Unclenching

October 29th, 2024 | Click to Comment

A hundred-plus years ago, my ancestors owned and operated a mineral springs spa in Kentucky. People came in search of rest and healing, and reported countless stories of renewed health and vigor resulting from their stay. My family knew how to welcome and care for their guests, and worked hard to create a place that was a balm for body and soul.

During election season, visits from politicians were banned from the spa. In July of 1925, a notice that politicians would be turned away from the property was published in the newspaper. The local paper was the primary source of news back then, but even without today’s electronically charged media environment, politics at the time were divisive and political discussions heated. 

My great-grandparents knew that the agitation stirred by political speeches, or even the presence of local politicians during election season, worked against the healing effect of their spa. They protected their guests, their business, and the unique value of what they could offer, by holding firm boundaries in a politically charged environment. This was yet another way they gave their patrons rest and helped restore their health.

Today, most of us are weary of this campaign and anxious about the election’s outcome. Polls tells us that supporters of both candidates feel that everything is on the line, that a loss will throw the country into crisis. Fear, hate (which is largely driven by fear), and the dehumanization of the opposition distort our view of one another. We can’t see clearly, think rationally, or respond effectively when our perception has been hijacked by these overwhelming emotional forces.

When we’re possessed by the power of these ancient archetypal energies, they drive our actions. We lose the ability to clearly perceive what’s really happening, and to effectively choose how to respond. Our instinctive survival modes take over: Fight, Flight, or Freeze. At that point, we become prone to manipulation.

I had all of this on my mind a few days ago when I saw a roly-poly bug on the porch. It reminded me of my childhood, when a roly-poly, or pill bug, could fascinate me on a timeless afternoon. How predictable it was, curling into a tight roll when I touched it, so that I could tumble it across the carport like a little ball.

I would watch for it to unclench, sometimes impatient with it for taking so long. I waited to see it expose the soft, flat underside of its grey oval body just long enough for the tiny filaments of its waving legs to find the ground again, the rounded shield of its back turned up once more, protecting it as it moved through the world. Its legs would carry it over any surface, but not when it was afraid. Curled up tight, in survival mode, it was as if the roly-poly were no longer a living thing. I was willing to watch for a long time, because it was a relief to see it uncurl and be on its way again under its own power.

It’s hard to make good decisions when we’re afraid. Our automatic responses to danger take over; the instincts patterned in our bodies drive us into survival mode. We easily lose connection to the quiet center, the still small voice, the source of wisdom and guidance.

When our country was divided on invading Iraq many years ago, it was the story of weapons of mass destruction allegedly hidden there that tipped the balance in this country. I for one gave up my opposition and acquiesced to the invasion, conceding that this military action must be necessary to keep the world safe. I believed the officials who painted a terrifying picture and presented themselves as the shield and defense that would protect us all.

In that fearful time, I became as predictable as a roly-poly. I was easily rolled into the corner of supporting, even if reluctantly, that invasion. Later we learned that those officials said whatever they needed to say to make this country align with the invasion they wanted. The reports of weapons of mass destruction were not credible, but by the time we learned that it was too late.

Fear, and the hate that it often undergirds, makes us more readily manipulated. When someone tries to make us afraid, it’s a good time to guard the connection to our own center. To give in to fear is to give up our own agency. It’s good to ask, in this moment, “Is my physical survival really in peril?” And if in this moment my life is not in immediate danger, then how can I unclench, get my feet on the ground, and move in the direction shown by the life-giving wisdom within?

Giving ourselves time away from the onslaught of the news is a good start for unclenching and reconnecting to the divine light shining within our own center. We can find a way to create for ourselves some inner version of a healing spa away from the political noise, even if it’s only for a few minutes a day. We need a quiet space to cultivate health and wholeness, restore our strength, and get our feet on solid ground.

Then we can return to the world with the clarity to see other people in their full humanity. We can cultivate the ability to keep our balance and not be manipulated. We can cultivate the love that transcends fear and hate. We can take action responsibly, claiming the agency to convey some bit of light into the darkness.

