intuition Archives

Weathering seasons of life with skill and balance

April 30, 2018

Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.

Oscar Wilde via The Art of Life Tarot – Four of Pentacles

A Quiet Writing deep-dive Tarot Narrative each Monday to share intuitive guidance, wisdom and insights from aligned books – for the week and anytime…

This week: weathering the seasons of life with skill and balance

Theme for the week beginning 30 April

The underlying theme for this week to guide our overall focus is from Lisa McLoughlin’s Life Design Cards deck – #49 Connect with Nature whatever the weather.

Again we seem to be building on the recent weeks’ themes of the essential matters of life and the value of simple pleasures. This week we are reminded of the value of weathering seasons and connecting with nature to help us.

Advice from the Life Design Cards Guidebook is:

Connect with Nature no matter what your internal or external season is.

I drew this card immediately after writing in my morning pages:

Monday morning, wet, windy, rainy, but off for a swim soon because I like to keep moving and I love it. I love all the conditions and changing circumstances. Reflects my life really, moving through different weather and changing circumstances.

This week’s guidance is about weathering seasons of life and how we choose to move through them. Even the conditions that are out of our control.

It’s about connecting with nature and other practices that keep us grounded in changing times. Remembering that different weather, seasons and change are all a natural part of life helps us to flow with it all rather than fight it. Another aspect of wholehearted living, we can choose to live in the moment of whatever season we are experiencing. We can also make choices to help us navigate challenging times more consciously and with skill and balance.

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 30 April

Tarot Narrative:

It’s time to remember the value of weathering the seasons and circumstances with skill and balance. All you have been through, the changing times are full of lessons and learning. Focus on the broader canvas of shifting from one season to another. Remember the larger scale, the deeper riches, and the cycle of the month, the year – how life moves through highs and lows, successes and challenges. Weather it all with skill and grace and work on yourself, your projects, as an anchor through changing times.

Cards: Three of Pentacles and Four of Pentacles from The Art of Life Tarot and #38 To Be Fair from Wisdom of the Oracle.

Book notes:

But it is in the present–not in the past, and most certainly not in the future–that we are able to see the landscape, to feel the range of our humanity, to travel every uncomfortable mile.

Dani Shapiro, Still Writing

Seasons can be actual, physical times of the year or they can be seasons of creativity and life. Whatever season we are moving through, a key element of the art of wholehearted living is to be present. As Dani Shapiro reminds us, it is about being present to our experience that helps us weather circumstances.

We often can’t control what happens to us. All we can control is our response and attitude to it. And a great way to manage that is to be present and mindful. Connecting with nature helps us do that. Practices like swimming, walking, yoga, writing, running – all help us do that. Working out what can support you to be in the moment is an important part of weathering seasons of life and creativity.

Weathering seasons of life and creativity

The Three of Pentacles is a favourite card here at Quiet Writing. I referenced it when I launched Quiet Writing Coaching where I talked about coaching as co-creation. Today it pops up again to remind us of the work we are doing over time. As Ralph Waldo Emerson says on The Art of Life Tarot Three of Pentacles card:

The reward of a thing well done is to have it done.

The Three of Pentacles focuses on mastery, craft, long-haul creativity, teamwork and weathering circumstances to get our larger work done in the world. I think of it as the “building a cathedral” card as Jessa Crispin suggests in The Creative Tarot. Many versions of the card show a major building undertaking, taking measurements, working out the architecture and structure, bringing the pieces together.

It makes me think of weathering seasons in larger creative projects or life practices. Examples that came to mind are:

Completing NaNoWriMo and writing 50,000 words in a month
Swimming and learning to swim in different weather and circumstances
Tarot work and learning this skill over time, sharpening my intuition

Any aspects of life really where we are digging deep to weather seasons and circumstances, get projects done or deal with major life issues like grief and illness.

Jen Carrington is also a proponent of wholehearted living and talks about living and working in seasons of hustle, struggle and rest. I love Jen’s thoughts on this and how we can make choices and modulate our way through, whatever season we are in.

Connecting to what matters

The Four of Pentacles card reminds us to connect with what matters, echoing last week’s message. Just as the quote on The Art of Life Tarot card reminds us (from Oscar Wilde above), the real riches are more than the material things of life. We are reminded to loosen up, let go, not get so focused on the material. We can worry so much about these things and lose joy in the process.

The Wisdom of the Oracle card To Be Fair also reinforces the message of the changing circumstances of life:

Life is a pendulum swinging between all of these states…remember all experiences have their place.

As Jen Carrington reminds us, there are times of hustle (eg working on big projects, moving forward), struggle (eg facing challenges, overwhelm) and rest (eg slowing down, pausing projects). We can be mindful of these seasons and we can mix them up a little. And we can find practices to help us navigate these seasons more successfully, whether they are of our choosing or not.

Weathering or living by seasons

The big learning for me has been to honour nature as a great leveller and teacher at times of challenge.

I know I mention swimming a lot, but that’s because it has been such a mainstay at a time of challenge. It helps me notice the seasons, the weather and reflect on moving through, being present. I meditate as I swim, noticing the fish and sand, letting all the jumbled thoughts settle as I breathe and move.

