On January 11th, 2016, I started a daily practice of writing a joke meditation of the day called Cracked Pot Meditations. I was still recovering from the treatment of cancer, and I was having very challenging cognitive issues, so I chose just to put something simple and easy to write every day. Posting it to the blog allowed me to have some accountability. Some of those meditations were poorly written and unedited. I have gone back and begun editing these and adding an illustration, starting with the April 27th meditation. I hope you enjoy.
Here is another meditation that I needed to create. The original is another sappy love blog, masquerading as a meditation for my wife on our first anniversary of dating. I kept it up below for archival purposes. While my wife and I are separated, she had a significant impact on the creation of my tarot deck.
Meditation for June 29th
Tarot for the Ones Who Need Instant Gratification
In 2020, while the world was locked down, I created a deck of tarot cards and a corresponding book. This became the Infinite Fool Tarot, where the Fool is the central character of his journey through the world of the Tarot. As I finalized their design, I was asked to read it to people. I do not believe that the cards will foretell the future, but they are a way to meditate on values that may be stuck in our subconscious, and some people still want some insight into their future.
While some people are unsure of what they want out of a reading, they seek a general idea of where they stand, but others want to know exactly what the future holds. Will they find love? Will they get married? Will they get that promotion at work? Move well and maintain good health?
As we find ourselves further away from our old ways, people are losing the ability to understand the stories behind those symbols. People aren’t learning the myths and legends that create those symbols, which is the language of our subconscious. When I read the cards and lay out a spread, the querant won’t understand the subtleties in the cards in themselves, so I have to translate the possible meanings. Still, sometimes they are vague, and the querant wants an informed, definite answer to their query.
I’ve added the total of new cards to my 78-card deck, which now contains 85 cards. However, for the needy querent who wants a simple, straightforward answer, I have made some cards clearer to understand.
Ah, ye ole abortion card. This is to help you decide if your female partner has started acting strangely around you, or if the person in your life wants to have a baby. If this card is reversed, it just means that you or someone close to you is preggers.
Maybe you are dating someone and you want to know if you should take it to the next level, this card can also let you know that starting a family with this person is insane and to fucking run.
Too bad, this card means you or someone you love is going to die. Make your final arrangements if you think it’s you. Let everyone know to have a nice life.
This card could also mean that someone in your life should be cut out of your life, but the card could be suggesting murder as well.
Like it says, you are about to get dumped. Your relationship isn’t working out and you either need to accept the termination of your relationship or you need to get the fuck out of that doomed partnership.
Maybe a tad more vague, but this card could also signify that you need to sabotage someone else’s relationship.
Sucks to be you, you got some disease, doesn’t matter if it’s cancer or MS, your life is about to become more challenging and your youth is finally gone forever. Get ready to make being sick your whole personality. You will find this to be a lonely path since our society doesn’t like sick people, and we tend to be ostracized because no one likes to hang out with people who aren’t physically well. Our sickness reminds them of their fragile mortality and to think of death, makes one question the point of life, and to dwell on the point of life is to realize that there is no point, for if the gods gave us a fundamental point, they would make us immortal like them, but we are, at the best, playthings for the gods. Our sickness is when the gods neglect us for shinier, newer toys, so all we can pray for is the soft embrace of death.
You’re fired! You no longer have a job, you no longer have the ability to pay your bills, you no longer have a home or a car, and now you are homeless, and you will die from hyperthermia.
In this society, we have to earn a living, which literally means that if we are worthy, we will be paid in a currency that pays for food and shelter so that we may live and be protected from the elements, so if we lose this worthiness, we are no longer able to earn our living. We are left out in the cold by our system to die.
You might think you’re cool or that your friends love you unconditionally, but this card suggests that no one likes you, and to everyone you know, including your family, you’re a joke. You are an embarrassment.
If the card is reversed, surprise! You are still a fucking joke! You think just because the clown is pointing at you upside down, you can now be taken seriously? Have you looked in the mirror recently? You’re a silly joke of a person who is pretending to be serious. Stop taking yourself so seriously and start embracing your internal clown.
