A friend of mine also drawing a tarot card-a-day has been getting the same cards in the same suit. "Weird," she wrote of her last draw. Human, I think but don't say. We all have our blind sides, the "truths" we cling to, our vision of ourselves, our beliefs. We don't like to change, especially ourselves, and yet we inhabit a world of constant change. There's the infamous quote by Albert Einstein about insanity, that it's doing the same ting over and over and expecting different results. Well then we're all insane to some degree. Don't we do the same? Don't we believe this love will be different because we're wiser, we choose better, we're smart? The clothes change, the outward appearance, but unless we've changed at the core of us, things are pretty much going to happen as they always do. We'll shake our heads, wonder what went wrong this time, take a bit of the blame and heap the rest on the Other, and move on to repeat our patterns over and over again. I've gotten the Eight of Cups before. It is a card that tells you it's time to move on. I'm big talk about getting on with things, and I manage to look like I'm doing that on the surface, but like Lot's wife, I always look back. I never quite give up on the dream of what could have been, even when it is clear that dream is over, done with, gone. If that cloaked figure was me, I'd have spent so much time, too much time, contemplating those cups. I would have crossed the river and crossed back and crossed it again, thinking if I just waited a bit longer, showed a little more patience, life would arrange itself to my pleasure. And even when I know it won't ever be as I want it to be, there's a part of me that just can't quite let go.
The Eight of cups says it's time to look for deeper meaning. Okay, I always look for deeper meaning. The thing is, that's hard to do on our own, bound by our own perspective. Einstein was known for his brilliant thought experiments but I suspect even he would be challenged to apply the same rigor to his personal life. When it comes to love and the messy world of emotions, we're all of us blind. That's one reason I began my conversation with the Tarot. I find it oddly open, delightfully and sometimes painfully blunt, constant and consistent. Since I'm doing all the projecting, the answers are usually pretty spot on. I do need to move on. The world will never be what it could have been. There is just now and what comes after. And I tend to be so married to what has passed that I miss what comes, what could be, fortuitous surprises.
So what do I need to know today for the health and happiness of my heart?
It's time to move on. It doesn't matter if it was real or imagined, if what was really was. There is only now and what comes after now. I can regret lost love, but that love is still lost to me and my only chance is to open to the possibility of new love. Friendships change and they sometimes end. What was deep grows shallow, what was close, grows distant, intimacy fades to history. Maybe it revives, but it won't be what it was, just what it is, and I can rant and rail, I grieve and sorrow, I can even get angry but it doesn't make any difference. In the end it is what it is and all that sound and fury ends up signifying nothing (thank you Mr. Shakespeare).
I desperately want a constant, but this is a world of cycles and of spirals, of embracing and letting go over and over. The lesson I think, for me, is to embrace the change, enjoy the moments, and know always whether it be joy or sorrow, that this too will pass and return and pass and return. The ocean calls me because it is my mantra and metaphor, ebb and flow.
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