Opinion: “Drain the Swamp” – The Devil card and the Emergence of Liberation

Traditional June activities include weddings, high school and college graduations, and family vacations. We savor summer breezes and warm temperatures. We take a sigh of relief that the hectic pace of spring  beginnings can mellow into a relaxed period. Sadly, tradition is no longer to be expected as a swamp of enslavement to the movement, adherence to entrapment by external forces, and a torrential upheaval of societal and personal norms washes over our country and our culture.

We are sinking in a swamp constructed by many factors including  media consumption, the rise in artificial intelligence, slavish adoration to a cult of personality, and self-imposed restrictions in a number of areas.

Our self-perception as a people within the United States of America changes at a rapid pace rather than a glacial one. Given the status of the glacier melt, perhaps a better term might be the pace of a sloth or a tortoise.

The Devil – Pamela Colman Smith, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

 

Like the Devil in tarot, we cannot discern a way out of our shared misery. We may not even notice the changes in our lives until we head to the grocery store and see the increase in prices, look around at the friends we miss due to cultural or political differences of opinions, or jobs lost due to a change in acceptable beliefs, replacement by artificial intelligence, or a rise in tariff rates.

As above, so below can be considered in many cards, with The Devil being no exception. Who are we in our outside, public-facing scenarios? Do we acknowledge the addictions in our lives, including drugs, habits, or any kind of negative attachments?  Over indulgence in love, sex, legal or illegal drugs, food, shopping, work, perfection, money, or power creates our individual and collective swamps one day, one movement, and one situation at a time.

We reward addiction in our societal framework, or at the very least, accept its presence as the cost for and consequence of success. Contemporary success requires discipline and determination, a willingness to stick to the plan regardless of how morally abhorrent it might be on some level, and the ability to hold one’s nose when the stink threatens to nauseate us unbearably.

Seeing the actual picture, rather than self-deception, is the first step in learning the lesson of this particular tarot card. Sadly, recent events in winter and spring resemble the plight of the frog in a pot of boiling water: we do not feel the increase in heat, the water that will choke and destroy the lives we think we have, the best ideals we know we have, until it is too late.   Taking the time to reflect and to see how we get in our own way is sometimes difficult when one is in the swamp.

In this contemporary non-traditional June, we have lost the ability to shock ourselves back into a healthier and more appropriate rhythm as a society. If it only takes 25 percent to reach a social tipping point, then we have a chance. When what one does to earn a living, to pay bills, to keep a roof of any type over one’s head becomes more difficult, we feel trapped by the cycle.  Societal breakdown, in terms of Maslow’s hierarchy begs the question: when the physiological needs of a people, can no longer be easily sustained and maintained without risk, are we able to survive as a human race? Likewise, when the next level of safety is at risk, including  financial security, and safety nets (e.g. Social Security, Medicare (for elderly), Medicaid (for the poor), the ability to receive quality healthcare, to live in a violence-free stable environment), can we truly maintain our society as a whole.

This current situation is over more than a “constitutional crisis” or even the right to call our nation a “democracy” (or a Federal presidential republic), but the right to our basic survival as humans.

The Devil – Trump The Devil (Nr. XV) from the 1JJ tarot deck. 19th century card design. German version.-See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

 

We are living in the period of a national shadow self with a global audience that bears witness while interacting with our emerging instability in this uncertain time.  We view the Devil as below, where we see the shackles, our self-imposed limitations as a people, even as we fight free of patterns  as individuals who seek to re-gain our independence, and thus control over the breakdown and disappearance of our physiological and safety needs as humans.

When we acknowledge our chains, be they self-imposed or thrust upon us through newly accepted societal norms, we have a chance to change, a chance to grow, and a chance to rise above.

We liberate our society through liberation of the self. We explore our spirit, we pay attention to the physiological needs of ourselves and our kindred. We acknowledge that kindred are all, including our fellow beings – all living creatures on land, in the sea, or in the air. We literally cannot live without them, and they rely upon us to care for them as well. When we embrace who we are at our core, strengthen our core, see to our societal wounds, we then rise above and form a new passion and a new vitality.

 

Liberation – Bryan Lees, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

 

Awareness humbles, invigorates, and illuminates. Embrace the spirit. We do not need to dwell in the land of despair.  When we choose to open our eyes to what is going on at the lower levels and join with others of like mind to address the issue within the heart,  the pattern appears. When we see the pattern, we can work together to see the steps to liberation.   This work requires a struggle that can be exhausting, which is why we need to pace ourselves.

Our liberation will come from those tiny movements of becoming aware, of working with allies, even those we might not consider friends at first. When we address habits or letting others declare what is true when we know that it is not, we give healing medicine to that which will eventually destroy us.  Be the 25 percent who creates the tipping point for the better in our society. Let us liberate ourselves by rescuing each other before we boil in the pot that is our current state of existence.


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