Desire

As we march headlong into stagflation -- something that I'm old enough to remember but in which many young people don't believe -- I've been thinking a lot about how our desires drive us and, strangely, get in the way of our thriving. Our spending tends to reflect our desires. How many of your desires are divinely inspired? Jung said that all of them were, at some level, although sometimes our experiences and shadows send us scurrying after poor substitutes for what we REALLY desire. Here's a fascinating exercise from Rob Brezsny:

"Imagine it's 30 years from now. You're looking back at the history of your relationship with desire. There was a certain watershed moment when you clearly saw that some of your desires were mediocre, inferior, and wasteful, while others were pure, righteous, and invigorating. Beginning then, you made it a life goal to purge the former and cultivate the latter. Thereafter, you occasionally wandered down dead ends trying to gratify yearnings that weren't worthy of you, but usually you wielded your passions with discrimination, dedicating them to serve the highest and most interesting good."

What does this history look like? Can you write it out for yourself? Can you draw a picture of it? Can you dance it? What Tarot card best represents it? You know what the Wiccans say about desire:

"Let my worship be in the heart that rejoices,
For behold: all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals.
Therefore let there be beauty and strength,
Honor and pride, power and compassion,
Mirth and reverence within you.

And you who think to seek for me~
Know that your seeking and yearning will avail you naught,
Unless you know the Mystery:
That if that which you desire you find not within you,
You shall never find it without.
For behold: I have been with you from the beginning,
And I am that which is attained at the end of desire!"

~Doreen Valiente (d. 1999) What is at the end of your desire????


BTW: Isn't "wielded your passions with discrimination" a fantastic phrase? Goddess, I'd love to be able to write like that.

So, one of the Tarot cards show above represents what I set out 15 years ago to achieve. The other is the one I selected to represent my 30-year history 30 years from now. Can you guess which is which?