Likewise walking on the beach or in the bush enables us to interact with the weather but also reflect and be present. Being present to how we are living and choosing to live helps us to weather seasons of life and creativity in a calmer way.

And I’ve learnt that the tougher the going gets, the more I need to swim, walk, read and write, the anchors of wholehearted self-leadership in my life. It’s so easy to give them up when times get hard. But that is exactly what we need to be doing as a form of self-care. Your particular loves and skills will be different but whatever they are, honour them to keep present, fair and balanced in your life.

It’s a great week for reflecting on weathering seasons in our life and creative projects.

How are we moving through, how are we nourishing ourselves, how are we staying present in the midst of challenge?

Building the big works of our lives takes all seasons and learning to manage them. Take some time to journal on your weathering of seasons and creativity and see where you can strengthen your response to changing times.

Love to hear your thoughts!

I’d love to how you are weathering seasons in your life and creativity.

How are you taking the longer and larger scale view and building a cathedral?
What practices make a difference in weathering seasons of different types in your life?
How are you staying present to enjoy life’s riches even if there are tough times around you?

All best wishes for this week of weathering seasons by focusing on navigating change and conscious choices in how we respond.

May you find joy in the richer dimensions of life that may take more time to build and withstand. And let me know what you think of this post and this weekly Tarot Narrative!

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You can work with me to help tap into that inner wisdom and magic guidance. Free 30-45 minute coaching consults chats are available so please get in touch at terri@quietwriting.com to talk further. I’d love to be a guide alongside to help you conduct creativity and magic with spirit and heart in your own unique way.

You can download my free 94-page ebook on the 36 Books that Shaped my Story – just sign up with your email address in the box to the right or below. You will also receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions. This includes personality type, coaching, creativity, writing, tarot and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

Coaching goals and the value of being a healthy creative

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Umbrella image via pexels.com

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Simple pleasures can make a world of difference

April 23, 2018

In the midst of grime and despair, the smallest act becomes unspeakably beautiful.

The Steampunk Tarot, Six of Cups

A Quiet Writing deep-dive Tarot Narrative each Monday to share intuitive guidance, wisdom and insights from aligned books – for the week and anytime…

This week: simple pleasures and acts make a world of difference

Theme for the week beginning 23 April

The underlying theme for this week to guide our overall focus is from Lisa McLoughlin’s Life Design Cards deck – #38 Discover simplicity through the senses

This week builds on last week’s theme of the essential matters of life and of the heart and remembering what really matters. This week, we focus on the value of simple pleasures – through the senses, memories, remembered joy or gifts and thoughts from the heart. Often ephemeral and fleeting, we are reminded of the power of simple pleasures like laughter, sunshine, flowers, music and play. Engaging with our senses to heal, connect and ground ourselves is especially highlighted this week. And we reminded that these simple pleasures can make a world of difference to us and to others at critical times.

Advice from the Life Design Cards Guidebook is:

Though you are infinitely complex, find serenity and peace through simple things.

Challenging times can make us get overwhelmed. But how many times do we find that it is simple pleasures like hearing a song we love, a gift of flowers or a walk on the beach can be just what we need to connect with ourselves and settle.

This week’s guidance is about remembering the value of simple pleasures and how they activate our senses. Music, scent, candles, feeling our feet on the ground whatever the surface, remembered joyful moments and the connecting value of simple pleasures and gifts are all highlighted this week.

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 23 April

Tarot Narrative:

In the space between endings and beginnings, in the space between darkness and light, there’s an opportunity for simple pleasures to light the way forward. Remembered joy, getting back to what you love, a smile, a small word or gift, flowers, the pleasure of the senses being fired by an offering. Where you or someone else is vulnerable, simple pleasures, moments and memories can light the way to a new cycle.

Reading notes:

Cards: Six of Cups and The World from The Steampunk Tarot and #33 Chaos and Conflict in protection (reversed) position from Wisdom of the Oracle.

(Love The Steampunk Tarot deck – not a new deck but new to me and deck interview coming soon here!)

Book notes:

I’m reading Liz Fenwick’s The Returning Tide right now. I’m linking this book here because the experience of reading this novel is one of finding joy. This is through the act of reading, losing myself in a novel and also in my mind going to lovely Cornwall where it is set. That remembered joy of being in Cornwall is stirring as I read. It’s a special place for me and even the names of places – Helford, Falmouth, Boscawen – all create strong feelings. I would love to be there for a long time to explore its joys. Unfortunately, I can’t get there right now. But I have my memories of going there and this story which brings them alive.

The story also is one of how simple joys get complicated in life as events overtake. In this case, wartime experiences make life and especially relationships challenging. Liz Fenwick takes us through the journey of a family where joy and simple pleasures seem buried in layers of circumstance. It’s powerful to reflect on in the light of our own story and how we respond to what is happening.

So this story and the simple, sensual pleasures of reading a much-loved author in the warm sunshine of a balmy Sydney autumn have been sustaining and joyful of late. And if you haven’t read Liz Fenwick, do read her fabulous novels.

Simple pleasures and remembered joy

In last week’s tarot narrative, the Five of Cups reminded us it’s helpful to feel any pain fully as we move through it. If we don’t, we can miss valuable lessons.

