The human mind is ordinarily preoccupied with the physical details of the material world. We are usually caught up with what-is.
However, what-is, even as it appears to be present or current, is, in vibrational terms, actually the past. It is the relic of the mental and emotional activity that has already transpired. It is the product of the energetic momentum that you have already aggregated, and it is, in this sense, like dead wood.
To be preoccupied with what-is is like being preoccupied with changing the look and smell of a flower that has already blossomed. It is obviously a far better use of one’s time and energy to turn the attention instead to choosing new seeds and finding fertile soil, and this is precisely what oracles, when used properly, can help us do.
It is commonly supposed that oracles predict the future, and it is true that this is the main purpose for which they are sought out. However, the way that oracles indicate what is about to happen is by reflecting what factors or elements are most active right now.
An oracle is like an energetic mirror that reflects the relevant influences of a situation— both those which the questioner is aware of, and those which he or she is as yet unaware of.
The prediction is not then a static decree, like a tablet inscribed with a proclamation of a sealed fate but is instead an inference made based on the active factors in their current state of transformation. Each card, trigram, rune, or symbol of the divinatory medium indicates a cardinal energy, which has a certain way of being and behaves according to certain, predictable laws. We read the future, then, by looking at the “cast of characters” of energies and witnessing the natural trajectory that will evolve as a result of their interaction.
Sometimes the energies indicated by the cards or symbols represent a person active in the situation. Sometimes they represent an entire situation, place or even an object. More frequently, however, the essential commentary made by an oracle is not upon the objective situation or any element of it as such, but upon the subjective experience, approach or attitude of the questioner.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, you are always the center of your story!
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The events which are transpiring, are, for better or for worse, a reflection of whatever is going on within you.
If we look to an oracle to confirm our beliefs that someone else is responsible for our troubles, or that everything can change without us making any changes within ourselves, our readings will be sorely disappointing! Usually, the temperament or personality of the questioner is implicated in the reading— and this makes sense, as you are of course the primary mover of movers in your life.
An oracle does not present the precise, concrete details of your circumstances so much as it does the meaning of the experience and your emotional response to it. A card in a tarot spread does not so much represent a particular person as it does your perception or experience of this person, for, no matter the circumstance, the way that you perceive the people in your life has a much greater impact upon the outcome of events than the actual “objective” individuals do. Events do not so much happen to people as people happen to events.
This can be annoying and unwelcome news, since it places upon you a responsibility that you might rather delegate to someone else. However, this is also the beginning of true liberation, since it is this responsibility which makes you the author of your destiny, rather than a victim of tyrannical circumstance.
The ultimate agent of destiny is the individual executing and implementing free will. The most fantastic potentials may be left untended and uncultivated, thus never amounting to anything; and similarly, the most vulnerable weaknesses may be surmounted and transmuted into our most treasured strengths or accomplishments. It is entirely dependent upon our willingness to take responsibility for our own lives by paying attention to the way we are choosing to perceive, focus, and relate.
Your focus, approach, attitude and perceptions are mutable, and therefore any information gleaned from a divination reading must be understood in terms of possibility/probability, rather than certainty or inevitability.
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As your focus in any situation becomes more consistent, some potential futures become more likely than others, some will fall away almost entirely, and some will fluctuate. It is possible for a timeline to become so dominant that it is, practically speaking, an inevitability. But nothing is set in stone until it has already happened.
If you work to alter your perceptions, approaches and attitudes, you alter the timelines that are constellating in your future. Change the “cast of characters” of energies that you are activating, and you change the trajectory that will develop.
In this way Divination is not so much about reading the past, present or future as it is about reading the Self. It only appears to be concerned with matters of the “external world”; the path of divination leads to the inner sanctum of the heart by way of the outer world which is, after all, only its reflection.
Readings help us intervene decisively in events of our lives. If, beholding the pattern that is unfolding, we do not like where we seem to be going, we may choose to desist from a course of action. We do so by finding the seed of this future eventuality that is currently sprouting within the Self and uprooting it; then we may plant the seed of the flower we wish to blossom in the gardens of our domain.
Mary West is a metaphysician, writer, astrologer, and Magician. She teaches her students how to work with astral energy to enhance personal power, growth, productivity, and illumination.
