Whatever you have done you can undo. Whatever you have chosen, you can unchoose. Any major challenge, you have chosen. Are you poor and struggling? You have chosen it, and it is not unwise. People with money are usually bored and unhappy, surrounded by syncophants and false values, and with few of the usual challenges to give life meaning. Very few lives of wealth and position turn out to be times of advancement or development. It is difficult to believe that all the things that 'happen to you' are actually chosen by you, because you do not remember the decision. You can think of it as a decision made before entering this life, though the decisions of Self exist in a kind of eternal now. What We mostly choose are challenges where the outcome is unpredictable. Thus, we should not go to the other extreme and regard all conditions and events of life as pre-ordained and pre-chosen. If we chose the marsh, it is not because the marsh is a good place to be, but in, order to see if we can meet the challenge of getting out of the marsh. Likewise with the fogs (chosen ignorance of our inner powers) that obscure the way. They may not be of value in themselves; they may just be part of the game we have chosen for ourselves. Thus, a terminal illness can be looked at two ways. It may be that the ill person has 'trains to catch' and cannot linger. The Nameless One says "Linger not with the flowers you have planted till their fragrance fades. Wait not for the petals to fall. Quicken on the down-grades; pace the ups for they are so designed. He who makes his way has made it." Thus, if it is time for you to go, there is no point in lingering around. You may have appointments to keep, schedules to make, people to see in the next lifetime, for the conditions and possibilities of history steadily change. ln that sense, an illness may be chosen, both to terminate a lifetime at a certain time and for the instructive nature of the illness. On the other hand, the ill person may have chosen a 'terminal illness' simply as a challenge, a test to see if he has evolved far enough to work his way out of this one. It is always possible. Nothing is fixed. That is why this is the card of the 'faith healer'. The laws of nature are only rules we have chosen to live by, and if we wish, we can play by other rules. That is the simple secret of the Reverser. We have chosen this situation, whatever it is, and we can unchoose it, if we can put ourselves back in the perspective from which the decision was made. The symbolism of the Book of the Reverser is the simplest of all the cards. It consists in an androgyne fignre (neither male nor female) standing nude in a barren scene. His right arm is crooked upward, receiving a descending stream of blue water. His left arm is extended to the side at hip level with fingers extended. From this hand an equal stream of fire flows to the ground. Overhead there is a golden sun with a soaring hawk outlined against it. "He floats downward and looks not unlike a silvered moon- - angled so that his head points to the fignre beneath." Many people look for some savior to save them from calamity. So countless millions or billions of people pray to this or that to save them from something they imagine to be unbearable. The Nameless One says, "There are many signposts on the way. There are prophets unnumbered, but only one savior. Q: Who is that savior? A: YOU!" Whatever the situation is, you have chosen it, you can respond to it, and you can change it, but only after you have understood and accepted it. Imagine our ordinary selves as the ground on which the Reverser stands, and the Reverser, being neither male nor female, is a symbol of our higher Self, which is also us, and not something separate. The fire descending to the earthplane from our own higher selves represents those 'unbearable' situations, the things which happen to us which burn away the deadwood, melt things down, and heat things up, causing many processes and changes to cook. We tell ourselves we dislike these changes and challenges, and thus they become like bitter medicine forced on us by parents whether we want it or not. Once we achieve a certain level of maturity, we will choose the medicine freely, even though it is bitter. Or we might decide we are not really that sick, or seek some alternative healing. ln other words, with maturity comes choice. But a part of that maturity is the ability to accept our bitter medicine if that is what is necessary. You must realize the two streams are exactly equal. To receive more of the renewing waters of life, you must first receive the burning fire in equal measure. Only if you have received the benefit from it, can you turn away from it, and reach up and draw a renewing draught of water. That is why medicine men first teach an acceptance of death, before there is the possibility of averting it. The Hawk of Night sees the Reverser, makes the sign of the waxing moon (a new phase of existence beginning) and spreads his sparks throughout the night. |
"The way you go, you well know. You have founded the points and chartered the course. It compels and impels. You have laid the stones and painted the signs. The marsh and the fog, you did."