Wednesday, May 10, 2017

How to overcome impatience

I am an impatient person, especially when I don't want to be.  Waiting in a line for service, traveling to meet someone, keeping an appointment--my inner quiet is jangled by increasingly dire stories of not getting what I want when I want it.  I have read that impatience has a root of fear, but what do I do about it?  I decided to see what the Journey Oracle might suggest so I conducted a 4 card reading for advice.


This oracle card is a picture of my situation.  Very jagged marks. I see lots of faces and they are all looking down. The question this oracle card asks is this: Will you gladly donate your share?  How perfect a question is that for creating a pause to consider.  Perhaps impatience has at its core the fear of not getting enough, of not receiving one's share.


The oracle card representing my experience in this situation is the Oracle of Imbolc, the Celtic earth holiday of initiation.  Its question is Who will pick this up if you don't?  Since the person representing me in the oracle card image is lying down, perhaps the "this" is about picking my energy and gratitude up. That's also quite a revelation--to be shown to stop telling myself versions of situations that may thwart me, instead of focusing on gratitude for what enables me.


This oracle card is a picture of the change that is trying to find me. What a peculiar image!  I see an animal or human face lying down, mostly surrounded by a brown fog except for a clear area over the left eye.  The question from this oracle card is, What are you actually doing to get rid of them? The most arresting part of this question is the word, "actually."  I know many ways to increase patience: focusing on the present moment, reflecting inward, practicing self-compassion and equanimity. but am I actually doing these skills to get rid of the fog of impatience?


This image is the oracle card representing the resolution of  my situation.  The Oracle of the August full moon.  This image is somewhat difficult to decipher but a face slowly emerges in the lower portion.  It appears to be holding a book, or looking out over a book. This oracle card has a statement instead of a question, A safe place.  After I read the Journey Oracle fairy tale about my resolution I am drawn to what appears to be an ear in the upper center of the card, seemingly splashed by lines of blue water.

suit:  FULL MOON (Aug)   card name:  CORN MOON   #28 


THE  RESOLUTION 

A Journey Oracle fairy tale 

LEARNING  TO  BE  STILL 

There was a young girl who was always moving. She had a determination to be useful and so she moved her hands in purposeful ways, but sometimes to the loss of her eyes and ears, which mostly saw and heard the world in a maze. 

 As she grew her mother encouraged her to be a student of stillness, and taught her a special way of looking at things. “Do you want to see this eye?” Her mother would ask, which meant do you want to see this object in a way that belongs to the object and not to the human looking at it. She would show her how to look at the surface of something, and then find a smaller space on that surface and look into it, and then find a smaller space in that smaller space, and to do this smaller and smaller looking until finally the young girl was seeing cells of wood and hairs on plants and dust on butterfly wings. And of course her mother knew that to look that closely, one must hold quite still.  

The young girl’s mother taught her a special way of listening to things. She said “Be in your heart when you listen.” She told the young girl to sit by water and listen for a small sound, like a gurgle riffling over a stone. And then listen for another, slightly larger sound, like the chuckle of water pouring over a rock—without losing the little gurgling sound, and then listen for another larger sound without losing the two smaller sounds. The young girl practiced listening by holding these separate sounds together. When she was able to hear many at the same time, it seemed her awareness expanded into a vast dreamscape of stillness. When the girl was older she still moved her hands in useful ways, but was also able to go inside, meditate, and be still. She would pause in her purposeful work—and see a spider’s eye looking back at her; she would close her eyes, and hear the voices of water. 


This is what I will do to overcome impatience.  I will close my eyes and listen to the sounds within the sounds, go inside, be still and hear the voices that move in every living moment.