Day 3. The Time of Beth: - Dec 22nd
This card points to the inner blocks and resistance that is holding us back from following our dreams.
I've actually been thinking about this a lot lately. Doing some reading also.
I know that it's a thing that we often block ourselves as a way to protect ourselves from the perception we will fail. Or that failure is the end. It's why we don't pick up the pencils or paints, why we don't start the book, a lot of things. And the problem is a lost sense of play.
I read that one of the most effective ways to learn is through play. That play is a complex learning technique. people who teach children know this. Unfortunately people who teach adults do not. And if you are like me and basically self-taught in just about everything, it's really important to have fun when approaching work and learning.
Someone, a children's art teacher, recently told me that she does an exercise with the kids where they draw and write with their non-dominant hand. Something about having no expectation of skill just loosens things up. The reason is a bit counter-intuitive: she said because you are so focused on the act of just holding the instrument (pencil, paintbrush etc) that you don't think about
what you are writing or drawing. It just pours out. To surprising result. She showed me several pieces done by her and her students. Some of the writing too.
Another friend works with refugee children teaching them the local language (German) almost entirely with singing. She says they remember songs and they learn the "sound" of the language. Eventually they know which articles and verb conjugations to use because they have an innate feeling for the sound of the language. And they learned it through play.
I think that it what this card is telling me, how it is so easy as an adult to turn our dreams and passions into work, into a grind. It's the habit we've developed. And maybe that's why we learn slower as we age, because we have lost that sense of play and fun.
To follow a dream you have to be obsessed in some way, and, well obsession is fun. You have to give yourself over to it and let it take you away. You have to play its game.