I have a photo of my young grandson when he was about five years old, kneeling beside a narrow garden bed alongside the garage at his old house. He’s wearing his purple baseball cap, a teal t-shirt, grey denim pants, and dark blue sneakers. Just past him a bright red tulip is open to the sun. His hands are loosely clasped at his knees and he’s leaning forward, a pleasant expectant look on his face, as he focuses on a purple hyacinth sitting low on the ground before him.

I want a world, a country, a culture, deserving of this child of my heart. Where the dignity and worth of each person is honored. Where we can somehow find a shared reverence for the value of life and of each other. And where we can regain attunement to what is ultimately true, acting out of the better angels of our nature.

Susan Christerson Brown

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Fostering New Growth

August 28th, 2021 | Click to Comment

After a recent morning walk, I lingered outdoors pruning the taxus bushes. The day was already hot, but I had some time and wasn’t ready to sit down at the computer. So I kept to the shade as the advancing edge of sunlight nudged me along the length of the shrubs. I had no idea what time the clock read, or how long I had been working, but the sun kept me moving and helped me work evenly along the shrubbery.  

It’s a long, slow process, making these overgrown bushes into something that fits the space where they’re planted. By the time they came into my care they were crowding the sidewalk and blocking the window. But cutting them back wasn’t simple. They had long been trimmed just at the surface, sheared along the top and sides. Only the outside two inches were green, where the tips of the branches competed for sunlight. The massive interior was bare—a skeleton of a shrub wrapped in a green rug. But they were strong plants, with a will to live.

I’m learning how to work with their natural inclination to grow, and to proceed at their pace. Drastic measures are counter-productive; the places where I tried hacking the shrubs down to size resulted in many lifeless branches. But as long as I refrain from cutting off all the green tips at the surface, I can encourage new growth deep in the thicket of bare branches where light could not enter before. I have a general idea of the size and shape and fullness that I want to bring about, but I have to engage with how the plant wants to grow in order to get there. I pay attention to the places where it’s flourishing, and encourage those fecund branches to nourish the deeper growth that can develop.

This more careful tending teaches me about cultivating a full life. Watching for signs of new growth and then making the cuts that encourage it has become a contemplative practice. The life force in the plant shows what it wants to do. That’s what I watch for and work with. I hold in mind what’s possible as I engage with what’s in front of me.

This approach works for tending creative work as well. Revising a draft, for example, involves working with where the writing wants to go and cutting away what detracts. Doing creative work of any kind, including living a full and creative life, is all about noticing the tiny green hint of a bud beginning to form. It’s finding a way to give light and air to the new possibilities stirring, and pruning what would impede the life force from nurturing this new growth.

To do creative work we must arrange our lives to give light and air to our creative inklings. Letting in light might mean making space in our attention for a new idea, or seeking feedback from trusted others about our what we’re working on. Giving it air might mean allocating a regular time for creative work, making space in the day for tending what wants to grow.

The tender, green beginnings are where all new work comes from. Their growth depends on us giving them the care that only we can give them. Unless we make a way for them, they cannot come into the world.

What we tend matters. Fostering new growth renews the world and renews us. It’s part of being fully alive. Yet even though I know this, it’s something I have to remember, and re-remember, over and over again.

The beautiful song, “Now the Green Blade Riseth,” is one reminder that comes to mind. Steve Winwood’s version is lovely.

Susan C. Brown

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Reclaiming Space from Opportunistic Weeds

August 3rd, 2020 | 2 Comments

Lately I’ve been weeding and mulching according to the sun, working when I can have shade in the heat of the summer. By 8:30 my time’s up, and even that is pushing it. Afterwards it feels good to sit on the porch and cool off, enjoying the improving landscape as the sun lights up the yard.

When I dug out a shrub from the front yard earlier this summer, I didn’t do anything beyond smoothing the dirt to reclaim the space it left. I pulled a few weeds then looked away for a moment. Suddenly the opportunistic crabgrass had not only taken over but grew in a mound threatening to replicate the size of the bush that had been there before. Among the spreading fingers a small cranesbill geranium with pale pink flowers bloomed—who knew you were there? But the voracious weeds nearly choked it out.

