Centering Tools

Integrative Tarot for Self-Healing and Spiritual Development

My Tarot History

I was first introduced to the Tarot when a friend in college excitedly told me he could do a “reading” for my future with this original source of intuitive cards for spiritual development.  Once I viewed the compelling images of the 74 cards of the Alistair Crowley Tarot deck he presented, I was “hooked” for what is now 34 years of studying and presenting related workshops on the power of the Tarot to integrate and support self-healing and heightened awareness.

I expect to continue this wonderful exploration throughout the rest of my life.  In a time when we reach, sometimes desperately, for transcendent meaning and timeless solutions to sustain and renew us, the Tarot offers many creative pathways to enlarge our perception and experience.       

Mythic Origins in Atlantis

Precursors to modern-day playing cards, the Tarot, according to some reports, originated in ancient Egypt, even from legendary Atlantis, as an encoded source containing the secrets of the universe.  Twenty-two cards called the Greater Arcana, deleted from present-day playing cards, are said to be the source of these universal secrets of spiritual power. 

I frequently use the Greater Arcana as to enhance insight, awareness, creative expression, and mind-body healing with clients I see in my Centering™ practice.  Each of the twenty-two cards speaks to us through commonly understood myth as an easily-translated spiritual metaphor that can have tremendous relevance to better coping with common life challenges.  These metaphors provide transformational guidance which support integrative self-healing and development. 

Greater Arcana as Archetypes

It has been said that the order of each of the twenty-two cards of the Greater Arcana describes the progressive journey of developing consciousness that we are meant to take as incarnating souls seeking enlightenment through our spiritually-directed experience on the earth plane.  The titles of each of these cards are archetypes in and of themselves. 

I like to use the Rider deck, which I feel offers powerful multidimensional images that easily lead the viewer, whether they are familiar with Tarot or not, into deeper levels of   authentic, self-directed spiritual understanding which can then be well intuitively directed throughout one’s life.  I also typically suggest as a reading resource any books by Eden Gray, particularly The Complete Guide to the Tarot, which offers clear, insightful descriptions of the meanings of each card and how to integrate the Tarot with astrology, the Kabbalah, numerology and meditation.

Archetypal Meanings of Each of the Greater Arcana

Join me in an imaginary romp through each of the metaphorical portals of the Greater Arcana and their corresponding archetypal titles as the necessary steps we must take as spiritual beings adventuring through lifetimes on the earth plane, to successfully complete our ordained evolution.  Each card offers its own unique challenge as necessary healing and creative transcendence to support the next.  And so we begin . . .

0 – The Fool.  The challenge is to accept the fact that we cannot know, as we live our life, all that ultimately supports choice, and yet we must choose and accept responsibility for the choices we make.  When we find and ultimately surrender to our spirits, we let them dictate our choices.  This allows us to heal, evolve, and unleash the strength and power of  this newly-integrated Self who can correspondingly change reality.

I – The Magician.  It is this extended Self who can cocreate reality through drawing on divine inspiration, and shift experience.

II – The High Priestess.  Now the spiritually aware Self has the power to discern how to express and direct spiritual understanding in the physical world, and keep its secrets as part of known spiritual responsibility.

III – The Empress.   All the potential of abundance on the physical plane can be created and enjoyed as limitless possibility and full cognizance of the universal law which supports it, for integrating individual with common good.

IV – The Emperor.  Conscious rulership over all decisions holistically directs intent and corresponding action to create right order and provision in the world.

V – The Hierophant.  The capacity of rulership extends to create a divinely ordered society and be the spiritually responsible representative on the earth plane.

VI – The Lovers.  The fully revealed and available divine masculine and feminine selves, integrated and balanced within enlightened consciousness, birth an integrated, loving being who is at peace within.  All resultant experience becomes a mirror of harmonious, blessed relationships.

VII – The Chariot.  The completely integrated Will can successfully direct all lesser parts of the Self toward higher, spiritually chosen ends with accompanying awareness and action.

VIII – Strength.  Accepting the unconditionally loving gentleness of the spiritual center allows unending strength to correspondingly “gentle” all parts of the Self, especially the perceived shadow, to tame and redirect impulse toward divinely guided choicemaking.

IX – The Hermit.  Matured through completed experience, one is free to undertake a spiritual quest for enlightenment to scale the heights of corresponding perception and understanding of the nature of existence.

X – Wheel of Fortune.  Fully revealed destiny moves in alignment with consciously-directed, spiritually-guided action to create corresponding cycles of desired experience.

