Seventeen -The Shadow – Dissonance:

If This Card Chooses You – Consider the unseen. Are you dreaming of reversals? Sudden surprises or a creeping sense of unease? Upsets? Do you wake with a sense of having forgotten something important you almost understood?

Something’s Not Quite Right – Ever have that sneaking sense you’ve wandered into a masquerade? We are trying to learn the rules, but the rules keep changing. Someone’s moving the goalposts. By the time you’ve arrived, the “promise” has “expired.”

Impostor Syndrome – Are we the fake, or is it everyone around us who’s faking it? “Fake it till you make it” is definitely a rule. But is the game worth playing? Your Training Journal reflects the Warrior Reality. Meditation will reveal your wholeness to you.

Activate Your Spidey Senses – First, have a self. This ought to be the easy part! Everyone has a self – right? If only! From our earliest memory not only was “love” conditional but ALL rewards were. We wanted to find out who we really were and what we were capable of but it never seemed the right time. Let’s start by taking our suspicions seriously – you’re not paranoid if they’re REALLY out to get you.

Warriors Are Sensitive Instruments registering seismic shifts and deep tectonic disturbances below the threshold of consciousness. Something always IS “going on” and you have studied long enough to be alert to the many warning signals! This can be exhausting. We long for relaxation, peace and quiet, a clear blue sky without a single cloud.

Warrior Challenge –The key to intelligent management of dissonance is to think of the world as an orchestra playing a symphony. The more able we become to distinguish the varied instruments and musical lines the more we will appreciate and enjoy the experience. Balance is key. We schedule regular periods of rest and renewal.

Warrior Danger – Avoid a “bunker mentality.” The universe has many bunkers, but is bigger than any single one. We must cultivate a hierarchy of response. We get out of bed in the middle of the night for a fire alarm, not a phone notification. Don’t allow yourself to become dismissive and numb but seek out advice and encouragement from others who understand a healthy growth process. All of us live in groups, curate your group to promote intelligent awareness in an atmosphere of hope. Dissonance and dormancy are not doom.

Resistance Is Never Futile – We each will be given a chance to spend our night on the watchtower, but you don’t need to spend every night there. Consider dissonance and discord invitations to accept maturity. We are putting away childish things. The sky is NOT falling, but the climate is under legitimate scientific threat. Strategize ways to band together with like-minded members of your community to take useful action. This is an opportunity to show self-love, as well as love for the group, the environment, the world and the future. The attitude, “I care about you so I’m going to take care of you” keeps us sensitive to the message of Universal Love that is always waiting breathlessly to embrace us.

Suit Up For the Long Haul – There’s a reason you chose the ‘dissonance” card. You can sense something moving just out of your peripheral vision. Someone in your closest circle is lying to you. Do you know how to check for honesty? Test for reality? Check their pasts. Interview their friends AND their enemies. Are they pushing too hard? Trying to “sign you up?” How do they treat wait-staff? Do they speak disrespectfully of others? What’s their philosophy of life?

When It’s Too Good to Be True – That often means the trap is just about to be sprung. Warriors think for themselves.

Models & Mentors – Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to fads, trends and popular opinion” – Jack Kerouac

“Better to fail in originality than succeed in imitation”
– Herman Melville

“If you don’t fit in, you’re probably doing the right thing” – Henry David Thoreau

“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth” – John F. Kennedy

#Haiku: Depth Psychology

Substrata
Dissonance?
Game on!
Unearth yourself –
Transect core
Meanings