy Saturday afternoon in a rainstorm when all you have on hand is pasta, eggplant, garlic and fresh herbs, or perhaps a dish you create with no holds barred as the Executive Chef at a fancy-shmancy prix-fixe joint.   (As opposed to being someone else’s fry-cook or pastry chef trying to make other people happy).   Why are those meals so tasty?  Because you’re the source of creativity and passion flowing in the moment of inspired action and NOT the person worried about what everyone else thinks.       The best things are made when we’re unselfconscious and focused only on serving our art.

 

 

Not an artist?  It doesn’t matter!   Life is your art!   Maybe you don’t have to think quite so hard this week about how to painstakingly craft the most perfect image for other people to see you as.  Maybe all the trying and all the belabored recipe following is hiding your true light from shining forth, just as it is.   Whatever “recipe” you’re trying to stick to do the best job, might not be working for you.   Are you pressured to write a perfect online profile?  Do the most amazing mom-week ever? Craft a perfect presentation? Make a perfect web page?         Maybe all that pressure to get things just right and to follow all the rules is actually becoming a thorn in your creative side.     This is a week to let loose in your metaphorical kitchen and to not be encumbered by so much “try to get it right”   and too much THINKING.   Instead … let yourself be free to do what you really want and what really comes from that “authentic Me” place.    When you do you will feel (and appreciate) yourself more.  And when you appreciate yourself more the need for others to appreciate and approve of you (the reason why you were trying to be all perfect in the first place) disappears and the flow of REAL creativity takes over.  You have lots of creative ideas right now that are trying to break free!

 

*About this deck:  “The Voice of Knowledge Cards” by don Miguel Ruiz  is published by Hay-House.

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Riding a Bubble; Card of the Week 21st April 2014

 

 

This week’s card  shows a little fairy, her wings missing for now,  standing atop a bubble as she contemplates a beautiful tulip she wants to get to, it is from turn-of-the-century artist  Ida Rentoul Outhwaite “Bubble Fairy with Tulip”.    On the reverse of the card there is a quote that says,

WISHES ON THEIR WAY TO COMING TRUE
will not be rushed,
though a faithful heart
helps wishes become real.

-Anonymous

Wishes ARE on their way to becoming true, but you might be feeling more like this fairy poised on a delicate soap bubble than on solid Earth this week.

Astrologically, a  “GRAND CROSS”  of planetary alignment is set to peak on April 23rd this week when Mars, Jupiter, Pluto and Uranus will be at 90 degree angles to each other creating  a “Cross” – supposedly pulling up a dramatic cross-roads  and point of transformation and change that can’t be ignored.

Planetary or not, April has been a crazy month in which powerful “change” energy has been felt by just about everyone. This has not always been comfortable as the old paradigm is stripped away (ready or not) and a new one makes its way into the world.     None of this is change we cannot handle, and everything happening is something we really WANT  on a deep level.   So before you buy into all these emotions swirling around, take heart.           These tough emotions (and in some areas, spiny anger spikes!)  are just your emotions kicking up a fuss at being in all this flux and change, taking a peak at those hidden areas that you’ve been neglecting or even afraid of.

The fairy’s old mode of transportation (her wings)  might not be working anymore and indeed she  might be rising up on a swirling, rainbow-slick of soap (could it burst? will it last?)  that seems uncertain, but she is rising and the wind will carry her to her flowery destination … she just has to be patient and have faith with this new mode of transportation.

As the quote says, sometimes we can’t rush, speed or skip past the change and the pain that comes with it to get to the good stuff on the other side.   Instead we have to have faith that this way is better, that it is all building something wonderful.   After all, haven’t you been getting signs for weeks or months that the old way won’t work anymore?

That tulip is unfurling a petal for you to step onto, and you’re almost there, but in the meantime this week,  don’t hop and down on the bubble, don’t try to speed it up, don’t lose hope or fall off, don’t poke it with a pin because you’re afraid it will not carry you.  Instead,   keep your faith in yourself and others, for above all else, this is your magic feather that will carry you through.

 

Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation.

D. Elton Trueblood

 

About this deck:  SWEET DREAMS 36 Bedtime Wishes  by Cooper Edens and Sheryl Abrams published by Chronicle Books,   are wishes, quotations and accompanying children’s book illustrations from bygone eras to lull you (or a special child)  to sweet dreams.

You’re BIGGER Than This; card of the week 14th April 2014

 

This week’s card from the “Notes from the Universe” card deck  is a great one.   Another timely and awesome gift, this deck has the same cheeky, funny (and sometimes vexing) imaginary “notes” from the Universe as the famous TUT mailing list and the first card I pulled was this one.      Indeed, advice like this often annoys me.  Laugh at my problems?   I don’t think so.  My problems are SERIOUS, I tell ya.  Serious.  What could be more important than me and my problems?      (Fittingly, the stack of wood the card is propped on came from an ill-fated apple tree too close to my roofline that I was very sad about cutting.)      But fear ego always wants to keep us limping along, ignoring the obvious and crying in our turtle soup instead of creating new actions and intentions around what is being cut down in order for new things to emerge.      In truth  we ARE bigger than whatever issue we seem to be having right this minute.   That’s the uncomfortable truth.

I also love how this card speaks to “vices” along with the pains of life…. for life’s troubles often are NOT rooted in the accidents and losses that come our way, but in our addiction to various things.    I’m not talking about liquor, gambling, shopping, chocolate ice-cream or loose women here either, though those cause their own troubles.   No, the biggest, snarliest addictions we face are those to pain, self-sabotage and drama.    Strangely enough, the devil we know (kicking holes in our own self esteem with self-pity) is often preferable to the devil we don’t  (whatever unknown NEW thing we have to try and learn or do next!)

This card reminds us that there’s nothing we aren’t bigger than and no illusion we’re telling ourselves is tougher than who we ARE.     Are you telling yourself that you can’t possibly see your way out of this or have what you know your soul is calling for?  Tough nuggets for Fear Self, because you ARE going to get there and you ARE bigger than this.

Every now and then, some moment in life crystalizes a lesson in our memory, forever recapturing and reminding us that “feeling” of wisdom we had when we received it. Such a moment was about 20 years ago when I had a terrible, terrible, awful, dreadful, very bad day at work.   It was one of those days where the badness was only outshined by the UNFAIRNESS of what was going on.   A friend came up to me, gave me a hug and said,     “Willow…. in 100 years, in 50 years, in 10, in 5, in 1 month, – none of this will matter.”            Whatever the problem is, it will change, it will go away it, it will cease to matter.   (I don’t even remember what the issue was on that  “horrific day” anymore and it certainly doesn’t matter)            You do matter… and you are the ONLY thing that matters… you’re here… and you will outlast whatever is bothering you.

As for the laughing part. I highly recommend it.  Whatever you’re taking too seriously about yourself or life, needs to be taken less seriously this week.     As Margaret Cho said,

“it’s good to be able to laugh at yourself and the problems you face in life. Sense of humor can save you”

 

literally it can save you…. so get to laughing.   Watch some Seinfeld re-runs, Google up that Laugh Guru from India, whatever… just be  sure you make room for the laughs, smiles and gentle reassurances that THINGS ARE FINE that are trying to come through this week!

 

About this deck:   Notes From The Universe Cards is a  60 card deck by Mike Dooley and published by TUT enterprises.