The Six of Cups steps in to remind us of some practical tricks in moving through challenges. This card speaks of the value of small acts of beauty – gifts of time, thoughtful acts, flowers, moments of simple pleasure like reading in the sun. We are reminded to engage our senses – to feel, see, hear, taste and smell.

The Five of Cups focuses on sorrow, lost opportunity and regrets. The Six of Cups dwells in the hope and peace of life’s simple pleasures now and as positive memories.

The World card reinforces this via the World Dancer surrounded by symbols of the four elements: air, fire, water and earth. The world is open for us to engage with if only we lift our eyes from our pain or circumstance. There is joy in simple pleasures, even if life throws up some curve balls we hadn’t anticipated.

The Chaos and Conflict card says there is an opportunity for simple pleasures to become moments of real insight. The guidebook says:

Even in the seeming chaos, there is a kind of Divine order, a complete re-sorting of the elements.

We need to open ourselves to this.

Last week’s message was: We can focus on the dark clouds or we can focus on the light coming through. This week’s message is to seek light in simple pleasures and allow solutions and healing to evolve through these spaces.

We so often want to fix situations for ourselves and others. But often the simplest acts of self-care like reading, taking photographs or a walk on the beach at sunset can create answers.

Engaging in simple pleasures to heal

One of the big learnings for me going through extreme life experiences in the past 18 months has been the power of self-care and simple pleasures.

It’s important to know what lights us and others up and to do this. Here are a few of my favourites:

reading a great book – a novel by a favourite author or non-fiction book in an area I love
a cup of tea
a walk on the beach especially at sunset
a swim in the ocean
taking photographs as I walk and notice
flowers especially natives growing amongst wildness
green ferns and mosses
water flowing – fountains, rivers, cascades, waves
succulents and their quirky ways
listening to favourite songs, revisiting songs I’ve loved (this week: ‘State of Independence’ by Donna Summer!)
the feel of our companion animals’ softness as they sit close by
being inspired and learning through listening to podcasts (today, Discussing Jung’s Studies in Astrology by Liz Greene)
the smiles and laughs of special friends and family members
seeing healing occur in loved ones
breathing in and out and really feeling it move inside me
remembering the joy of holidays and places I love even if I can’t be there now
working with tarot and oracle cards
writing morning pages, feeling my hand move across the page
handling crystals, enjoying their texture and energy

What simple pleasures work to bring you joy even if life is tough?

How can you bring joy to someone else through the simplest pleasures of life?

It’s a great week for steeping ourselves in self-care and care of others through simple pleasures. Filling our well through our senses and remembering joyful moments can be the passport to healing and the bridge to new insights.

Love to hear your thoughts!

I’d love to hear what is working for you as you focus on the simple pleasures of life this week.

All best wishes for this week of moving through challenges by focusing on self-care and care of others through celebrating simplicity, the senses and remembered joy.

May you find joy in the simple things of life and may this make a difference for you and yours. And let me know what you think of this post and this weekly Tarot Narrative!

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You can work with me to help tap into that inner wisdom and magic guidance. Free 30-45 minute coaching consults chats are available in April for a May coaching start so please get in touch at terri@quietwriting.com to talk further. I’d love to be a guide alongside to help you conduct creativity and magic with spirit and heart in your own unique way.

You can download my free 95-page ebook on the 36 Books that Shaped my Story – just sign up with your email address in the box to the right or below. You will also receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions. This includes personality type, coaching, creativity, writing, tarot and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

Essential matters and feeling your way through pain

Grief and pain can be our most important teachers

Endurance – going the distance with truth, patience and strength

Seeking wisdom in water and elsewhere

Your body of work – the greatest gift for transition to a bright new life

love, loss & longing transcending

Essential matters and feeling your way through pain

April 16, 2018

The cups will fill again and the storm will pass. Feel the pain, and keep one foot on solid ground.

The Fountain Tarot, Five of Cups

A Quiet Writing deep-dive Tarot Narrative each Monday to share intuitive guidance, wisdom and insights from aligned books – for the week and anytime…

This week: essential matters + feeling your way through pain

Theme for the week beginning 16 April

The underlying theme for this week to guide our overall focus is from Lisa McLoughlin’s Life Design Cards deck – #44 Make those essential actions matter.

This week is about essential matters of life and of the heart and remembering what really matters. In this, we might be feeling pain and turmoil, but it’s a time of washing away the inessential.

Often the toughest and most painful of circumstances remind us of essential matters to focus on. We need to take the time to breathe through them and learn from them, as hard as this can be.

Advice from the Life Design Cards Guidebook is:

Let nothing be hidden behind walls of fear. Try to feel what you want to do right now. Clarify your priorities as if every minute matters.

Certainly, the more painful the time, the more we realize that indeed every moment does matter. The gift of challenge is to sharpen our awareness and help us identify what is essential and what is not essential.

This week’s guidance is about experiencing the pain and full feelings of challenging situations so we can learn from them. We are reminded to tap into the power of instinct and intuition as we move through difficult times. It’s as if we need to feel our way in the true sense of this phrase, letting feelings be our guide. This might mean going through pain and upheaval to get to the other side. Being grounded and learning as we move through is key.

