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Choosing the best thoughts to make a lighter way

May 28, 2018

Through meditation, observe your mind observing the world.

Lisa McLoughlin, Life Design Cards, #48 Stay bewitched by your own consciousness

choosing the best thoughts

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: choosing the best thoughts to make a lighter way

Theme for the week beginning 28 May

The underlying theme for this week to guide our overall focus is from Lisa McLoughlin’s Life Design Cards deck – #48 Stay bewitched by your own consciousness

Exploring magic

After last week’s message to start work and ignite magic from your unique passions, it’s a time of going within again. We have had this card a couple of times before so it seems to be a favourite for Quiet Writing! No surprises really, given it’s all about meditating, going quietly within and playing creatively with our mind. It seems a very Introverted Intuiting kind of card to me. And that type of cognitive processing is about withdrawing from the world to find an insight or higher perspective, according to Dario Nardi in ‘Jung on Yoga’ (more on this below!)

Advice from the Life Design Cards Guidebook is:

Through meditation, observe your mind observing the world. Play out creative inspirations with art, pure fantasy and dreams.

Today’s narrative, led by this theme card, encourages us to withdraw a little and choose best thoughts to make a lighter way.

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 28 May

choose best thoughts

Tarot Narrative: 

It’s a time of change or perhaps you are just coming out of a tough time where much shifted. As you work through this time, be aware of your own consciousness and whether you are filling it with flowers and growth, or swords that might damage you. Wield what will help you to shed skins and move into a lighter time.

Cards: Nine of Swords and Judgement from the Spolia Tarot and #12 A Change in the Wind from Wisdom of the Oracle. Loving the Spolia Tarot!

Watch the thoughts you are choosing

Last week we had the King of Wands and Ace of Coins and it was all about moving ahead on our creative projects. It was a very yang energy week and I achieved an enormous amount of things I have been trying to get to for ages. How did you go? Did you have that same experience of lots of forward action?

I noticed too though that the fear and doubt started to creep in. As we put ourselves out there with our creative projects, all kinds of thoughts can step in. This week we are encouraged to ground ourselves by choosing the best thoughts to make a lighter way.

It’s amazing when we are reaching new goals and putting our ideas into action how the negative thoughts can come. The Spolia Nine of Swords captures this perfectly symbolising all those daggers of thought that can stop us from moving and fill us with fear. As Jessa Crispin reminds us for this card:

This is the card of waking up at 4am with your head spinning, letting you know all the ways you are letting yourself down….We can spin demons out of thin air.

Choosing the best thoughts and clearing your mind

So this time calls for a strategy of going within and choosing our best thoughts – flowers instead of swords – and clearing the mind. Whatever works for you to clear your mind – yoga, walking, swimming, running, knitting, colouring, drawing – will help to clear the air. That way you can begin to choose the best thoughts – the more creative ones – rather than the dark ones that make you doubt yourself.

The challenges of current or recent times are potential sources of growth. They can feel very tough but as the Judgement card suggests with its imagery of a snake shedding its skin, it’s all about transformation. And part of the transformation is choosing the best thoughts to take us forward instead of dwelling on any mistakes or shortcomings. It’s a whole lot lighter that way.

As I was swimming this morning, I was reflecting on how the act of swimming is a kind of yoga for me as I breathe in and out very deeply for about half an hour. In that process, as I float and move, I feel much lighter. And much like yoga, the thoughts come and go as I come back to focusing on my breath and movement. The practice of my body moving through salt water.

In this process, I go within and access my own consciousness and inspiration often comes intuitively. It’s easy in this way to choose the best thoughts rather than the “waking at 4am” style of thinking, full of fear and doubt.

sea swimming

This image via pexels.com

Book notes:

Withdraw from the world and focus your mind to receive an insight or realization. Check if synergy results. Try a realization to transform yourself and how you think.

Dario Nardi, Jung on Yoga – for Keen Foreseeing (Ni Introverted Intuiting)

Today’s theme is all about going within and finding ways of choosing the best thoughts. And this is a kind of Introverted Intuiting or keen forseeing. There are eight cognitive processes including four extraverted and four introverted in Jungian psychology. Introverted Intuiting is one of these processes. It’s highlighted this week for going within and finding those bewitching thoughts in our own consciousness.

Dario Nardi describes this Introverted Intuiting as ‘Transform with a Higher Perspective.’ This energy and cognitive process is valuable for us as we seek to change and shed old ways that are no longer helpful. Moving past the dark Nine of Swords thinking and into lighter ways of working, we can engage with our creativity.

‘Jung on Yoga’ is a fabulous resource on finding psychological balance through yoga and the chakras as well as through working with your cognitive processes and psychological type. It is particularly valuable on the Transcendent function and provides a contemporary perspective on conflict as a source of growth and how to work with this. As Dario Nardi states:

The tension of opposites is your fuel for growth.

choosing best thoughts

Tips for choosing the best thoughts

So how can you actively work on choosing the best thoughts? For me, it’s finding the self-leadership strategies that help me settle and work with my personality type. It might be different strategies for different times too. As Dario Nardi’s work on neuroscience, cognitive processes and self-leadership reminds us, it might be about stretching our cognitive options to suit the environment and demands up on us.

