Tag: Finding Balance

Chapter Sixty-Four – Two of Pentacles

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide, Finding Balance, Memoir, Someone Else’s Life, Tarot

I had big dreams, but I had no idea how to go about them.

It had been so long since I held a job. The last one had been during university, and I’d held a volunteer job a couple of summers before. I knew that the easiest way out of my current situation was to find a job.

For the past couple of years, I had only been concerned with obtaining food for my stomach and a roof over my head. That had been what drove me and it had been my only concern, aside from finding my way. I was fortunate enough to have met some everyday angels along the way. Lisa was one of them. She had taken me into her home and given me houseroom. Albeit on her floor, but still, she fed me out of the food supplies that we all got at the food bank down the street from her place. Could I betray her kindness?

I was constantly going back and forth about this. Darnelle noticed on one of her visits that I wasn’t myself. She waited until Lisa had gone back inside to get a fresh pack of cigarettes and more coffee to ask me what was wrong.

“What’s bothering you, kid?” she asked

“Nothing,” I told her, wanting to keep it to myself.

“See, that’s where you’re wrong. You can’t bullshit a bullshitter, Jamieson. I can see right into you, and I know there is something bothering you. My son is the same way” She handed me a cigarette. “How about a trade? I give you a cigarette and you can tell me what’s bothering you.”

“You don’t need to bribe me. You and I both know that I’ll tell you eventually.”

“Sure, but this way it’s an exchange so it’s a balance. I know what it’s like to hold on to everything and have no one to tell.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want to bother you.”

She let out a laugh and lit the cigarette before passing it to me. “Tough. You have to change, Jamieson. You just can’t accept that people want to care about you so you do what they can to keep them out before something can happen.”

“Wow, that’s quite the mom talk.” I said with a laugh.

“Right? It doesn’t work on my son; I thought I’d try it on you.” Taking a sip of coffee, she pointed at me with her cigarette. “Go on, spill. I know you want to hold on, but it will feel better letting go. Go on, before she gets back.”

I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to mince words and she was right. I needed to change my habits. I had to be able to adapt to a new path if I went looking for one. I needed to start somewhere.  “I want more.” It felt like a release saying the words out loud. “I want more than this. I want my own place.” I took a drag of my cigarette to give me strength. When I blew the out the air I held, I could see the words that I was about to speak in the within the smoke. “I want more. I know that I need a job, but I have no idea about how to go about applying for one. I had planned on waiting until Lisa had her baby, but it’s becoming harder and harder to hold on to that light. Literally, as I’m sleeping on the fucking floor.”

There was a moment of silence between us, then Darnelle let out a laugh and stood to hug me tightly, careful of our cigarettes. “I am so happy. You make me so fucking happy, Jamieson. Thank the gods.”

I had expected shock but had not been prepared for the sheer joy. “You’re not upset?”

“Jamieson, you’re so young. It pained me to see you throwing your life away like Lisa has.” She saw the look of shock on my face. “Don’t misunderstand me, I love Lisa, she’s my friend and I’ve known her for a long time, but she gave up trying a long time ago. She’s content to stay on welfare when she is perfectly capable of working. She just doesn’t want to.”

“I don’t feel young. How am I supposed to find a job that I can do? I haven’t worked since university.”

“You and I will work on this. Come to my place tomorrow and we can work on your resume. I can make anyone sound good on paper and you can sell yourself, too. You’re good at talking to people, Jamieson, even if you have difficulty letting people in. You’re a gifted writer, too. You’re wasted here.” She gave me a strong look and looking into her eyes, I wondered how her son could deny her anything.

“Won’t Lisa be upset that I’m trying to better myself?” One of her constant refrains was the grind of the people, working for the man instead of living for the sake of living.

Darnelle waved a hand. “Who the fuck cares what she thinks. This is about you. You have to choose this for you.

Looking at Dar, I knew that I would make that choice. We both heard the sound of Lisa’s voice. She came out, carrying a cup of coffee in one hand, a pack of cigarettes in the other with a lit cigarette in her lips

Giving me a look, Lisa said “What’s about you? Did you write another story?”

“I’m going to give Jamieson help.” Darnelle said slowly. I could tell that she was choosing her words carefully. “He needs to work on his resume, and I wanted do some spirit work with him, introduce him to the Medicine Wheel Cards.” I hoped that Lisa would focus on the Medicine Wheel Cards and that she had not heard the other words.

“Resume? For what?”

