Tarot Goodness for the Week of January 18th-24th: The Train (The Chariot)
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands
in moments of comfort and convenience,
but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Let's keep chugging on, folks. Nothing left to see back there. We'll realize-- or we'll be made to realize somehow-- that we are 100% in control of our past and present choices and that some circumstances haven't just happened upon us like the famous 'Immaculate Conception'.
This week marks the beginning of a test of strength. And we'll learn that sitting back and conveniently allowing situations to happen and brew and grow through neglect or ignorance is a choice.
Yesterday, we chose to do that. And because of that, we are left today to choose __________. Those are pretty powerful words that can make or break us. We choose to live for as long as we're standing here and breathing and moving along with the winds, even if we don't reiterate that to ourselves. We choose to live and so it's important to think and feel before we act, not act before we think and feel, and if we've done the latter we need to own up to the consequences.
Long ago, I knew a woman who confided in me that she wasn't really sure she wanted to have children. When she was asked by a colleague to choose between career or children ten years prior to our conversation, she chose her career, immediately. It was where her heart was, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, I believed-- and still believe-- that people should work at whatever their hearts are into, even if it doesn't quite mesh with the expectations of others. Unless the others that we're so concerned about are paying our bills and feeding and clothing us, they don't matter. Sometimes our hearts want children. Sometimes they don't. And, in this case, this woman didn't wish to bear children.
Sometimes-- and few wish to acknowledge and feel compassion for this reality because it's not happening to them or anyone they know-- women can't have children because their bodies are not naturally cut-out for motherhood. Doesn't make them lesser people. Doesn't make them diseased. It's just that these women, if they choose to have children, require extra patience and understanding and the help of medical technology to get by or perhaps the funds, etc, to adopt children.
But even if women don't elect to become mothers in their lifetime, this decision doesn't denote coldness or inadequacy or anything like it. It just means that their hearts aren't into motherhood and, if we were just as wise as these women, we'd take a page from their book and refuse to become something we inwardly sense we are not. We are not capable, in the long-run, of living up to someone outside of ourselves. And that leaves others to clean up after us.
Being true to ourselves does us, and the rest of the world, a huge favor.
What bothers me about what I've just typed up there is the expectation part surrounding motherhood. (As usual, right? Good ol' expectations!) Once you're twenty or thirty-something and married, the usual question about child-bearing haunts you like an uncontrollable, unoriginal monster. Like yet another rehearsed line from a boring script.
When did motherhood become an obligation, an expectation, and why are we hanging onto it? Do we realize how harshly this narrow-mindedness comes across to women who cannot conceive or are experiencing many obstacles while trying to conceive? And is it fair that women who don't choose to bear children, maybe for reasons such as a lack of finances/stability or maybe for their own silent reasons, have to be confronted with the expectation of creating a family?
Forget Octomom and her "mission" to destroy taxpayers, society as a whole and the lives of fourteen kids who, given the choice, would probably prefer to move to a deep forest and grow up with wolves. Bearing children for fame doesn't count.
Why are we still stuck in outdated, dangerous thought? Isn't it obvious that being a parent means so much more than procreation? We're not just here to multiply our "fabulous" selves. We have to realize that being a parent is so much more than just calling ourselves one and gushing at a pitter-pattering Junior version of ourselves. Otherwise, what kind of favor are we doing for a child and, really, for the rest of humanity?
If we don't like carrots, if the sight of them makes us nauseous, we won't eat them, right? If there is something that we are doing that we cannot stand doing, there will be a time when we will let it go, no? Because we can't ingest what repulses us. If we're forced to do something, the result is not going to be as nice as the result of doing something we enjoy.
