One of the first books I purchased when I found out I was pregnant 15 years ago was a children’s book called The Quiet Book, by Deborah Underwood. Although I was elated to be expecting our first baby, I also felt a shocking newness. I didn’t know what any of it meant yet. Anxiety tends to creep into spaces like that for me. The Quiet Book helped me remember that it was ok to marinate in the many layers, textures, and shades of quiet. As an introvert, quiet was both reassuringly familiar and also big enough to contain what might come. In my adult project of embracing my introvertedness (or, as Isabel Briggs Meyers says, becoming psychologically patriotic), I have grown to embrace quiet as a friend, because within it I can stretch time and create space to make meaning.
Tarot as a quiet practice
My question for us as we approach September is what we can find in the quiet. I have been engaged in a tarot practice for about six months, and this summer I did a tarot intensive that included weekly small group sessions. Tarot is a quiet practice. There are questions but they are seldom said aloud, at least in my personal practice. In that quiet I can watch myself. It’s tempting to be reactive in tarot the same way I am in life, and I’m tempted to harshly judge that reactivity: how foolish and immature I am! I want “good” cards that have “clear” meaning. Tarot can tell me that things will change, but only for the better. There will be work, but it will be like the clean up montage in “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead” (bonding teamwork, super effective and goes by in a flash!) The mishaps will be adorable and I will be laughingly grateful for them because life is obviously immediately better that they happened.
Nothing works that way, so tarot doesn’t. Instead of certainty, what tarot allows is paradox: a playful quiet, a silent conversation with Mystery, being held by the unknown. (No one does paradox better than Richard Rohr, see this short article from a few days ago). Spiritual life helps me develop the muscles that are so rarely otherwise challenged. Tarot provides a space for me to remember what author Geneen Roth says: “in the end, the true war is not the resistance to what already is going on but the pattern of judging the resistance to what is already going on.”
My 12 year old daughter is fiery (she get it from her mama) and has learned to embrace this idea: “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.” This quote is often attributed to neurologist, psychologist, and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl but is perhaps instead an idea from an unknown author. Author Stephen R. Covey read the idea and it immediately reminded him of his friend Viktor’s work. (Also, in my search to verify this quote I found a lovely post from Brené Brown in a similar vein to this one, so please check that out if you are inclined: Creating Space article).
For me, the space between stimulus and response is quiet personified. There can be a lot going on in it, but it doesn’t look like action. It’s the High Priestess tarot card: potent, powerful, rich, and inactive. There is curiosity, attentiveness, and some actual peace. I love the following site for exploring the cards; click on the small picture at the top of the page to make the image bigger, and see what your eyes tell you from just looking at the card before you learn about it: http://www.learntarot.com/maj02.htm
Knowing when to be quiet
Lest all of this sound too watery and ephemeral, quiet can also be called knowing when to shut the eff up (we’ll call it STEU). For the most part, this is coming up for me with my 10, 12, and 14 year olds. I am trying to teach them the valuable life skill of figuring out when to STEU. As it often happens I am talking about what I need to hear. Want teenagers to talk to you? STEU! Feel like reminding them how much you do for them, have done for them, since the day they were born? STEU. When I strategically shut the eff up I feel good about myself as I’m hitting the pillow each night. This absolutely doesn’t mean I’m passive and meek (not happening), but instead that I am aiming to act more and more from my adult and Higher Self instead of my triggered and younger self. My adult and Higher Self uses words judiciously and thoughtfully so they are more effective.
I had hoped to have more time after the kids went back to school. Instead it is just different time. Other things, and the things required to support three kids in school, are quickly filling the space. I’m thinking about taking on an additional job, and hearing the drumbeat of more, more, more. I wish I had unlimited time, unlimited everything good, but am trying to instead experience unlimitedness within the moment. That is what I’d like to learn from quiet. How about you? I’d love to hear what you’re thinking about. Have you read The Quiet Book? (Do! It will take three minutes and it’s gorgeous!) Does quiet feel boring yet scary to you, or can you feel the possibility within it? Drop me a line (or text me or call me)!