I sighted. There were two ways that I could play this. I knew that I could lie to her, but Lisa had given me room in her home and food from her cupboards. I owed her the truth. I had planned to keep it a secret but changed my mind. “For a job.” I told her. “I want to find a job.”

She looked at me with wide shocked eyes for a moment. Then she let out a loud laugh. “Good one! Who would want to hire you?” She grinned at me as if she had made a big joke, but I knew that she had spoken her truth.

I looked at her and felt the earth begin to shake and crack beneath me, throwing me off balance. Lisa didn’t see or feel anything, but Dar and I looked at each other. I knew that she could see the shift within me.

I turned to Dar. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I said with conviction.

Chapter Sixty-Three – Ace of Pentacles

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide, Finding Balance, Memoir, Someone Else’s Life, Tarot

The wind smelled of promise.

I could smell the earth in the breeze, the scent of grass and manure as we drove by a farm. Lisa and I rode home to Ottawa with Sophie, Fox and Jenn and it felt great to be part of a group that had through such a major shift. I know that I wasn’t the only one who felt changed by the week we had spent on the island.

“It is like this every time?” I asked Lisa.

She nodded. “We all come away learning something new about ourselves. I often find that after Kaleidoscope, I always end up finding myself on some journey that I wasn’t expecting, only because I was shown the way.”

“My only advice,” Sophie said, speaking up. “Is to follow it. You never know where it will take you and what you will learn.”

“I thought the spiritual shift was supposed to happen at Kaleidoscope.” I tried to keep the doubt out of my voice. I was beginning to realize that magic had a way about itself that always kept me guessing. I wondered if that was part of allure to magic, trying to make sense out of the unsensible.

I stuck my hand out of the window and let it fly along on the breeze. I wondered what journey I was heading towards and where my spirit would ty to take me. I could smell the earth again and wondered what seeds I wanted to grow for myself. I kept coming back to the face that though I was thankful for a space in Lisa’s home, I still wanted more. I pictured myself planting seeds in the soil that we drove by so that by the time we were home, they would begin to grow, having a home of my own, a place where I could lock the door and feel that it was mine. I had never had that. I had not felt at home when I lived with my father and stepmother and towards the end, I hadn’t been welcomed in my mother and stepfather’s place. At University, I had been a fish out of water, and I didn’t know how to swim or catch my breath. I had come out of the closet at university and didn’t know what home was, let alone who I was. There had been little aside from the friends I had known that had felt like home. I didn’t have to think very long about what I would wish for.  

I’d love a home of my own. I said this to myself as I held my hand outside the window. I closed my fingers in a lose fist and when I relaxed my fingers, I could see seeds glowing within my palm. Relaxing my hand, I let go of the seed, the sunlight hitting them for a moment before they disappeared.

There had to be more than living on someone’s floor. I was tired of my roll of foam, even though it had been through a lot with me. That wish that I’d had back when I was with Francis flared to life again. I wanted more. I wanted a home for myself, a space where I could have my own furniture, a kitchen where I could make food. I wanted a bed.

I’d love a home of my own. I said this to myself again. I had learned that repetition was manifestation and that manifestation was magic. I had to believe that it would happen, I had to want it beyond anything else. I had filled each of those seeds and planted them in the ground, their light shining like stars from beneath the soil.

As we drove on towards Lisa’s, I imagined that every seed I had planted would dig underground and trace a path towards me so that the roots they could show me the way that I was supposed to go. I pictured the ground underneath us filling with thousands of white and green roots, slithering through the dark earth to find purchase on the rocks within the soil. I had to believe that my wish come true. I was filled with magic after the past week, and I had to believe that I could achieve this. I had to believe that I was worth it.

I ignored all the voices within myself that told me I wasn’t worth it or that I didn’t deserve having a home. I pushed aside every worry. I would worry later. Now, I just gave myself over to the wish, the smell of sunlight on the air and the car filled with the sounds of joy and wonderment.

I’d love a home of my own.

Chapter Sixty-Two – King of Swords

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide, Finding Balance, Memoir, Someone Else’s Life

I was once again by the fire.

This was one of the last nights at the Kaleidoscope gathering. I had attended more rituals and gotten to know so many people, more than I thought that my world could hold. As I sat there watching the fire, a thought occurred to me. I knew why I had been holding myself back. I had assumed that everyone would hate me after what had happened with Francis. He was an elder in the Ottawa Pagan community. I had thought that when he had ended things, my connection to this world would also be over.

