How do You find balance?
This is the question my friends; how can we achieve the balance we need to sustain ourselves and what does that even look like? For me, I tend to be a very extreme personality. It is all or nothing, good or bad; binaries. I struggle to see the middle path often; the path of Temperance and balance. My energy, my wands, my spirit, my potential to act is always there but I sometimes put that energy into the wrong thing; going ‘all in’ or ‘all out.’
A lot of water in the cards tonight; two very powerful Tarot figures on either side of a set of wands. This makes me think about the balance of my spiritual energies in my life; on the one side I see the Queen of Cups asking me to follow my heart and let me cup fill up with whatever emotional need is there; let the waters of change or emotions wash over me. On the other side, we see an angelic figure, foot in the water, pouring water between two cups. Balancing, mixing, finding the sweet spot. So where should the energy of the wands go?
Balance is a strange and difficulty thing for me. Moderation, temperance; these are difficult concepts. I tend to go all in; with food, work, past times, you name it. Maybe you have some tendencies toward this too; the Temperance card asks us to think about the balance between all things; even the balance of the subconscious world below the surface (of the water) and the conscious world of our mind. This balance can be very hard to find and even harder to maintain. We need some kind of sustaining energy to keep this balance going; the wands let us know that we have this energy inside of us as long as we can figure out how to apply it. The Queen of Cups shows us that we can nurture that energy; care for it, tend to it and watch it grow.
I see connections here between the wands, which are made of wood, and the flowing water depicted on the two other cards. Trees need water like all living things; energy, spirit, will, intuition; these are the realm of the wands and the these things need water to thrive, too. How do you ‘water’ your own energy? What do you do to restore the energy needed to accomplish the tasks ahead; most likely tasks that will require some sense of balance and maybe even restraint?
My original idea for this entry was to write a song or a poem that dealt with the idea of action vs. inaction; the balance that we must find between making choices or not making choices; and the paralyzing fear of not making those choices which brings imbalance and stagnation to all aspects of life. If you are too afraid to make any choice at all, then you are not living. Alas, I am not a good songwriter. But I did conjure up some kind of image of a person waiting to get on subway train, the steam of the underground blowing occasionally as the trains speed by, and this person refusing to get on any train that arrives. The doors open, people get off and this person just stands there; waiting for…something. Unsure which train to step onto, questioning the safety and the crowdedness and if they will even arrive at their destination. All these questions keep the person from acting and this inaction causes a serious imbalance which results in stasis; stagnation and no action at all. So they remain there, forever, standing in the hot subway watching doors open and close all day, unable to get onto the train that will carry them onward.
The heat of the underground blew around me like the stolen fire of the gods.
I watched a man standing six foot five, motionless and paralyzed.
As the trains stopped, one by one, the doors opening and closing like doors do. He stood there staring and thinking about all the things that might happen, if he could just walk through.
What hangs in the balance is what’s all around us
What hangs in the balance is what’s all around us
What hangs in the balance is the life we need to live.
I have no idea what that is above there but I do know that Temperance has whispered some kind of wisdom to me tonight and helped to remind me that we need to find that balance; in all the things we do.