By Amanda Moreno

I sat down to write about being present, and you know what happened? I had a hard time being present. I would try to return my focus to my breathing, and that would last for about two breaths, and then five minutes later I’d come back into the room, realizing I’d just thought about a whole world of things rather than writing about being present.

Photo by graywacke/A Landing a Day

I definitely have a history with Buddhism, although I’d never call myself Buddhist or even one who uses many Buddhist practices. I think it’s a beautiful spiritual system, and one I’m certainly glad many people benefit from. I also love the focus on presence.

When I started my graduate studies, I was initially drawn to Tibetan Buddhism and gained some exposure to its mysticism and ‘shamanic’ themes. I had to bookmark those studies to come back to later, but was always intrigued.

I also came across a body of ideas that proclaimed, in general, that Buddhist practice doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in Western culture, particularly as a way to deal with our inner demons. Because our culture is so different, particularly in its focus on individuality, it does not make sense to think that Buddhism can be used appropriately. At first my feathers were ruffled, but then I began to find some credence in the theory, even if I tend to avoid thinking or believing in absolutes.

I began to notice a few things that made me think about Buddhist practice on Western ground. For example, I’d hear friends respond to world crises, using their ideas about “attachment” to justify not getting attached to thinking about, paying attention to or caring about what is going on in the world. I began to see interpretations of doctrine that were clearly based on headlines and catch phrases rather than knowledge about some really profound and deep teachings.

I started to realize that we do live in an ego-centric culture, and that ‘ways to wholeness’ in a culture like ours might need to address the ego differently than would a culture that is not so geared toward the individual. While I could see some people truly benefiting from Buddhist practices, I was also aware of a tendency I saw in others who would use Buddhism as an excuse to disengage or avoid, to compound their dissociation, or to justify spending on more stuff — a different colored yoga mat or yoga pants or cushions.

For myself, I always bristled at the idea that we are here to get rid of desire. I love desire! It fuels me! And more than that, I love feeling! But then I realized…desire begets more desire, potentially putting a person in a state of perpetual longing. I also began to realize it’s not about detachment in that we are just supposed to not feel anything; we’re just not supposed to get attached to the feelings. To feel anger while not becoming an angry person. To let the emotion flow through, experience it and then let it go.

Then the whole ‘being present’ thing comes to mind. My mind can be so undisciplined, and I’m pretty sure that the more I try to discipline it the more undisciplined it gets. Not that I ever get too far in my attempts, because, well, I have a hard time being present.

My first ‘shamanic’ teacher taught that Buddhist meditation doesn’t make sense for a lot of Westerners because our minds are going all the time and it’s just futile to try to change that. She then taught a series of ‘active’ meditation techniques, full of visualizations. I still use many of them, six years later, and continue to find value in them for myself, my friends and my clients. I tend to avoid sweeping generalizations like she made, but it made sense for me.

I also wonder, however, whether I’m missing something by avoiding Buddhist meditation practices. I bet they might help me with the presence thing.

You know what doesn’t help? Cell phones. I am shocked at how often I’m walking through the city, and am compelled to take out my cell phone while waiting at a stoplight. Even worse when I’m half way through a block and have the instinct to pull the thing out to see if something has changed in the two minutes since I left the stop light. It’s insidious.

I’ve had a lot of conversations lately with some lady friends, all of whom (myself included) have been really looking at our attachment patterns. A common thread that tends to get amped up as we engage our relationships is ‘future tripping’, or rehashing the past, and other patterns of fixation. Several have said something along the lines of, “I don’t understand why I can’t just be present.”

It’s clear that there isn’t a simple answer, and that there are so many ways to think about this. But our culture hasn’t really been geared towards being present for several hundred years now. Technology, in many ways, seems to be geared towards keeping us out of the present.

It also makes me think about the resurgence of the divine feminine, especially as I talk to the women in my life. Perhaps it’s just our age and hormonal shifts, but I tend to lean towards more mystical explanations much of the time, and I do give some credence to the idea, which is knowledge for many of us, that Gaia is waking up — and along with her so is the feminine energy surging through each of us.

