Table of contents
Hi, and welcome to this week's mini newsletter! Let's dive right into it.
Spirituality is a toolbox–it's wasted if you're not using it
A lot of people are interested in spirituality. A significantly less number actually practice on a regular basis.
Instead, most treat it like medicine, remembering it only when they're suffering from aches and pains. "Just take a pill and your headache will be gone in 10 minutes." The rest of the time, the pills stay in the drawer, forgotten and unused... (and if you live in my house, probably expired by the time they're pulled out again.)
We need to do better.
The goal of a spiritual practice is to give you the real-world skills you need to navigate your way through being human. Think of spirituality like a toolbox, something you use, so that whenever challenges pop up, you know you have a tool that will help you stay balanced.
Going through life every day without engaging with your spiritual self is like having a toolbox that gathers dust on the shelf, while you try to cut a tree with your bare hands.
The card: Temperance
I have so much I want to write about this, but I don't want to word vomit everything into one incoherent mess. This topic will probably come up again and in future posts, but right now I'm trying to stay on track.
So, this week's card is Temperance–the card, (other than the Magician), where the line between spiritual and material is most blurred. Temperance is where the will, the ego, meets the spirit. It's the coming together of fire and water–and if you do it long enough, you are definitely going to feel that burn!
Working with your higher self isn't supposed to just be about floating on clouds. A spiritual practice is about burning away everything unnecessary until you're left only with the essence of what it means to be you. And while it's definitely uncomfortable to be so close to the fire, the heat is tempered by the coolness of the spirit.
In other words, spiritual work takes you into those places you've been scared to go alone to confront the shadows that you have to face. And you're able to do all that because you know you're not alone–you have your higher self (or your guides) to walk with you.
This week's activity – (and a challenge for myself!)
A week ago, I had an eye-opening dream about the importance of family. And I woke up totally planning to send a heartfelt text to a few family members and tell them what they mean to me.
OF COURSE, I never did. After the power of the dream had faded, it just seemed a bit too much. Too "weird". So I let it go. But that dream had meant something. And whether I consciously made the decision or not, me letting it go was choosing to run away from the fire; to run away from vulnerability and towards complacency. Towards half-assing it. Towards living on autopilot.
We do this a lot. We know when something feels important, but procrastinate on it, using the age-old lie, "I'll get to it later." But later never comes... The will, the ego, doesn't like discomfort, so its natural instinct is to run away from the fires of Temperance.
The ego is the literal definition of "if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." But you don't need to throw the baby away with the bathwater! That's why people end up stuck in the same place for ages. The most important part of Temperance is to remember that it's a balance between water and fire. When the fire gets too hot, you can always call in the soothing waters of the spirit to calm you down.
P.S. I'm writing this on Friday, but it'll be sent to you on Monday–by which time I promise to have sent that text! 🙈
If you have any questions or just want to chat about this week's reading, please email me at me@terriwanjiku.com and I'll get back to you within a day or two. Also, big shoutout to Sonya for being the newest subscriber! Yaay!!!