Your Focus Needs a Backup Plan

Affirmation: 

"With every breath out, my mind becomes clearer and I can see what is in front of me." 

Around the Tarot in 78 Days

To confirm my understanding of the role the PoS has within my tarot lessons, I decided to pull a companion card, in which I pulled the VII of Swords. At first glance it seemed the two ideas conflicted, but I just recently learned about shifting the positive/concept in what may seem a challenging or negative card.

While the PoS is about clarity, decisiveness and swiftly moving forward with focus... VIIoS is more about finding alternative paths and keeping an open mind when things aren't as focused or clear as you'd like them to be. Basically, it supports having a back up plan.

The lesson?

Clear Thought + Focused Decision = Dynamic Outcome

When you have your mind set on something, do you allow for alternate considerations?
Does the idea of going with the flow frighten you?

Page of Swords and His Elements

"But you can't focus on things that matter if all you've been is asleep for forty years. 

Funny how sleep rhymes with sheep. You know."

Charlie Sheen 

Interestingly enough, I danced around the idea of making Charlie Sheen my PoS in rev., in the end, he was just to old, to much experience, his life a little more traveled. In theory many of the prinicples run true with his persona, addiction, enormous talent, boredom, gossip, spiteful, mean. When in his mood, he definitely can definitely display bully behaviour.

You can't focus if you're asleep. The Page of Swords tells us to wake up and focus. Keep a sharp eye on what is in front, beside and behind us. Blade pointing forward, it is an excellent card to pull when wondering if you're in the right direction. Slice your way through the debris of messy thoughts, trust your instinct, and move forward on a path you create. PoS has a hint of independence, an individual journey maker with apt, ability and intelligence. Just be mindful of downtime, and activity that seems or feels beneath you as you may fall into the trap of idle hands. The PoS is a time of learning and being the vigilant student, which really can be for any age. Know what you're getting into before you move forward, because there is nothing worse than being hit in the face by a branch that snaps back.


Find yourself face to face with a gossip hag, or maybe you yourself have an issue with loose lips? No worries, a sliver of Slippery Elm will help you manage your tongue, and/or keep you out the slimy words of others. Historically used to help with diarrhea, I guess it can't help but 'heal' Nasty Nancy's verbal diarrhea.

Elemental Note: Slippery Elm is of Air and ruled by Saturn

Magick Note: Tie a few leaves with a yellow cord or string and burn it off to ward any ill words against you.

Heal the World: Did you know Eastern Canada lost over 700,000 elms due to Dutch Elm disease? B.C and Alberta remain the only provinces to be free of the disease.

Lepidolite, a "stone of transition" is perfect for PoS as it is a crystal that encourages independence, achieving goals, concentration and objectivity. It helps with making speedy decisions, a quality that PoS is known for, and why people will go to him for leadership and guidance. Focusing on the necessary, Lepidolite, like the the sword, cuts through the BS and gets to the point. A calming stone, it frees you from the influences and voices of others, immunizing you from outside hurts and negativity.



How would you use these elements in an alter offering?
Where would you place Lepidolite on a child suffering from gossip?

)o(

Love and Light,
Amand

Holding a Sword by It's Blade ~ A Tarot Journey

It is the unseen and the spiritual in people that determines the outward and the actual.   Carlyle, Thomas - See more at: http://quotationsbook.com/quote/3991/#sthash.AlWDGLWU.dpuf

It is the unseen and the spiritual in people that determines the outward and the actual.   Carlyle, Thomas - See more at: http://quotationsbook.com/quote/3991/#sthash.AlWDGLWU.dpuf

"It is the unseen and the spirit in people that determines the outward and the actual"

Thomas Carlyle

It is the unseen and the spiritual in people that determines the outward and the actual.   Carlyle, Thomas - See more at: http://quotationsbook.com/quote/3991/#sthash.AlWDGLWU.dpuf

I can't move forward. I'm stuck. Am I surprised? No, I've been playing in the Page of Swords in Reverses' sandbox. For now we'll just call her Nasty Nancy.

Nasty Nancy and I have been friends for as long as I can remember. I've always had an attraction to strays, maybe, in away, I've always kind of felt like a stray ?!? I think I just had a real time #magickmoment

I feel like a stray. How powerful and potentially life changing. The admittance of it, heavy in my belly, with an 'of course' stuck in my throat. Interesting. Another blog for another day.

The deck I am working with and learning from is the one for me as I so relate with the images. Nasty Nancy and I share one really bad habit. Saying we're going to do one thing, and doing something else. Something that doesn't necessarily get in the way, but it doesn't move us forward. In fact, I am very good and saying I'm going to do the same thing over and over and over again, but I will find a million different things to do which get in the way of doing what I want. With a bolt of lightnening over my shoulder, it could very well be that I'm afraid. Afraid of following the direction I'm pointing at with my sword. It's almost like holding the sword by it's blade instead of it's hilt and wondering why the hell am I bleeding all the time.

If I held on to my words properly, I'd avoid having to self medicate all the time, which in my case is finding something else to do. What a vicious cycle.

Like the mushrooms Nasty Nancy likes to play with... you know you're not supposed to eat them, but why not when they make you feel so good? Why not say I'm going to do this that or the other? It makes me feel like I'm important, like I'm successful, like I'm the one on top... literally. But boy when the buzz of the 'shrooms wear off, and you need to eat the words you let come out your mouth... It's a quick and painful crash, driving you to look for that next high, that next excuse, the next whatever you can grasp (the wrong side of the sword). That way when someone asks you how it's going, you have your reason, excuse, sob story. Basically your lie ready and bleeding.

The sword and lightening also remind me that Nasty Nancy believes in a bright and shinny future, but she just can't let go of that dark and stormy past. The thunder rolls in faster and is more powerful than the sun. [Insert I for she] There are moments where I know where I need to be and what needs getting done. Yet within a split second I'm cursing someone out, blaming someone for where I am, and desperately looking for a fight. And trust me, I am literally holding the sword with both hands as I aim at my opponent. Figuratively, I'm holding the damn thing straight at my spirit, reminding it to stay inside and back off.

I call this Spiritual Cutting. I'm am not one for physically hurting myself. But, slashing and thrashing at my Spirit? All day long... no one can see it, therefore, I am alone in the shame and agony of not having the confidence I once had. (If you've been paying attention, you'll see how I just Nasty Nancy'd).

Photo via fantasticalcreatures.com

We teach our children everyday not to play with sharp objects, and yet, here we are with a Page of Swords swinging at heart's content. Without the emotional skill and maturity... how on earth do we expect this little friend to carve an appropriate path? Nasty Nancy just wants to play, by her rules... and we've given her a very sharp object to play with. Someone is going to get hurt. Obviously. Not so obvious is when Nasty Nancy herself is going to hurt herself.

It may be why I liken this card to Lindsay Lohan. So talented and able... with access to whatever she wants. If the maturity wasn't there, what did we think would happen? As compared to our Karate Kid, the outcome could have been the same. If a young spirit is trained in martial arts, he must be nurtured and educated. Taught that his skill is his tool instead his weapon. Lindsay's talent is a weapon. Nasty Nancy's sword is a weapon. The ego of my past is my weapon.


In each case, there is a shelter. Within that shelter, Nasty Nancy will either create an Ivory League setting for learning... or a shelter of mass destruction with consequences she is to young to comprehend. I'd like to think that my shelter still has a line drawn in the sand between both worlds where I'll eventually make a permanent cross over from the dark side )o(

Love and Light,
Amanda

Do you have a bad habit that you carry by the blade?
Do you get caught up in saying one thing and doing the other? What drives this behaviour, avoidance or frustration?