Nature abhors a vacuum they say. Physicists seem to be saying there are no vacuums, really. Everything exists in a field that connects everything. But our senses recognize that creating a space invites something to fill it.

Putting things in order, clearing space, is enormously satisfying. It brings peace. Then immediately the world presses in. So we need rituals and routines for holding that space, for preventing the opportunistic weeds from taking over and choking out what would bloom there.

It was a lot of work to pull out the crabgrass and other weeds that took over that fertile patch of soil. The job would have been easier if I had jumped on it sooner, but it’s done now. I worked carefully to keep the volunteer geranium intact while I extracted the weeds from around it. This time I covered the bare ground with a layer of mulch to help keep the weeds down. I need that help to hold the space until I get other things to grow there.

Whether it’s in a garden, or on a tabletop, or between the lines of a day planner, holding space can feel unproductive. It’s the antithesis of having an agenda. And yet holding space is about the healthiest intention we can have.

It’s interesting to consider the difference between an “agenda” and an “intention.” Agenda is a kind of willfulness, the imposition of not only what, but how and when. An intention is more expansive. It names a value and leaves open how to achieve it. It’s the yutori of consciousness (yutori being a Japanese word meaning “a space of sufficiency and ease”). There are times when the focus and direction of an agenda is needed—it enabled me to do the work of clearing the weeds. At other times, intention is needed to allow room to breathe and for new life to grow. While an agenda tries to avoid surprise, intention makes space for the unexpected and creates the possibility of delight on the way to where we want to go. Intention holds things lightly.

Creating and maintaining space in our lives claims the fertile ground of our heart and soul. Staying with our creative and contemplative practices protects us from encroachments that rob us of what we need to be fully alive. We don’t have to let ourselves be overrun by crabgrass, whether it takes the form of negative thoughts from within or impositions from without.

At a time when the news feels more oppressive week by week, fear and despair (or the anger and hate that disguise them) are the weeds that can take us over if we allow it. Our lives individually and collectively are too important to allow that to happen.

We have the ability to love one another and to bring love’s healing to the world. We need space in our lives and our hearts to do that work. The gentle intention of holding space is important right now. Holding and tending our heart space, being watchful for weeds and removing them promptly, will allow beauty and healing to bloom in our hearts, our lives, and our world.

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Changing the Conversation

October 20th, 2018 | 2 Comments

Given the state of our society at this moment, we all need a time out—a chance to get quiet and restore our battered psyches. At this point in our collective history, our minds are working against us. We cannot think our way out of this mess.

 

 

We need to reconnect with goodness and wisdom individually if we’re to access the strength for healing our communities. Taking a walk in the woods, or listening to music, or creating something beautiful can help us gain perspective on what passes for today’s civil discourse.

The more we continue with our attention anchored in the politics and polarities of our time, the more we’re awash in a sea of animosity. We need a higher wisdom, a North Star shining in the darkness that helps us navigate these turbulent days.

That clear sense of direction and guidance is available to each of us when we listen to the still, small voice within. There are many ways to stay attuned to wisdom and to keep its light in front of us. If you have a way that works for you, I’d love to hear about it.

One simple and effective daily practice I’ve found to help orient towards what is good and true is called “Metta” or Loving-Kindness Meditation.

I first learned this practice years ago and recently experienced its power again over several days in an Enneagram learning community. There are four lines to the meditation, or prayer, repeated with different people in mind.

Sit quietly and begin by saying it for yourself:

May I be happy.

May I be healthy.

May I be safe.

May I be peaceful and at ease.

Then picture someone you love and say it for them:

May you be happy.

May you be healthy.

May you be safe.

May you be peaceful and at ease.

Then say it for a teacher or someone else who has benefited you.

Then for someone neutral, about whom you have no strong feelings either positive or negative.

Then for someone in your life who is difficult in some way or who brings up tension.

Finally, say the meditation for all beings, a prayer for all the world:

May all beings be happy.

