The Magician



Dear unknown friend,

I hope this letter finds you well, relaxed and happy to be who you are...

This morning, on my way to the coffee shop I noticed that I was walking a little bit too quickly for a Saturday.



It occurred to me that I have made my life a race, which I want to win, because the prize is something I value and desire a lot, which is: a life without racing.

It's crazy isn't it? Normally, if the end of the race is the prize, I should be able to win straight away, just by stopping right now. Why am I racing? Do I need more love?

I am loved and I can feel it, when I see my parents, my siblings, my friends...
I am quite happy to be myself, in spite of the dark bits I haven't dissolve yet; life loves me, the Great Spirit makes me grow like a desired plant in a corner of the earth... Why am I still racing then?

Before it was different. I felt so bad in my own skin, I had so much to prove to myself before I could allow a little bit of self esteem and self love in, and become more able to receive love from others in the process... I had to race like a fish in heated water.

But now... why do I carry on ? I must be addicted..

Of course, I still have a few important goals and desires, but I have evolved a long way and it's not efficient to be impatient and race race race...

By the way, I imagine the eyebrows of a few among those who know (and love) me going up at the idea of my life being a race... Inner life and mental pursuits can be a race as well...


I am addicted to living in a state of inner agitation.



When I was reading these letters to an unknown friend I talked about (Meditations on the Tarot), I loved especially the interpretation of the first Arcane, Le Bateleur, in English The Magician.


He is perfectly focused. He is juggling with symbols without even looking at what he's doing. He doesn't need to. His mind has gone clear and silent. The oscillations of his mental substance have stopped.


Being able to shut up, verbally and mentally, is the first condition, and maybe the summit of the art. My unknown friend asked me, in his first letter: "Did you ever drink silence?"

I have never drunk silence as beautifully as he described it to me, but I have become much more silent than I used to be...

There are two ways to train becoming silent, my friend. There are probably more than two but let me explain with two...



One way is to try to stay mentally silent for as long as possible, like you were holding your breath. In this way, each time we practice, we end up failing. Moreover, it's quite difficult, if not impossible at all, to hold on our train of thoughts. How could we stay there without thinking to anything, without even thinking that we are practicing an exercise which consists of not thinking? Because if we don't even think that we are doing an exercise consisting of not thinking, how can we know what we are doing?

...Try to stop a train of thoughts like that. As soon as you don't think that you shouldn't think, you start thinking to something else without noticing...

It's called the monkey mind. It's a funny trickster.

The other way to train is to observe and notice the moments of silence which do happen at times between two thoughts...

One day I was on my way back home. I drove my car up a little mountain road. The sun was setting. Suddenly I noticed the sky. It had become breathtakingly beautiful. I didn't know I was still able to be so impressed just by the sky, but on that day, I was shocked by the beauty. I went: "Ahhh!"

For a few seconds, there were no thoughts in my mind. There was only the sky, the flamboyant red clouds, the mountains...
Even when there is no amazing sunset over loved mountains to offer us an unexpected moment of silence, there are silent blips between our thoughts. We can observe and cherish them like precious gifts. Then they become familiar and they grow....

One day, we become apt at going "Ahh" in front of a grey wall, because everything, absolutely everything is as beautiful as the most beautiful sky, all the time.
We just don't notice.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The fish on the sink

Image
Dear unknown friend, Where were you? I was a little boy, maybe 8 years old. I had a great admiration for my uncle Raymond. He always arrived late for Sunday lunches when the family was gathering at my grandparents. Instead of wearing dull and stiff Sunday clothing, he turned up in sportswear, sweating and went for a shower. From the point of view of a little boy who would be sternly told off for being two minutes late this meant great freedom. Raymond was a fisherman. I was fascinated looking at the big fish he brought and left to die a slow and distressing death on the kitchen sink. They were barbels and so full of bones that my grandmother never prepared them. It takes hours for a fish to die. Paying close attention I could feel the exhaustion that squashed them and kept them quiet whilst the agony of being out of the water slowly built up enough strength for just another hopeless spasm… Flap! Flap flap! …. And they were quiet again, though I knew they weren’t dead and I somehow
Read more

Antivenom for the soul ()

Image
Dear  friend, Do you how antivenom is made? Venom is collected from snakes; horses are injected with it. The horses fight the venom. Then the human draw blood from the horses, the antivenom is in it. This is literally true, and this is also a metaphor. Dear friend, maybe you are a "horse" as well... It's our job to be poisoned and fight within our own souls. Whether we know it or not, we are useful. The suffering is more bearable when it makes sense though. We are making antivenom for ourselves and others... A famous verse of the Emerald Table goes like this: "That which is below is like that which is above & that which is above is like that which is below to do the miracles of one only thing" A way to understand what it means is to see anything that exists in the material world as a reflection of something that exists in the invisible planes, that is the psychological and spiritual planes... If some beings, in our case horses, do make antiveno
Read more

Bullies on the Bus

One day of  autumn, I was on a bus in London, on my way back from a gardening job. Two seats in front of me were three boys in their school uniforms. Two of them were sitting and one was standing in front of them, in the area near the bus doors. The two sitting ones were playing with him. The game was not friendly. He let them do, though. He didn't try to put some distance between himself and them. One grabbed him by the tie and pulled, throwing him out of balance... but they kept talking together, like school mates do. Then the other sitting boy grabbed his hands and twisted them, until the poor boy asked, in a low voice... "please...." Later, the first bully took the boy's hat. He tried to get it back but the bully didn't let him. He claimed he would throw the hat through the window at the next stop to see the boy getting off the bus, picking his hat and getting back on the bus before the doors closed...if he had time. The bully kept pretending he would do it.
Read more