I had felt like an imposter here, as if people were staring at me all the time. Over the week that I’d been living on this small island, I had come to realize that people weren’t staring at me, but genuinely happy to see me. I had put myself in kind of a self-exile. I had placed so much value on what Francis thought of me that I had thought that the magic would be gone when he left.

I hadn’t realized that it was just beginning.

The fire was bright as the sky began to darken. We were all around the fire, waiting for the darkness so that we could be truly free from our bodies and minds so that we could let our spirits dance freely. It was as I was looking for the stars that I saw him.

Francis had come to the circle.

I had spent almost the whole week without seeing him. The sight of him was enough to make my heart stop, but only for a moment. A million word ran through my head, speeches that I thought I would say to him if I ever saw him again, conversations that I had imagined, the words as real as if they had truly happened. Scenes that I had imagined went through my mind, bringing up all the thoughts that I had been carrying within me. I wanted to rage at him, scream at him for the weight he had left me with. I was angry with the fierceness of young love when it is still bright and true.

When a spark from the fire landed near my foot, I had an idea.

I got up from the log I was sitting on and instead of heading towards Francis so that we could have one of the conversations that I had imagined in my mind, I turned towards the fire. I had left my things safely hidden in my tent, so I didn’t have my journal with me. Instead, I turned to face the fire, and I plucked what I had wanted to say to him out of my mind, imagining the words writing themselves in a loopy cursive script:

I will always be hurt by what you have done to me.

You have shaped what I think of men.

You showed me that love hurts more than it helps.

You took everything and it still wasn’t good enough.

I will never be able to love again.

One by one, I plucked those phrases from my mind, the pieces of paper brown with age, and tossed them in the fire so that they were no longer true. With each scrap of paper I threw into the fire, I reclaimed a little more of myself each time, gathering up the light and leaving the shadow on the page. As the flames took the words, my mind became clearer as I watched each piece turn to smoke.

When I turned back, Francis was gone.

The fire was so bright when the darkness finally came that I was blinded for a moment. All I could see were shadows dancing with the flames and hear the call of the drum song. I let the music pull me forward and the fire pull me inward. I let go and danced, gave up any reason that was left in my mind and lost myself to magic.

I was free.

Chapter Thirty-Three: The Princess of Wands

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide, Finding Balance, Memoir

Lisa’s stepson Paul was in a relationship with a woman named Karla. She was far too thin, more skeleton than woman. It’s what I noticed about her first. The other thing I noticed was that she had a lazy eye like I did. It was as if I had found one of the others marked by spirit.

I often thought that people with lazy or wandering eyes could see into two worlds at once and that was certainly true of Karla. She was completely free. I often wonder where she came from. It was as if a spark floated down through the air and when it hit the ground, Karla came to be. She had that air of fleeting movement about her even when she was standing still.

She wore her black hair like a curtain that her eyes just peeked out from behind and when she saw me, her eyes brightened. The first time I met her, Karla caught me off guard when she came right up to me and wrapped her arms around me in a surprisingly strong hug filled with warmth. When broke the embrace, she looked at me with green eyes that shone like amber flecked with light.

“Well, all right then!” She gave me another quick squeeze. “Don’t you feel like you’re just waking up?”

“I woke up a few hours ago.”

“No, I mean in here.” She lightly tapped my chest. “In here. I feel like I’ve just started coming into myself, you know?” Karla looked at me and it was as if I could feel her reaching into me through my eyes so that she could know all of me. “You’ve been on your journey a lot longer than me, haven’t you?” She gave me a quizzical look. “Your spirit has been travelling for a long time; a lot longer than you know.”

She trailed out onto the front porch and lit up a duMaurier, lighting another and handing it to me. “Have you known Lisa for long?”

“I just met her a few months ago,” I told her.

“But it feels like you’ve known her forever, right?” She nodded as if I had already spoken. “Just like you. I feel like we’re kindred spirits.”

“You just met me.” I say, wishing I could the words back already. I was trying not to have my guard up so much. I didn’t need to protect myself from everyone. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry? You don’t have anything to be sorry about. But don’t you feel it?” She nods her head again, looking at me hopefully.

To my surprise, I did. There was just a lightness about her that wanted to pull me in and the scent around her was the loveliest incense, like sage and cedarwood. She smelled of smoke and flowers. I nodded back at her and her scent somehow grew larger and reminded me of the smell of campfire. She brought joy and innoncence with her; I could see and sense that right away.

