3/13/20 78 Degrees of Tarot: March Tarot Challenge

It's Friday the 13th, but I'm not superstitious, just a little stitious. To be honest, I've never felt much trepidation over the date as the number 13 has always been a lucky number for me and as a magician, very auspicious. Besides, I love every Friday, no matter what number it is!

Today's question is What do we need to accept/Why? Pretty provocative and this card had me going in some interesting directions, let's get to it!

The card I drew was:

So, a couple of days ago, I pulled the Queen of Swords from the same Tarot deck for this challenge and it was much different from this one, you can see that card here.

First off, what's different is, unlike the stationary and immobile Queen, this is a card of action, movement is literally everywhere you look. Air is rushing through the horse's mane and ruffling the knight's plume. The wind is even bending the trees in the background. The sky isn't immune either, the clouds look like they're really booking it across the sky and there are several birds flying in different directions in the upper right corner.

In fact there is a lot of bird and wing imagery in this card. The knight's raiment is decorated with birds, his knee armour has a wing fashioned on it. The horse has birds and butterflies around his neck decoration and also birds on his reins.

Obviously, there is a lot of flurry and energy going on in this card. The knight has his sword raised and ready to do battle. But to do battle with what?

Well, if we remember what I said about my card pull yesterday (you can look at it here), when a figure is looking to the left, its looking toward its past. So, perhaps he is doing battle with his past? Maybe he has regret? Or maybe he's taking issue with past ideas or plans.

Perhaps these ideas and observations from his past formulated some habits and behaviors that he sees are unhealthy for him. Or maybe they were okay for a period of time, but now they no longer serve him.

It maybe difficult for our egos to swallow, but so much of ourselves that we think is a result of our own choice and individuality is really just a result of our upbringing. What we thought was our own genius is really just what we've learned and adapted from our family and/or friends.

Very little of "ourselves" comes from solely our selves.

It maybe hard to accept, but until we do, we and that knight galloping furiously to his past, are gonna have a hard time changing much about ourselves.

We all make New Year's resolutions to lose weight, stop smoking, exercise more, etc. But looking in the mirror and trying to browbeat ourselves into submission and act "right" is not going to change anything. We're only heading to the jail of oppression. Shaming never changed anybody.

We must be willing to accept not only the things we like about ourselves, but also the things we may not care for, if we're ever going to change for the better. Accepting that we have problems, issues and dark problems and then coming to peace with them with compassion and not condemnation will lead us to heal in a healthy way and allow us to move forward.

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See you tomorrow!