Tarot Tuesdays: Week of March 14

A flower in bloom pointed toward the sun. The imagery on this card is quite simple, yet powerful nevertheless. Flowers are often used as symbols for the human experience with different types and colors representing different characteristics of that experience, but today we are going to discuss the flower itself. At the most basic level a flower needs nutrients and space to grow. These nutrients are provided from the environment in which the flower lives. The sun, the rain, and the soil all provide the flower with what it needs to survive. The flower comes into existence taking up the space that it needs with its roots firmly planted in the soil and its bloom stretched toward the sky. A flower can grow and thrive in any environment as long as its basic needs are met.

Just like the flower, our basic needs really boil down the nutrients and space to grow. Of course you can get more specific (yes, I’m looking at you Maslow), but this is a blog, not a psychological essay. It really comes down to the word “need.” Often we confuse our needs for our wants. We want to be with that person, or we want that job, or we want that thing. We are all so engrossed in our physical environment that we make the mistake of attributing a sense of need to our wants in the physical.

Let’s take the job for example. The job makes sense right, because without a job you can’t feed yourself or house yourself or clothe yourself, and we need all of those things to survive. Yet how often have you seen people in jobs that are literally sucking the life out of them. They are too stressed out to take care of themselves and are living to survive but not to thrive. Yes, it is important to take care of your physical needs, but not at the expense of diminishing your spirit. That doesn’t do any good for anyone, yet we do it all the time. We get so caught up striving to get things that we want or think we need, that we neglect our actual needs: nutrients and space to grow.

Prayers come from the soul. Your soul knows what you need to not just survive, but to thrive. Letting your soul do the talking is the hard part. For the past year I have been practicing meditation, and it has been a journey. With the hustle and bustle of everyday life it's important to quiet your mind from time to time. Clearing your mind of your everyday obligations, commitments and duties is where we can begin separating what we want from what our soul and spirit really need. When you pray to whomever you pray to, it is your soul that should take the lead because it knows what you need here in the physical as well as your spiritual needs. When your soul speaks in prayer it allows these two parts of yourself to work in unison with each other rather than in opposition.