Friday, February 7, 2014

Excess: too much of everything will get you nothing in the end

Tao Oracle
After several days using the tarot for my daily draws, I have drawn the card for today from the Tao oracle by Ma Deva Padma (the artist of the Osho Zen Tarot)
Well this card is surely a wake-up call on various levels.
The man is crouched and almost crushed by the overload on his back. When you look closely everything is stacked neatly and there is even a tree growing on the top so I wonder how long he has been carrying this enormous burden.
When we keep going and keep adding to the load we all know we can go on like this for a long time until we reach our breaking point and believe me, we will reach it. The question is do we learn from it. Or do we recover and pick up the cause of our burn-out and carry on as if nothing has happened.
I have to be honest, it took me a couple of times to get it (one less urgent than the other, but still). I also can say, I've learned a lot and I hope I won’t get burned-out anymore. But of course there are still a lot of excesses in my life. One of them is my obsession with secondhand tarot decks.  I keep checking secondhand sites for new adds more and more. Since I was able to quit smoking last year I think I can manage to reduce this addiction to normal levels. This is just a minor excess and there are more of course, but the point is, they can grow slowly without noticing and suddenly you could be on the verge of breaking. Therefore it is so important to really take a close look at yourself from time to time and question your  motives, your desires and be honest about your limitations, your levels of stress and to sort out what you really want and need to be happy without having to feel guilty or ashamed because we’re only human.

8 comments:

  1. Well first of all, congratulations on stopping the smoking habit. As an ex-smoker myself, I know what a challenge it can be. I collect oracle and tarot decks, but having a limited space to keep them in helps me not buy too many now. I try to test drive all of them on my blog, and occasionally I'll come across one that just doesn't "wow" me anymore, so I'll send it on.

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    1. Haha Thank you. It was a major challenge and I am so proud I can honestly say I am a non smoker now ( we all are by the way and we used to smoke all three of us!)
      Collecting is okay I guess as long as you know your limits (as is with everything :D)

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  2. I love second hand decks, that is how I got most of mine. I'm doing a huge clean out of decks at some point soon, would you like a preview list? Since I started studying the Thoth last year many of the Rider-Waite type no longer interest me. Ex-smoker here too. All that money...up in smoke. A pack here is about nine US dollars now. Thud.

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    1. I think this looks like enabling my addiction LOL
      Thank you so much but first I want to get to know my current decks.

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  3. Good for you!!!
    I forgot to say this deck is the only one of mine I've never used on my blog, it is my personal meditation/thinking deck, upstairs.

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    1. I can imagine this deck will be perfect for meditation. That's why I use The Osho Zen for my New moon meditations.
      Perhaps it is a possible future for this deck too, but I don;t know it well enough yet :)
      Thank you for sharing your personal use for this deck

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  4. Wonderful post. Congrats on becoming a non-smoker. One day, I'll join the club. :) The breaking point - it's easy to get there and not so easy to recover from. Recently, one stone too many, it felt like it all collapsed around me, leaving me exhausted. I'm in the process of recovering and doing my best to be cautious of which stones to pick back up and which ones to discard. Have a good weekend.

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    1. Thank you for sharing this. I am so happy, you are on the way to recovery. I know from experience it can be a long way but it is filled with treasures to be found :)
      Take care

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