Divination, anarchy and bananas

So, what exactly happened yesterday?

A little background, first.

In my life, I have tried a lot of stuff. That's putting it mildly. I don't need to go into details, but believe me, there is very little I haven't tried*.

Amongst the things I have tried (I did have my twenties in the nineties, so I couldn't escape the proliferation of the infamous New Age) are all sorts of divination practices, meditation, healing and even religious knowledge and experiences. I've had them all. Yes the acid too, and all sorts of assorted other drugs. At the moment I can't thing of a single state of consciousness I haven't tried. I have even been hypnotised (well, there was a hilarious attempt with interesting results) and been through mind shredding pain for lack of anaesthesia.

As a result, there are some things I know.
One of them, is that the mind is capable of absolutely extraordinary things, varied beyond belief. This is one of the reasons why narrow-mindedness is a crime, as far as I'm concerned. I am not a naturally violent person but when I am struggling to speak to someone who is obtuse (and you can't be obtuse unless you deliberately choose to, as everyone's mind is capable of stretching, like a vagina**) I have to bite my hands (metaphorically) not to smack them.

A very brief description of my attitude towards all that is supernatural (religious beliefs, high-level meditation with next-to-magical effects, unorthodox healing and divination is its multiforms) is that our mind is untapped infinity. Add to that that what a single mind can produce is nothing compared to what two minds in harmony, or in sync, can produce. And so on till you can imagine what many minds working in unison like, say, a load of people inside a church, can create.

So, rather than enjoy the eternal and incredibly boring debate between religious people and atheists, my stance is this: 

• when you pay for divination services of any kind, pay for their time, and for the fact that they are, after all, offering you counselling and using their energy and time to do so. Be aware you are not paying for any supernatural power.
• when you say religion should not have any say on the running of a country or anything that is not purely individual, you are right. Therefore, ensure laws are changed, adjusted and geared towards removing any form of religion from any nation's state policies. There is no need to go as far as saying that the individual experience of religion is harmful in itself: it often is quite the contrary!
• drugs should all be legal, and controlled so that crime is not funded on them and bad drugs are no longer available, or at least as available as, say, a bad batch of eggs or occasionally contaminated food. There should be advice on how to drugs responsibly, just as is there is for betting, a far worse scourge with no possible good effects, and alcohol. They should be used according to the entertainment, medical or spiritual value they posses.
• I am apolitical, but if I had to somehow define what my ideas most closely resemble, I would consider myself closest to Anarchism than anything else. I have tried to redefine this term into Individual responsibility, but then I saw it was already associated with something a little dodgy on the internet so I left it. Anarchy, in a few words, is the principle that IDEALLY, everyone should already have inner knowledge of what is right, and what is wrong. If left to our own devises, we would naturally all fall into a reciprocally advantageous situation. However, people are easily influenced and manipulated and traumatised and what have you and therefore successful Anarchy is per se, necessarily, a utopic vision: one that can never come true. This doesn't stop you from attempting to apply the anarchic principle in what you do in your own life. It's what I have always had best results with so far.

This is a woman I intend to find out more about

With these principles in mind, this is the simplified description of the progression of events that has helped me yesterday.

1. I finished a chunk of my Dad's autobiography. In it, there are some reflections on himself that have given me lots to think about, concerning how much of him is in me and has a very strong effect on what I do, and the confusion that sometimes reigns in my otherwise very lucid mind.***
2. I felt inspired, so I thought I'd read my own cards. I did a star spread. It was unmercifully clear. This is the summary I wrote for myself:

"I cannot be that Queen of Coins that is a positive and calm creative force because of the constant emotional junky for new beginnings of the Fool reversed and the excessive open-mindedness of the Star. I am more peaceful now, true... But my first direction is a non-direction! A reversed Mage that tells me I do not have the ability to become an upright Mage. this is backed by the ability and therefore the possibility of becoming manipulative or controlling to no avail! It will lead to an utterly pointless 3 of wands reversed: opportunity will not take off/arrive.

However, I am surrounded by another 2, lovely 2 of cups...

So who should I be?

I have asked on website biddytarot a free reading in exchange for feedback.****

Then another spread, based on my question: should I become a professional tarot reader? Outcome was interesting. It would seem like a good idea. Daring perhaps and my self-confidence not amazing at moment, but I do have tons of experience so... why the hell not?

Lots of details conspired:

• I found a book about tarot reading a friend had left here, I had never really looked at it. this enabled me to feel refreshed and curious about that books' interpretation (every book shows you a different approach to the tarot). 
• The epiphany about my dad meant that I felt ready and accepting of the true and deep need for change and self-questioning and self-exploration, without feeling low and depressed about it.
• A website I looked into made me feel hopeful. This particular page was already enough to give me lots of very helpful insight: the simpler, the better, for me.
• My google search for a quick lookup of a reversed card in my reading that wasn't in the book led me to the above mentioned biddy tarot site, one I had never seen before. It just so happens that the admin's approach to tarot is extremely practical and level headed: just what I needed to hear.
• My ankle injury, which forced me to slow down, stop, think, elaborate, look after myself.

I don't know if this will all make sense to you. Know that your mind is the most powerful divinatory, healing and counselling tool that exists in the planet. But sometimes you need a little help in accessing the info it so jealously guards. Find the tool that is right for you. For my dad, on that day he describes just before the end of that chunk of life story, it was a leaflet fluttering in the wind, in a park. He decided to heed its promise of a new life and, for better or for worse, we will never know, but what's certain, his new life did come to be.
It is only us that makes the choice that will make us happy or unhappy, productive or unproductive, even fertile or infertile sometimes when a medical reason is not found. It is difficult to accept, I know, because we'd all rather think we are perfectly rational beings, or the victims of outside forces or circumstances. We mostly are not, unless we are torn apart by a bomb in a war zone our parents took us to as children, for example, or were born with some terribly crippling conditions.
Everything can change, no, everything can be made to change.
Now, my challenge, is to learn to change less. How fun is that!

P.S. I cannot for the life of me remember where the bananas reference in the title came from, or what role any bananas might have played in this experience. I will leave it, however, because if it wanted to be there, there it should stay.

* Except for bungee jumping and air gliding, that's because I could never get round to it and when people started doing it round me and I could start thinking about it I had already had my second son and with him a terrible fear of heights. And anyway bungee jumping is STOOPID. Hang gliding, on the other hand, is a regret I'll take to my grave  

** That completely gratuitous comparison is due to having been binge-watching Orange is the New Black. Blame my friend Toby. 
***One of the first and biggest epiphanies I had ever had in the past was realising the same about my mother: I have worked on that ever since.
****It will be done by Eva, her website looks great, she sounds great.