Guilt

Last week, while I was working, I was shuffling the Osho Zen Tarot deck. Just holding the cards, listening to them, feeling them in my hands; flipping them and rearranging them, playing with the cards. A few of the cards kept coming up in the cut — when you hold a deck in your hands and separate them, look at where they come apart, notice the card showing; sometimes you’ll get the deck constantly cutting in the same place.

Sometimes when the deck cuts in the same place it means there’s a bent card, or that one of the cards has gotten nicked on the edge. I examined my deck, to see if that was the case. It wasn’t. So I shuffled the deck again, cut, and dealt out a reading. And, yes, I did have the same cards that had shown at the cut appear in the reading.

I didn’t have a chance to get in depth with the cards at that time — I was reading for others, mainly. It wasn’t until later, in the quiet of nap time, that I had an opportunity to re-lay the reading and look at it. Once more, the cards are heavy on the Major Arcana for me, as well as telling me both things I already knew as well as pointing out in unmistakable fashion things I wish I didn’t know.

In a ten card Celtic Cross layout I drew:

1. The Rebel (Trump IV — The Emperor)
2. Experiencing (3 of Fire or Wands)
3. The Fool (Trump 0)
4. The Creator (King of Wands)
5. Guidance (3 of Rainbows or Coins)
6. Aloneness (Trump IX — The Hermit)
7. Guilt (8 of Clouds or Swords)
8. Courage (Trump VIII — Strength)
9. Outsider (5 of Rainbows)
10. Receptivity (Queen of Water or Cups)

I read the cards using the Zen Celtic Cross interpretations, with cards three and five as unconscious and conscious influences, and cards four and six as yin and yang influences.

The central ‘cross’ portion of the reading mainly told me things that were nice to hear, but weren’t revelatory or shocking to me. In general, I’m making good progress with the work I’ve been doing, the decisions I’ve made are good ones for me. I should really focus on following through on all the good work I’ve been doing, and work to make sure the changes I’ve made are sustainable.

I’m moving from a position of rigid control and ‘I must be vindicated’ness and towards an acceptance of a more flowing and open, fluid living embodiment of who I truly am. Instead of pretending to be who I wish to be, I’m moving into a space in which it will be possible for me to stop pretending and start being.

The revelatory portion of the reading came from the Staff of Awareness, the final four cards in the reading.

I’ll let Osho’s words tell the tale:

Guilt sits on your chest like a rock, it crushes you; it does not allow you to dance. How can you dance? How can guilt dance? How can guilt sing? How can guilt love? How can guilt live? So the one who thinks he is doing something wrong is guilty, burdened, dead before death, has already entered the grave.

In the commentary for Guilt, there is this: “…when we punish ourselves for our failures by feeling guilty, we can get locked into a cycle of despair and hopelessness that robs us of all clarity about ourselves and the situations we encounter.”

I’ve been wrestling with those areas of my life in which I have failed, in which I have not lived up to my own or others’ expectations, and feeling very guilty and worthy of punishment. I’ve been feeling unworthy of good things, even though I know that I am worthy; worth has nothing at all to do with whether or not there are good things in a person’s life. Everyone is worthy of having those things which are good to them. All people deserve peace, happiness and abundance.

Have you been letting guilt weigh you down? Have other people’s expectations of you, for you, about your life made you feel unworthy?

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