XI – Justice.  The well-integrated personality is now free to eliminate any excess baggage that no longer serves it, and rebalance and support just outcomes.

XII – The Hanged Man.  One is now ready to consciously choose to sacrifice the ego to resurrect the resultant spiritually-freed self to exist at the next highest level of consciousness.

XIII. – Death.  A complete transformation occurs through the death of an old self and old way of life to “wipe the slate clean” for spiritual rebirth.

XIV – Temperance.  Fully revealed spiritual consciousness experiences everything in moderation, and all in right integrated balance and direction.

XV – The Devil.  A complete understanding of all that creates and support bondage in relationships through surrendering to the physical world by separating the Self and the Self in partnership from the spiritual world occurs through resultant experience.

XVI – The Tower.  The above understanding extends to the world which must seed its own destruction through being built on a correspondingly faulty foundation, to insure necessary healing and enlightenment.      

XVII – The Star.  Awakened consciousness knows how to draw from fully developed intuition and accompanying divine guidance for integrated healing and resultant miracles.

XVIII – The Moon.  Complete intuitive understanding integrates with all emotional cycles, and determines experience.

XIX – The Sun.  The freed inner child can move through the physical world in trust, wonder and delight, and receive all corresponding gifts as expressions of the spiritual power of love, happiness, abundance and creativity.

XX – Judgment.  The fully revealed spiritual determination of the truth of existence offers redemption for all linked beings, and the power of forgiveness.

XXI – The World.  The whole, completely integrated spiritually aware being exists knowing oneself as the very center of the world and the Self who carries the world, and therefore chooses all reality, all experience as a reflection of the One.

Your Own Integrative Spiritual Journey

Where is your present experienced and spiritually directed step?  Let each title speak to you and perform its own integration, offer its own path to self-healing and spiritual development.

May your journeys be fruitful.  May you receive many blessings.  May you find your own integrated sources of freedom and the way to lovingly extend these to all to whom you have the honor to meet. 

   

Ten Tips to Staying Centered Every Day

Ten Tips to Staying Centered Every Day

1. Count to 10 while you breathe deeply—each breath counts as 1.
2. Close your eyes and see if you can sense your inner center.
3. Take 5 minutes and complete the following sentence: “Right now I feel…”.
4. Think of the most peaceful place you’ve been, and close your eyes and imagine yourself living there.Buy yourself the teddy bear you feel wonderful cuddling with, and hug it.
5. Think of your favorite color enveloping you.
6. Imagine you become the animal you most admire for a day—what happens?
7. Ask yourself: “What choice do I have?” three times, and write down whatever answers come up.
8. Go to the nearest nature spot that you really like and stay for at least 10 minutes, soaking up all the energy.
9. Gaze at yourself in the mirror and say, “I’m here now”.

The Centering Journaling and Guided Meditation Workbook

This is a how-to book which invites completion of your Self.  It is an offering of personal development which occurs through journeys of inner healing.  The journaling exercises in this book invite you to write your thoughts, draw whatever pictures come up in response to these thoughts, and take yourself on a journey within as a way of achieving desired results. This workbook coincides nicely with themes and issues addressed elsewhere in the Centering Guided Meditation CD's; in particular, stress reduction, resolving and releasing past trauma, and goal setting via the elimination of blockages.

"Margie, how can I thank you for the remarkable skill, caring and insight you use with your centering coaching.  I feel like a new person, transformed because of your help.  The insight you brought me in our FIRST session made a significant difference in our business.  I'm more focused, disciplined and able to get things done..."-Linda Keefe, CEO, Shared Results International

This downloadable pdf form of the workbook is just $20.97 USD - paypable via paypal.  If you'd like the original mail-order version, please go here.

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The Taser Incident

It may not be Kent State all over again, but...

My 22 year-old son directed me to www.youtube.com  this evening and asked me to view the video from Florida State today showing a student who repeatedly asked what my son said were “politically incorrect” questions of John Kerry as he attempted to close his presentation to students.  I watched in horror as the student was quickly tackled to the ground by the police, who tasered him. 

Tasers are not exactly safe alternative to guns.  Moreover, they ought not be used any more liberally and without sufficient cause.  I understand some reports say that as many as 200 people have died as a result of receiving these electric shocks, but maybe the authorities didn't know that.