May all beings be healthy.

May all beings be safe.

May all beings be peaceful and at ease.

Don’t take my word for it—repeat this daily meditation every day for a week and see what it offers you. Notice how it colors your experience, and consider how the state of being it invites ripples out into the world. I’d love to hear how it goes.

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Lining the Shelves

July 27th, 2018 | Click to Comment

The timing of a move this summer gave me a few days to ready the space before I moved into my new home. It was a chance to get to know the house itself, uncluttered with furniture or boxes, seeing how the light filled the rooms and changed throughout the day. I played a radio that echoed through the empty spaces while I prepared for my things to arrive.

One task was to put down clean shelf paper in the kitchen cabinets and drawers. Even before the boxes were moved in I was eager to get them unpacked and organized into a working kitchen, so I wanted all of the shelves ready to hold the things I needed.

It took forever, or at least it seemed to. Cutting the liner to the right dimensions made me aware of every inch of storage behind cabinet doors and drawer fronts. I allocated an evening for the job, but at the end of the evening I was so far from finished that I questioned the value of the whole enterprise. What had seemed like a good idea turned out to be more of an investment than I realized. But the shelves I had lined were clean and inviting, and I wanted all of them to feel that way. So I kept going.

The payoff showed up when I was unpacking boxes and working to put things in order. With that basic, foundational work done, the shelves were ready to hold what was needed.

Foundational work of any kind takes longer than we think. We underestimate what’s required to do it properly because in daily life the foundations aren’t obvious. Once the dishes are put away the shelf paper is practically invisible—unless it’s done badly, in which case it’s a continual vexation.

In spiritual life, the foundation is laid by cultivating the ability to be fully present and fully aware. It’s not until we’re able to notice what’s happening inside ourselves—our mental habits, our emotional patterns, our places of physical tension—that we become able to see clearly what’s going on in the world around us.

That practice of being present, of being awake and aware, is how we become receptive to the divine force that holds and guides us through life. Being present is how we become more loving; we can only love when we actually show up in this moment.

It’s easy to convince myself that I’m truly here because my body is. But my mind and heart go off on their own, wandering the same old paths, and lose connection with the body. If I’m not settled enough to feel my feet on the floor and the breath expanding my chest and belly, then I’m probably running my habitual patterns inside instead of truly showing up here and now. Not being in the body is a good clue that I’m not receptive to what life is offering right now.

Cultivating this practice takes even longer than putting down shelf liner. Preparing ourselves to receive the contents of whatever new box the day unpacks is the work of a lifetime. Yet when we are prepared to receive what comes, we’re better able to respond in freedom instead of from reflex. We’re more able to act from a place of love. The practice of mindfulness and meditation is something like laying down a clean lining for the shelving in our minds and hearts, and being conscious of what we will store there.

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Longing for Hestia

November 27th, 2017 | Click to Comment

The holiday season doesn’t typically bring the pantheon of Greek gods to mind, but the goddess Hestia has something to teach us about the heart of our celebrations. Hestia isn’t as well known as the other Olympians, as we don’t have stories of her exploits, and she was rarely represented as a human figure.  Instead, she was identified with the hearth fire of a home or temple. When the fire was lit she was understood to be present, and tending her flame was a sacred duty.

 

 

Hestia offers wisdom for creating and maintaining the social structures of family, community, and state that sustain human life. The sense of warmth and comfort we feel at a fireside is her gift. On a larger scale, her influence yields a society that provides peace and security for its members. Hestia’s presence is quiet; Hestia’s absence is devastating.

We’re in the midst of a season when the longing for Hestia colors the activity all around us. The Greeks showed restraint from trying to define her in terms of human characteristics, but our culture doesn’t hesitate to offer specific images for capturing her spirit in our individual lives. Advertisements encourage us to invoke Hestia’s presence not by kindling her fire in the hearth, but by presenting gifts or meals or décor or events. All of these things can be lovely, but when we believe they are necessary—or worse, that they are sufficient for a joyful holiday, we are misled.

