The context for today’s reading is the idea of how our emotions intersect with how we express ourselves. As with the instruments in a band or symphony, the meaning the plays out with our expression changes based on intention. The same metal flute with the same air moving through it can play the same notes an infinite number of ways, and that is one way to think about how our emotions color our words. Remember that you might not play the same melody in the same way on a different day, and take responsibility for the consequences of what you put out into the world. When your words cause a reversal for yourself others, remember to clear the rubble from your third eye to perceive better what has happened and why. Allow new information and understanding to reform your context and intent, then use that rubble to build something new and wonderful. The stones from a Roman ruin can be used to build a cathedral. You are that cathedral, that progress in work, that project that takes a lifetime. It is the living that matters, even more than the tasks themselves. As the storms come and go, as they will forever, remember your cathedral can withstand them. With each storm, you make repairs. You stay out of your own way, and allow yourself the grace to realize that guilt and shame are distractions once their lessons have been learned. If there is grief, consider how it might be a hole, and you can fill it with anything you want. What building material will you choose?

We navigate the world based on how we perceive it and what we know and learn from it. But our emotions and instincts are a filter, and we must be aware of them as we process the information that comes our way. Sometimes those experiences root themselves within us as shame, and this impacts our choices for the worse. Being free of shame releases energy once used for defense to be allocated instead toward growth. Making a safe space (both internally and literally) provides a respite, but guard against guarding so much that no one can climb the walls around your garden. Otherwise a transformational experience is not actually able to affect change in your life. Be aware of whether compasses that are externally set to true north haven’t been substituted for dials that can be set by biased hands. And finally, recognize that the safe space you built isn’t only for you, so remember to include features that benefit the community of people you love.

In the vast universe, things move at incredible speeds and yet take millions of years to reach each other. Like that cosmic ocean, we too are together and apart, separated and yet emanating into each other’s lives, seen through the static of each other we must filter down what we are seeing. We can’t look for what’s perfect, we have to look for what we see, and filter that down into our lives and ourselves. We can gain insight at times, leaping above the surface of the ocean and taking in new things, new ideas. But we return again down into our heart and our connection with others. Through willful action we play out those things we have learned and know. We are called to action to reflect the glow we have taken from the universe, or the seeds we have gestated within us. Sending the light back out, but filtered so that we are increasing the good and leaving things better than we found them. Finally we are reminded that we are part of something greater, and that we have to filter ourselves in that greatness so that we are being authentic and improving what we interact with. We have the strongest effect when we share our heart, our lives, our experiences so that others can learn and live with us.

We are what we are, but we share that through what we say. We shape ourselves through what we say. At times, we need to one reminded that what we say creates what we are in that moment. And that can cause fear. But we are released from that fear if we allow ourselves to be. Someone in our life is giving us joy and good juju. We need to connect with them and share our energy that they have helped of fuel. We must be aware of the energy and purpose from which others are sharing their ideas and opinions. It comes down to doing what needs doing now. All of the actions we can take need deliberate and practiced hands. It’s not just about sharing with others who bring us joy, but purposefully planting in their lives so that they can grow. When we are in harmony, when we are tangled together like vines or waves. We may be a single drop from a cosmic ocean, but we are the congruence of those we are with and the harmony of the interaction of those lives.

Dean and Jack start with an immediate reaction to the card suggesting that morality and ethics are set and stable. That with our instincts we simply know what is right and true. But we are reminded that even thought what is, still is, what will be is still coming. That even though we have made this action, this decision, this moral outpouring, we must still work to balance it with our own internal compass and evaluate the effects that though tempered by our context, are still true and real and must be dealt with. We are both perfect, and can still be better. Take from others, learn from them, even when you despise or hate them, what can they show you about yourself and the morality and ethics you are making for yourself. Don’t get stuck here. Your journey is one of joys and griefs, but you can’t be bogged down by things that would anchor you to the ground. You are given joy along the journey, and that is why you take it. With this contemplation, sit for a moment with the heat of your flames of action. Let the inspiration that dances in them fill you with ideas and creativity, that which truly makes us human.

At the start of the year, we get the reminder to speak our emotions in a way that seeks maturity through communication and honesty, authenticity. When we do share, it creates ripples both in ourselves and those we are speaking to. We need to allow those ripples to flow and give time for them to take shape and disperse. We are reminded not to just jump in and flounder, but to take time and consider, partly by taking a pause for something relaxing and introspective, like a bubble bath. From there we can contemplate that which might divide our heart or our soul, and gives us a sense of fear at the unknown. Because when we are at peace and contemplation, we can allow ourselves to dance above the water of the ocean, to reach moments of enlightenment or great understanding. Speak boldly so that you may find maturity and settle the dichotomy in your soul.

When what we say is influenced by what we see of the world, we are like a boat being influenced by the winds, the emanation of others as they buffet our sails. Some push us ahead, some work against us. Some cross us and force us to reposition or take our sails down completely. We then are reminded that when we do still our waters, we should do so with intention. That doing it out of fear, fear of the new or unknown, leads us to a place where we have no grounding, nowhere to anchor ourselves as we work to understand and ingest this new information that challenges our worldview. Sometimes the world emits toxic sludge into our waters. Venomous, it seeps into us and we are faced with its consequences. Like a factory spoiling the river, we must navigate around it. And sometimes it is us who spills that sludge from our own emotional factory. How are we handling the production, and the sludge it can create? For we are the director as much as we are the orchestra. What we will can shape the lives and actions of others, just as their will can play out on us. In the end, we are the ever-burning flame, and all action, all power, comes from within us. We have the power to shape our actions and the world around us.

You are a vault that touches heaven and earth, a cathedral that is a sacred and whole space, into which you are deserving of a respect that should fill you root to rafters. As the wind and storm gathers realize that you deserve to feel the joy of riding that wind. You deserve a moment of happiness that fills your sacred space, the laughter of yourself and others because you are not alone in this. Your space is filled with the instruments that can give sound life, that can fill your space with melodies, though which you choose will affect what you feel. You give voice, air, life to your emotions, so choose wisely, pick carefully, feel deeply. For these storms flow from you, not in spite of you. You are the source of the joy and despair that fills your heart, and you can tame the storms within when you allow yourself to fall into the wind’s embrace. Don’t find drama in the storm, don’t feed your resonance with ill fitting songs. Wooden structures reverberate and amplify sound, just as your sacred space takes form and reverberates and amplifies what you fill it with. Like a wooden shrine, cared for through time, you are constantly being refitted and replaced to remain whole and healthy. Guard those relationships which allow you to feel whole and connected. Be shaped by your hand, not by others.