You might like to read up too on self-leadership and being the Captain of your Own Life via this great free ebook. My piece on ‘Anchors of self-leadership in seas of change‘ is there along with fellow Quiet Writing contributors Elizabeth Milligan and Lynn Hanford-Day. Just click on the image to read – it’s free! It’s all about finding ways of choosing the best thoughts and quieting the darker ones.

A huge thanks to all fellow contributors and heartfelt gratitude to Angelique Desiree who conceived the idea, pulled us all together and created this beautiful ebook every step of the way. Enjoy some fantastic reading on wholehearted self-leadership and being captain of your own life as this week invites us to do.

Captain of your own life

Thoughts for this week

Going within and choosing the best thoughts to help us chart our course is highlighted this week. Judging what is best can be relative, but certainly finding the self-leadership strategies that you know will settle you will help you move with grace and calm.

Love to hear your thoughts!

I’d love to how this message of staying with your own consciousness and its more introverted and intuitive practices resonates with you this week.

All best wishes for a week of going within to settle into choosing your best thoughts in creativity and life focus.

May you find that shedding the skin of darker thoughts is easier and that your path is lighter. 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. And to help you ignite the psychological links in your passions!

You can download my free 94-page ebook on th36 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:

Weathering seasons of life with skill and balance

Grief and pain can be our most important teachers 

Creative healing in times of sorrow and challenge

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Start work, ignite magic from your unique passions

May 21, 2018

If you’re waiting for divine inspiration, you might be waiting forever. Start the work and see what happens.

Jessa Crispin, The Creative Tarot for the Ace of Coins

start work

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: start work + ignite magic from your unique passions

Theme for the week beginning 21 May

The underlying theme for this week to guide our overall focus is from Lisa McLoughlin’s Life Design Cards deck – #41 Seize the moment to creatively direct raw energy.

start work

After last week’s message of retreating within especially to find approval, we are encouraged this week to get out of the gate. Just look at all that fire and strength in this gorgeous card! And the language: “seize the moment”, “raw energy”.  After the regrouping of the oast week, it’s time to create and be outward in our work. The energy to start work we may have been planning or imagining is highlighted now.

Advice from the Life Design Cards Guidebook is:

Express your personality and create outward symbols of your inner state.

Today’s narrative, led by this theme card, encourages us to ignite our passions into action and start work. The moon phase also is in favour of this as we move from a yin to a yang state tomorrow.

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 21 May

start work

Tarot Narrative: 

It’s time to ignite those passions into action. You have been feeling between worlds for a while now but having regrouped, start work. Whatever magic you have been imagining, whatever creativity you have been contemplating, shift into active work with it now. Just start, learning as you go. The pleasure of creating and learning will lead to mastery and expressing your unique passions in the world as only you can.

Cards: King of Wands and Ace of Coins from the Spolia Tarot and #3 Between Worlds from Wisdom of the Oracle. My first draw from the magic Spolia Tarot!

Start now to master passion and creativity

Last week we had the Knight of Wands focusing our attention on pursuing our passions and creative projects. But we were encouraged to hunker down a little and work out our direction and priorities. I know the last week has been a big one for me in working out my priorities. I’ve been concentrating on how to swim in my own lane and not to try to do everything at once. I had to spend some quiet time reflecting to make progress. Now I am clearer and this week is the time to start work.

Do you have ideas you are very passionate about that you have been putting off? Or have you been finding it hard to get to that one thing that is so important? The one that expresses your unique passions exactly? I know I have. It’s not been without good reason and there have been other competing priorities. But sometimes you just need to “seize the moment”, sit at the desk or go to the cafe and start work.

The King of Wands is all about the mastery of our passions and creativity, bringing together our take on our influences. As the Spolia Tarot Guidebook tells us for this King:

He is in command of his passions, but he is not at the mercy of them. He can always step back and determine what might be needed.

This spirit of moving ahead knowing you can make changes later is powerful. It helps us counteract the fear to even start work on what we treasure and value. Sometimes it can seem so precious or special, we never start. We are reminded this week that the ability to start work has a power and strength all of its own.

 

start work

Seeds of action and first days

The Ace of Coins highlights the power of starting. The Spolia Tarot Guidebook says for this card:

The Ace of Coins is a seed. It is the first day of work on a project.

So this energy is all about seeds and planting energy into what we may have started thinking about a long time ago. Both the Ace and Between Worlds from the Wisdom of the Oracle emphasise that we may not know what the seed is or what it will grow into. It might even be different from what we anticipate. There’s an invitation to be curious and see what comes forth.