The holiday season places home and family at the heart of what we celebrate, idealize, and long for. Over the next few weeks we’ll be subject to thousands of images promising to satisfy our desire for peace and connection. But a longing as deep as the one we bring to the season isn’t met by anything out there in the world, or even by the home and family that can be such blessings.

Addressing the longing for Hestia happens in our own hearts. Her hearth fire is kindled inside, with loving acceptance of ourselves and of life as it is. From that centered place we can lovingly embrace others, bring out the best in them, and create an environment in which to flourish. Invoking the presence of Hestia brings a different kind of perfection, joyful and satisfying. And in the warmth of her light, everything else we bring to the holidays glows as well.

 

 

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Cynthia Bourgeault and Practicing Presence

April 25th, 2017 | Click to Comment

When Cynthia Bourgeault introduced the contemplative practice of centering prayer at the Festival of Faiths in Louisville last week, she spoke of different practices and traditions as being like colors of the rainbow. Each color is part of the one light, a unique and beautiful aspect that informs our understanding of the light.

I was eager to attend Bourgeault’s talks because her book, The Wisdom Jesus, has been so important in opening my reading of scripture. She is tiny, a package of concentrated energy. Calm and unassuming, with a delightful sense of humor, she bristles with life as she teaches.

Meditation is like putting a stick into the spokes of the monkey mind, she said. It’s all about noticing our thoughts, seeing our patterns of thinking, and letting them go.

Whether we call this practice meditation, centering prayer, or something else, it’s a practice of making ourselves available to a higher mind. It’s an intention to move beyond the machinations of our calculating ego.  As Bourgeault puts it, centering prayer is a practice of returning to God whenever we notice a thought arising. How does one let go of a thought? She demonstrated by standing onstage with her arms outstretched, holding a stick in one hand. She opened her hand and allowed the stick to fall to the floor. Just like that. Let go.

This inner action of letting go becomes the outer action of letting be, she told the audience. It’s hard to value this spiritual practice at first. What can it possibly accomplish? What’s the point when there are so many other things that need doing?

But in this practice of gently releasing the mind’s tyranny, we open ourselves to another way of perceiving. We practice another way of being. For a brief time we allow a higher wisdom to move through us, and slowly learn to permit that flow in more and more aspects of life. We get beyond how the ego thinks things should be, and learn to be present to what is.

Bourgeault describes this as putting the mind in the heart, yielding a new way of perceiving. She calls it the key to practicing compassion. This deep sense of compassion, beyond what she terms ego and activism and do-goodism, is putting on the mind of Christ. From this place true transformation happens.

As we practice this way of being, we place ourselves in the presence of God. As we get out of the way we allow God to flow through us. As we let go of our ego’s agenda we become available to the flow of our authentic life and experience our connection to others.

The energy in the room was palpable as Bourgeault led us in a silent session of centering prayer. I understood for the first time where the phrase “tugged at my heartstring” comes from as I experienced just such a tangible sensation.

Sitting in meditation it looks like nothing is happening. But there’s more to our lives than what meets the eye.

 

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Integrating Masculine and Feminine Energies

April 8th, 2017 | Click to Comment

I’m still humming with the energy of a recent conference entitled Losing Myth: The Price of Losing Feminine Wisdom, hosted by Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Lexington. Joyce Rockwood Hudson and the Rt. Rev. Larry Maze spoke about the vital role of personal and collective myth—eternal truths expressed in symbolic language—in helping us gain perspective on the events of our lives. They also pointed out the urgent need for integrating the feminine with our culture’s primarily masculine perspective in order to find health, meaning, and balance in our world and in our individual lives. I see the church-sponsored discussion of integrating the feminine within the church as sign of life and health, often overlooked in popular media.

Sol and Luna, from the Rosarium philosophorum, reproduced in The Hermetic Museum: Alchemy & Mysticism by Alexander Roob; 2014, Taschen.

