the orphan
I find that starting my journaling using tarot cards or similar takes me straight into that deeper exploratory state in which I can let go of whatever is holding me back and I can swim among the leftover of past pain. So, thank you “the orphan” card which stood there next to my coffee while I was fiddling with my pencil.
I am not an orphan as in the usual connotation of the word, albeit both my parents are no more but can you call a 52 years old woman, an orphan? I am not an orphan, but I am an orphan at the same time. Loneliness, rejection, “the wounded child”, and the sense of abandonment have always been there, very present.
The Artist Way has helped me in all these years to narrow this feeling down to its core. Every time another layer was peeled back, exploring a different shade of the same pain, a new facet of the same story [ps: I just realised I wrote exploding, the first time...]. You always think that you’ve sorted out your trauma and your sense of emotional vulnerability, and instead it comes back to face you from a different angle. You begin working on an ending, and next thing you know you think of deaths, of your death, of breakups, of endings of employments, of that first car you had to scrap, that bracelet you lost 2 years ago on holiday, an argument you had with a school friend when you were 14, and your father forgetting your birthday. In the end, they all come down from the same sense of not feeling heard, not being seen. All the same even if all at different levels.
So, I am facing a card now that is asking me what I am starving for, and I can only think about the paper I am using and how many words I still have to write to end today’s task. I know it’s deflection so I go full-on and grab a book instead, which I open to page 112 by chance, where I see an image of a woman with her chakras covered.
Ok, Universe, thank you very much.
I ponder and look at the other tarot which I know so well, “the offering”, and I think something that I feel resistance to, at the same time. Push and pull. I am left wondering if what I have to offer, or what I could offer are actually my loneliness, my abandonment and my wounds. Am I ready, though, to fully offer my pain? I am questioning if offering the pain also means giving it up, completely. If this is the case, am I ready to leave the pain behind and not to be identified with it anymore?
Would I feel safe so exposed?
And if I don’t have my pain here, with me, anymore, who am I and what can I offer?
Tz! All these questions, and it’s only week one!
And how are you doing, how is your experience? Do you find writing easy, do you use props and tools? Let me know!
If you haven't yet and you want to join me, pls check my first post here and follow me on FB here for tips, hints and to share your experience.
Sending you all good vibes!
onwards + upwards ♡
mx
Image from: Hagman, G. ed. (2017). Art, Creativity, and Psychoanalysis. Abingdon : Routledge