Yet I have been self-taught in so many parts of my life. I became a drum maker by learning from the drums themselves. I taught myself to do shamanic dreaming without any formal training in dream psychology. I created an Oracle by following the dance of intuition and art, by listening to nature and my inner wisdom. So how come I don't accept my own authority?
I recently created a new one-card reading technique for using the Journey Oracle, and I am using it in this blog to explore this question. ( In case you don't have a Journey Oracle yet, all the instructions to go to certain page numbers are referencing the book that is part of the card set.)
Follow the instructions
in the Oracle book on page 7,
except only pick one card.
except only pick one card.
Feel free to choose
either side of the card,
and to reorient the image, before you begin.
and to reorient the image, before you begin.
Quite the image for a reading about personal authority...
SEE THE PICTURES
Begin the reading on
page 8
by looking first at the beginning side you have chosen.
by looking first at the beginning side you have chosen.
This is a picture of your situation.
I see alarm, or surprise, or rapt attention. The red squiggles feel like lightening crackling the air. My second impression is one of power, rather than fear.
Turn the card over and
follow the instructions for Card 2.
This is a picture of the experience you are
having in your situation.
I see stillness, a pensive expression; my overall impression is one of uncertainty.
Turn the card back to the
first side and follow the instructions for Card 3.
Notice new aspects of the
picture not seen the first time.
This is the change calling you.
The eyes are looking intensely. I am struck by their concentrated curiosity,
like something really amazing is going on just outside the picture frame.
like something really amazing is going on just outside the picture frame.
Turn the card back to the
second side
and follow the instructions for Card 4.
and follow the instructions for Card 4.
Again, notice new aspects of the picture.
This is
the resolution of the situation.
This time I notice that the eyes are looking in different directions. This feels very powerful.
MEET THE ORACLE
Follow the instructions
on page 9 for Card 1.
This is the Oracle representing the Celtic tree month: Ruis,or Elder. The time of year associated with this Oracle is November 25 until December 22. The qualities of Withdrawal, Renewal, the Threshold, and the Brink are associated with this Oracle. Certainly these four words seem to capture perfectly the flow that withdraws from other authority to renew a sense of one's own inner wisdom, which creates a threshold of hope and fear, and then balances on the brink of choice: do I accept my authority, or do I stay uncertain?
RECEIVE MESSAGES
Follow the instructions
on page 10 for Card 1.
Because I chose the side of the card with the circle symbol, I turn to page 21 in the
Journey Oracle book and look up the question for card #46.
Do you accept direct experience?
I cannot imagine a more potent question for this inquiry into personal authority.
Journey Oracle book and look up the question for card #46.
Do you accept direct experience?
I cannot imagine a more potent question for this inquiry into personal authority.
THE ORACLE SPEAKS
Turn in the book to the
four sequential pages that correspond to the
Card number. Begin with the
Situation: read the
Oracle pronouncements
about the situation and your alignment to it.
Receive what has
resonance and pass over what does not.
Continue reading the
next 3 pages with Oracle pronouncements
about your Experience in this situation,
the Change
calling you, and your Resolution.
Although there is much valuable insight for me in the four pages corresponding
to card 46, I am only going to share the last page in this blog: a fairy tale that
contains a pathway into my question, that opens deep transformation
to card 46, I am only going to share the last page in this blog: a fairy tale that
contains a pathway into my question, that opens deep transformation
THE RESOLUTION
A Journey
Oracle fairy tale
MAKING A BEAD
There was a child who so loved butterflies that she wanted to
make them a gift. She felt communication without words when
she was near one, like a coming into power. Her mother
suggested she made a bead to give and that in doing so she
would discover a secret of something, a knowledge that
cannot be out there, and this knowing would be the gift that
the butterflies would most like to have from her.
"But what material shall I use? I don't want to be a death
bringer to wood or bone" the girl said. "I'll use an empty
shell" she thought. "This will be no harsh look at reality
because the creature will have already left." And so the girl
found a shell and chipped and sanded it with a rock until a
circular shape appeared. "But now the fairy tale's over"
she realized, "now I must be doing the work to make the hole."
The girl looked for shards amid a scattered focus of rock rubble,
like seeing horns of stone that would be able to pierce without
breaking the shell. She began twirling a sharp piece into the
center of the shell circle, and felt her inner tension clearing,
like she was going to a new place in how she used her hands.
This twirling took a long time, the layers of shell were like
hard news that does not want to be forgotten. Yet finally the
girl felt a little tickle against her finger, the way butterfly feet
tickle when one was walking on her hand. A hole appeared!
"This is the secret my Mother told me about" she exclaimed.
"A bead is not something that surrounds a hole; a bead is the
hole with something surrounding it so it can still be seen.
I am giving the butterflies something invisible." Then the girl
looked at her sore fingers, dented from all the twirling.
"Maybe this is the knowledge from making a bead that
cannot be out there--that the butterflies want the gift of my
effort more than the thing my effort makes."
This is a way of accepting one's own authority. It is a knowledge
that cannot be out there as a declaration of ego. As an
announcement of credentials. Personal authority is
the 'hole in the bead' that is made visible by
intention, resolve and action.
