Medals

My wife and I had Easter dinner at the home of friends. After dinner, we played a card game called ‘Asshole’ (I know - charming). The person who gets rid of all their cards first is ‘the President’ (…and you can guess how the rest of that goes). The Asshole (and I’m capitolizing that for a reason) gives up their two best cards to the President at the start of the next round of play, and the President gives you their two worst. As you can imagine, starting off with that kind of a handicap makes it difficult to get out of being the Asshole once you’re there. We decided to put another caveat into our gameplay: if someone were to be the Asshole three times, consecutively, it was up to whoever was the President on that third game to come up with a consequence for them. Our hostess lost three times, and my wife was the President.

The consequence that my wife handed out was for our hostess to count backwards from thirty in Spanish, which she did. I made a comment that I (somehow) thought would be funny, saying, “That’s not very ‘humiliating‘! …?”

To give some pretext here, previous to this, I’d prided(*) myself on the fact that I didn’t care whether I won or lost in games, as long as everyone was having a good time. I didn’t care to compare or measure people up. This was my way of laughing at what I saw as the ‘ugly’ side of masculine competition.

All of a sudden, things were not as funny as I thought they were. You didn’t have to be a sensitive/psychic to realize that the energy in the room had changed. Our friend, Linda, in her curious, anthropological way, took me to task; she looked fixedly at me and asked, “Why would you want to humiliate someone?” I flushed. I tried to brush her attentions off, looked the other way, but I could tell she was still looking directly at me. She asked again, “No… Why would you want to humiliate someone?” In hindsight, the beautiful part was, she wasn’t asking me in any way aggressively - she was simply asking me a question that needed to be answered.

At his point, I was asking myself how I’d gotten into a position that had me flushed like I hadn’t been since childhood. Still though, my ego held fast. I even tried to put the onus on her, suggesting that there was something untrusting or unknowing about her that she would even ask me that question. After all, who of those that knew me would believe that I wasn’t the most upstanding character they’d ever met, right? Spirit was giving me a lesson in Peacock medicine. The only colour I was displaying was crimson - not exactly the divine rainbow!

That night, I had a dream that pretty much levelled me. And by ‘levelled’, I mean ‘bottomed out’. I was going down a freshly-ploughed icy winter road, headed to the relative safety of my parent’s home for the winter… heading back to the nest with the feeling that I’d failed in life. There were other people headed in the opposite direction (the direction from which I had just come), excitedly talking about what was to come for them, but I was feeling exactly the opposite (even though we were both walking in the same sunshine, curiously enough). The life that I loved was gone. I had nothing - no loving friends with me, no loving wife, prospects exhausted, nothing but the slightest, slightest bit of hope that during the long, cold, isolated, dreary winter and drudgery before me, I’d be able to formulate a plan to start fresh once spring finally came around again.

As I awoke, I still felt that the dream was my reality. My mood certainly seemed to indicate it. As if it weren’t bad enough, I was piling stuff on top of it, including anxieties about money and ‘getting ahead’. On top of that, I’d pulled the card ‘Bat’ the day before, which is about the shaman’s death and rebirth, a prophecy I usually looked forward to with hopeful enthusiasm/excitement. I didn’t feel as though I’d experienced a re-birth in any sense of the word the day before, and it was already the next day! At that moment, I gave up on thinking that I would. All of a sudden, I was failing my gifted abilities as well! Oh yes, there I went; down, down, down. Just when I didn’t think I could get any lower!

I’d had a tarot reading once in which the reader had interpreted my mission in life - what I’d come into my present incarnation to learn and do this time around - as ‘disappointment’. Although she was trying to distract from it, or perhaps gloss it up somehow, she was as obviously uncomfortable with relaying the information to me as I was with hearing it. Afterwards, I looked for and found all kinds of other interpretations for the card, but - you know how the human mind works - the word “Disappointment!” followed me, haunted me. This morning was the loudest I’d ever heard it. It wasn’t just my own inner chatter, it was my guides trying to impress it upon me as well (in hindsight, to ensure that I‘d look at it). Saying that I was feeling at a loss at this point would be a major understatement.

And then I had a vision that seemed to go totally contrary to how I was feeling. I saw medals being placed upon dark, armless mannequin busts. They reminded me of Olympic medals, except that their straps were of bright rainbow colours. The pendants were gold eagles with wings open and heads that were (also) chicken heads, bowed. It seemed to be suggesting that there were rewards to be had for those who look at what it is they’re most afraid to look at; it’ll afford a higher perspective, a connection to Spirit.

I’d been the President for most of the game. After feeling humiliated though, my inner child was being pouty and trying to encourage me to not participate. I still won. Then I thought about trying to win, and I started losing. It brought to mind that whenever I use masculine (attributes) and try to be ‘first’ (in cards, in life), I always seem to lose.

I thought about my ‘disappointment’ lesson (/prophecy?).

I realised that, with my ‘humiliation’ lesson, I hadn’t wanted to let go of my status/reputation/ego.

I heard (myself ?) saying, “Be the Asshole.”

…What…?

…Be the Asshole.

…?

I thought about something I’d posted a week ago, about how important all the other cards were in the game of spider solitaire; without the other cards, all you have are the four kings pulling themselves. The ace especially… nothing happens without the Ace.

…Be the Asshole… Be the Ace… Be last!… Be Last!! BE LAST!!!

 I’m an incredible manifester, yet a year earlier, I’d been picking bottles and cans off the beach for food money. And now, thanks to my sense of grace and timing (Ha!), my social reputation had taken a (brief, but) serious beat-down as well. It didn’t make sense to me how/why I‘d manifest such a thing for myself. I knew with all my heart that I‘d done it on purpose. Now I realized, that I (my higher self) had been trying to give myself a lesson in being last. It wasn’t a lesson in ‘not having’; it was a lesson in not ‘wanting’! I needed to learn to let go of my ego attachments to things …be last. I had to let go of wanting, and exploring ‘disappointment’ was pivotal - the ‘not wanting’ was key, and the ‘not having’ got me there!

The surroundings I’ve manifested, the scenario I incarnated into,… All of a sudden, I understood why some people/religions bless everything they see. I pictured someone blessing the ramp up to the plane, the plane itself, the steward/ess, the slightly obnoxious guy sitting next to them, etc as Divine. I thanked my surroundings - the surroundings I manifested - for affording me these lessons. I got down on the floor and wept/sobbed!

 As I was there, I thought, “I am My creation.” For a second, I half-expected that, were I to look up, I’d see a visage of Christ. I was feeling so utterly humbled that I thought, “I won’t be able to look into his eyes.” Then I realised, I wouldn’t see His face. His ‘face’ is not outside of my self (yet it is everywhere).

For me, this is my lesson this time around. I’m not saying it’s everyone’s.

‘Thanks for nothing’ takes on a whole new meaning.

My imagination led me to consider what happened to others who went the path of loving humanity. I could be persecuted. I could feel the suffering of all of humanity. I could even be put to death. But I will get to Love, and I’ll get to go home again. We play it out, over and over again, and yet again, until everyone can go home.

I’m by no means perfect. I figure that if I was, I wouldn’t be on the earth plane still. Ha! We don’t come here for ‘perfect’. I’m more like a diving beetle that propels itself forward with jerky fits-and-starts movements than a graceful swimmer. But life is so much easier now, with this reminder of why I came. I didn’t come here for the struggles of being first. That desire starts from fear, a fear of not having enough, a fear of not being enough. Our capacity for Love is what makes us ‘enough’.

Ahhhh… much better. I can see blue, and yellow, and green and…

I think my tail’s growing back.

Big Medicine Love to You
~ Black Feather