My son said to me, “Your generation wouldn’t have stood for that.  No one did anything.  Now the APA is reporting the student as a known prankster."  What's the intent of that kind of headline?  I'm not sure, but I do know that if I hadn't known better, I might allow my attention to shift to an irrelevant and completely anecdotal claim.

Hysteria and Blame are Dangerous Combinations

When I was 20 years old, in May, 1970, I also watched in horror as the media played again and again the fatal shootings of Kent State students engaging in a peaceful anti-Vietnam war protest.  I joined thousands of students protesting that incident and the war. 

Hysteria and blame are dangerous combinations.  History shows us again and again that rhetoric, justification, and rushing to act on impulse in fact incite riot, even murder. 

How Our Inherent Capacity to See and Respond to Ourselves and Each Other as Human Beings is Compromised

These responses also deny our inherent capacity to see and respond to ourselves and each other as human beings.  John Kerry reportedly said that he has never had an experience like this in all the years he has spoken in public.

It has been said we will not achieve peace until we find peace within.  It has been said that until we can treat each other as we most wish to be treated, we will continue to abuse and violate each other.

The Response that Transcends

I remember singing with the thousands that filled the Capital Hill Mall so long ago in May, 1970, “When will we ever learn?”  It is a profound spiritual directive that flies in the face of countless millennia of endless murders fueled by streams of hysteria, oceans of blame, floods of justification, and an infinite sea of mindless impulse.

I watched this student repeatedly ask the police this question as he begged to be taken out of handcuffs, “Why are you doing this to me?”  If we could see all others as “me” and “me” as all others, we could return in relief to our own spiritual centers with a true sense of belonging equally to the realm of humanity.

Our Innate Sense of Integrity

“Why?” is not a question that should be answered with blame, justification, rhetoric or hysteria.  It is, I think, a thoughtful question meant to be answered in a thoughtful way, and in a way that respects our innate sense of integrity.

When my son was much younger we rented a cottage for a week in the summer at Chautauqua Lake.  I went for a hike one beautiful day, walking up and down rolling hills, enjoying the warm sunshine sparkling across fields of corn.

His Spiritual Transformation

I was amazed to see a gift shop spread across both sides of the road called the “Purple Cow”, owned by a man who chatted there briefly with me, sharing he had written all of the spiritual definitions of key words displayed on parchment paper throughout the store.  He said he had undergone a spiritual transformation following his terrible experiences as a soldier in the Vietnam War.

I’m moved to share with you the parchment I bought that day, which hangs in my dining room.  I take it out at times like these, and share it occasionally in my groups and classes, and with clients.

Here it is:

Understanding

You stand at the threshold of meaningful life when you realize the key to life is not love but respect.  For love is what you are, the motivating force in every act of life driving you to and through every moment of existence.

Respect is the source of fulfillment, opening doors forever closed to less sentient beings.  ©1993 Purple Cow

A New Legacy

Do we dare to embrace – BE – in a center of respect as our commitment to transform ourselves, evolve and support the world, and respectfully gift our children with this new legacy?

Any day now my daughter is set to give birth to my first grandchild – a new child in an old, troubled, costly, goofy, perilous world.  Probably a little over 20 years ago that student entered the world, a most fragile infant with wide unseeing eyes.

We must see with vision that centers in our hearts, in our reknit spirits, if we dare hope to find a way to “put us all together again”.   So BE us, with ourselves – with each other. 

image originally produced on The National Ledger, The National Ledger, LLC.  http://www.nationalledger.com/ledgerdc/article_272616148.shtml 

 

 

Women's Spirituality - A New Call for Wholism

A Call for the Divine Feminine

Beyond tens of thousands of years ago, say archaeological findings for the past several decades, instead of worshiping a God, we worshiped a Goddess.  It is interesting to note that we still call the earth "Mother", and, as global warming spreads its terrible alarm, we are, perhaps, driven again to further recover women's spirituality, or the divine feminine, to heal and empower ourselves to once again become caring stewards of the earth.

To me this phrase returns to us all the understanding that our own authentic sense of spirituality equally empowers, uplifts and supports expanded holism.  The word "Goddess" is, of course, composed of two syllables - words in and of themselves, which sound like "God" and "us". 

The Self as Freed, Fully Integrated Male and Female

I love these messages as metaphors in the English language.  So you mean to tell me that our authentic infinite spirits are "God (in) Us"?

Carl Jung said there is an inner male and female spirit in each one of us.  When we stopped primarily worshipping the Goddess, or Great Mother, as She was called, and primarily worshiped a patriarchal God, we lost an essential divine half of ourselves.

