Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:14:06 +0000
magician, from the tarot series, acrylic on canvas board, www.carolineallen.com

When I give a lot of tarot readings at any given time, I have nighttime visions or dreams or hyperactive comas, whatever you want to call them, altered states of consciousness. These unasked for visions are why I have to give up tarot sometimes to be able to live in this real world in any sort of sane way.

Last night I was stressing again (like everyone) about the world financial crisis. I’ve been doing tarot a lot and that pushed me into an altered state, into a vision. It’s a tarot message, so I thought I’d blog about it.

I’m painting a series of the tarot cards at my studio (in real life). In the vision, I was taken to the studios, up the freight elevator in the old mill that houses 160 artists, down the long hallway to my corner studio. The building was empty, like a ghost town. I was made to understand that artists are deeply affected by financial downturns and sometimes cannot even find the will to do their art. But I was also made to understand that everyone, artist or not, pulls in their energy, shuts down, worries themselves sick, and that was what the vision wanted to address. How not to shut down, how to open up your energy flow for yourself and others during these times…there’s a richness there that we don’t want to lose when it’s difficult enough already out there. And it’ll help the entire situation if we all remain in our soulful bounty and emanate that.

I went into my corner studio in the vision. It’s such a beautiful place, with five massive old windows, high ceilings, exposed pipes. The vision took me to my painting of the magician (see above). I’d gone into almost a catatonic state when I was painting it. I was channeling something, and it wasn’t necessarily comfortable and I did not expect it to be so alien like, so alive in my psyche.

At any rate, the Magician typically has the four tarot suits in front of her, a sword, a cup, a wand and a coin. She represents someone who can mix and match situations in her life to create a dynamic successful outcome. She represents serendipity. In the vision, I was asked to notice that at the base of the Magician I’d painted, she is deeply interested in the coin and that the coin happens to sit right at her base chakra. I hadn’t noticed or planned that.

In the vision, I was told: She is addicted to that coin. At the very base of herself, she is addicted to money.

I hadn’t thought that at all when I was painting it. The vision said: Peel the coin away and watch what happens. I pulled away the coin from the painting and the figure was suddenly free. She wanted to go outside and kick through the fall leaves. She wanted to rest in the grass next to a lake and have her hair cascade into the water (I used to do this in the Pacific Northwest, lie down on a muddy bank and throw my hair into the water and just be like that for hours). She wanted to eat well and have fun sex and belly laugh with friends.

In the vision, I was told we’re all addicted to money, worldwide. And as with any addiction, it stops genuine enjoyment of life. I asked why we were so addicted.

I was told, first, at the base there’s a primal fear of survival in every person. Yes, I get that, but is that the same as being addicted to money? No. The primal fear is natural; it is in nature; it is real. When we can plant and grow our own food and eat it, or when we can hunt or fish our own meat, it’s a real and organic interchange of energy with the planet. Fear of survival is normal.

This is addiction. It is a whole system set up to pull you from your organic self, to break you from your organic self. As with addiction, there’s a black cloud that surrounds our understanding of money on a real level. We become beasts around money, like an alcoholic denied a drink. We moan, roll our eyes back in our heads, snarl, slap, slither and grab: more, more, more. Give me moooooooooore.

In an earlier blog, I wrote that we all need to heal our inner issues with money. In the vision, I was told: Everyone could look at their addiction to money. Everyone could begin to understand a whole system that gets people addicted to money.

I spent a lot of years in developing countries in Asia. I came back to the US and almost vomited at the material excess. I’d discuss how appalled I was at materialism at dinner parties and was told: Well even people in Asian developing countries scramble to own TVs and VCRs, so there! This misunderstanding happens so many times daily with me, that I usually just hang my mouth open and stare at the speaker. Are people really that unaware? I mean really? Of course people in developing countries want TVs and VCRs, they’ve been introduced to the addiction. Over generations, they’ve been pulled too from their organic selves. They been lulled into the addiction. Or rather forced, by a system that won’t allow earth-based cultures to just BE.

I digress.

In the vision, I was made to understand that releasing one’s addiction to money doesn’t mean giving up living in a cash economy. I know we live in this crazy mixed up world and we have to live in it somehow. It actually suggested that releasing that addiction actually created flow.

At any rate, in the end, at the very base of truth, when we’re ready to die, when our spirits ascend or move to a parallel universe, or do whatever our spirits do, we will not for one second think that this life had anything whatsoever to do with money. We will think of the people we loved, of the taste of fresh fruit picked from a tree, of the salmon colored sunset.

I’m a tarot reader: www.creativetarot.com and a writing coach: www.artofstorytellingonline.com.