Schizophrenia and Harmony....

 I was at my best friend Maria's home the other night and she had a set of Tarot cards. I love delving into signs and rituals along my path. So I picked up a card and showed it to her and she asks me what I pulled the card for...  I paused for a moment thinking, is this like telling someone what you wished for and then it doesn't come true?  For love I said.  She promptly, perhaps a little too promptly upon reflection say “No, that's not your card pull another one.”  How rude I think but before I can utter the words right back at her I’m trustingly pulling another card. She does know me very well, you know. This one looks much like a painting I created, hanging at the foot of my bed, after my blue moon New Years Eve at Whistler this year. Two mountains, two peaks, separated or brought together by a blue moon depending on the perspective.

My painting, you like J?

  

Now this Tarot Card has a little added dimension of a person being stretched across the two peaks which, upon reflection, accurately depicts how I’ve been feeling since new year eve… like I’m trying to pull these two peaks together. I solo woman trying to pull two mountains together and is now hanging over the abyss, stuck. Perhaps this is my card after all. I read what it says and it resonates, more than I’d like to admit.

Days have past and the cards have been showing up in different areas of my life. I meet up with Maria tonight and request to see the cards again, to revisit their messages to me. And as “insulted” as I was about her claiming the first card to not be mine I confess I can’t remember what it was. I remember the second one, or at least I remembered what I wanted to about it.

In her apartment I find the card and place it beside me. I open the book to read it’s wise words again. I say to her out loud, oh yes… “Commentary.” Her unaware that what I was referring to was the title of the card, says “Ah yes, Schizophrenia.” Jilted again by my best friends blunt, innocent honesty I look down and realize the Tarot Card I pulled for Love is named Schizophrenia? What, Schizophrenia? Are you shitting me? Oh yes, I’m paying attention now Universe.

And here’s what it said.

Schizophrenia

Commentary (not the name of the card, the actual commentary – ha,ha jokes on me)

The person on this card brings a new twist to the old idea of ‘getting stuck between a rock and a hard place’! But we are in precisely this sort of situation when we get stuck in the indecisive and dualistic aspect of the mind.  Should I let my arms go and fall head-first, or let my legs go and fall feet-first? Should I go here or there? Should I say yes or no? And whatever decision we make, we will always wonder if we should have decided the other way.  The only way out of this dilemma is, unfortunately, to let go of both at once. You can’t work your way out of this one by solving it, making lists of pros and cons, or in any way working it out with your mind.  Better to follow your heart, if you can find it. If you can’t find it, just jump – your heart will start beating so fast there will be no mistake about where it is!

It goes on further to say, which I didn’t read the first time, and now I’m assuming if I carry on there will be a meditation or affirmation to well, make it all better or find my heart, IF I CAN FIND IT… what does that mean? If I can find it.

MAN IS SPLIT.  Schizophrenia is a normal condition of man – at least now. It may not have been so in the primitive world, but centuries of conditioning, civilization, culture and religion have made man a crowd – divided, split, contradictory… But because this split is against his nature, deep down somewhere hidden the unity still survives. Because the soul of man is one, all the conditions at the most destroy the periphery of the man. But the center remains untouched – that’s how man continues to live.  But his life has become a hell.

The whole effort of Zen is how to drop this schizophrenia, how to drop this split personality, how to drop the divided mind of man, how to become undivided, integrated, centered, crystallized.

The way you are, you cannot say that you are. You don’t have a being. You are a marketplace – many voices.  If you want to say ‘yes’, immediately the ‘no’ is there. You cannot even utter a simple word ‘yes’ with totality… In this way happiness is not possible; unhappiness is a natural consequence of a split personality.

Uh ha, now what…

I know, what was my first card? Now it’s calling me. Maria and I agree on this one. I sort through the deck and then I see it. Two beautiful dolphins dancing over my head. Now, come on… how was this not my card of love the first time?

Harmony

Commentary

The experience of resting in the heart in meditation is not something that can be grasped or forced. It comes naturally, as we grow more and more in tune with the rhythms of our own inner silences. The figure on this card reflects the sweetness and delicacy of this experience. The dolphins that emerge from the heart and make an arc towards the third eye reflect the playfulness and intelligence that comes when we are able to connect with the heart and move into the world from there. Let yourself be softer and more receptive now, because an inexpressible joy is waiting for you just around the corner. Nobody else can point it out to you, and when you find it you won’t be able to find the words to express it to others. But it’s there, deep within your heart, ripe and ready to be discovered.

LISTEN TO YOUR HEART, move according to your heart, whatsoever the stake:  A condition of complete simplicity costing not less than everything….

To be simple is arduous, because to be simple costs everything that you have. You have to lose all to be simple.

That’s why people have chosen to be complex and they have forgotten how to be simple.

But only a simple hearts throbs with God, hand in hand. Only a simple heart sings with God in deep harmony. To reach to that point you will have to find your heart, your own throb, your own beat.

Thank you. I’m listening now. I’m stilling my mind to hear my beating heart.

Cassándra