What it means to listen to yourself is not all that obvious.
Sometimes it means taking your vulnerability seriously, the needs of an alienated soul, the cry of an inner child. Sometimes it’s just the opposite, inner encouragement to seize the moment, to be bold or brazen.
People say that talking to yourself is the first sign of madness. Quite the opposite is true. Having an internal dialogue, being able to consider and reflect, to weigh an argument, to look at life from different points of view, all this is actually a sign of maturity. The first sign of madness is not listening to the little chat you’re having with yourself at the time.
because its bound to be important.
Sometimes slips of the tongue, moments of renegade clarity, compel truths to be blurted out loud that would not be otherwise heard. Sometimes what needs to be heard has to become concretised in a neurosis to get attention. Further deafness to the Psyche then defers what needs to be heard to the Body, which has further interesting ways of making us listen, replete with poetic symptoms and curious illnesses.
And then there are the whispers to be heard from beyond the halls of all our personal stuff, sublime moments when the veil is lifted a little, when worlds may not so much line up as collide, leaving you to make meaning in their wake.
I was once playing cards when I was a youngster. Just for fun I cut the deck and showed my mates the face card without looking at it myself. ‘Two of Diamonds,’ I announced. They all fell about because it was.
I played a lot of cards over the next forty years and could never pass up the opportunity to try and find the Two of Diamonds again, perhaps reasoning that the odds would eventually be on my side. Mates would groan at my tiresome and eternally failed showmanship.
For fuck sake get on with the game.
I began to feel resentful towards the now elusive Two of Diamonds. The honeymoon period was definitely over. It was like having your access pass to life’s magic revoked or being given the cold shoulder by a moody muse.
By mid-life I was ready for a separation from this ever with-holding Harpie though I stood her for another decade before deciding it was all over. I was going to transfer my affections to the three of Spades. So, I cut the deck and for the first time in forty years turned up..
the Two of Diamonds.
‘Those who have the ears to hear, let them hear!’ Apocryphal book of Thomas.
If you could pack such events into a dream, what would they mean? What would the Universe be trying to tell you?
It may well be that…
‘synchronicity is an ever present reality for those who have the eyes to see it.” CG Jung
but it still begs the question, ‘what does it mean?’
besides the fact that the Unconscious does like to have a laugh and yank your chain at every opportunity…
One of the things I used to tell myself when I was young was that I would grow old gracefully, that I would relinquish my youth without a fuss. I lied. It’s human nature to want to stay immersed in coral pools of magical omnipotence. Unfortunately, its also in the way of tides to ebb. Individuation demands of us that we separate ourselves from the collective soup with all its delicious croutons if we are to make a fist of becoming.
though it may feel like abandonment.
When the feelings of being bereft reach a certain pitch, the Universe has a way of placing some context on the situation, like a comforting Momma who can even make a grazed knee or a bee sting seem better just by giving it a little attention.
Generally we humans suffer the worst when we experience ourselves as being separate from the Universe or think of it as simply inert matter. As though we were the only life in the equation or somehow stopped at our skin. Synchronicities occur to divest us of this illusion. The continuity of Self and Other is momentarily laid bare. What we encounter out in the world is sometimes ourselves. And it can happen without consultation or consent..
If the Two of Diamonds could speak what would it say..?
‘The Mystery cannot be forced. She will not be ambushed or put on show. The power does not belong to you.
A worthy servant does not make a fair master. Find comfort in how little you know….Wouldn’t it be infinitely more terrible if you lived in anguish whilst in possession of all the facts.’ The Two of Diamonds.