The Regained Divine Feminine Trinity

Women, of course, became, and still are in many places in the world, treated as legally "less than" men - essentially men's property.  Women's spirituality is a recovery therapy to, in our core, regain the divine feminine to be free to once again determine our human right to be fully accepted, affirmed, acknowledged and understood equally as evidence of "God-in-us". 

The Goddess never left us - she was just forced underground.  In these ancient days when we worshipped a Goddess and not a God, the divine feminine trinity was expressed through Maiden, Mother and Crone. 

We Must Embrace Women's Spirituality for Planetary Survival

Stripped of power and rights through thousands of years of a designated patriarchal spiritual global culture, the archetypal Maiden was an object to be seduced, Mother was she who sacrificed to bear children, and Crone was she to be feared and discarded. 

In ancient days Maiden was the multidimensional free "rose in bloom", Mother was the personification of the Great Mother, and Crone was the wise, powerful Grandmother-Priestess.  Can we come full circle to embrace this feminist spirituality for our own, and the Earth's survival?

A Goddess Meditation

Of course I have a little guided meditation for you to experiment with to meet, within your own core, the Goddess.  Settle back, close your eyes, and deepen your breath.

Imagine your breath carrying you to your heart, which opens like a beautiful flower.  Place your hand over your heart, and say "God - us", three times.

Your Divine Feminine Spirituality Gift of Recovery

When you're ready, let your hand fall back comfortably at your side, and open your eyes.  Say out loud, "I am God-us".

Record your experience, through this inner visioning exercise, of divine feminine spirituality.  Consider how you are moved to carry it out - and back - to a hurting world as your gift of recovery.

 

Solar Return - September 11, 2007

Energy in which Anything Can Happen

Much has been written about the unusual astrological occurrence of the lunar eclipse on August 28, followed by the solar eclipse this morning, regarding the amazing planetary line-up that has occurred:  most particularly, the solar return of September 11, 2001.  The weather where I live in Rochester, New York was most unstable today, actually, swinging from sunshine and clear blue skies to torrential downpours, lightning that swept the sky, claps of thunder, and blustery winds.

It has been said in astrological and metaphysical circles that this amazing line-up of planets and their aspects to each other from August 28 through September 11 also represents very strong, unstable energy.  That is understood to mean energy in which just about anything can happen, which opens a very wide creative door of what has also been called a time of initiation.

An Adventure to Heal and Evolve Consciousness

Suppose, just suppose there was a real opportunity, along with current Senate hearings challenging upcoming military decisions about the war in Iraq regarding further commitment of troops, etc.,  to truly face what it means to consciously participate in killing?  Would fully facing our capacity to mindfully carry out killing change how we are in the world?

Once a month I facilitate a memoir writing group of currently five women who read to each other the stories of their lives.  They use these as opportunities to "connect their own dots" of perception for greater understanding and development, and support each other in that amazing inner adventure to heal and evolve consciousness.

Stories Teach, Touch and Pass On . . .

This group, which has been meeting for years, was an outgrowth of a memoir writing class I taught at the Center for Lifelong Learning to seniors at Nazareth College in Rochester, New York.  The group met the day before yesterday, and I asked one of the participants if she would be willing to allow me to share her powerful story about a most seemingly insignificant episode in her present life as part of today's blog entry. 

I advised her to also submit it to Newsweek's "My Turn" column, with my full wishes for us all to experience how this touches, teaches and passes on, as stories are meant to do, an opportunity, as the solar return today promises to offer, to initiate profound healing and transformation.  Here it is, to mark this sixth anniversary as a call to begin again. 

Let me know what you think -

The Fly That Wouldn't Die - by Norma Rappl

I always thought that I was overly sensitive and wished it wouldn’t be that way.  I didn’t realize just how sensitive I was until earlier this summer.  I started seeing flies in my home.  Usually, there were only one or two at a sighting.  I only saw them in the kitchen near the front window or in the bathroom.  They were those big horse flies.

Do you remember flypaper?  I had mentioned my problem to a friend on the phone.  This happens every year in the summer.  This year the flies were bigger and seen on a daily basis.  My friend said that she had some flypaper and would bring some over for me to use.  I put some up over the sink by the front window where I had seen most of the flies.

Two days later, I had my first and only prisoner.  A large fly got caught in the flypaper by the back leg and wing.  That fly wasn’t caught good enough to stop all motion.  Well, he buzzed and tried to get free for days but, of course, it was hopeless.  I was waiting for death to come.  After four days, he wasn’t getting any weaker.  He was just buzzing louder and trying harder to get away but to no avail.