Last week we were encouraged to “gather our thoughts, make lists, mind-map, distil, make a plan, unravel, walk or free write can all be valuable ways to use this time of retreat.” I did a lot of that last week. It was very valuable and I learnt two things:

  1. that I can’t do all that I want to do right away, and
  2. which one is the most important now.

So I have begun to start work on what is the beginning of an exciting new offering. I made videos, I’ve been creating content and I know where I want to go with it. It’s all about personality so I love the synchronicity of the words from the Life Design Card:

Express your personality and create outward symbols of your inner state.

We are reminded we need to tend the seeds and work of our unique personality. Investing the care and energy, seizing the moment will yield power and strength we can learn from as we go.

start workThis image via pexels.com

Book notes:

The King of Wands examines everything that sets him aflame and will find its psychological source. This understanding makes his passion sustainable, keeping him from burning out.

Jessa Crispin, The Creative Tarot

Today’s theme is all about how to fearlessly start work but it’s also about sustainable mastery of our passions. We can make many starts, but how do we combine our unique passions into something for the creative long-haul. I am grateful to everything that sets me alight and I love the link with psychological sources that The Creative Tarot mentions for the King of Wands.

The work that I made a big start in today is all about personality and psychological sources. It’s all about our cognitive preferences and what makes some things more natural than others. One of the major learnings for me over time has been about my personality and what makes it tick and honouring that. Valuing my intuition and my work with tarot and oracle cards as tools to tap into my intuition has been a huge part of that. I look forward to sharing my unique passions in these areas with the world.

So today I celebrate Jessa Crispin’s The Creative Tarot which has been something of a companion guide on this journey. I love that my first draw from Jessa’s gorgeous Spolia Tarot deck featured the King of Wands and the Ace of Coins. And reminded me again of the power to start work on our unique passions.

start work

Start work on your unique passions

So where can you start work on your unique passions? Journal or reflect on these questions to ignite the flame of your creativity. Reflect on the Spolia King of Wands image as you do – look at that flame!

  • What seeds can you plant now, even if you do not know what they will grow into?
  • If you did retreat a little, hermit style, last week, what did you learn from that?
  • How do your unique passions come together?
  • What is their psychological source or link?
  • What is the thread that weaves through your passions?
  • How can you start now and how can this passion be sustainable over time?
  • How can you move wisely, step by step, not rushing to do all the things at once?
  • What might anchor you as you start?
  • How can you avoid burning out as you ignite and combine your various passions?

The Between Worlds card suggests “It’s a good time to bet on your skills and talents in new and different arenas.” What might these be?

If we don’t start work, we will never know.

How might you start work? You will know your own ways to do this but here are a few ideas:

  • step out of your comfort zone and do the thing that you have been putting off or that scares you
  • write the outline of the book, blog post or course you want to offer to the world
  • begin the first draft
  • get out the paints or pencils and see what emerges
  • reach out and make connections where you see some synergy
  • make time in your schedule this week for your number one priority
  • set a goal to start work and achieve a critical milestone this week
  • align action better with your priorities

Thoughts for this week

Making the start work in various ways is highlighted this week. It’s time to plant the seed, seize the day, make hay, write words, bring your passions into being in the world as only you can. The sooner you start work and plant the seed, the sooner those strong roots can grow.

These words are a great accompaniment for the energies of this week:

What you can do, or dream you can, begin it,
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
Only engage, and then the mind grows heated, —
Begin it, and the work will be completed!”

John Anster, 1835, inspired by a passage in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s “Faust”.

start work

Love to hear your thoughts!

I’d love to how this message of being in action and finding a way to start work on the union of your unique passions resonates with you this week.

All best wishes for a week of igniting magic and connecting the sources of your work.

May you find joy in finding new ways for your talents and passions to connect and find a voice. 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. And to help you ignite the psychological links in your passions!

You can download my free 94-page ebook on th36 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:

Doing the work – 21 valuable quotes to help you show up

NaNoWriMo – 10 lessons on the value of writing each day

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

The unique voice of what we love

Embracing a creative life – a wholehearted story

creativity introversion

Retreat within to find approval with yourself as the best guide

May 14, 2018

Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.

Marcus Aurelius via The Art of Life Tarot – The Hermit

Retreat

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: retreat within to find approval with yourself as the best guide for creativity + life

Theme for the week beginning 14 May

The underlying theme for this week to guide our overall focus is from Lisa McLoughlin’s Life Design Cards deck – #46 Find approval with yourself before turning your eyes to the world.

retreat

This week we are reminded to retreat within and look inside to find approval. We can so often measure ourselves against arbitrary external measures. It might be someone else’s website, career, latest offering, lifestyle, Instagram feed, family, friends, writing – anything really! There are limitless ways we can measure ourselves against the metric of another’s life. This week, it time to halt that and go within for approval and wisdom. A little personal retreat is a wise way to proceed with this week’s energies.

