93. temperance

In some ways, it feels like back to square one. 

I sit in front of the computer, fingers still, unsure what to type. 

Unsure how to access that deeper, wiser, more honest and spacious part of my being, the part who knows how to write from the heart instead of the head. 

I’ve been on a slippery slope after sneaking back on to Instagram to check messages. Checking messages became a peek at stories, became posting a story, became just-for-funsies drafting some reels, became a black hole of scrolling inspiring visual art that lasted nearly two hours. 

We can call it a binge, I did in my mind, so I may as well say it here, too. 

Last night, I found myself laying on my yoga mat on the living room floor, one eye on the scroll and one eye on the digits in the top right corner of the screen, advancing steadily towards midnight.

5 more minutes, I told myself, hungry to grab just a few more screenshots of rainbow-hued art, quotes that touched my heart, noticing the speed of my mind, the old familiar flavor of distracted numbing, which accompanied my indulgent foray into a realm I’d deemed forbidden.

We can call it a relapse, I did in my mind, though I’m still toying with the implications of that, the way the word carries shame and self-flagellation which is entirely unnecessary for the context. 

What I notice is this: there is some part of my channel which shuts down once I spend even a few minutes in the space of the scroll. It feels like… the listening part. Which is strange, because the mind is busy with it’s ravenous consumption of content, reading, watching, hearing - but not, it would seem, actually listening.

Fueled by the energy of Aries season and the first sun of spring, it’s like a fire lit within me, a little spark of excitement and enthusiasm that nature and I are coming back online, are moving into yet another season of beautiful self-expressive blooming - and my More Monster, or my ambitious all-or-nothing accomplisher, quickly poured fuel on the flames of that spark, igniting a voracious little wildfire, energy scattering in too many directions, instead of mindfully tending the central flame, adding only what is needed for a steady burn. 

Mixed metaphors, but it feels like that. It feels like passion is alive in me and I want to do everything right now - yet I know from past experience that this feeling doesn’t last, and when the eventual slower part of my being needs to come back in, I find myself holding too much - so I throw it all to the ground so I can rest. 

It got me thinking about the Tarot card that Marie pulled in last week’s gathering: Temperance. 

Temperance can mean having control over one's acts, thoughts, or feelings. As a virtue, it is said to be a disposition inclined towards ‘healthy and appropriate’ appetites and pleasures, and not those which do us - or others - harm.

In tarot, Temperance reveals a need for attunement to balance, moderation, patience, and purpose. It sends the message that we have an opportunity to create a rhythm in our lives that feels natural and right by recognizing where circumstances feel stressed, amplified, pinched or neglected and choosing to shift them - or shift ourselves - so that life flows with more ease. It’s a card that speaks of the middle road which avoids binary extremes and finds, amongst perceived opposing options, a secret third way.

The traditional image of Temperance shows a woman balancing with one foot in water (flow, surrender, emotions) and one foot on land (steadiness, grounding, pragmatism). We might think of this as harmonizing feminine and masculine energies, yin and yang, positive action and conscious receptivity. These are not actually ‘opposites’ but complementary and integral parts of one cohesive whole.

I’ve been thinking about the wisdom of temperance, and how challenging it is for me to find and sustain what feels like equilibrium. As a libra sun, balance is supposed to be one of my natural gifts, but how do we learn balance? By standing on one foot, by falling off a balance beam, by moving through imbalanced situations until we learn to cultivate harmony within them.

Something about this project, this commitment to a year of writing, is helping me ground the foot that is steady on the Earth. Something about expressing in this way is connecting me to the deeper, truer, slower part of me which needs - not wants, needs - more tending. 

Something about being here with myself, and with you, in this way, helps me listen. 

So it’s okay that I’m back to square one, in some ways, because it’s a place of beginning again. It’s a place of tenderness and uncertainty, but also commitment and dedication to the initiation opening before me. 

I’ve softened the harsh binary, the strict abstinence and purity my inner enforcer wanted for this journey, and I find myself now arriving at the second door of becoming, upon which I see a subtle wood burning of the scales of justice. 

I stand before the door, quite still… just waiting for the impulse to open it, and step through.