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 16 April

Tarot Narrative:

Change is often painful, it’s true. Spilt cups, falling towers, grey skies, stepping between worlds. It all points to the loss and transformation of something, life becoming different in essential ways. You can lose yourself in this loss, focusing on what is spilt, becoming paralysed. Or you can step into the dark clouds and feel them, know their energy and know too that the blue sky and calmer times will come again.

Reading notes:

Cards: Five of Cups and The Tower from The Fountain Tarot and #3 Between Worlds from Wisdom of the Oracle.

Book notes:

You are the sky. Everything else—it’s just the weather.

Pema Chödrön

via Rick Hanson’s

Resilient: 12 Tools for transforming everyday experiences into lasting happiness

What a fabulous quote from Pema Chodron and what an amazing book ‘Resilient’ is. I have listened to it as an audiobook the past few weeks as I have driven in and out of my little village. I’m facing challenging times yet again after supporting my mother through her terminal illness last year. In the final stages of my mother’s life, as I drove in and out of town to the hospital, I focused on the essential as I listened to Greg McKeown’s Essentialism.

Both books sing of essential matters, moving through the inessential and gaining clarity. Tough and painful times sometimes simply have to be moved through. But feeling the pain and learning from these times gifts us with powerful lessons we can take forward. We develop psychological resources we can gather if from dark clouds, to face difficult times with grace and strength.

Dark clouds and what they teach us

If there’s one thing you notice from each of the three cards for this week’s tarot narrative, it’s the prevalence of dark clouds.

The Five of Cups reminds us that it’s helpful to feel any pain and loss fully as we move through it. If we don’t, we can miss valuable lessons. It is as if we need to feel the pain to move through it. ‘Befriending Grief’, as the Fountain Tarot interpretation puts it, can be a source of moving through any loss.

The Tower can be a fearful card to pull with its top-heavy energy drawing things down. It reminds us of the pain of moving through change. But as the Fountain Tarot reminds us, it can be about ‘The Inessential Destroyed’ and getting through to what matters.

Between Worlds reminds us:

What is essential now is to admit not knowing. There is great freedom and power to be unleashed.

All of these cards especially in the light of our theme card, “Make those essential actions matter”, bring us into the realm of clear, essential, resilient actions.

We can focus on the dark clouds or we can focus on the light coming through.

The photograph above was taken this evening as dark smoke fills the sky from bushfires not so far away. It’s been a sobering time lately in many respects and my thoughts have been with those battling the fires and trying to keep their homes and loved ones safe. The fight is not over. But whatever we are battling, light and optimism will help shine out the dark and keep us focused, even if we must acknowledge the challenges at hand in very real terms.

Essential matters and resilient practices

I shared some learnings from my reading of ‘Resilient’ last week in my post, Creative healing in times of sorrow and challenge. This week’s focus on essential matters continues this theme and highlights these practices.

The two practices prompted by reading ‘Resilient’ that have helped me the most these past few weeks have been:

1 Honouring my psychological resources

Sadly, I have been through a lot of pain, challenge and loss in my life. On one side, I can focus on this and let it get me down. Or I can see that I have had the opportunity to build psychological resources to be more resilient and strong.

Everything we go through teaches us if we are open to the lessons. At times, I have had to dig deep and be reflective, talk to special friends and professionals. I’ve learnt to know when to spend time alone, when to practice self-care and how to balance my needs with others. Tough lessons all and with more challenges stretching me, I can dig into my learning and bring all of myself to bear to get through. For example, I am much better at contacting people and talking when I need it now rather than battling on alone.

2 Feeling the beauty in small everyday joys as well as feeling pain

A big learning over time for me has been that it is okay to feel the beauty and joy of everyday things – the full cups – even as we feel immense pain.

We can tend to make it an either/or, saying to ourselves either I feel grief or I feel joy. I cannot feel both. It can feel like a terrible tension or betrayal of the feeling of pain if we feel good in any way.

Rick Hanson reminds us we can take an approach of gratitude:

Thankfulness is not about minimizing or denying hassles, illness, loss, or injustice. It is simply about appreciating what is also true: such as flowers and sunlight, paper clips and fresh water, the kindness of others, easy access to knowledge and wisdom, and light at the flick of a switch.

I have found special joy in swimming, reading, writing, sitting in the sun, cups of tea, coffee and connection with special friends and family at this time. The simple act of getting these tarot narratives out each week is a blessing and wisdom I learn from.

What are your essential resilient practices?

So take some time to identify your essential matters and resilient practices:

Where are you feeling pain and can you acknowledge it for what is?
What beautiful and special things have you enjoyed or witnessed lately?
How can this light you up even if feeling pain?
Where have you felt darkness descend and why?
What have you focused on or done to take you there into that darkness?
When have you lightened up and what helped you to do that?
What psychological resources have you developed over time and how can you honour this and build on them?

Take a moment to list:

Your psychological resources, learning and supports and what helps you get through
The blessings and joys that bring light into your life even if there are still dark clouds and if only for a brief moment.

This is a great week for honouring our psychological strengths, appreciating any pain and blessings and getting to the essential matters of life.

