Passing the 3 of Swords

On January 2, 2010, I wrote a blog entry called Cutting Away the Old based on information I got from Spirit about this first quarter of 2010.  In a typical fashion, images came to me as way of analogy and I wrote about them.  You may recall that toward the beginning, I wrote about three paths through the 3 of Swords.

Normally, I shy away from writing about explicit personal events, but I feel that this time I am going to make an exception.

Right now, Tuesday morning I am back at my parent’s house in CT.  As of 4:00 am Monday, I had no plans to travel, yet by 7:00 am, I was driving to the airport.

What happened?  Well, at 4:45 am, I got a call that my dad was in the hospital and had lost such a significant amount of blood, it was not certain that he would “make the night”.

For nearly two hours, everyone’s phones were continually lit up as each member of the family shared tidbits of information with another, including how they were feeling about what was happening.  Thus the journey began.

My brother and I had the longest to travel, having to fly, so we would not arrive into CT until nearly 12 hours after first hearing the news. We didn’t get to see our father until 8:00 pm that night.  The great news is that, by then, he was stable.  He had pulled through and they now knew what had happened.  For about an hour, the family surrounded him in the hospital bed and the relief that everyone felt was obvious.

My sisters and brother-in-law, after a long day, returned to their own homes and the boys took Mom home to get some much-needed rest.

Now I only got to see the immediately family, but the evidence of the love of others was everywhere.  The extended family (whether extended by blood or not) had shown so much support, generosity and caring.  I look forward to seeing them as they are truly family.

Exhausted, I went to bed and right to sleep. Some hours later, in the dark, I woke with a sharp realization.  What I had written 23 days ago had almost come to pass just as I saw it!  My father has a tumor pressing on an internal organ that had grown to create significant pain just like in that 2nd vision.  But, similar to the 3rd one, he also experienced bleeding, significant bleeding, and this took away “choice” and forced a hospital visit as an emergency.

When I wrote those words then, I did not think they would be prophetic.  I did not see this happening to my father specifically, I just saw and felt the analogy and it fit the energy pattern that was being conveyed to me.

And seeing my father last night, “looking” better than I had seen him in a long, long time, I knew that he had passed his 3 of Swords.  The tumor still needs to be dealt with, and will be soon, but what I see is a man who has already let go of much of what had created it in the first place. And in the process, my father has given the rest of us a huge gift. Allow me to explain.

A while back, Spirit told me in these words, “Feeling bad is not bad”,  they then added, “as long as it is expressed”.

Feelings follow thoughts.  As Abraham says, they are our guidance system. I typically hear it this way: they give us information.  What we feel about anything is paramount to then know how to create a life that feels good.

Many of us, for whatever reason, entertain old thoughts that do not serve us.  We serve them coffee or tea and dessert.  We were taught to be good hosts, so even though we want nothing more but to cast them out of our lives forever, we still give them a bed at night.

Sometimes, these thoughts cause us a great deal of pain, yet due to other thoughts, we have learned to suppress the emotions.  We are not proud of these negative thoughts about ourselves, so we hide the emotions from others to protect them and ourselves.  We separate ourselves from others.  We put our shields up.  If we do not actually keep ourselves away from others physically, we do it emotionally.

When these thoughts are entertained for too long, they produce matter or events.  Long enough and the matter forms a tumor or a cancer in our body.  Why?  Well, what is the one physical thing that is more ours than anything else?  Our body.  We feel fear in our body and our body reacts, so it makes perfect sense that a prolonged bout of fear will affect our body in a more significant way.

But what happens when we reach a critical stage?  Suddenly, we are rushed to the hospital (due to accident or infirmity) and immediately, our body is no longer our own.  Our most private parts are suddenly public.  Needles are pushed into our veins and wires connected to our skin.  We become less organic as the artificial machines assist and monitor our physical vehicle.

The walls around us crumble.  We cannot hide.  We cannot even take care of ourselves at the moment. We are forced to let everyone in and succumb to the care, to the love, to the attention.

It takes a lot to choose to push through all of this and stay.  A door is open and it would be so much easier to just walk through it.

My dad, yesterday, was very brave and very scared.  Spirit says, the fearless are not brave, it is only those who have fear and walk through that fear that are.

Through his bravery, he has also served all of us.  Worry is still fear, yet as long as that fear/worry is expressed, it is not “bad”.  In the expressing of fear like this, old stagnant fear gets expressed too.

How do I know this happened?  I could see it in the room.  Every member of my family was lighter last night than I have seen in a long time.  Everyone let go of something.  I am sure everyone felt it, if not in themselves, by looking around the room.

Ever since completing A Fool’s Journey, the cards that have been most vocal in their continued teaching have been the tough ones.  They are the most misunderstood.  They are the most feared.  Yet they are the ones that heal us!  They are the ones that change our lives.  They are the ones that can bring us to our greatest desires if we let them.

No, the path is not easy and pain free.

And so the 3 of Swords reminds me (and us) that it may show three swords piercing a heart and shedding blood, but at the center of the 3 of Swords is still the heart!  It is all about the heart!

Thank you Dad for walking through your 3 of Swords and being an inspiration and a role model for me.  And thank you for helping us all let go of some unwanted weight to lighten our load as we continue on…