Got Hope?

Yesterday, after I posted the idea that we could be the message we want to receive, I asked myself what message I wanted that day.  I thought about all the problems in the world, in the country, in the state, neighborhood, even in my family.  The news about most of that is so disspiriting.  I longed for messages of hope. 

Right away, I saw a tiny piece of paper.  It must have been a loading tag or something, because written on it was a number and the name of the state of Arkansas.  Immediately I thought of Hope, Arkansas, the former home of past President Clinton. 

Funny universe. I laughed to myself.  It definately was a message of "Hope", and the playfulness of it lifted my spirits.  And I wanted a, well, different answer. Something with more direction in it, something I could work with to activate the hope in me.

 The next thing I picked up was this:

Hmmm.  Figure out what it is.  What is hope?  Immediately I remember what Terry Prachett's character Igor, said in his fabulous story  Making Money, "Prayer is hope with a beat."  So therefore hope is a form of prayer. 

When I hope for something, I have in mind the thing that I want and I envision myself enjoying it.  When I delight in this vision, I activate a vibration in me that brings me closer to what I want.  Hoping for something is the beginning stage of creating the life that you want.

I've got HOPE!

I hope you do too.

Love,

Kristine

Random Acts of Sublimation

Messages from the Universe option 3:

I was thinking about how I enjoy recieving messages and advice from random people, pieces of paper, articles in the newspaper, and feeling that they were messages from the universe and, somehow, usually answering a question I've asked myself or addressing an issue I was pondering. I noticed how fun and helpful they have been.  Then I realized that I was a part of the Universe (he he, Ms. Universe) and could therefore send messages as well as receive them.

I was on one of my walks when I thought about this, and decided to send a message immediately.  But how?  What could I use to write my little note? The trail I was on, I noticed, had lots of sticks kind of strewn about since there were a lot of trees and brush around.  I gathered up a few of them and set out to write a message.  I wanted to write "look", since I noticed most of us walk with our heads down, but I couldn't find enough sticks to make the letters.  So I ended up writing:

Joy

It came out so pretty, and even though it's not very obvious, I figured it was a lovely subliminal message that perhaps people would get it at an unconscious level as they were strolling by.  I  felt joy as I was working on it and when I finished it, because it was great fun to do.

I think we all could use a little surprise in our lives, and encouragement as well. I imagined people walking by and seeing it and feeling surprised and, hopefully, pleased and happy.  And maybe they'd focus on joy.

I decided to send more optomistic messages in the same way, and think of new ways to do this too. 

I urge you to play with this.  It's a great creative exercise, it will make you feel good, you'll have fun, and I think it will make a difference.  When everyone contributes to a climate of creativity and cohesiveness, and realizes that we really are "all ONE", and knows that the good we do for others ultimately is the good we do for ourselves, the world can't help but be a better place.

Be a universal messanger. Don Mercury's wings on temple and heels and fly to the aid of the world.  If you can't do that, then simply be the message you want to recieve.  What would you like to get in your cosmic mailbox?  Think about that, and act accordingly.  You'll be glad you did.

Love,

Kristine

Building Your Castle Out Of Sand-the Tibetan Way to Peace

A while ago, a friend of mine and I were coming home from the Oakland Museum and she said to me, "The Tibetan Monks are making a sand mandala at Saint Mary's College.  You want to go see it?"

I did, and I was so glad we made the detour.  What an amazing thing to watch, and it's also an incredible feeling to witness.  The intention and energy are, well, divine, and just being in the presense of these enlightened beings feels WONDERFUL.  After we watched them work, we left feeling positive, refreshed, at peace, and whole. 

This weekend, they'll be at Grace Cathedral.  I highly reccommend seeing them.  The work they do is incredibly beautiful, and the way you'll feel after a visit with them is phenominal.  Do the labyrinth while you're there after you see the monks.  I promise you, you will walk with more presense and more consciousness then ever before. 

Come learn about the beauty of impermanence from the masters.  On Sunday, after they complete the intricate design that will take around 65 hours to complete, they'll destroy it and toss the sand into the bay with prayers for peace. 

It won't be around long, and neither will we, but in the meantime the sand painting and we can make a beautiful statement for love, peace, life, and joy.  We're only human, with feet of clay, but how beautiful our humanity can be! Let's take advantage of the time we have to really live our lives.

