I think my community is broken. What used to feel like amused tolerance for our differences now feels like a willingness to hurt each other because we think differently. Like a community-generated climate change is affecting our ability to function together toward a greater good, or even to decide what a greater good might look like.
So I decided to do a Journey Oracle reading for myself, not asking anything so presumptive as "what to do?" More just sitting in the feelings of confusion about our disharmony. Here are the four Oracle cards I drew, plus my impressions of their advice in blue text. I am including each entire page of Oracle pronouncements, just in case some other part of the writing is insightful for you, if you have your own situation of seeking advice for troubled times in your community.
At first I see confusion, and then I see a bare brown hill or rock shape floating in a sea. of blue green. Old timers often call Cortes Island "the rock," and so this image feels like a significant beginning.
I am drawn to the upper center of the Oracle card, to what looks like a bare tree--no leaves, no growth, no shade from the glare of white. A good metaphor for this troubled situation.
THE SITUATION
This situation began
by getting affairs in order.
The prevailing energy
of this situation is buffeting.
The core energy
pattern of this situation is awash in
uncertainty.
The three statements above have the most potency for me. I need to not trust gossip and rumor but go to my neighbors, as best as I can, and learn why some are so dissatisfied.
The Mother of this
situation is yellow strength.
The Father of this
situation is opening from the center.
ALIGNMENT TO THE
SITUATION
Your relationship to
the prevailing energy is eyes straight
ahead.
I like the above statement--don't be distracted into assumptions and projections, as apparently, according to the next statement, I have been.
Your perception of
the situation is distracted.
The impact of your perception is filled
with damage.
The connection
between the core energy pattern and the situation is felt as delicate
The momentum of this
situation is fed by hearing the cries of
the world.
This statement has such a ring of truth for me. It seems like this climate change of ill will and intolerance is everywhere.
This Oracle card shows my experience in this situation of community troubles. Wow. Is this me? Am I speaking in circles? Looking detached and at the same time afire with jagged thoughts and feelings?
Or is this image corresponding to the name the Oracle gives my experience: remembered song. Red is the colour of deep belonging, of being rooted, as well as a colour of aggression. Can I remember another song, one in which we speak kindness instead of hate about each other?
THE SITUATION NAMED
REMEMBERED SONG
THE SITUATION EXPERIENCED
threatening danger
be careful what you say
unexpected nourishment
not speaking the truth, the maze
agitation, strength to resist weakness
be careful what you say
guardian
If the above list of phrases is a map of my experience in these troubled times, where am I on the map? I think I am in the space between being careful what I say, and unexpected nourishment. This Journey Oracle reading is one way of identifying that nourishment.
EXTERIOR SUPPORT
An exterior or
support system for the situation is majesty.
This Oracle card is about change. The woman is looking up and seems quite reverent, righteous even, while holding inside a frighteningly dark creature. Is this a picture of the energy that is doing so much damage in my community? Is this the energy that needs to change?
CHANGE
The power needed to shift this situation will
be a sound of gentle calling.
Change will come by not being able to step on shore.
Your relationship to
the change in this situation is seeing
in the depth.
The moment of letting
go into the change will smell ripe.
The concern to be
avoided within this change will taste same
as before.
DIVINE WILL
The wisdom of floating away will empower the
transformation.
Completed
transformation will be felt as a quality of active mind.
DREAM ON THESE
QUESTIONS
Are you
comfortable?
Do you want to go home?
Yes I do. I want to go home again. To a community where I could knock on any door to say my car died, and could I borrow some gloves to walk home, and know I would be met with a smile, and the offer of tea, and probably a ride.
This is the Oracle card showing the resolution of these troubled times in my community.
The central elements feel very significant to me. A young woman holding a heart and a snake with eyes made from a volute spiral. An image of transformation, keeping the heart visible, being flexible like the young who are the inheritors of however we shape this community.
THE RESOLUTION
A Journey Oracle fairy tale
SEEING ALL SIDES
There were three children who loved
their father. All thought “aren’t we special” as they received his attention at
games, or on drives in the dusk to watch the deer, or during late night
conversations while eating fried egg sandwiches.
Perhaps he told each
one, “you have the help you need,” and each one felt they were holding
treasure—but none of the children talked to each other about how they felt, or
shared their stories.
The children’s father
died an old man, well loved by many people that he helped to succeed at dancing
the fire of their dreams and hopes. And so the community decided to make a
celebration of honoring, and invited the old man’s three grown children to
attend. But one child could not be found, and so the other two were asked
“where is that child?”
It was not because of
mischievousness that one child told the community “She will not come.” It was
not about just honoring ourselves that the other child understood this
statement to be a truth when it was an opinion. And the child who could not be
found was not told and so did not come to honor her father.
Many years later the
three children were gathered with their children to celebrate their families,
and the tangled story of not being found and not being told came out.
Later the child
who did not attend the honouring of her father felt his presence and said “the
witness is here.” She understood the value of seeing all sides, and heard “you
in balance comfortably, you have the help you need.”
This is a true story. I was that child who was not told and did not come. And the meaning to me of this story as the Oracle's resolution for my broken community is not in feeling hurt and angry at being left out. It is in the second paragraph:
but none of the children talked to each other about how they felt, or shared their stories.
We have to talk to each other. We have to understand the value of seeing all sides.