Love to hear your thoughts!

I’d love to hear what is working for you as you reflect on the essential matters of life.

All best wishes for this week of being clear on the essential, removing the inessential and developing resilient practices.

May you find strength and resilience in the clarity and peace of essential matters. And let me know what you think of this post and this weekly Tarot Narrative!

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

Grief and pain can be our most important teachers

Endurance – going the distance with truth, patience and strength

Seeking wisdom in water and elsewhere

Alchemy and conducting magic with spirit and heart

Your body of work – the greatest gift for transition to a bright new life

creativity love, loss & longing

Creative healing in times of sorrow and challenge

April 9, 2018

Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.

C S Lewis

A Quiet Writing deep-dive Tarot Narrative each Monday to share intuitive guidance, wisdom and insights from aligned books – for the week and anytime…

This week: creative healing in times of sorrow and challenge

Theme for the week beginning 9 April

The underlying theme for this week to guide our overall focus is from Marcella Kroll’s Sacred Symbols oracle deck – Medicine Man Eye.

This week is about being creative healing especially in times of sorrow and challenge when we can feel so helpless. We are reminded to see higher magical powers, the way of miracles and medicine of different kinds.

Advice from the Sacred Symbols Guidebook is:

Healer – A Healing in its highest form – Prophecy – Natural Magical Abilities

Meditate when wanting healing on the physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual plane.

The Native American Medicine Man Eye symbol reminds us of the “magical powers of spiritual healing and seeing the future. All seeing, all knowing, all uniting.”

This week’s guidance is about tapping into that spiritual, creative healing energy now. Especially when faced with situations where we feel we can do nothing, we are encouraged to reflect on and access higher forms of healing for ourselves and others. As Albert Einstein reminds us:

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

This week we are reminded to tap into the power of miracles, of creative healing, of spiritual energy and higher forms of magic. Call it or make it what you will: prayer, meditation, channelling, energy healing, writing, art therapy, mandala work, tarot, crystals, poetry, chanting. We are encouraged to access and honour our own creative healing forms at this time.

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 9 April

Tarot Narrative:

Creative healing in all its forms calls you now as a way of energy or power. You might feel helpless but know that you have creative ways to make miracles. They might be hard to see and even know the effects of, but channel that energy into healing as you know you can. Write, create art, weave, knit, draw deep. Manifesting miracles and creativity out of the deepest resources and from sorrow is called for now as you and others heal.

Reading notes:

Cards: Queen of Water (Cups) and the Nine of Air (Swords) from The Nomad Tarot and #31 Why? in protection (reversed) position from Wisdom of the Oracle.

Book notes:

The waves echo behind me. Patience––Faith––Openness, is what the sea has to teach. Simplicity––Solitude––Intermittency…But there are other beaches to explore. There are more shells to find. This is only a beginning.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea (p120)

Today’s card echo together in various ways about creative healing approaches. It might be how we find solace in challenging times to heal our own troubled mind by walking on the beach. Perhaps it’s learning to channel our creative healing energies in different ways such as through reiki, energy healing or intuitive writing.

I know many of the wholehearted stories featured here on Quiet Writing highlight art as a form of creative healing. For example, Jade Herriman writes about embracing a creative life and art as a form of healing that she now extends to others through her practice of art therapy. Lynn Hanford-Day likewise found the creative healing practice of art central in her move from breakdown to breakthrough. Lynn now works with sacred geometry and the divine feminine, crafting a multi-faceted career as artist, coach, facilitator and therapist working with women in transition and organisations going through change.

The beautiful Queen of Water from The Nomad tarot with its single elegant shell reminds us via the guidebook:

The most successful and harmonious of all the Water cards, the Queen shows us the possibilities unleashed by blending imagination and creativity with action and social usefulness….This can speak specifically to artistic endeavours or any creation manifested out of what life has presented us with.

Creative healing from what life presents

The Nine of Air (Swords) represents what life can throw at us especially the darkest sides of life. As The Nomad Tarot guidebook says:

In this moment, we are incapable of seeing the world as anything other than full of endless sorrow.

Life can be challenging and it’s easy in these moments to feel helpless. It’s important that we feel and acknowledge emotions like sorrow, grief and pain as real and as guideposts in life. And it’s what we then do with these emotions that matters.

So here are some questions to reflect on:

Do we get bogged down in these dark emotions, Ten of Swords style?
Or do we work through them and try to balance them with appreciating the beauty and blessings in our lives?
How do we seek to learn from them and heal ourselves and others?
What creative healing practices do we engage in to help us work through tough times?
How are we upskilling and learning new skills for creative healing and energy channelling?
Where can we share this knowledge with others?

Writing has been a creative healing force for me as I have worked through challenges. As described in 36 Books that Shaped my Story, books, blogging and returning to writing poetry have been creative healing arts for me. And in healing and caring for ourselves, as selfish as it might feel at times, we are better able to support others. Shalagh Hogan, in the most recent wholehearted story, shares how she turned darkness into creative projects and gathered lessons that help her and others feel positive and engaged in Creative Soul Living.