For all of you who can think of a million reasons why you're coming up short here, call me crazy but this is basic life-math, not an anti-feminist or anti-authority or anti-parent rant. If we're seeking to become parents-- or anyone else that others depend on-- for the wrong reasons (filling a void, popularity, keeping up with the Jones' and so on), this decision is going to backfire. There's absolutely no getting around that. Wealth doesn't exclude parents (or leaders) from a backfiring decision. It's going to backfire big-time. It will either backfire in the first year or within five-ten years or, worse, during your son or daughter's adolescent years, and it's a decision that's not going to ask us for a convenient time to backfire. And it's not just going to backfire on the parent only-- it's going to affect your child/ren as well as all the people that he/she touches. (And then those people who are affected touch other people and... Well, you get it.)
Back to the woman who preferred a career over having children. She gave birth to two children. And she loved them. Still does, I'm sure. But has she felt as if she's raised them? Genuinely raised them? Not in a 24-7 kind of way, but in a way in which her kids could come to her and talk to her about anything from their afternoon to their fears? No, she confessed, and she felt guilty about it because she and her family had reached a stage where each member barely said "hello" and "goodnight" to one another. How could she raise two children when she and her spouse spent 50-60 hours per week trapped in an office? Before you guess that the two were making ends meet, let me say that their home resembled a museum and that some of their antiques, alone, could have covered at least a year's worth of mortgage payments. It's just that these parents couldn't quite nail priorities or what was truly valuable at the time.
Although these parents couldn't commit to the needs of their children, they made sure that these needs were provided for by a caretaker. But as we all know, a caretaker is just a caretaker, even if he/she spends 80% of every week. Correct? Even if the caretaker protects a child, bathes him/her, cooks his/her meals, transports the child to each and every activity and appointment, reads to him/her, offers all kinds of golden advice, teaches the child everything from the alphabet to manners and how to tell right from wrong... A caretaker is just a caretaker to the majority of society.
Boy, what my mother would say to some of you out there who have no respect for anyone outside of your exclusive (parent, etc) clubs. She was a single, divorced mom for almost ten years before she met my dad. And if it weren't for the lovely elderly woman she rented a room from for a while, the one who made it possible her to become independent by watching over my older brother at times, goodness knows where she would've wound up.
My mother loved that elderly woman like a second mother. Yet, some of you take the most wonderful people in the world for granted because they're not related to you, share your surname, aren't as "fine" and wealthy as you are or because you get nothing tangible out of their presence. Alas, you all suck for thinking and behaving this way but, as you know, time always has a way of showing us all how much we suck.
Speaking from experience, if my dad were half the dad he should have been to us, my younger brother probably wouldn't have escaped all the time to rely on the worst kinds of friends for guidance and drugs for relief as a pre-teen. I don't hate my dad, just stating fact. Guaranteed, if he put his foot down and signed him up for a program to clean him up before he turned 17, my brother wouldn't have been flattened by the road he was on. My mother was in denial, mostly, but always sick and she only became sicker and more depressed until she didn't see a reason to fight for her life. When she died, my younger brother also didn't see a reason for living. I got yelled at for not stopping my younger brother from getting into trouble, but how could I stop him? Aside from the fact that I wasn't his mom or dad, at the age of 12, he was already just shy of 6-feet and I was a mere 5'4. How was I supposed to keep him from leaving our apartment?
This stuff doesn't only happen in the movies, folks. I wish it did only happen in the movies because then I'd still have my brother. I wish it did only happen in the movies because maybe I'd have a father who respects me, even if I'm a just a woman.
This is what could happen when parents are absent or too busy or, simply, rat-bastards who scream and take their families for granted, likely because they never really wanted a family in the first place. Then all the excuses for being absent or too busy or rat-bastards that come at one like a runaway train, the very ones that come from those who also defend their lack of responsibility and maturity with statements that, underneath it all, imply "parenthood was something that just happened to me."
If absent/busy parents are lucky, their children turn out alright. And I did. I've survived because I didn't want to become what I saw. I live... but with a hole in my heart that's never going to go away. It might shrink with time, but it's never going to go away.
........
So let's try to bear all of this in mind as it's not something that's only happened-- and will only happen-- in my family. Irresponsible parenting is more common than we think, and denial only leads to problematic children who become even more problematic and irresponsible adults. All of this irresponsibility, like a pay-it-forward act, results in an irresponsible, entitled, sometimes dangerous society.