Advice from the Life Design Cards Guidebook is:

Don’t get hooked upon social approval. Let integrity and personal essence guide your way. Get to know who you really are by spending time alone.

Today’s narrative, led by this theme card, encourages us to retreat to channel our creative and personal energy wisely. Listening to our inner wisdom is only possible when we quiet the external noise. Then we can hear the small still voice of our intuition in a much clearer way.

This is what Quiet Writing is all about! Self-leadership through listening to yourself and letting your wisdom guide you. Prepare to retreat this week – a little or a lot – to access that inner wisdom to guide you on a clearer path.

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 14 May

retreat

Tarot Narrative: 

Are you feeling scattered because of unfinished business and all that you want to achieve? You might be feeling restless as you strive to do all the things. Taking some time to retreat within for clarity is advisable now. Setting your own pace, knowing your own best priorities, discerning procrastination from the need to gather yourself, can all be sourced from listening within. Moving ahead is just a matter of pausing to listen to ourselves and our own wisdom sometimes.

Cards: Knight of Rods (Wands) and The Hermit from the Morgan-Greer Tarot and #10 Unfinished  Symphony in protection (reversed) position from Wisdom of the Oracle.

Book notes:

To engage in disciplined action first requires disciplined thought, and disciplined thought requires people who have the discipline to create quiet time for reflection.

Raymond M.Kethledge & Michael S.Erwin, Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude (p. xiv). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.

retreat

Today’s theme is all about taking time to retreat for solitude and reflection. Through this, we can create disciplined thought. We might go about this in creative ways, opening up our options first to distil them down. But it’s all about pausing and taking a kind of personal retreat to review and be still so we can hear our inner guides.

This fabulous book, Lead Yourself First, is all about how self-leadership through solitude and retreat can be a source of wisdom and insight. The book has numerous case-studies of how leaders have used this form of retreat to guide wise and disciplined action.

Wholehearted self-leadership

I have written extensively about the book in a guest post for Worksearch: How to become the heart of successful leadership: this is what you need to know so you can read more there. Also in this post on Quiet Writing. Here are a few thoughts from the latter explaining how wholehearted self-leadership is key to Quiet Writing:

Two key threads underlie Quiet Writing: one is being wholehearted and how we create our stories; the other is self-leadership and how we work towards being wholehearted through taking personal action. The key to taking action and knowing which actions to take are:

  • knowing ourselves and what we value and desire
  • learning to listen to our inner knowing
  • understanding our innate personality, including its strengths and what is challenging for us
  • seeking out, incorporating and acting on influence and inspiration from others.

Pursuing passion and creativity

The Knight of Rods (Wands) focuses our attention on pursuing our passions and creative projects. But the energy of the Knight of Rods can be a bit restless and impulsive. On the positive side, this type of energy can help us break through barriers and be more creative. On the flipside, we can also be trying to do all the things and all at once. It’s a great energy to work with though if we can harness it. The Robin Wood Tarot describes it as “practical action in spite of distractions.” The trick is to find a way to channel that energy in a sustainable and disciplined way. And to find a way to negotiate the insistence of multiple of ideas and the noise of numerous distractions.

retreat

Retreat and going within to find clarity

The Hermit comes along to beautifully remind us of the value of retreat to find approval with ourselves. This card symbolises that it’s time to value the need to retreat for clarity and inner listening. As The Fountain Tarot guidebook reminds us for The Hermit, “Silence leading to clarity” is key here.

Quiet Writing is all about this process of retreat to find wisdom and self-discipline. We can get so caught up in comparisonitis, measuring ourselves against others. Or it might be some pace or goal we have set ourselves which has no real rationale. With the energy of the Knight of Rods being ignited, we might be trying to achieve too many things at once.

We are encouraged to go within, to retreat into our own inner knowing so we can access the discipline of thought and intuition to proceed. It can all get so complex and multifaceted, especially as creatives, as we have one idea and then another. Stopping to gather our thoughts, make lists, mind-map, distil, make a plan, unravel, walk or free write can all be valuable ways to use this time of retreat.

Sometimes we might just need to nap or rest altogether, freeing our mind of all the thoughts running. A few days of mental rest however that manifests can mean we can see afresh and listen anew to ourselves. In ‘Lead Yourself First’, we can see a variety of ways leaders access solitude for self-knowledge including running, walking, flying, laying bricks and writing. Leaders intentionally and systematically “build pockets of solitude” into their lives. An example is Bill Gates who:

during the rise of Microsoft, set aside entire weeks to just go away and read and reflect, what he called “think week.”

Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude (p. xv).

Through this process we can work out what matters, however we might choose to do this individually.

Unfinished business

The Wisdom of the Oracle card Unfinished Symphony steps in with wisdom around working out what is procrastination and what is real work. Our unfinished business can be a key to where we might be operating out of fear or putting things off. Being clearer about this can come through retreat and stepping back to listen within.