The Why? card from the Wisdom of the Oracle deck also reminds us to look at our whys at this time. We are encouraged to look at intentions hidden from awareness. Sometimes when we are made vulnerable by sorrow and pain, we can find new insights. In another form of creative healing, recognising true motivations can be eye-opening and lead to clearer paths.

Resilient creative healing

I’ve been reading a fabulous book, Resilient: 12 Tools for transforming everyday experiences into lasting happiness by Rick Hanson, listening to it as an audiobook. It’s full of rich wisdom on resilient creative healing approaches to life. Hanson doesn’t deny that tough times happen but he encourages us to do the best we can in any situation with the psychological resources we have developed over time.

There are so many positive examples of practical, resilient creative healing to be used day by day. Here are just a few:

Find refuges:

In the flow of your day, find refuges such as time to yourself in a morning shower, the friendly camaraderie of people at work, listening to music on the way home, or thoughts of gratitude as you get ready for sleep.

Let be, let go, let in

In other words, getting good at coping, healing, and well-being is a matter of getting good at letting be, letting go, and letting in. Mindfulness is necessary for

Be aware of your needs

So try to be aware of needs, or aspects of needs, that have been unmet. Listen to the longings of your heart.

The HEAL process

1. Have a beneficial experience: Notice it or create it.

INSTALLATION

2. Enrich it: Stay with it, feeling it fully.

3. Absorb it: Receive it into yourself.

4. Link it (optional): Use it to soothe and replace painful, harmful psychological material.

See the jewels around you

Each day is like a path strewn with many little jewels: the small ordinary beneficial experiences of life. It’s easy to overlook these and step right over them. But then we get to the end of the day and ask, “Why don’t I feel richer inside? Why does it feel like I’m running on empty?” The jewels are already there. Why not pick some of them up?

I highly recommend this rich and practical book for increasing resilient resources and creative healing in the context of experience. One of the ways of being creative with healing is practising it in the everyday.

This is a great week for digging deep into miracles and creative healing practices of all kinds. With Mercury retrograde around until April 15, it’s a great time for self-reflection and growth amidst the chaos and anxiety.

Love to hear your thoughts!

I’d love to hear what is working for you as you engage with these energies around self-care and supporting those around you

All best wishes for this week of creative healing and developing resilient practices.

May you express yourself and find healing through the creative arts and your psychological resources developed over time. And let me know what you think of this post and this weekly Tarot Narrative!

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

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Endurance – going the distance with truth, patience and strength

March 26, 2018

Remain true to yourself. Your authenticity alone will keep you in alignment with the energy of miracles.

Colette Baron-Reid, Wisdom of the Oracle – #47 Go the Distance

A Quiet Writing deep-dive Tarot Narrative each Monday to share intuitive guidance, wisdom and insights from aligned books – for the week and anytime…

This week: endurance, going the distance with truth, patience + strength

Theme for the week beginning 26 March

The underlying theme for this week to guide our overall focus is from Lisa McLoughlin’s Life Design Cards – #47 Resist coercions of your culture.

This week is about being authentic and true to ourselves and others. It’s about the freedom of standing our ground and working from the truth of our heart.

Advice from the Guidebook is:

With a loyalty to truth, say what you see, regardless of the consequences. Stand firm when your freedom is challenged by direct coercion or insidious persuasion.

This reminds me of Brigit’s message, ‘Don’t Back Down’. Brigit is my guiding goddess for life. She sits on my desk here, as she has for quite a while, with her message of staying strong. “Stand up for what you believe is right.”

This week’s guidance is about endurance and going the distance. It’s wrapped around a core of strength in truth, authenticity and patiently pursuing our goals. How do we know what’s worth enduring for? This is a key underpinning theme this week. Staying strong for ourselves, for what matters and what we believe in is highlighted. It’s worth persevering and going the distance for what we believe is right. In this, we can resist tendencies to conform, to worry about being different and to give up when under pressure.

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 26 March

Tarot Narrative:

You can go the distance with whatever is challenging you now. It might feel daunting or endless, but know you have the strength and endurance for the long haul. Whether it’s creative projects, relationships or other life challenges, know that this strength is about authenticity, being true to yourself, receptivity and above all, patience. Open your heart, dance and be in touch with your intuition as you make your path.

Reading notes:

Cards: Strength and Page of Water (Cups) from The Good Tarot and #47 Go the Distance from Wisdom of the Oracle.

Book notes:

Then there are times when we need Strength, which is getting what we want by standing perfectly still, by being open and by daring to be vulnerable. We want the lion to come and sit in our lap, and so we will sit very quietly and wait for it. We can’t overpower it, we can’t force it to do what we want, so we will sit here patiently, calmly until the lion feels safe enough to approach.

Jessa Crispin, The Creative Tarot (p58)

I’ve written before about the endurance of quiet strength. This sort of strength is not brute strength, it’s a patient, waiting, developing over time kind of strength.

It’s the type of endurance you need to write a book, to parent, to see a much-desired project through and to counter resistance in all of this. Battling things head-on doesn’t always work. Sometimes it’s about being receptive, knowing when to wait and being patient.

The ‘Going the Distance’ card energies were exactly mirrored in the Strength card. Note too that both the Life Design card about resisting coercions of culture and the Wisdom of the Oracle ‘Going the Distance’ card are both number 47. Such synchronicity!