Love,

Kristine

Quest-ion: Who Am I? Answer: The Knight of Pentacles

The knight of pentacles, like all the knights in the tarot, is a man on a mission.  Riding on a sturdy black horse with red tack, he holds the disc in his hand, his steady gaze surveying the land ahead.  On his head, his helmet sports a green feather.
Our hero seems to be studying his options.  His horse is motionless, and it seems as if our knight is pondering his next move.  The black horse he is riding signifys the limitlessness of his choices.  Black is the color, in Tai Chi, of the void from which all things come. 
What the knight must do to achieve his ends is to guide his horse (his life) towards his desire, and all that he longs for will be his. 
The red (the color of strong emotion) tack (saddle, bridle, reins, etc.) indicate that his passions are his most effective guides. The card is telling us, as Rumi says,  to "Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love".
In Native American lore, the feather is the symbol of spiritual evolution to a higher plane.  Its placement on the crown chakra indicates connection with a higher truth.  The green color of the feather indicates that great healing is involved in this endevor.
Do we not feel healed and whole when we are doing what we love to do?  All things seem possible when we are feeling satisfactied and joyful. The problem comes when what we love seems to be in conflict with what we think we SHOULD do and be.  When we're acting in opposition to the guidence of our emotions, we get confused as to who we are and why we're here, and afraid that we will make the wrong choices in our lives.
The question so often is "What do I really want to do and what is my purpose?"  Sometimes it's hard for us to see the answer to this question clearly because we've been taught that what we want is somehow inappropriate, wrong, silly, strange, not practical, unrealistic, etc.
The pondering that our good knight is doing hints that we can find ourselves through patience and meditation.  These gentle teachers point the way to our true path, and once we know who we truly are and what we truly want, we answer the main "quest-ions" in our lives and are therefore ready to go on our personal quest towards self-fulfillment.  Guided by "the stronger pull of what we really love", we are off to live our desire and to be the person we're meant to be.
Gods speed.
Love,
Kristine

Messages from the Universe Part 2

So, to sum up from the Part 1, this is how the game is played.  You ask a question and expect to recieve an answer sometime during your day.  How I do it is I look around on my walks for pieces of paper on the ground.  I usually pick up some really interesting, and strange, results that answer my questions in a fun, and sometimes mysterious, way.  Sometimes some translation is involved.  That's part of the fun, too.  I love the treasure-hunt-like nature of this way of doing it, but I have to admit that often the universe is more straight-forward in its communication techniques than that.  Like for instance, last night I was wondering how I could get more readers coming to my blog.  I open the paper this morning and saw this, on page 2 of my favorite section:

Sure, I could have looked up that information on line, but the effortless nature of this response really tickled me.  Ask and you will receive.  It works for me.

Love,

Kristine

An Explaination

I have decided to widen the scope of my blog to include my other interests. 
I still intend on working with the cards on a weekly basis, but I have been playing a game that has turned into a fascinating study.  The game is called "messages from the Universe" and here's how I play: 
I pose a question at the beginning of my walk some mornings that I'd like an answer to, and then I see what shows up.  For example, one day I started out feeling weighted down by a new project I was working on.  I didn't think I could do what was required to get the job done to my satisfaction.  I saw a large piece of paper lying in a parking lot I was passing.  I picked it up, and it happened to be a page from the storybook "the Little Engine that Could". 
I found that pretty encouraging. 
For those of you unfamiliar with the story, it's a children's story about a little train faced with a hard job.  He "thinks he can" and despite the odds does the job quite well. 
I think the universe was telling me to use my mind to encourage myself instead of dwelling on my imagined limitations.  Of course I can do the task in front of me.  I think, therefore I can! 
In this blog, along with card analysis, I'm going to write the question I ask myself, photograph what I recieve in response to it, and supply the translation that gives me the answer. 
I've been doing this a while, and decided to go public with it.  A friend of mine insists I'm crazy, but I'm convinced that this works.  It's an amazing process and I encourage you to try it.  Let me know what happens.  I'm happy to report your story in this space as well.
The universe speaks to us all the time, through the tarot and in other unlikely ways.  We just need to open up our eyes a little wider and we will find the answers we're looking for.
Love,
Kristine

Will I be pretty, will I be rich . . .?