There seems to be an influx of anger as of late, as we become more moody — and I mean that in the most non-qualitative way, in that we are becoming aligned with our cycles and [trying to] respond accordingly. As we become more at home in our bodies and with our sexualities and desires, needs and wants we’re understanding how much of this has been repressed for a very long time. It feels like we’re channeling an influx of energy that none of us really knows what to do with, and so we’re experimenting with it all (when we’re not just reacting to it, that is), and hopefully learning about how to use it consciously in the process.

Being present while the divine feminine is waking up within you is…well, to me it feels awe-inspiring in a really exhaustingly complex and sometimes just obnoxious way. I suppose it’s happening within all of us. I’ve found myself increasingly relying on breathing and stretching.

Of course, all of a sudden, Tibetan-Shamanic-Esoteric texts, practices and images are showing up in my life everywhere I go. So perhaps it is time to re-engage the Buddhism thing as I begin to focus on being here now (or at least more often). Time will tell.

By Sarah Taylor

With The Fool (from the New Year reading last Thursday) comes a time of adjustment, seen in Justice — another of the 22 major arcana cards, which describe the larger themes of Soul-based evolution. The writing on the card fits with The Fool well:

“completion,” “find one’s own light,” “fertility,” “wise leader,” “Balance.”

Justice, Eight of Disks, Princess of Cups from the Röhrig Tarot deck, created by Carl-W. Röhrig. Click on the image for a larger version.

When you step out on your own, along your own path, creating it with every step that you take, you are, in essence, ‘finding your own light’. This light has come through a period of reckoning with outer and inner forces that have sought to redress what was out of integrity. It is a period of course correction — an auspicious card of self-empowerment and working with a greater order of things to assist you on your way forward.

Notice the blindfolded figure of Justice. The wisdom that she offers is one of inner equilibrium. It is not a card so much of doing-ness as of being-ness. Her left hand supports her right arm as she holds the scales of karma; and, in turn, her left hand is supported by the light-sabre that it rests on.

No fighting — no projecting conflict outside. The time for that particular engagement has passed. You now work with what is — it is the foundation for where you find yourself in the present.

Disks have come up frequently of late. The ‘densest’ of all of the suited cards in the tarot deck, Disks refer to what is tangible, manifest, physical. They are behind everything that you can see, feel, hear, smell, and taste. They refer to what accompanies you, whether material goods, financial assets, and relationships of every kind.

Here, in the central card which marks current experience, there is the unfolding and enlivening of something that is both beautiful and fragile because it is in its initial stages of growth. Look at the tree that makes up the centrepiece to the picture on the Eight of Disks. It is both organic and otherworldly. Its branches are like the fine skeletons that you find when you come upon the underlying structure of a leaf. Except here, this structure is having life breathed into it by the fiery trunk of the tree that feeds it. It is being fed by light — and this light is the energy of creativity that underpins all life (‘light’ coming from the first suit in the deck, the origin of all the others: Wands, being fire, the initiating force of living matter).

“Creativity,” “Flow,” “Expansion.”

Each of these concepts takes physical shape with care, attention, nurturing, and feeding with energy that is drawn from a source that both sustains and is itself sustainable. It is drawn from Self — from the dedication to your art, which has its roots in a deep and abiding connection to your core. It relies on nothing and no-one outside itself, and yet, when it blooms, it has the ability to connect and reconnect you to your world. Collectively, yet as individuals, you can build a shared vision and bring it into form. What it asks for are patience, a light touch, and yet perseverance that is as robust as it is graceful (grace-full).

The result is a place where you are able to soar, while held by something that connects you. A paradox in motion, you become both open to what life brings you and bound to what you are constructing in a way that not only allows for your ability to soar, but actually assists it. Without what anchors you, you will not be able to let go into a heart-based experience that might also feel new to you.

That is because what you are working towards now is a rebirth of sorts. There is a part of you that longs to break free and sing its birdsong. That relies on the Eight of Disks that has as its genesis a period of adjustment. You may be able to see this adjustment more clearly, now that you are moving away from it and creating the kind of distance that offers perspective.

So if this reading is about anything, it is this: don’t rush ahead. Let the groundwork happen. It is worth devoting yourself to it. Give it time; give yourself time; give others time. Let it come to life at the pace it needs. Some of the process is in your hands, and much of it is not. You are one among others. There is an intricacy — a beauty — that holds its own wisdom and knows what to do.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Justice (Libra), Eight of Disks (Sun in Virgo), Princess of Cups (the earthy aspect of water)

If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article explains how to use the spread.