What does it mean to integrate masculine and feminine? It’s not as simple as having equal numbers of men and women at the table, because it’s not simply a matter of gender. All of us, men and women, can exhibit characteristics understood as “masculine” or “feminine.” To be receptive is a feminine quality, but not a quality that belongs only to women. To take action is a masculine quality, but not one exhibited only by men. The inner work of self-awareness and spiritual life is feminine; the outer work of problem-solving and attaining goals is masculine. A mature man or woman draws on both masculine and feminine traits. We need both to understand when to be open to a new idea, and when to act on what we know.

Perhaps a clearer way of delineating masculine and feminine aspects is through the Chinese terms yin and yang. Yin energy is hidden from view, as when new life is gestating before being born into the world. It is connected to what is mysterious. It has to do with relationships, intuition, creativity, connection to the natural world, including the body, and with inner growth. Yin is the characteristic of night, the moon, the unconscious, and the sorting out that occurs in darkness. Yang energy is outer-directed and goal-oriented. It is analytical, decisive, and articulate. Yang orientation claims an ideal and works to achieve it. Yang is the quality of day, consciousness, and the sun. It is the light of reason, and clarity of thought. Wholeness comes through integrating the inner wisdom of yin, or feminine, energy and the outer action of yang, or masculine, energy.

We live in a culture that easily recognizes the value of a yang orientation, and tends to be more dismissive, if not downright suspicious, of yin. A patriarchal culture means not just that men are in charge, but that a masculine orientation edges out an appreciation of the feminine. Women can be just as patriarchal as men in their orientation and values. The remedy is not to denigrate the masculine in favor of the feminine, but to create balance between the two. We need both creativity and productivity, clear thought and intuitive perception, problem-solving and relationship-building.

Joyce Rockwood Hudson and Larry Maze spoke of how the church, not unlike Western culture at large, has done a great job of teaching about the masculine aspect of God, but has lost touch with God’s feminine side. Likewise the culture teaches us as individuals to measure our worth in terms of outer accomplishments and measurable achievements, ignoring for the most part our inner life.

But it is the still, small voice within that tells us which actions hold meaning. We need the guidance of inner wisdom to be fully alive. The feminine side of God gives us that, and we need her.

 

 

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Walnut Season

October 21st, 2016 | 1 Comment

Earlier this week I took an evening walk under a canopy of beautiful old trees. The light was golden, shining through the sheltering limbs. But as the breeze stirred, the walnut trees did what they do in the fall. Suddenly I was surrounded by the force of heavy green-husked globes pelting the pavement and splitting open. Hoping to avoid a knock on the head, I scurried to the other side of the street.

walnut-in-hull

Last week on a retreat at Loretto, I also found walnuts wholly or partially encased in their hulls scattered across the grounds and walkways. I had to watch where I stepped to avoid stumbling. These gifts from the trees can trip you up, but at the same time they offer themselves to whomever will gather them.

The retreat was led by Lisa Maas, whose ability to lead Spirit-centered groups has enriched my life again and again. Over the two days we spent together, our group talked about the fears and self-protective habits that get in the way of fully experiencing life, love, other people, and the presence of the Divine. Using the tools of the Enneagram, we looked at our personal types according to our primary coping strategies. We considered how, though they may have served us well long ago, those patterns of behavior eventually interfere with living a full life.

Coming face-to-face with how we limit ourselves through long-held patterns is a moment of truth that can be very painful. Yet that is the human condition, and seeing it is how we come to maturity. The path to our transformation is through our weakest aspects. In our encounter with the inadequacy of our approach to life, we invite the divine healing that turns our limitations inside-out and reveals the gifts, and the strengths, that are uniquely ours to share with the world.

I was thinking of all these things as I walked the campus of Loretto. I considered gathering the walnuts lying about, but that black inner hull meant unavoidably staining my hands and clothing. I love walnuts, but there is no way to get to them without encountering the messy blackness surrounding the nut. On the other hand, the intact hull is beautiful, and bowl of those green spheres would make a lovely display. But what a waste it would be to never get to the real treasure inside.