So in this reading, I see connections between going the distance and being true and authentic to ourselves and what we believe in. I see connections too between endurance and a receptive kind of patience. It’s all about staying the course, finding a way through and waiting when the time is not right to move.

In my writing for long-haul projects, I have found that sometimes I just need to wait until more information comes on board. I don’t always realise at the time. But later I can see that I had to wait, go the distance, be receptive rather than act for a while. This can apply to many aspects of life as we wait for the right time.

The gifts of patient endurance

Patient endurance is inspired by the authentic truth of what we believe in. This fortifies us and gives us stamina for the journey. It enables us to sit back and gather ourselves, research, wait for information to come to us, be intuitive.

This is a yin kind of strength just like yin yoga strengthens us through holding poses quietly for a time and breathing into them. We can feel our bodies become more resilient as we stretch gently over time.

Just like this we too can become more resilient as we quietly practice endurance built around the spine of our authenticity and truth.

Keats comes to mind too with his ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’, that great poem to stillness and waiting:

Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,

Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,

He reminds us at the end of this ode to quiet strength:

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Throughout this reading, the spine of truth, waiting for truth and authenticity and believing in it, breathes through. Whether it be campaigning for what we believe in, writing our truth, trying to get to the bottom of something, waiting for others or having the persistence to carry on.

Endurance through quiet strength

It’s all about finding our way to endure through patience, receptivity and quiet, resilient strength.

Reflecting on ways to build quiet strength is a valuable practice at this time. This might include:

reading and researching more to understand
breathing exercises and finding ways to create rhythm in our days
yin yoga and other practices that help us with core quiet strength
writing, journaling, morning pages – whatever we call it, to help us anchor in quiet moments
intuitive work to sharpen our noticing and ability to make connections
exercise to enact building endurance over time.
allowing others space and time to come to us
being playful and opening up to childlike innocence (Page of Water)

We are encouraged to be a bit more playful with it all when we can and dancing helps too. As Vivian Greene reminds us:

Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass. It’s about learning how to dance in the rain.

This is a great week for uncovering endurance through the authenticity of what makes you come alive and keeps you going! Regardless of what is coming at you, learn to dance in the rain of circumstance.

Love to hear your thoughts!

I’d love to hear if you are feeling these energies around endurance through quiet strength, truth, patience and authenticity.

All best wishes for this week of endurance through realising your truth. And dancing in the rain.

May the lion of quiet strength and Brigit guide you to gentle, receptive endurance whatever the weather. And let me know what you think of this post and this weekly Tarot Narrative!

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You can work with me to help tap into that inner wisdom and magic guidance. Free 30-45 minute coaching consults chats are available in March + April for a May coaching start so please get in touch at terri@quietwriting.com to talk further. I’d love to be a guide alongside to help you conduct creativity and magic with spirit and heart in your own unique way.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

Strategy, patterns and the higher order of connections

Seeking wisdom in water and elsewhere

Alchemy and conducting magic with spirit and heart

Your body of work – the greatest gift for transition to a bright new life

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personality and story planning & productivity

Self-leadership, feedback and marshalling resources for the best week

January 29, 2018

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

Reverend Howard Thurman, in Dario Nardi’s ‘8 Keys to Self-Leadership’

___________________________________

A Quiet Writing deep-dive Tarot Narrative each Monday to share intuitive guidance, wisdom and insights from aligned books – for the week and anytime…

This week: self-leadership + marshalling resources

Theme for the week beginning 29 January

The theme for this week to guide our overall focus is from Lisa McLoughlin’s Life Design Cards – 16. Apply self-regulation and accept feedback

This is a lovely self-leadership card and reminds us to practice listening to our bodies, intuition and others. And then to input that into the cycle of what we are doing. Especially when negotiating challenging times, it’s important to notice when our body is telling us to rest or letting us know what it needs more or less of. It’s also about the wider environment and people in our world and what they are telling us.

When I read ‘feedback’, I immediately thought of negative feedback and listening to where I need to improve or change. This is valuable but as Lisa McLoughlin reminds us via the Life Designs Cards Guidebook for this card:

Consider that feedback is also about appreciation as well as what needs changing.

Keeping open and modulating, adjusting our sails, taking on board new perceptions and realising when we have it right or our ideas resonate – all are supportive ways to move through this week as positively and productively as we can.

It’s a good time for self-leadership and self-regulation, tuning in with our bodies and personality. Being aware of what others are saying can help to feed into the loop of our growth at this time.

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 29 January

Tarot Narrative: Marshalling your resources

It’s a time for marshalling your resources and taking action. You’ve gathered skills, knowledge and resources over time. You’ve worked at pulling together the golden threads of you. Value this resource, this currency, this way of being and working. Make it work for you now, but also for others. Share generously, choose your focus, listen to feedback, make a difference.

Reading notes: Cards: King of Swords and Six of Coins from the Sakki Sakki Tarot and #38 To Be Fair in protection (reversed position) from Wisdom of the Oracle.

Book notes:

Our lead process remains the captain of our ship no matter how much developing we do. We use it in the background even when using other processes. Lead and supporting processes develop first, and each experience we have of nonpreferred process is cause for celebration and a doorway to change.