I smiled despite my want to keep myself guarded against people. It was my natural inclination after everything I had been through and yet, with Karla, there was kinship right away. I was reminded of Anne of Green Gables and her friend Diana Bishop. It just felt like it was meant to be, with no pretense or build up. Karla was giving me the opportunity to see the world in a different way by engaging with it rather than hiding from it.

I wanted to take the plunge.

Lisa was all about taking life by it’s balls and either cutting them off and using them in a spell or squeezing them until they turned blue and she got her way. That was her power. Karla’s power was different.

She helped you to see the best of yourself, despite what had happened to you. Even though I carried shadows within, her brightness helped me to see not only through but past them. Karla made me thirsty for the future in front of me.

I had never thought of my future before, only the present moment that I found myself in, the minute, hour the day. I never thought of tomorrow. Karla’s power helped me to finally believe that a tomorrow was possible for me.

Chapter Thirty-Two – The Prince of Wands

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide, Finding Balance, Memoir

Lisa thought the perfect time for me to meet Francis would be at the next Pagan get together.

“It’s like a dance party talent show,” she told me with a twinkle in her eyes. “I told Francis all about you and now you two can meet and heal your wounds a little.”

“I don’t see why all of this is necessary,” I told her.

“Because you’re too afraid to think of how it might help in the future. You’re so focused on the now. You’re too much in the moment.”

“That’s all I have.” I said. “Thinking that way has always done me well.”

“You need to think of the possibilities,” Lisa told me. “You can’t just stay in the now. You’re going to miss something if you do.”

She told me that I had to think of a talent. “You were in drama, right? So how about you do a monologue? That could be fun.”

In truth, I had loved dramatic arts, and I loved to write monologues. They were a solo performance or speech that was supposed to bring you into the moment and make you feel something. They were also done on their own, so it suited me fine when I was in dramatic arts in high school or theatre classes in university. I loved the singleness of them; I was able to be on stage and I didn’t need to depend on anyone else to learn their lines. Plus, the light shone on me. I could be in the spotlight if I was someone else.

“Why don’t you do a monologue about the misunderstandings that people have about being Pagan? That could be a fun angle.”

I decided to run with the idea and began writing things I’d like to say in my piece. I knew that others would be singing, telling jokes, reding a story they had written, that kind of thing. The event raised money for an online chat board. I didn’t have a computer and had not been on the internet for years, so I had never used it. However, I thought of what Lisa had said about putting myself out there and living for a bit. I thought of The Hermit card the tarot and I thought I had been charging my light for too long.

It I looked at it within me, I could see clear across the forest to the fields beyond. Every blade of grass in the garden of my mind was as clear as day. I was tired of keeping my light in the darkness and shadows because I was afraid of being seen. I had to let the light out eventually. I used to love being watched on stage, the laughter that my part would create or the fear and joy. I loved being able to create emotions in other people and I don’t know when that joy stopped for me. What Lisa was asking me to do was to step out of the shadows and to let my light shine.

I was terrified of speaking in front of other people again, of being seen, but I also wanted to be seen. I couldn’t hide forever. I tried to think of what I would say about Paganism and thought that going at it from a funny angle would be best. I loved comedy, so I would do my monologue from a place of humour. Once I had a focus, it was like the words came pouring out of me. I filled page after page with words and once that was done, I read them over and saw some things I liked and some I didn’t.

Though I had always written, I hadn’t written a play or a scene for years. I loved the shaping of the words and it was like I was trying to find my way again. I went out for a break and a cigarette and took my pages with me. Lisa was already outside and she handed me a smoke. “What do you got?”

“I think I have something.” I said.

“Do you feel like practicing?” Lisa asked me.

I read out a little bit of my piece and was surprised when Lisa laughed. I looked up at her shocked.

“Don’t look at me like a deer in the headlights. That was funny! You’ve got this, Jamieson. You have to start believing in yourself, but your young yet.” She took a drag off her cigarette. “You’ve got time. You can’t be afraid to shine, Jamieson. You have to hold your head up high and not hide yourself. You shine too brightly for that.”

I shook my head. “I don’t though.”

“Don’t what?”

“Shine.” I said. “I don’t shine.”

“You should if you let yourself.” She butted out her cigarette. “Come on, let’s hear it again. This time, don’t be so hesitant. Lean into the jokes. You’ve written something really great here. We can trim it back so that it works better.”

I thought of the opportunity to shine underneath the comfort of a light again and nodded, looking down at my words and tried to let my light shine brighter with each word I spoke. I could no longer be afraid of myself.