Oops, you broke the law, so now you are going to jail. You may be waiting for a verdict on past crimes, and you will likely be found guilty. Even if you aren’t guilty, this card means you are doing time for the crime. Don’t worry. You get three hots, a cot, and a yard to play in with friends.
Perhaps this isn’t a literal prison where you are being punished for breaking a law, but rather a self-imposed prison that you have created for yourself. We often embrace personality traits that hinder our enjoyment of freedom in life, when learning to overcome those defects would actually free us. We shrug and say, “I’m an introvert” or “This is just who I am”, at the detriment of finding intimacy with other people. Nothing is set in stone, and even stone will wear away from water and wind, so break out of that prison and be free.
Meditation for June 28th, 2016
How to Fall in Love and Not Get Screwed
Many people write to me about how they can find someone and fall in love. They ask because they think there must be some recipe for dating, love, marriage, family, growing old, and dying, all while holding hands. They write letters because the whole world promises love. They want to know how they can find the soul mate they were promised. They write because they are alone.
I have fallen in love. I have fallen in love and have been screwed. I have walked away completely skinned alive under the harsh, hot sun. I sat in my dark, cool room thinking about how I would never fall in love again. Not because I am so hurt that I don’t want to ever go through that again, but because I don’t see the possibility ever happening again.
I have fallen in love and I haven’t been screwed. I have walked away skinned alive under the harsh, hot sun, but not from my ex’s doing, but just the pain of loving someone and it not working out.
I am in love right now. Gosh, I am in love. Today marks the first anniversary of when my wife and I transitioned from being strangers to the most emotionally intimate relationship I have ever had. I love being in love, not because I think being in love is better than not being in love, but because of the person I’m in love with. We don’t complete each other; we work to complete each other.
The only way I can tell you how to fall in love is to tell my own story of falling in love. I will break it up into the many “stages” of a relationship.
Infatuation
I had been single for a while and tried dating a few times, but I was getting over being very ill, and I had been waiting on some health news that would dictate more or less the rest of my life. I was only half-interested in meeting someone for a relationship.
I saw this woman who was funny, innovative, creative, and beautiful hanging out with some mutual friends. My one friend said that she seemed smitten with me, so I spent that night Internet stalking her. I thought she might be too ‘cool’ for me, but she was always super friendly to me.
One night, we were all standing outside of a late-night diner, and we were all doing the funny thing, and she and I were a comedic match made in heaven. She bounced my humor back to me like we were an old radio comedy duo.
I was smitten.
Now, I have no qualms about asking a person out, but it’s dull to ask someone out, so I ran into her, and without a plan, I asked if she’d like to swim at my parents’ house with me, along with other people, of course.
She said yes.
I, of course, spent that night in a dizzy dream state.
Then I invited other people a few days later, and then we had a small group heading to my parents’ house to swim. She ended up spending the night, and we stayed up all night talking.
Just like all love stories.
The Tour
We hardly knew each other when we first started dating. We had to spend some time getting to know each other. We would spend all day and night talking and sharing our lives up to that point with each other. I was freaked out. She was probably freaked out, but we were feeling intensely attracted to each other.
We spent every day together. We would go on adventures all over Oregon, swimming and exploring nature.
Everything she did was magical, beautiful, and amazing. I was truly smitten.
And she was very smitten with me. We go along. We were both weird and crazy in similar ways, and we were weird and crazy in different and interesting ways.
Disturbance of the Force
We had fallen in love, but now we had skated by the honeymoon period. This is a make-or-break moment for many couples. We had hit some walls with figuring each other out. We would miscommunicate. We had to get used to the darker hours of each other’s lives. We had to learn to talk and listen to each other.
This is why I know we loved each other: because of the work we both did to figure out the solution, instead of blaming each other or walking away.
We had reached the point where people are surprised by the idea that relationships require work. We were willing to do the job – even if it sucked and hurt.
The Rut
This is when you and your partner figure out a method for your weekly lives. The issue with her and me was that I had just been sick for a year and a half. When we first started hanging out, I was only working 18 to 22 hours a week. Then I had to go full time and early as fuck in the morning. This cut some of the adventure and freedom that we had just enjoyed that summer.
