I pulled this card from the Wildwood deck and it seems a fitting reflection on this day where Mars enters Scorpio, a realm of taboo subjects. Jealousy is a poisonous energy. It spoils things. It blinds us to the truth. It causes us to act out of our lower less developed natures. I’ve been reading Wisdom Rising by Lama Tsultrim Allione where she talks about the five poisons that afflict the human family: jealousy, ignorance, pride, anger, and craving. Each of these has a medicine, a way to transform the poison into wisdom. But first we often have to face the root of the issue: the illusions we cling to.
It’s still socially unacceptable to admit we suffer from these baser emotional states, and yet we can’t just stop doing it because our brain or society tell us to. Some of this is about the deeper issues of how we learn as humans. And for far too long learning has often been traumatizing, like soldiering. Forced. Random. Pointless. Distraction. Soul learning unfolds in its own divine timing and does not ask for one to submit their freedom or sovereignty for a paycheck.
All five poisons, Tsultrim says, come from one basic distortion: a belief that we are separate from Source, the ground of our being. Once we rest in that awareness—and yes it takes an experience, an embodied practice of meditation to learn how to sit and be—once we return to that awareness, we are free from the poison, free to stop repeating the cycles of pain from the past. But it takes practice and work.
Sitting and being is not something my ancestors and neighbors necessarily value. We tend to value productivity. For some with trauma, even sitting still can be traumatic. And while there is a place and an honor for swift right action, if we are not taking time to simply be after we are act, we run the risk of burnout, adrenal fatigue. Illnesses. Work till you die is what’s scripted.
I often heard sermons growing up about the dangers of meditation turning into naval gazing and selfish self absorption. Don’t be selfish is pretty deeply ingrained among the people who lived on the prairie and needed to rely on community in order to survive to the point of excruciating self denial. Busying one’s self by doing good deeds was lauded, even needed for survival.
In ancient times: ‘know thyself’ was valuable. Now maybe, hopefully, collectively, we are expanding to knowing self and knowing our neighbors too. But if we haven’t completed our self work (and honestly who has?) than we run the risk of abandoning self for others. Causing harm to self rather than others doesn’t fix anything, i’ts merely turned the first problem inward. This is an unholy martyrdom because it is rooted in a deep belief (maybe unconscious) that the true self is not even of value. And here’s where that illusion continues to create a lot of suffering in our world. Our problems are spiritual in nature. Who are we? And of what value is a human?
Jung taught us to be mindful of the polarities. And if there is a big push to one side, it may be a response to its opposite, rather than an integration of the center of awareness. The most stable place is actually the center—not the other side of the galaxy where I prefer to run when I’m triggered. Sometimes I can hear the ancestors from the past warning: we took it too far in our lives! don’t do that! So we go the other way entirely, when we just need to turn around and sort the seeds.
We became so locked up in the poisonous patters because we were rewarded for doing what was externally “right” and working to get our basic needs met. If penetration is valued, then receptivity is not. Maybe this goes deeper into the wounds of the male psyche than I am able to venture. If one becomes stuck in perpetually penetrating, the energy turns abusive: dominating conversations, talking to be heard and have power, over stepping limits of knowledge, overuse of resources, treating others as objects, maybe as unworthy as we truly find ourselves. How else could we end up with a world where sexually abusing children is so rampant? Externalization of pain. Denial of self. If there is no self, there is no one to be responsible. No self behind the mask. The human soul is in need of desperate healing.
If we stopped running—which is what trauma does— we could slow down to see what was really bothering us was this disconnection from the ground of our being. Then the healing can begin. Then the spiritual journey begins. I heard it said once that when humanity fell from heaven, it was an analogy of how we fell out of our hearts into our head. That’s the long road home folks. Back to the heart. And the heart won’t be forced open. Finding the right keys takes practice. Sometimes that may feel like the scariest most impossible thing. I’m still working on it. Usually when we are growing, and especially if we are also healing generational trauma, it is that daunting. We are going where no one has gone before. But we are not going alone. And we are not going away from the truth and we don’t have to betray our souls to get there. We are just sorting the seeds on the pathways of light back to the center of our being.
One interpretation for the word repent means: to turn around. Just turn around and face the ground of your being. All will be well. We do have to take action in our healing.No one can do it for us. But sometimes the only action needed is simply: be still.
Jealousy is an energy I’ve been trying to master for a while. I spent many hours and years working with counselors to unlock the troubles I was having at school growing up. Counselors would try to show me others were jealous. But I didn’t see myself as someone to be jealous of. I saw myself as weird. And lonely. And unable to escape the projections or make friends. Jealousy arises when we feel that something we need for survival is outside of us. It sets up attachments and cravings. I would find myself jealous of women who could hide their feelings better than myself. Jealousy erodes trust in community, and among the sisterhood. And yet, we still struggle with it.
Maybe I have been carrying a lot of dark karma from past lives. Maybe a woman is to blame for everything?. If it helps, do we become that for others? Do we agree to play out the illusions until the truth is ready to be received? I feel a deep healing for the sisterhood coming.
I’m sorry.
Please forgive me.
I love you.
Thank you.
Acceptance has been the medicine for me. If people are accusing me of anything, I practice accepting it. Maybe I am crazy. Ok, I practice and accept and love crazy. (Can be fun sometimes.) And then it dissipates. All the shadows ground back into the awareness that I am that. And if I can also love that then the poison is gone.
Working with the energy of jealousy showed me the wound, the illusion of separation, from the Divine Mother. Pain points the way to the medicine. The medicine we all need, is in creating that loving human connection again. It is possible. It takes faith. It is scary. But I believe we will all eventually find our way back to the heart. We will see how much suffering we created believing: I’m not worthy of that kind of love. And we will one day allow that love in to heal us in the most profound ways, if we choose.
Jealousy can become wisdom. All of the poisons can teach us the way back to love.