Deck: Dark Goddess Tarot
Spread: Card of the Day
Date: Sun Sep 13 11:29:57 EDT 2020


Today's Card
Four of Earth ~ Sphinx (Upright)

Greek Monster of Fate

How you define your life limits your life.

The Sphinx is a fearsome, fourfold creature, having the head of a woman, the wings of an eagle, the body of a lion, and a serpent-headed tail. She is one of a family of winged demons, like the Furies and Harpies, who ravage the living at the bidding of the Greek gods. She plagues the outskirts of the town of Thebes as punishment for an ancient crime. She challenges all who travel the road to solve her riddle: What creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at midday, and three legs in the evening? The answer encompasses the entirety of a human life from infancy to old age. Those who do not understand the answer—that she asks them to define and claim their own life—are killed.

As well as “strangler,” the literal meaning of her name, the Sphinx is called “prophesying maiden.” Votive sphinxes are offered at Delphi, the center of prophecy in the ancient world, where the priestesses also speak in sacred riddles. It is the oracle at Delphi that sets spinning the events of Thebes, when she tells of the son who will kill his father and marry his mother. It prompts the father to abandon the child. Years later, it prompts the same child to leave his adopted home and encounter his birth father. By speaking the prophecy, the oracle becomes the instrument of fate.

A large marble sculpture of the Sphinx faces the inner sanctum of Delphi. She guards the omphalos, the sacred stone egg that marks the center of the world, the heart of the oracle’s power. The Sphinx also guards the peace of the dead. Sculptures of the monster are often found on tombstones and within temple grounds, there to frighten those who would defile the dead through coveting their grave goods and special treasures.

The deeper answer to the riddle includes this fourth and final stage. Life is about more than what one possesses. It is about what one leaves behind.

When the Sphinx appears:

Definitions work two ways, helping you understand reality and separating your perception from reality. Upholding or debating rigid definitions can require endless vigilance. Find your own reality, the only position you must defend, and find the center of your power.

Write down four pillars of your situation, things that appear fated, concrete, or absolute. One by one, redefine them. Rewrite them in words that allow for creativity and transformation. Rewrite them in words that question or embellish their necessity.

Honor what you have to work with in this one sacred lifetime: your body, your mind, your heart, and your external resources. Be disciplined with what you should be using better. Be careful with what you should respect more. Protect your resources from greed and abuse.

Look ahead. Your story will end someday. Where it will end and how it will be remembered are written through actions in the present.



Presented by Dark Goddess Tarot app from The Fool's Dog.

Ha!

"Make me feel good and I won't hurt you again." Facebook algorithms, privilege traps, and human trafficking.
https://t.me/MaxMoRadio/1918 - https://t.me/MaxMoRadio/1923
https://t.me/s/MaxMoRadio 

And sometimes... the people who say they love you deny that you are severely disabled, delete their comments, block you on social media, and then leave you to sex traffickers.

Your mileage may vary.

Still, the original message is sustained: There ARE people out there who love you. Keep seeking. You will find them.

Be wise, and mindful for your safety.

https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=115763456716&id=500321077

Oct 3, 15 Tishrei, 13 Night

Oct 3

When suffering people are experiencing destructively constant threat to their lives, including increasing disabilities and physical pain, they ask for help so that they will not die.

If they are forced to stay in circumstances that are legitimately killing their bodies, there is a threshold where the body cannot survive it and must make the suffering stop.

When they beg for help not to die, when they beg to be listened to, they are often diverted to suicide hotlines with the misunderstanding that they want to kill themselves for an unknown (or spurious) reason.

But the truth is they are already being killed. They are begging for assistance.

Survivors must be listened to --- but suicide hotlines are not listening.

Oct 3

Survivors of human trafficking, severe health conditions, environmental sensitivities, medical misinformation or abuse, and other intersections of violence often cannot reach the supposed assistance of suicide hotlines because of unaddressed and frequently mischaracterized conditions such as ongoing abuse, compound trauma, TBI, severe neurological injuries, intellectual disabilities, and diverse physical limitations.

Suicide hotlines that are not listening closely, consistently, and effectively to the most severely marginalized individuals are often unaware of the consequences to survivors' lives.

Suicide hotlines tend to make a show of listening to the person who calls in, but they also often make assumptions that prevent effective communication and effective assistance to that person.

When a survivor calls into a hotline, the hotline volunteer will protect their identity *from* the survivor and usually only ever talk to that survivor once.

This is not the same as building a relationship with the survivor that repairs function and ensures they can be actively part of ongoing safe community activities.

Trafficking survivors in our network report frequently that they cannot get help from hotlines and are often endangered if they follow advice from others associated with or related to hotlines.

Overwhelmingly, suicide hotlines do not provide relationship building or safe community access resources.

But relationship building and safe community access resources produce the most resilience and safety for the most severely affected and all survivors.

Inclusive community can prevent human trafficking and many other kinds of suffering.

Oct 3

People who are already dying call the suicide hotline to ask not to be killed.

The suicide hotline says: You're not being killed.

The suicide hotline says: We're here to help.

But the person who called in is still dying -- and hasn't yet been listened to sufficiently so that a caring volunteer might know better what to do.

The person who called in is shunted towards resources that deprioritize that person's most crucial communications.

What needs to be addressed first are the immediate harms affecting the caller.

But the caller is never safe to more specifically communicate if the hotline assumes it knows better.

The caller never finds a conversation they can trust if the hotline does not recognize the necessity of continuing conversation for the sharing of unfolding details while affected by traumatic experiences.

Many callers will not be safe to more specifically communicate until they are in contact with relationship building and inclusive community access resources.

We have requested conversation on these subjects for years without response.

This is a great part of the reason survivors in our community networks are unable to ensure their safety from human traffickers.

Oct 3

Our network of survivors has extensively documented the ways in which human traffickers and sex traffickers are taking active and immediate advantage of these systems vulnerabilities.

Our network of survivors has also compiled materials to assist communities in immediately stopping and preventing human trafficking, especially for those most at risk.

Listening to the voices of our most severely affected survivors and ensuring fully inclusive community resourcing is necessary right away.

This reprioritization helps all our communities to relieve the effects of violence, eliminate health disparities, restore cultural competencies, and recover most swiftly.