Now what do we choose to do? The suggestion of the Train is to grab the bull by its horns. To face a problem head-on because cowering or neglecting it isn't going to cut it. A problem will only magnify and spread in this way. So let's figure out what's causing it and how we can nip those roots. We'll likely be challenged by someone else, or a stubborn group of someones. As such, it is up to us to take a page out of Martin Luther King Jr.'s book and face our adversaries like big boys and girls. Do you think he wasn't frightened to confront bullies? He was. MLK just preferred to go down expressing everything he stood for and everything he believed to be right despite the odds.
And ladies and gentlemen, once we're in the spotlight, we're kinda hard to ignore and resist and, like it or not, every one of our actions and words remain under scrutiny. As such, misunderstandings are inevitable. In some cases, we put ourselves in harm's way beneath a spotlight, but that is a chance we must be willing to take for the good of all involved. We must be willing to lose or fall or take the heat if we are following our hearts.
Training and hard work pays off.
Those who cannot handle the pressure of being needed and recognized run the risk of losing their spotlight or popularity.
The way I see it is, If we're on the right track, then popularity shouldn't be a problem. When we are on the right track, we are expressing our truth and radiating confidence. And if we're confident and true to ourselves, we don't give a rat's ass about what others think of us.
In other words, it might very well suck to be you, this week, if you can't understand that we can either be part of a festering problem or part of a solution. This, my friends, will the specials on this week's menu and you get to choose where you stand. It is time to stop making excuses for where we fall short. There is help out there. There are people readily available to to help us out of a jam although, if we don't ask for help, if we're not willing to work with others, fairly, to clear up a problem, if we can't be sufficiently mature to recognize the efforts of others and express/exhibit gratitude for them, then we'll have no way of coming up for air and progressing.
If we've been part of the problem all along and don't wish to recognize it, we're not going to be happy campers when corrective action and outside-of-the-box ideas and initiatives come up. In fact, some of us are going to be downright uncomfortable and touchy-touchy around those who negate the status quo (a.k.a. nuts or weirdos).
Keep in mind, folks, that if we touch a nerve or two, this week, we're not being mean or difficult. In all actuality, we'll be doing something right. We'll be doing ourselves a favor in the long-run. Controversy will be stirred, adversaries are to be expected, but sticking to our guns will prove our best move. This is only the beginning of a certain kind of rebellion. So even if it feels as though we are one against the world, let's trust that others feel the same way even if they're not saying anything or becoming involved-- they're just keeping the peace. Besides, we could stand to learn a great deal in the courage department if we stand up for an issue on our own. Sure, it'll be a grueling test, but the rewards cannot be beat, just as Dr. Martin Luther King says above.
Let the sheep have their moment. I assure you that the popularity or fitting-in that some are experiencing for being everything to everyone is fleeting. May they enjoy it. One can only be boosted by a faulty foundation for so long, anyhow, and so popularity and attention will pretty much be a curse in disguise. The devil is in the details. This is what happens when we desire something so big for all the wrong reasons. Because when something like popularity happens for the right reasons, it is celebrated and shared, not shoved in others' faces. Only the insecure do that.
Looking at that train up there, are we excitedly visualizing it coming to a stop and picking us up? Or are we frightened by the possibility of the train smushing us to our deaths? Are we patiently awaiting the train on a platform? Or have we become so impatient that we've decided to attempt to tread upon those tracks ourselves to get to where we want to go?
I really hope that we've been careful with our wishes and that we are taking our time and all the necessary steps to our goals... because some of our wishes will be coming at many of us like a scheduled or runaway train. Past mistakes, misjudgments and errors, the fulfilling of ideals and expectations not our own will begin to feel like a burden all bear.
Let's strive to be fully awake and aware. A good start is catching up on rest or saying "no" as needed.
