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| Rumi Card Deck Book |
On this bright Christmas morning, my Rumi deck caught my eye and I decided to seek its advice. Sometime around 2000, I purchased Rumi: The Card and Book Pack, Meditation, Inspiration, & Self-Discovery and started to use it to connect to my inner consciousness.
THE COAL: Over the years, I’ve called on the wisdom of this deck often, and almost always in times of crisis. It doesn’t always give me the answer I want … such as this morning’s “warning” card received when I asked for an answer about the trip to Oaxaca I’m planning. It’s a simple trip and my biggest question is whether to go for 2 or 3 weeks.
I was shocked by the card I received, to the point of wanting to put it back and draw another card. But, that’s not quite the point, huh? Here’s the card which works in conjunction with the book which gives the rest of the message.
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| Warning Card |
Warning Card: The Carnal soul’s food is seeds of evil; Sow them and they grow and grow irresistibly.
Book addition: You are in danger of making very bad choices which will damage your life.
That’s pretty harsh for what seems like a simple decision. Perhaps, there are other things going on in my life that it is warning me about? As my thinking branched out to other decisions that are calling to me, one possibility came into focus as one that might contain hazards.
Warning cards are included in the Rumi deck, according to the author, in order to:
“make us all as alert as possible to the shifting currents of Fate and to the hidden motivations of others, which, if we do not attend to them, can destroy us.
“No warning is final. Fate always gives us hints before it strikes. If we learn the Art of Attention, then we do the best we can for ourselves to secure our growth.”
The author quotes Rumi on attention:
Attend to the warnings that will come,
Do not expose what you are and have to destruction,
Remember how frail you are,
Who are less than a straw.
It reminds me of a time, years ago, when my husband and I semi-retired and had to pick up our own COBRA medical insurance (to the tune of about $2,000 per month). We thought we would just put that money in the bank and self-insure since we were both healthy and our income had plummeted drastically when Richard’s company closed.
We consulted Rumi and the card was a loud and forceful “No!” Therefore, we kept paying our insurance premiums, and several months later, Richard was diagnosed with prostate cancer and the medical bills over the three years prior to his death were around $500,000!
THE GIFT: So, in addition to thinking about all the decisions in my life right now, I decided to write this blog post, and, in that writing, I wondered how long I have been using this deck. I went to the copyright page and discovered that the author, Eryk Hanut, is one of my Facebook friends! I don’t know how or when we connected on Facebook but I’ve often admired his posts and it felt like a gift of connection, and a reinforcing of the need to rethink the decisions currently in process.
So, thank you Eryk for the gift of ancient wisdom and thank you Rumi for the gift, and the coal that comes with greater attention to the outer and inner wisdom!
Other posts about Rumi:
In 2011, I launched a month-long celebration of Rumi poetry as read by Coleman Barks. If you haven’t heard Barks reading Rumi, I highly recommend dipping into the Rumi page above.
- Rumi: What Was Said to the Rose -- since 2009, this is the all-time most viewed post of this blog.
So Joyce ... what is the end of this chapter of the story?
ReplyDeleteWill you be in Oaxaca two weeks ... or three weeks ... or not at all?
What did you decide was what you wished to do?
:-)
Hugh, I've decided that the message was more related to something else I'm thinking about. Still planning on probably 3 weeks in Oaxaca. Story doesn't have an end yet so all may change. ;-)
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