I’m glad to find walnuts at the grocery store already hulled and shelled. But in our authentic spiritual lives we are not spared the messiness. The way to spiritual maturity leads through dismaying truths we don’t want to contend with. But this is simply how growth works. If we can bear to be present with them, our shortcomings show us what we need. They break open our husk and reveal our vulnerability, our need for guidance, and the way forward.

That’s how we get to the heart of life. That’s how we grow into who we really are. Our frailties make us part of humanity and teach us compassion—for ourselves and others. As Leonard Cohen says, “There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”

Looking deeply at what is can be messy, like a walnut hull’s black interior. But that’s not the end of the story. If we keep going we find what is nourishing and delicious. We’re surrounded with reminders and invitations to take this journey. Walnuts are falling all the time, trying to get our attention.

Look out!

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Encountering the Tarot

June 23rd, 2016 | Click to Comment

I recently took part in a Tarot workshop called “Exploring the Tarot – A Tool for Insight and Contemplation,” led by Brian Relph. I expected it to be an interesting intellectual exercise. The images on the cards have spoken to people for hundreds of years, and I looked forward to delving into their symbolic meanings. But the workshop turned out to be an experience not primarily of the head, but of the heart.

This card has to do with juggling, keeping things in balance, and play

This card has to do with juggling, keeping things in balance, and play

 

The images came to life as they addressed the ongoing concerns of the workshop participants. We considered the feelings that arose from looking at a card in response to questions such as “What phase of life am I in now, and what awareness would be helpful to me?” or “What supports me in meeting this particular challenge?” Wisdom and insight emerged from considering how the energy and meaning of a card intersected with a particular aspect of life.

Having worked extensively with dreams, exploring images from the Tarot felt somewhat familiar to me. It was noticing that these images sometimes turn up in dream work that inspired me to learn more about the Tarot. These shared archetypal images represent universal patterns of human existence across time and throughout the world. We manifest these archetypes in our individual lives, but each of us lives them out in our own unique ways. The meaning of a dream element, like the meaning of a Tarot image, comes from the intersection of the universal and the particular.

There is ancient Judeo-Christian precedent for seeing dreams as messages from the divine. In both the Old and New Testament, dreams are a way of receiving heavenly insight and guidance. While it may not be common these days for Christians to work dreams as part of their spiritual life, it is part of our spiritual lineage. Tarot, however, is an unfamiliar tool in the Christian theological world view. We may believe that divine wisdom is available all the time through prayer, but if that wisdom arrives in an unfamiliar way it is often seen as suspect. It’s simpler and easier to reject the unfamiliar.

Yet people of faith find many different ways of becoming ever more aware of and attuned to the divine. We rely on the spiritual structures we put in place to encounter the help and guidance that are available to us all the time. Some look for insight conveyed through scripture or in worship. Some invoke the help and protection of the saints, carrying a St. Christopher medal when traveling, for example. Wisdom visits us through signs in the natural world, or a book that suddenly calls for attention, or the sudden resonance within a conversation.

Working with the Tarot is another way of paying attention. It’s not about fortune-telling. This misconception about (or misuse of) the Tarot as if it were for predicting events is similar to a common misunderstanding about the Old Testament prophets. Isaiah and Jeremiah and others were not trying to foretell events that would occur hundreds of years into the future. They were speaking clearly and directly about Israel’s current situation. The prophets were able to do this because they were deeply connected to the wisdom of the divine, able to anticipate the outcome of Israel’s ongoing actions. Yet when later generations look back at their divinely inspired words for guidance, their insights are so keen they offer a lens for interpreting current-day experience and seem to anticipate future events.

In processing my experience of the Tarot with my spiritual director, he asked where I thought the wisdom was coming from, or what it was I encountered through working with the images. The best answer I have for the time being is that the archetypes depicted on the cards open the door to a wisdom that comes from deep within. Yet this insight originates beyond my individual experience; it taps into the universal experience that connects us all. It’s what Carl Jung called the collective unconscious, or what is recognized in the greeting Namaste—the divine in me acknowledging the divine in you. It is the Source of all life, available in every moment, offering itself to us if we will just pay attention.

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