This also allowed us to survey each other in reality and not under the summer sun’s magic beams. We had to get used to me going to bed early and waking up early. She had to be awake while I slept. This needed a Rut or an intense schedule.
We started to form opinions on each other’s lives. We began to see the true us and how we dealt with life. We had no armor when we became so accustomed to the other being there. We were again faced with work.
Mold
We took all the information we learned from each other and molded our lives to fit together because we are in love and want to be together. We don’t want a relationship to be driven by ego; we don’t want to be better than anyone else. We want to be with each other, and we understand that some of that requires compromise.
We couldn’t help but be excited about the future. We have dreams, goals, and aspirations for our future. We can realize those ideals if we work for them. We share goals. We support the goals we don’t share.
We want the other to be the best.
We molded because we fit.
The Post Acute Withdrawal Happies
After a couple goes through some reality, they hit another happy place. We hit this more recently. We have some issues that I believe will work out, but we need to work together and be patient with each other. Love isn’t easy.
When I leave her in the morning, I make sure I kiss her, tell her I love her and squeeze her butt. Every time I leave her, my heart lurches. I walk away in love. I know that I can sometimes be so self-absorbed and depressed that I affectionately show that, but I do not want to imagine life without her.
The Future
I am moving in with her in September. I do not take moving in with a partner lightly. I want it to be with someone I share goals with and who I feel we have a long future ahead of us. With her, I do.
I take building a future very seriously. I believe in taking time, molding, and seeing where each other’s idea of the future looks like.
She and I want the same thing: a home. A place where we can build our traditions and rituals. A place that we can share with loved ones and animals. We want a home that embodies love, compassion, and passion under one roof. We want a long, loving future with each other.
Love
I love her. I sometimes stare out the window at work and picture her cruising around in her Kia, running all the errands she seems to have each day. I picture her with wild, black hair streaked with silver. I picture her little bow of a mouth drawn to resemble whatever she is thinking about; her mouth gives her away more than her eyes; her mouth betrays her. Her mouth gave her away, revealing that she loved me before she even said it. Her mouth has a laugh loaded and ready when she is happy.
I picture her jerky movements as she is probably looking for something. It isn’t lost, it is nearby, but she jerks her head around looking for the misplaced thing, and she animatedly pats down her body to see if any pocket has it.
She is beautiful. She has olive skin and dark green eyes that I picture my lost relatives in Sicily falling in love with. I picture her and I on a beach in Sicily under the tan stones of an ancient castle, looking south at Africa across the Mediterranean. We stare at the clouds of dust rising from the Sahara. We smell the oldest of all the worlds known, and we shrug our shoulders and jump into the sea.
I miss her when she isn’t around. I like just being in the same room as her. I like being in the same social group as her. I love making her laugh, and I love hearing her laugh at my jokes. Oh, how I love her laughing at my jokes.
She inspires me. I want to be her artist. I want to be her poet and her writer. I want to be her inspiration, too. I want her to feel like she can do anything she wants with me by her side.
I love her.
She is a gift. She is a goddess who makes the mysterious understandable. She is a witch, and I love her for being a witch, even if she keeps saying she isn’t one. However, she is from Massachusetts and owns a witchy hat, so she has to be a witch. That will explain this spell I am under. This spell that I feel this kind of love for someone. I don’t want the present day to pass too quickly, but I am excited about what the future will bring us.
She is so beautiful. She lights my day up with her smoky voice and her passions. She is remarkable when she is curious. Yesterday, I bemoaned people who weren’t curious, but my girl is interested. She is thirsty for knowledge. I learn from her. She is a teacher. She is a comfort and a sage.
I don’t want to live in a world without her. I don’t mean that suicidal or possessively, I just think that the world would suffer for it if she weren’t in it. She lights up any room I have seen her in. I know that she brightens other people’s lives, too.
She makes me happy. In the end, she is in my life, and I am delighted. I feel so ok with her by my side.
I hope she feels half the love I feel for her.
That was so beautiful, and touching. Thank you. Good job being brave with your soul.