Our Collective Concern - insights from my tarot card readings in Sydney

 When I do a card reading I often pick up on the state of mind people hold, which is influenced by what is going on in the collective culture.

The tarot card reading is Sydney based. In this region there is a great deal of immediate anxiety due to the bushfires and longer term despair about the environmental calamities that may unfold.

The present secular message says we’re reading for inevitable demise. The new age message says we’re on the verge of great awakening. Neither presents a complete picture.

To contemplate the heaviness of world affairs, consider the Moon card in the tarot.

It appears at the end of the major arcana after the journey through heavy development blows represented by the cards of death, the devil and the tower.

Akin to the dark night of the soul, the Moon card captures being exiled, where we are unable to find a home or to take on a spiritual path.

Looking at the symbolism of the card, what could be more forlorn than a lost dog howling at the moon?

The release of tension upon moving from the 18th tarot card (The Moon) into the 19th major arcana card (The Sun)

Read more: Our Collective Concern - insights from my tarot card readings in Sydney

Our Wild, or Instinctual Nature, is growing increasingly more endangered. Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés argues that we all have access to this, “powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing.”  

Consider how tapping into this instinctual nature can change a person’s life...

Albert Einstein embraced his wildness from a young age, immediately resisting authority. At age 5 he was forced to learn violin. Not liking the teaching style of his tutor, he threw a chair at her then chased her out of his house. Believing his schoolteachers to be more like sergeants than nurturers of curiosity, he refused to pay attention to them. At 16, his schoolmaster wrote in his school report, “He will never amount to anything.”

Read more: The Hanging Man - Rediscovering Our Wilder Essence

Holotropic Breathwork

As we enter the festive season, a transformational breathwork session may well be one of the best self-care investments you can make.

During our younger years while our brains are developing we find it difficult to process trauma, grief, fear and other states that are experienced during our upbringing. The effect is that they often get buried in our bodies or our subconscious.

A few years ago Elizabeth Gilbert wrote a blog post about the impacts of time with our families during holiday periods:

“Even in very loving families, not every individual in that family is happy, healthy, sane, or safe. You may have done enormous personal work on yourself during the course of your life. You may have evolved into a graceful, peaceful, compassionate, well-adjusted, loving human being… and yet you still may find —when you go home for the holidays, or when your relatives come to visit you — that suddenly it is totally impossible even for YOU to remain happy, healthy, or sane.”

This is where breathwork therapy, or rebirthing therapy, can be of enormous value.

Breath workshop

Read more: Breathwork Sydney - working through family dynamics