But we are encouraged not to stall:

Don’t overthink things or let yourself get distracted – just tie up any loose ends and deliver the results. (p39)

I am in a Coffeeshop Writers’ Group coaching program with Caroline Donahue to support reaching my writing goals. In a group call, I shared my thoughts about feeling stuck with so many projects not going anywhere or as fast as I want them to. It’s very Knight of Rods with so many projects on this ‘To Do List’ next to me. Taking some time out this week for clarity along with a little mental rest will help me reorient. It’s ironic that sometimes we need to stop to move forward more productively.

Part of us wants to run on and get out there with all of the ideas racing through our minds. Another part of us realises the wisdom of retreat to reorder and assess our ways of working. Stopping to listen within to work out priorities and in that, addressing any unfinished business, is valuable work now.

comfort reading

Honouring the need for retreat

How good does that image of a comfy bed, blanket and a book look to you right now?

It looks perfectly dreamy to me and I can hear my soul saying, “Well do that then if that is what you need.” With an eye to working out what is procrastination versus a real need to rest, retreat and rejuvenate, it’s time to seek a little quiet now. It’s time to listen to our soul and our creative longings and how they want to be expressed.

How might you do this? You will know your own ways to do this but here are a few ideas:

  • work with tarot and oracle for intuitive guidance and free write about what comes up
  • walk along the beach or in the city or on a quiet country road and see what surfaces
  • make a list of unfinished business that is troubling you so you can reprioritise
  • rest in bed with a good comfort read and empty your mind a little
  • make a visual collage to see what messages emerge
  • journal about what’s important to see what comes through
  • go on a self-guided writing retreat
  • practice yoga, meditate, swim or do whatever works to clear your head
  • declare a few days of retreat to concentrate on planning the next six months ahead
  • take a few days to clear your head with good food, yoga and walking to reset a new way of living
  • think about all the reasons to go on a writer’s retreat and then plan one!
  • sign up for a retreat like this one later this year in Vietnam, led by my friend Kerstin Pilz, to carve out times of retreat in your life more generally
  • identify the self-leadership practices in your creative tool-kit

Honouring the place of retreat in our lives is key to moving ahead productively. Take some time to journal to quell the noise and listen to your quiet inner voice this week.

retreat

Love to hear your thoughts!

I’d love to how this message of retreat to listen, check in and find approval with yourself resonates with you this week.

All best wishes for a week of untroubled retreat, embracing your hermit and connecting with your soul’s voice.

May you find inspiration in listening to your inner wisdom and knowing what matters. And let me know what you think of this post and this weekly Tarot Narrative!

retreat

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 th36 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:

Shining a quiet light – working the gifts of introversion

Finishing on a high note – closure, letting go and moving on

How to make the best of introverted strengths in an extraverted world

Being a vessel – or working with Introverted Intuition

creativity transcending

Opening your heart to inspiration of a different kind

May 7, 2018

In each loss, there is a gain as in every gain there is a loss. And with each ending comes a new beginning.

Shao Lin via The Art of Life Tarot – Eight of Cups

opening your heart

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: opening your heart to inspiration of a different kind

Theme for the week beginning 7 May

The underlying theme for this week to guide our overall focus is from Lisa McLoughlin’s Life Design Cards deck – #19 Design from patterns to details

opening your heart

We’ve hard this card before not so long ago! Last time it reminded us of the value of strategy and the higher order of connections. This week the message is similar but with a particular focus on moving through and not letting details get the better of us. We are reminded to look at ideas, patterns and getting our ideas and feelings out without getting stuck.

Advice from the Life Design Cards Guidebook is:

Are you concentrating too much on the details whilst missing the bigger picture, or vice versa?

Today’s narrative, led by this theme card, encourages us to step back a little and see the whole. Looking at patterns rather than flaws or minor issues will serve us well at this time.

It’s about being positive and macro focused rather than micro. We are encouraged to reflect on how working at a higher order of life design can serve us and others well now.

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 7 May

opening your heart

Tarot Narrative: 

Moving on from the tyranny of details, you open your heart to inspiration of a different kind. You want to take your ideas forward but get stuck on the pieces which breaks your movement. So focus on higher order things: patterns and designing from a higher place. With spirit as your guide, work on manifesting your ideas in form and flow without obsessing about every small thing. It will all find its place.

Cards: Daughter (Page) of Swords and Eight of Cups from The Wild Unknown and #40 Co-create from Wisdom of the Oracle.

Book notes:

It is the same with our minds and hearts. For our very self is the one window we have into this life. And so often, we suffer the mood of a dirty window, believing the brilliant world gray.

Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening (for May 7)

opening our hearts

Mark Nepo reminds us for today’s reading in ‘The Book of Awakening’ of ‘The Ordinary Art’. This is about keeping our minds clear and not seeing life through a dirty lens. One way of keeping things murky is to get caught up on the detail – the one piece of dirt on an otherwise clear window, the one thing that is not right. So much can get lost in obsessing about detail before you even make a start or begin opening your heart.