Dario Nardi, 8 Keys to Self-Leadership (p22)

As part of my personality type work, I had the pleasure of attending two training workshops with neuroscientist Dr Dario Nardi last year. Using EEG technology, his work shows how Jungian insights about personality type and cognitive functions are supported by physical evidence.

You can actually observe the brain lighting up as it works on something that it loves (or doesn’t like) in line with patterns identified in Jungian/Myers-Briggs personality type preferences. Here is a picture of me in a workshop with Dario Nardi with the activity of my brain being mapped and regions lighting up as I do various cognitive activities.

Self-leadership and personality

This work reminds us that the self-leadership journey begins with knowing ourselves and the lead cognitive functions that are our natural way of being. From this, we can extend into less natural preferences to open our potential. Each time we venture into our weaker or less preferred domains, we open the doorways of change and potential. And we should acknowledge this in our self-leadership and cheer ourselves along!

Our lead cognitive preference is always directing traffic as we use it in the background. So marshalling our resources is about knowing our personality and our best ways of working. The King of Swords is a card that reminds us about being the master of our thought, knowledge and logic, achieving success through plans that can move us ahead. Our ability to marshal our own resources and loves is highlighted so we can act to create and put thoughts into action.

As an example, as an INTJ personality type, my preferred cognitive function is introverted Intuiting. I’ve learnt over time to value this as the lead to bring the pieces together – via work such as envisioning, strategising, tarot and oracle and intuitive writing. I can use these preferences as the lead and marshall the resources I have to help bring the pieces together across the gamut of my personality. Everyone can do this – although the lead will differ depending on personality type preference – and awareness is key.

Self-leadership and giving back

Another theme that popped up in this reading alongside self-leadership and knowing ourselves is generosity and giving back. When we are experiencing the harvest from our work and others, we often focus on our value and what we bring forth. We need to learn from that feedback, but we also need to be generous in how we share this work.

In our self-regulation and self-leadership, it’s a good time for thinking about how we are giving back. It might be to causes or others, making a difference for the highest good of all and not just for ourselves. This is especially the case if we have experienced good fortune or are receiving from others. It’s a time to think about how can we accept this and turn it back into the world in new ways.

So for this week, it’s a great time for recognising your strengths, knowing yourself and exercising self-leadership as you marshal your resources.

Listening to feedback – both positive and instructive – is highlighted. As is recognising when we are benefiting from a time of fruition, so we can put back to benefit others.

Notice when people say good things about the work that you do and see where it can take you! What clues does this provide you?

Love to hear your thoughts!

I’d love to hear if you are feeling these energies around self-leadership, feedback, marshalling resources and generosity.

How might you practice self-leadership and self-regulation?
What resources are you marshalling?
What are the good things people are saying about you and the work that you do?
What does this tell you? Where could you take it further?
What are you feeling or hearing about what is not working for you?
What can you do step up your self-leadership in the coming week?

All best wishes for this week of exercising self-leadership and marshalling resources including giving back. And let me know what you think of this post and the idea of weekly Tarot Narratives!

? of me (top + bottom) by Lauren, Sol + Co

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

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intuition

Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.

Oscar Wilde via The Art of Life Tarot – Four of Pentacles

Theme for the week beginning 30 April

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 30 April

Book notes:

But it is in the present–not in the past, and most certainly not in the future–that we are able to see the landscape, to feel the range of our humanity, to travel every uncomfortable mile.

Dani Shapiro, Still Writing

Weathering seasons of life and creativity

Connecting to what matters

Weathering or living by seasons

Love to hear your thoughts!

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In the midst of grime and despair, the smallest act becomes unspeakably beautiful.

The Steampunk Tarot, Six of Cups

Theme for the week beginning 23 April

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 23 April

Book notes:

Simple pleasures and remembered joy

Engaging in simple pleasures to heal

Love to hear your thoughts!

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The cups will fill again and the storm will pass. Feel the pain, and keep one foot on solid ground.

The Fountain Tarot, Five of Cups

Theme for the week beginning 16 April

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 16 April

Book notes:

You are the sky. Everything else—it’s just the weather.

Pema Chödrön

Dark clouds and what they teach us

Essential matters and resilient practices

What are your essential resilient practices?

Love to hear your thoughts!

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Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.

C S Lewis

Theme for the week beginning 9 April

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 9 April

Book notes:

Creative healing from what life presents

Resilient creative healing

Love to hear your thoughts!

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

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Remain true to yourself. Your authenticity alone will keep you in alignment with the energy of miracles.

Colette Baron-Reid, Wisdom of the Oracle – #47 Go the Distance

Theme for the week beginning 26 March

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 26 March

Book notes:

The gifts of patient endurance

Endurance through quiet strength

Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass. It’s about learning how to dance in the rain.

Love to hear your thoughts!

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

Share this:

Like this:

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

Reverend Howard Thurman, in Dario Nardi’s ‘8 Keys to Self-Leadership’

Theme for the week beginning 29 January

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 29 January

Self-leadership and personality

Self-leadership and giving back

Love to hear your thoughts!

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

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