If we're on the right track and at peace with ourselves, then we needn't suffer from anxiety at the sight of a challenge. Our biggest challenge now will be a clusterf*ck of narrow-minded, self-righteous, impulsive, irrational, long-winded morons, anyway. Let's drop them like decade-old leftovers and remember that confidence is a relaxer, that living stress-free is the key to real experience, and that if we trust ourselves, we'll get by, with or without approval.
Let's take the initiative.
According to the Chariot, the Rider-Waite version of the Train, we need to believe in our mission-- and not worry about where we might fall short-- in order to get by and succeed. And succeed we will with this kind of belief. Sometimes success is just that. Getting by. We'll get to where we need to be if we abandon what others think of us. So let's carry on. Others may not be the solution to a problem, but that doesn't mean we cannot be. Someone has to be. Those who lag behind will have no choice but to catch up, and it's not going to be easy. They might poke fun at us now, and treat us like we don't know anything because we're younger or under-qualified in their eyes, but trust that they won't be making fun of anyone soon.
Another tune will be sung by the arrogant, this week.
Revenge, or justice, is a dish best served cold.
This, and so much more, is the message of the Chariot, the Rider-Waite version of the Train. The Chariot sits up straight, stands up straight, is straightforward and speaks straightforwardly. He's in-charge, he's arrived, and he's ready to give (or receive), all without wavering. His foundation, his frame, is sturdy. Your God help you if you choose to engage in battle with him!
The Chariot also notes that a battle won by an opponent is the tip of the iceberg. That opponent has lost, or is about to lose, the war, and the Chariot comes out on top through the acclaim from those who matter.
On the surface, some will be triumphing. But beneath the fluff, where success really matters and is expressed naturally, when it comes to their foundation, they could very well be great, big... losers.
The ones who are genuinely triumphing at the moment will keep it all mostly quiet-- keep their successes to themselves-- for the moment. And it's probably best this way.
Think of the Karate Kid, for a moment. Yes, "Daniel son". That Karate Kid.
Did the Karate Kid go around publicizing what a hot-shot he is thanks to the training and counseling and patience of father-figure, Mr. Miyagi? No. Daniel reserved all these good things, all these secrets, until it came time to fight and he, ultimately, surprised his opponents at the very end with his victory.
The Chariot is the Karate Kid, OK?
So, let's breathe, think and believe in success and it'll come, just like it did for the Karate Kid. If we feel like speaking of it as we walk it, we'll do so in an unwavering manner. But there is no need to shove success down other people's throats. After all, the truly successful know that there is no need to announce success since attracting, walking and living it is beyond sufficient.
Watch and learn, folks. Watch and learn the moves of your 'opponents' that you maneuver around them and eventually tell them where to go.
The Chariot brings forth contributions, efforts, services, words, work that means something. As we stick to our craft, let's ensure that we are sticking to our word!
Our bravery and self-control comes to the forefront. We aren't meant to fit into an ideal or group. Are we Chess pieces, or what?
Some of you are barking up the wrong tree. You're gonna get hit with branches pretty soon.
Respect is to be earned. We're not going to earn respect from everyone, but that doesn't matter so long as we respect ourselves and live up to our responsibilities. Respect from outsiders only follows self-respect. Self-respect means confidence and a soul-level completion, both of which are forces to be reckoned with as they are the most attractive, magnetic and strong of all characteristics. Nothing measures up to self-respect and we should protect it.
Let's trust ourselves and our capability to respect and honor ourselves, that no one or no thing manipulates or victimizes us in any shape or form.
What is inside will come out. Radiate within and you'll radiate outwardly, attracting opportunities, success, knowledge and even rewards. Let's feel good about our output.
Have a superb week.
Posted by Deb Steinberg at 1/18/2010 12:00 AM 
Categories: Tarot
Tags: The Chariot Romany-Gypsy Week of January 18th-24th Tarot by Deb Steinberg The Train Rider-Waite 2010
Categories: Tarot
Tags: The Chariot Romany-Gypsy Week of January 18th-24th Tarot by Deb Steinberg The Train Rider-Waite 2010
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