Mark Nepo goes on to say:

Perhaps the purpose of authentic relationship is to help each other keep our minds and hearts clear. Perhaps inner work is the ordinary art of window washing, so that the day is fully the day.

Opening your heart 

The Page of Swords can often represent “a great idea with no outlet” according to Jessa Crispin in The Creative Tarot.  It can remind us that it’s “time to grow up and see a project through to completion for a change.”

Do you have a project that never seems to get going or even make it through to the draft stage? Do you close your heart down before you even start as the details cloud over you?

This reading starts with the Page of Swords as a weather report card telling us to get on with our work or relationships. Too much focus on the detail and the tyranny of perfection can stop us from even starting work or communicating.

One way of opening your heart is embracing the overall pattern of your work rather than obsessing with the details. Just as Mark Nepo reminds us, seeing our work or loved ones through a dirty lens is just not going to be helpful.

opening your heart

Inspiration of a different kind

The Eight of Cups reminds us to let go of what doesn’t serve us. It might be painful but letting go and leaving things behind can be positive. We might, for example, let go of an obsession with detail to finally get our work done. Walking on the beach, we might see the one stone or shell that speaks to us instead of being overwhelmed by many. We might let go of a way of thinking, a person, a job or an attitude that stops us achieving higher order goals like love, creativity or connection.

The Wisdom of the Oracle card Co-create also reinforces this message by encouraging us to see our life as art co-created with spirit:

Connections of the heart serve to inspire you, opening you up to new ideas you would never have had on your own.

This Tarot Narrative work I do is an example of that. I never know what these weekly posts will focus on until I do this intuitive work in partnership with spirit. It is a unique practice of mystery and manifestation that is larger than me. The tarot and oracle cards are tools for me to connect with my intuition. For this week and beyond, focusing on higher-order patterns and a clear view of my work and relationships will serve me well. And I share this in a spirit of co-creation with you.

Details, endings and beginnings

As the Art of Life Tarot Eight of Cups reminds us, endings and beginnings and losses and gains are often intertwined. Especially when big life transitions or events happen, it’s easy to lose the larger picture in the details. We feel hurt by small things that feel magnified. It’s easy to dwell on these upsets. We are encouraged to see the cyclical nature of life and to move beyond getting stuck through an obsession with detail.

Working with our intuition, seeing the bigger picture, working with patterns, choosing to see through a clean window can help us. It is as if we need to erase the details that can trip us up or hold us back. Defining ourselves or others by small events or a few words said can be limiting. Just as not developing the unique creative ideas that come to us because of a fear of not achieving our ideal will limit our productivity.

“Done is better than perfect” is a maxim I have embraced more this year. There is no point having such high expectations of ourselves or our work that nothing gets started. Or ever sees the light of day.

It’s a great week for opening our hearts to inspiration of a different kind.

  • How are we embracing our creative ideas rather than stifling them?
  • Where are we be generous in our relationships rather than fault-finding?
  • What have we learnt about the ways we stop ourselves from moving and how can we action this?
  • How can we find a higher order pattern to work from rather than getting stuck on details?
  • What can we do to invite inspiration in and take it through to completion?
  • Where can we work in partnership with intuition and spirit and the spirit of others to further our work and relationships?

Walking away from practices that no longer serve us can help us feel more inspired. Take some time to journal on how you can lift your eyes to see the positives without the details becoming a barrier this week.

opening your heart

Love to hear your thoughts!

I’d love to how you are working from design and a different kind of inspiration this week.

All best wishes for this week of seeing the big picture to guide us in moving forward.

May you find inspiration in opening your heart and seeing new beginnings. And let me know what you think of this post and this weekly Tarot Narrative!

opening your heart

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 th36 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:

Finishing on a high note – closure, letting go and moving on

Gathering my lessons – a wholehearted story

Coaching goals and the value of being a healthy creative

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

Grief and pain can be our most important teachers

creativity transcending

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

weathering seasons

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.

weathering seasons

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

weathering seasons

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

weathering seasons

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.

weathering seasons

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.

weathering seasons

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!

weathering seasons

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 th36 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

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

Grief and pain can be our most important teachers

Endurance – going the distance with truth, patience and strength

Seeking wisdom in water and elsewhere

Umbrella image via pexels.com

creativity wholehearted stories

The journey of a lifetime – a wholehearted story

April 26, 2018

lifetime journey

This guest post from Chantal Simon shows how the wholehearted path invites you to weave the threads of your lifetime journey into a cohesive whole.

This is the ninth guest post in our Wholehearted Stories series on Quiet Writing. I invited readers to consider submitting a guest post on their wholehearted story. You can read more here – and I’m still keen for more contributors! 

Quiet Writing celebrates self-leadership in wholehearted living and writing, career and creativity. This community of voices, with each of us telling our own story of what wholehearted living means, is a valuable and central part of this space. In this way, we can all feel connected on our various journeys and not feel so alone. Whilst there will always be unique differences, there are commonalities that we can all learn from and share to support each other.

