Are You Lost?

Allow me to shed a little light on some things I’ve experienced along the way…..

It seems like just when things start going smoothly, you trip over a stone on the path – or fall into a ditch – or worse.  When you’ve been here on Planet Earth long enough, you begin to notice the patterns – and the inconvenient stuff just keeps popping up.

I use the word ‘inconvenient’ with my tongue in cheek.  In reality, there have been long stretches of my life that have been far, far worse than that.  Times that challenged me to the breaking point.  So I know how it feels to be lost.

Being a single mother with four children brought some tough lessons.  Lessons like “How to Say ‘NO’ to a New Pair of Shoes” even when they were desperately needed, because there was no money to buy them.  I learned how to subsist on macaroni and margarine so I could give my children more substantial meals.  I learned every single in and out to saving money, and created some new ones.

Although I never had that day (or night) on the kitchen floor with a bottle of pills, I had my days of black despair.

Tarot – an Invaluable Tool During the Dark Days

I also had friends, and one in particular taught me to read cards.  She always read my cards for me when the skies were their blackest…you see, it’s difficult to read for oneself when the shadows are closing in.  There is a tendency to see the worst or the best, but not the subtleties required to get accuracy when it’s your own life you’re trying to parse.

My life would pitch from inconvenient to catastrophic on a regular basis.  My friends and family helped me through the very, very bad times.

Ever since I was a child, I also wondered about the bigger questions of life…questions that loomed large during my worst days.  “Why was this happening to me,” I wanted to know.  “Is it Karma?” “Am I being punished for somethng?”   ” Is there some kind of lesson I’m supposed to learn,” because if there was, believe me, I was motivated to seek it out – anything to make the pain stop.  Instead of drowning my woes in alcohol, drugs or other anesthetics, I would bury myself in books on philosophy, religion, spirituality – looking, looking, looking for the WHY of it all.

Perseverence paid off, along with the generosity of my friends and family to see me through the dark corners of my personal wilderness.  The sun began to shine again as my friend had seen in my cards; in no small part because I stuck with it on a moment to moment basis. I kept searching, I kept putting one foot in front of the other, I took the advice I was given in my readings – and life got happy again.

When it’s Our Turn to Learn the Lesson

Every one of us is called upon to walk that hidden path through the wilderness during our lives.  When we fight it, we wander deeper into the confusion.  Yet there is no one who can walk that walk for us.

I’ve sought out some of the Guides that I turned to during my wilderness sojourn to share their stories with us.  We all need tools and guidance and understanding during these times, and the Guides of the world have had to walk that lonely path themselves.  They’ve had to face their fears to tell us what they learned.  And they’ve accepted their mission to help us.

So put that heavy pack down and rest in front of the fire.  We’re among friends, here.  Our Guides have stories to tell.

And they can help us find our way home.