78 Mirrors refracted infinitely

[Corvis Canis Latrans]

I wish to maintain calm, feel compassion and understanding in place of confused anger.

(Four of Swords, Circle of Life Tarot)

Swords pointing into the earth, my racing thoughts are granted back to the earth to gestate and calm in the hibernation of mind. Four corners of stability, boxing in out of a temporary necessity.

He sits in meditation but looks gaunt, strained, as if trying too hard to rest. He's attempting to be at peace, come to terms, but isn't there yet, hasn't been able to let go enough to succeed with the truth of the four of swords. He's still in process.

Weep for the thoughts the tragedy and let the tears go. Child you spend too much time holding your tears in even as your body cries them out, project the pain out through the tears. Don't hold the dirty hands closed under running water....you squeeze the fluid out of the dirt, but the dirt still remains. Open and let the rain cleans you, build your shields but project beyond them.

Calm, rebuild, contained yet reaching.

All those around you shining lights. When you open your eyes see each unique glow as illuminating your path, not blinding confusion. Know yourself. In knowing yourself you have the basis from which to reach without fear of threat. Right now you lose yourself in others thoughts, even if inspired by a mere chain of words, and you struggle as you feel your own thoughts stretch, extend, grow, dissipate away from the center. You needn't fight it, you're supposed to grow.

Bur right now, you're overburdened, too many thoughts at once, your branches grow thin and weak because you're not digesting. Stretch without structure, eventually the stalks, tendrils of thought collapse.

Structure comes at least in part from heart. That is where the leaves come from to absorb the sun's light.

[Corvis Canis Latrans]

What I see
(Moon; Circle of Life Tarot)

My words when put into the world mean something different to the people who read them than what they mean to me.

At times I see beauty, where others see threat, something grotesque.

And that filter seems to work both ways, where others see beauty I see threat, the grotesque.

Is that entirely a bad thing?

No. Everyone, myself, the people I talk to, we all occasionally need the rug taken from beneath us, revealing things in a different reflected light.

What is bad is when we automatically reject or push away that vision without considering it under other lights.

The moon cycles. The light changes, shadows cast different aspects into darkness. I see the scorpion lurking in the shadow, but from your angle you see a crystal refracting pure light.

You see the flaw that I missed, hidden by a sparkling cascade from my angle.

I need to find the courage to step around the corner and acknowledge it.

The scorpion is trying to survive, the flaw might be the only thing that produces rainbows in the otherwise cold crystal clarity.

In one card, I see refractions of several. The light from this moon illuminated sparks between neurons, and an entire world was created that had little to do with this image, but was made briefly manifest by the energy a card triggered in a mind.

What can you learn from the fantasy, the mirage?

What was lurking behind it?

There's power in reflection, in deception, but uncontrolled it raises things from our own and others depths. I send out a line looking for confirmation, and something frightening comes up instead.

But is it a threat?

She seems unaware, or else absorbed in it, some element in the disturbing that she finds comfortable....seductive?

Seduced by our illusions, we fail to see what is in the darkness. We also fail to realize that the "monster" we see is too ourselves as seen in a different light.

[Corvis Canis Latrans]

Anything divided by the Fool is infinite.

Anything multiplied by the Fool is nothing.

[Corvis Canis Latrans]

Why do I hurt?

5 of Wands (C o L Tarot)

The buzzing in my head and neck, making for internal rage, electric, running through like a short circuit. Perhaps it is.

Five of wands,two beasts fighting. The old thin sphinx attacked by a stocky raptor, a morphed eagle.

Internal battle. Arguments with self. One part of me saddened, confused, attacked by the other part, but look at the claws. I could defend myself, though there would be some sacrifice in the process to that hooked beak and those long talons.

I'm tired of scratches, scrapes. Neither exactly does injury to the other, not physical, but the potential is there even for accidental hurt. Does the eagle bluff, or is it a legitimate internal threat?

Chemicals in conflict. Hormonal cycles, one contests the other, a boiling over, fizzing reaction that is more irritating, burning than purifying and healing.

Terrestrial and aerial. Skeptical of another world, but too skeptical likewise to deny its existence. Absence of proof isn't proof of absence, but the mind creates so many puzzles and enigmas that mimic the otherworldly that it is impossible to settle into a belief system and at this point doubt feels to be such a precarious thing.

Live in the now? The now is doubt. Now is chemical fear and anger. No reason in the wold external to me, but the physical internal world is seething chemical anxiety, settling then reaching.

Another battle. Medication or not? If anxiety were more constant that might be so, but having it peak only one or two days a month (possibly three or four in a bad one) does not indicate a need for constant medication. Some women do take as needed according to PMS cycle.

But, given the suicide rate in my family (whether merely attempted or successful) and the violence and paranoia during the two week disinhibition period that happens when one first starts a medication. What happens to one who only takes it once or twice a month? Does it shift that cycle anew every time?

No friends for a suicide watch, no way I can risk experimenting short of institutionalizing myself.

Not worth it. I'll take the occasional loss of temper, the minor rounds of paranoia and fear.

There are benefits. The intensity of feeling can be a positive one. The world at this time is so beautiful I could cry. Colors brighter.

Emotions walk hand in hand, happiness and joy, laughter plays tug of war with angst and fear.

Sometimes though when one gives a particularly hard jerk, it takes a moment for the other to realize its on the ground, and jovial humorous sarcasm takes a turn toward the deliberately hurtful or putting someone "in their place". The impulse fulfilled before I realize it's there.

Yet. Gradually I learn my subtle warning systems. Getting better at stopping myself before the mental fluctuations get out of hand. Improvement often goes two steps forward then slips one back, at which point harshness with myself pushes things further out of alignment.

They fight, the internal impulses, jockey for dominance. Sphinx wants some fried chicken and a few feathers to play with on some days.

[Corvis Canis Latrans]

5 of Wands (Navigator's Tarot of the Mystic Sea)

Sphinx and eagle become human and human androgynous dancing a fire fight amidst a lightning storm of dark jagged edges.

The emotion is closer here.

And horses whipped to run by the charioteer in the background. Frantic, to get away from the hormonal whip.

Though, if we could get the fighters to run side by side in agreement, what power and how fast would the chariot go then?

They agree in their strife, but the power of strife is dissolution. It dismantles things, analyzes them, but can't agree on how to put the experience back together, so the puzzle pieces remain a chaotic mess.

In time it will come together, but right now the lightning and fire fight reigns. If only I could just sit back and watch the competition and light show, but the observer isn't in the mood to be impartial when hormones juggled by the fighters have set his rump on fire.