“Worrying about tomorrow has absolutely no effect other than to rob us of our peace today.”
I once heard a very wise man say that, and it struck me as so true that I’ve been trying to practise it ever since. I don’t mean the peace that comes from the shamanic journey, where you’re not in this world with all its associated turmoil and troubles anyway. And I also don’t mean in meditation, although that will get you there, temporarily, too. No, I’ve realised that my peaceful mind has to infuse and inform every waking second of every minute of my everyday life if I’m to create anything of worth.
Quite simply, a fully fertile and creative life comes from the joy and love of giving because we have so much to spare…our cups runneth over with ‘chi’. Worry and fear – more modernly called stress – are ‘chi’ robbers … They are like Psyche’s sisters, who rob her of her happiness and true love.
It is the story told in the Cups suit of the Mythic Tarot deck, and shows how until her sisters had planted the seed of doubt in her mind, Pysche had been blissfully happy with her beloved Eros, who she only ever saw when he visited her bed at night, covered by the cloak of darkness.
Eros had forbidden Psyche from trying to see him because he wanted only to be loved for who he truly was. He didn’t want to be the victim of mere infatuation over his outstanding Beauty. But the sisters didn’t understand this … they suspected he was hiding some sort of demonic monstrousness from Psyche’s eyes, and they filled her head with fears about it.
So one night, while Eros was asleep, Psyche was tossing and turning with doubt and worry about what her sisters had said. Finally, she got out of bed and lit a candle, and held it over her lover’s face, only to discover, in that golden light, that he was the absolute epitome of Beauty.
The light awoke Eros, and he jumped up … and ran out of the door… never to return to her night-time bed again.
Pysche would have died of the heartache if it hadn’t been for the fact that she was a mythological heroine with a name that meant ‘butterfly’, in other words destined for a challenging journey of trials that would help her metamorphosise into her soul being before meeting her Lover again at the altar of the Divine Wedding.
That part of the story, taken from “Apuleius: The Golden Ass: The Transformations of Lucius Apuleius, and the Rites of Isis”, is just the precursor to the journey into the Underworld that Psyche has to undertake to find her Beloved and, at the same time, undergo spiritual transformation, to prepare her for their Alchemical Marriage.
We are all on that Underworld journey or about to embark on it. Most of us are still stuck in the Four of Cups, still trying to learn not to listen to the sisters of Worry and Fear whose voices, through the media, are getting louder and louder everyday. But we shouldn’t listen to them, because all they do is rob us of our joy today, and prevent us from hearing the song of pure Love that rises with the Sun at each new dawn, of each new gift of day.
Annie Dieu-Le-Veut 