I started talking to him to just give up because he would die anyway.  Then I started praying for death to take him.  The fact that I had captured one of God’s creatures and he was suffering brought the tears.  Before long, I was sobbing and feeling really bad.  I thought, “How stupid of me to be crying over a housefly.”  It got so bad that I was comparing this to the crucifixion of Christ on the cross.  How sad is that?

I have no problem killing flies with a swatter.  No suffering.  Instant death.  It was then I realized I feel bad killing anything.  I can do it if needed.  As long as it is instant, I have no problem with it.  I just “suck it up” as it were.

On this fourth day, I could not take it any longer.  The buzzing, suffering fly was getting the best of me.  I took the step stool, a Wegman’s plastic bag and a paper towel and set up for the final kill over the sink.  I brought the bag up over the flypaper and, using the paper towel, I released the flypaper that immediately stuck to the side of the bag.  The buzzing was really loud as the flypaper doubled over onto the live body and dropped partially into the bag.  I said a prayer and sobbed, “You had to die anyway.  I’m sorry you had to suffer.”

I carried the bag with the body out to the garbage can and dropped it in.  I went back inside and cried for another hour or so.  Needless to say, I have gone back to my old way of swatting flies when I see them.  In four days, I only had the one fly on the flypaper and didn’t even see another fly for two weeks.

It is impossible for me to understand how humans can kill other humans.  I have a hard time understanding the sport of hunting animals.  I eat meat, know where it comes from but cannot handle the killing part of it.  It is a good thing that I was born in this era so I don’t have to depend on myself for providing the food that I eat.  How did I ever live through the flypaper days of childhood when there were so many bodies?  I don’t remember ever hearing the buzzing when flies went to their death.  I know I never cried for them before.  I suppose my life experiences have brought me to understand the ugliness of man’s inhumanity to man.  There seems to be no shame to killing anything these days, human, animal, or insect.  I cry for the loss of any life.

                               

The Power of Journaling

Get Serious Through Journaling

September is such a significant month.  It is the dividing line between the quarter of Summer and The Rest of the Year.  We "take a fall" into Fall as the weather begins to turn away from the full bloom of summer to Get Serious.

School restarts, and we are moved to initiate, with an eye toward bringing to fruition, our goals.  In centering, self-healing and empowerment terms I can think of no better time to initiate your own journaling practice for maximum benefits.

Journaling Transforms Lives

The ancient art of entering and staying in a reflective creative space for no other reason than to attentively and unconditionally listen to any part of yourself that is moved to speak to you about anything at all has, in the past couple of decades, been indicated more and more through body-mind research to initiate and extend innate healing responses.  Examples have included improved recovery of many chronic and life-threatening diseases, including cancer, heart disease and post-traumatic stress syndrome.

In my Centering practice I have seen significant transformation occur in many clients who journal, resulting in experiencing key insights, empowered choice-making and central resolution in their lives.  Here are the guidelines I recommend:

Simple Techniques for Healing and Empowerment

1.  Journal every day.

2.  Keep it - meaning your expectations and your requirements of yourself for journaling - short and simple - write for a minimum of 5 minutes, and include how you feel.

3.  Draw.  I mean it.  Drawing is not just for designated artists, children or architects.  Remember our earliest languages were pictures.  Also remember the saying, "A picture is worth a thousand words"?  Draw diagrams, stick figures, or whatever shows beyond your judgment how you feel.

4.  Record any snippets of dreams you remember.

5.  If you want extra guidelines, adopt my "fill in the blank" list, completing any or all of the following sentences:

I need

I wish

I'm scared

If only

In my heart of hearts I think

If I could let go of ____________ I would

How Journaling Profoundly Improves Self-Esteem

Here are the life-transforming messages your subconsious receives from consistent journaling with these essential guidelines:

I'm worth writing about and committing to.

I accept myself unconditionally.

I am completely open and honest with myself.

I listen to myself with respect and attentiveness.

It is not necessary for me to always know what to do - it is enough to simply express myself.

What powerful affirmations we've just created!

Of course, for my final, very serious, "welcome to autumn" empowerment recommendations, I can't help inviting you to read the above five italicized sentences while looking at yourself in a mirror every day.  See what kind of miracles you can create!

Happy landings, and please tell me all about your adventures.  Better yet, tell yourself...every day.