I am honoured to have Chantal Simon as a ‘Wholehearted Stories’ contributor. My sincere thanks to Chantal for sharing her story and stunning photographs. Chantal’s story shows how following our heart, connecting the pieces of our skills and passions weaves a cohesive lifetime journey. A story with language adventures, healing arts, beautiful photography and a backdrop of changing landscapes, read on to find out more!

Answering the call to adventure

It was January 1991 and time moved unbearably slowly in my native corner of France. Going through the motions at university, dutifully attending classes that failed to hold my interest, and feeling increasingly restricted in other areas of my life, I was restless and needed a change. Fast.

As if on cue, one of my English professors called me at home to offer me one of two places on a European exchange program and a four-month grant to study in Galway, Ireland. Dumbstruck by this unexpected turn of events, I quickly regained my composure on the phone, gratefully accepted and took down the details. Time was of the essence, so there was no second-guessing myself. I made all the necessary arrangements and, less than two weeks later, boarded the ferry and embarked on a journey that would change my life.

To say that I fell under the spell of Ireland is no exaggeration. The rugged beauty of its west coast landscapes moved me almost to the point of aching, everything was exciting and I could see possibilities I had never considered. The canvas of my life had suddenly expanded and I loved how it made me feel. Free to be all that I was. I knew I had found my soul home and decided to do all that I could to stay and create as spacious and fulfilling a life as possible.

lifetime journey

Finding joy in the outdoors and writing

Born in a port city on the western coast of France, I had always felt at home in nature and, as a child, spent countless hours playing with friends, my siblings or by myself in the wood at the end of our street. We climbed trees, found secret hideaways and ate all the berries. That sense of ease in the outdoors and need to explore my surroundings never left me.

A month after arriving in Ireland, I immersed myself in Connemara’s wild beauty and climbed my first mountain. I’ve never been the sporty type, but that way of being in the world, feeling my aliveness expand with every step or breath of fresh air, invigorated by the elements and at one with my immediate environment is as natural to me as it is necessary.

My first line of work in Ireland was as a teacher of French and, as such, I enjoyed three full summers off in a row. At the time, I was living in the Irish capital and was more than ready for an outdoor adventure when the much-awaited month of June would come. Two months spent cycling down the western coast of France and around Brittany, a summer of boating on the Irish inland waterways and hiking the West Highland Way during a rare Scottish heatwave presented an abundance of experiences, encounters and impressions which I casually captured with my camera as well as in a notebook. The storyteller and writer in me had been reawakened and, as synchronicity would have it, books on writing and creativity soon crossed my path, encouraging me to nurture that side of me – an invitation I happily accepted.

lifetime journey

Broadening horizons and taking risks

After three years of teaching beginner, academic and professional levels of my native language to a variety of students from 3 to 80 years of age, I wanted to broaden my horizons and started seeking work as a translator. Within a month, an IT translation company booked me for a 3-day freelance assignment onsite.

I had no computer experience whatsoever, but that didn’t faze me. How difficult could that be? My willingness to find out still amuses me, as does my faith in my language, typing and on-the-spot learning skills. It seems they worked a charm since I was asked in for a second assignment. IT translation was a relatively new industry then, Dublin-based agencies providing a bridge between American software companies and translation providers in Europe. Before too long, I was doing regular freelance work for two of the largest agencies while maintaining various freelance teaching gigs.

Committing to self-employment

When one of the agencies offered me a full-time position with a 1-year contract, I accepted it as a great opportunity to learn everything I could about that industry. I did that, but also learned something equally, if not more, important: I wasn’t employee material. Being surrounded by people, stuck all day in a neon-lit office full of computers was so draining to me, it was physically painful.

The less positive aspects of city life were also starting to weigh on me and I was missing the wild Atlantic. With the terms of my contract met and realizing I merely needed a computer, phone line and modem to set myself up as a freelance IT translator, I resigned and moved back to the west coast. It was June 1996 and I felt professionally freer than ever before, having just committed to self-employment and made my work location independent.

lifetime journey

Healing modalities and deep spiritual unfolding

Building a business on my own terms was exciting, as was the freedom to take time off whenever I wanted, either to pursue my creative activities or to travel abroad. One dull spring, seeking a respite from the ever-pouring Irish rain, my then partner and I booked a flight to Crete. This marked the start of a love affair with Greece.

We returned the following year and eventually bought an old house on the Cycladic island of Paros. Being able to take time off to stay there all summer was priceless. My notebook and camera always in my backpack, I learned some Greek, spent my days exploring the island and neighbouring ones, visited whitewashed churches and temples, watched the sun set into the Aegean Sea every evening, and ate an abundance of sun-drenched fruit and freshly caught fish. It was bliss, pure and simple.