I'm often asked to read the cards so that people will know their "future". Will I be pretty, will I be rich, will I find a partner, that sort of thing.
My feeling is that the cards don't tell you what will happen, but they provide a rich window into who you are right now and what, as a result, you are drawing to yourself.
The cards, therefore, provide you with an opportunity to see yourself more clearly and your patterns of thought, and see where those pattern are leading you. This gives you the opportunity, in a negative reading, to change your thought patterns in order to create a better outcome, and, in a positive reading, to encourage you in your current more joyful state.
Thoughts are very important! In the bible it says "in the beginning was the word". Your words, coming from your thoughts, can enhance or detract from your life. You know, yourself, that when you are thinking negative thoughts you feel bad, and when you are thinking positive thoughts, you feel much better. Experiment with this if you don't believe it. You'll see that it's true.
We often think that our circumstances define our thoughts, but it's actually the other way around. What we continue to think creates the life we continue to lead, for good or ill.
The Tarot can provide clarity about your tendencies, not certainties about your future. Your future is in your head, in your hands. Mind what you think, and your future will be bright.
Love,
Kristine

The Healing Power of Love: The Two of Cups

With a backdrop of green gentle hills cradling a red-roofed cottage, a man and a woman toast each other with, or are exchanging, golden goblets. They are wearing crowns; the female, the crown of laural indicating victory; and the male the crown of roses, symbols of love and passion. He's wearing a tunic decorated with four leaf clovers, indicating that this is a lucky partnership. She wears a blue cape, symbolizing clarity, over a white dress symbolizing purity.
The cups symbolize our emotional nature, contained and used to quench our thirst for understanding. A flying lions head floats above the couple. This could symbolize Leo, one of the more firery and passionate signs in the horoscope, and its use here could indicate the courage needed for partnership and the emotional protection hoped for.
The medical symbol of the Caduceus of Hermes (Mercury-god of communication) may be symbolic of the negative and positive energies of the kundalini as it moves through the chakras and around the spine towards the intellect, also the domain of Mercury and also symbolized by wings. Succesfull communication of the kundalini energies with the mind creates the complete connection of mind, body, spirit and emotion that we seek in our partnerships. The Caduceaus also points to the healing power of love.
This card represents the idealization of love, or, rather, the hope of love that includes both passion and reason, understanding and clarity, unity and harmony, in our partnerships.
It's also what we strive for in our own lives: the unification of our nature, the acceptance of self, the total connection of ourselves with ourselves, our environment, our natures, and our life. We seek to love and accept ourselves completely, and when we do this, we feel restored and renewed, happy and in alignment with who we are and who we want to be. We feel healed and whole. We ARE love, in that moment.
Moment to moment, what could feel better than that? Often we use another; partner, lover, child, as our excuse to feel good, but when we use our energy and the power of our minds and hearts to truly love ourselves, having a loving companion is not as important as we think, it's just frosting on an already delicious cake.
Enjoy!
Love,
Kristine

Good Knight and Good Luck

Knights are typically out on a quest, and our handsome friend here is no exception.
You can see his strength of purpose in his posture and in his gaze which is fixed on the horizon. His horse goes ahead willingly. His silver and white armour indicate his sincerity and also his peaceful heart. He is confident, without any certainty, that what he is doing is the right thing and where he is going is to the right place.
The blue trim on his tack and his costume symbolizes truth and loyalty (and also water), and strongly suggests that he can do no other than what he now does. He is loyal to his dreams and desires and is eager to find and follow his path.
His bent arm, in heraldic terms, is symbolic of his leadership ability, and the cup indicates that he occupies the office of the king's butler. Who is the king that he serves? Who does he lead?
The fish emblazoned on his costume symbolize one who is comfortable navigating his emotional nature, and also indicates that he embodies christ consciousness and has a true, generous mind. Therefore, the king he serves must be his very soul which is guiding his body in his journey through life. His heart leads his actions.
The wings on his heels and helmet indicate both his eagerness to discover who he is and the knowledge that his search is supported and encouraged by the universe.
The cliff we see across the river shows us that he is coming to a significant point in his life. He faces this unnamed challange armed only with the qualities of his spirit that I've outlined and his empty cup.
In martial arts, the empty cup signifies the willingness to learn.
Talking to a friend of mine who practices Tai Chi, I learned that his goal was to give up using any kind of force in his art (and in his life), and to practice harmony, attunement, and acceptance of what is.
The knight we see here has done this, and now he goes forth full of trust.
Truly, this is a quest we can all adopt. Staying where one is out of fear of change or arming ourselves against an imagined and frightening future is not our knights way, and it's not a fun or fruitful way for us to be either.
Our knight is venturing out to experience connection with life, harmonious, trusting, and true. With courage and confidence, he en-courages us to do the same.
Love,
Kristine