Back in Ireland, I continued to balance work, creative pursuits and the needs of my unfolding spiritual self. My spirituality had always been part and parcel of my creativity and time spent in nature, but another realm of experience opened itself up to me when I started training in Reiki in 1995. After years of practising, integrating, training in other energy healing modalities and treating friends and loved ones, I opened my practice to the public.

Working on people I knew nothing or little about showed me how intuitive and clairsentient I had become. This subtle awareness continued to expand and led me down a beckoning path of investigation. Specific books came my way, certain themes started to appear in my writing and art. Synchronicities abounded and I started to feel an undeniable pull towards a certain part of the British Isles. True to my nature, I heeded the call.

lifetime journey
Art and the call of the feminine

The city of Bath, my home for the following two years, was not only stunning and a delight to live in, but also perfectly located to allow regular day trips to the ancient power sites of Stonehenge, Avebury, Stanton Drew and Glastonbury as well as farther north to the fascinating Forest of Dean. I constantly felt like I was bathing in a pool of potent yet nurturing energy. This had a huge impact on my personal unfolding and it is there that I experienced one of my biggest shifts in consciousness to date.

My creativity also flourished, at that point mainly flowing through the channels of collage and mixed media art, techniques I had come across three years previously. Having enjoyed publication success with the articles, poems and collages I occasionally submitted to magazines and journals, I took the jump and started a blog, hoping to connect with like-minded people. The sense of community that characterized what was commonly called the blogosphere back then was truly amazing. I forged lasting friendships with people who, like me, were creating more and more room in their lives for their creativity and art.

My awareness of the divine feminine became increasingly acute and embodied while living in Bath, so it was little surprise that related themes, archetypes and symbolism became prominent in the images I created. I enjoyed the conversations they prompted online tremendously.

It was a very expansive and busy period in my life: I was a high-tech translator by day, a creative by night and spent countless weekends exploring the area. However, some good things come to an end and my personal journey called me back to Ireland.

lifetime journey
Forever seeking more congruence

Perhaps it had something to do with the incredible times we live in or simply was a side effect of turning 50. The fact remains that, last summer, I put an end to my 23-year career as an IT translator to focus solely on what truly holds meaning for me and, hopefully, be of service in a different way. My values and slow living aspirations were increasingly at odds with the consumerism-pushing content of my assignments and the near-daily deadlines becoming the norm in that line of work. There was no other true way forward than to pause and course-correct.

To me, living wholeheartedly means following the flow of your life, taking chances but saying “no” when needed. It requires recognizing and using your skills and the resources available to you, as well as being fully present to all that is within and in front of you, the opportunities just like the challenges and difficulties. Sometimes convoluted, the wholehearted path invites you to weave all the threads of your life, your passions, needs and values into an increasingly cohesive whole, and fosters self-responsibility, self-leadership and sovereignty.

Key book companions along the way of my lifetime journey

Anaïs Nin’s diary
D.H. Lawrence’s novels
Jean Houston’s books on human potential
David Whyte’s poetry
The Artist’s Way – Julia Cameron
Writing Down the Bones – Natalie Goldberg
Writing for Your Life – Deena Metzger
Synchronicity – Deike Begg
Unmasking the Rose: A Record of a Kundalini Initiation – Dorothy Walters
Wild Creative – Tami Lynn Kent
Writing Wild – Tina Welling

Photographs by Chantal Simon used with permission and thanks.

About Chantal Simon

journey lifetime

A native of France, Chantal Simon is a writer, translator and photographer living on the North West coast of Ireland. As well as working on a memoir about her spiritual and energetic unfolding, she is currently creating a photographic series inspired by her natural surroundings and her love of the liminal. Connect with her on Facebook or Instagram, where she shares both her photography and snippets from her creative life, or visit chantalsimon.com (website upcoming soon in 2019).

Read more Wholehearted Stories

If you enjoyed this wholehearted story, please share it with others to inspire their journey. You might enjoy these stories too:

When the inner voice calls, and calls again – my journey to wholehearted living

Maps to Self: my wholehearted story

The Journey to Write Here – my wholehearted story

Ancestral Patterns, Tarot Numerology and breaking through – my wholehearted story

Message from the middle – my wholehearted story

Gathering my lessons – a wholehearted story

Grief and pain can be our most important teachers – a wholehearted story

Breakdown to breakthrough – my wholehearted life

Embracing a creative life – a wholehearted story

Becoming who I really am – a wholehearted story

Finding my home – a wholehearted story

My wild soul is calling – a wholehearted story

Our heart always knows the way – a wholehearted story

How knowing your authentic heart can make you shine

Keep in touch + free ebook ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You might also enjoy my free 94-page ebook ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’ – all about wholehearted self-leadership, reading as creative influence and books to inspire your own journey. Just pop your email address in the box below

You will receive the ebook straight away as well as updates and inspiring resources from Quiet Writing. This includes personality type, coaching, creativity, writing, tarot, productivity and ways to 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. Look forward to connecting with you and inspiring your wholehearted story! 

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