Donnaleigh: Have We Evolved?

After hearing Storm Cestavani and Georgianna Boehnke Speak about evolution on their April 12th, 2010 broadcast, I found myself thinking about evolution and wondering exactly how much humans have evolved.

According to www.Dictionary.Com, the word “evolve” is a verb that means:

1.to develop gradually: to evolve a scheme.
2.to give off or emit, as odors or vapors.
3.to come forth gradually into being; develop; undergo evolution: The whole idea evolved from a casual remark. 4.Biology. to develop by a process of evolution to a different adaptive state or condition: The human species evolved from an ancestor that was probably arboreal

The etymology or origin of the word “evolve” is from the Latin word “ēvolvere,” which means to unroll, open, or unfold.

How is the human race opening and unfolding, then? How are we coming forth into being and developing?

Tarot has an interesting perspective. Cards were randomly drawn from two decks:
Kat Black’s Golden Tarot,and The Deck of Shadows oracle deck by Scott Grossberg.

Cards received were:

SITUATION: Knight of Swords with Freedom (Catharsis/Sanctuary/Flight)
CHALLENGE: Five of Swords with Urin (Finish/No/Guilty)
WHAT WE HAVE GOING FOR US: Page of Coins with Fear (Attachment/Haunting/Pain)
ADVICE: Three of Swords with Underdog (Unequal/Tragedy/Compassion)
LIKELY OUTCOME OF OUR EVOLUTION: Devil Reversed, with Discovery (Awareness/Message/Revelation)

First, of all the cards drawn, only one Major Arcana was drawn, the outcome card of The Devil reversed, which is a powerful pull toward our animal nature holding us back from potential. But it is reversed…we do work hard against this energy to create growth.

Additionally, of the 4 remaining cards of suits, three of them are swords, which may speak to how we think will determine a certain outcome for us. Swords are also used as a defense, so this may be part of the energy we will find ourselves continually working through: protecting ourselves, which by nature is defensive as opposed to offensive (reactive as opposed to creative).

SITUATION: Knight of Swords with Freedom (Catharsis/Sanctuary/Flight)

The Knight of Swords in the court cards shows less maturity than the King, but more than the youthful Page. So this card places us at about the teen age of evolution, suggeting perhaps some growth, but at the same time we may “think” we know it all, when in fact, what we haven’t arrived at yet is vastly larger than where we are.

Swords speak of intellect and logic, and the Knight of Swords is fast-moving, so we may be seen as somewhat (only as much as a teen would be) evolved in terms of how we communicate and learn, in terms of technology and learning, but being only a Knight, there is much further to go. In a 4-step learning program of evolution, we are at #2 in terms of intellect potential. How long have we been this way? What aren’t we learning? What haven’t we yet touched up on? Or…how is our logic and intellect holding us back from moving up the evolutionary rungs?

The Knight of Swords is fast and impulsive, and he tends to plow his way through things rather than moving gently.

Tarot does see swift attempts at changes, but this card in Kat Black’s deck also points to war and slaying, so perhaps much of what is either keeping us where we are or not allowing us to get past our swords of thought could be our impulse to slay, to conquer, to own, to be the aggressor in order to bowl over anything in the way of our achieving something? He may take by force, but in doing so, as the saying goes, “war does not tell us who is right. It only tells us who is left.”

The card from the Deck of Shadows, the shadow card that lies under this tarot card, suggests that we think of how concepts of freedom, of creating safe sanctuaries, or how our fight/flight response impacts boundaries we might be imposing on ourselves. We have begun to take flight, and situations may create a catharsis for growth, and perhaps there is freedom to move forward…but the rest of this spread speaks of how we may hold ourselves back.

CHALLENGE: Five of Swords with Urin (Finish/No/Guilty)

Part of our challenge in becoming evolved is our desire to learn by force or take by force. It is said we learn from our mistakes, but this card speaks of an empty victory. History repeating itself and us always having to define an “underdog” from whom we can take may have something to do with this. When we break equality and try to take all for ourselves or squelch rights, is there evolvement?

The Deck of Shadows says, our challenge is completion, of finishing what we have only started. That we are guilty of hanging onto something that holds back true evolution. We continue to use hostility and oppression to reach our goals. We still live with abuse, unfair situations, we sabotage, and we gossip.

Henry Miller, American Author and Writer, (1891-1980) noted our challenges when he said,
“Civilization is drugs, alcohol, engines of war, prostitution, machines and machine slaves, low wages, bad food, bad taste, prisons, reformatories, lunatic asylums, divorce, perversion, brutal sports, suicides, infanticide, cinema, quackery, demagogy, strikes, lockouts, revolutions, putsches, colonization, electric chairs, guillotines, sabotage, floods, famine, disease, gangsters, money barons, horse racing, fashion shows, poodle dogs, chow dogs, Siamese cats, condoms, peccaries, syphilis, gonorrhea, insanity, neuroses, etc., etc.”

WHAT WE HAVE GOING FOR US: Page of Coins with Fear (Attachment/Haunting/Pain)

The good news is that we are encouraged to keep looking, and the practical (rather than logical) sides of ourselves will be what grounds us. We are asked to continue to be perpetual students, to realize our immaturity, to seek knowledge, seek growth, seek skills and experience, and examine what we have before us as well as from where we came.

At the same time, if we can recognize our attachments and addictions, realize the things that haunt and torment our progress, and see what causes world pain, there is where we find the answers to where true evolution resides. Because tarot is not seeing computers and technology as part of this process…it is looking at the more practical, mundane, everyday gentle experiences, the ordinary moments. To find curiosity in our world…and this Page is a gentle, slow-moving card, quite the opposite of the fast, slaying Knight of Swords that we present ourselves as in our “current situation” energy. Pause. Stop to smell the roses. Look at the world as a whole rather than seeing what is at the tips of our noses. Let’s look outside ourselves into the collective.

Pentacles are of the earth element, and we are asked to see the Earth as one, as a whole, to consider ourselves practical students in learning to become One, like the single pentacle being carefully observed in this Page’s hand.

ADVICE: Three of Swords with Underdog (Unequal/Tragedy/Compassion)

Tarot is asking us to take a good, long, hard work at where we need healing. Where are the broken hearts? Where is the pain? Where are we creating hurt? Where do we alienate and separate rather than pull together and create joy? We are asked to look this right in the eye and see our disagreements and ego-riddled perceptions. How do we keep letting pain in?

The number 3 is about self-expansion, so we are asked to confront psychological and physical pain, to look at ego reconstruction, to look at ways we can confront the world’s painful issues, turbulent feelings, divisive beliefs, and hurtful involvement. How does creating the illusion of an underdog benefit us materially, but hold us back in terms of true evolution?

The Deck of Shadows agrees, and asks us to look at where we create inequality, feeling that some are better than others, and how this creates our very tragedy, the reason we are considered adolescents of evolution. Compassion is the key, or as they said in one of my favorite songs, “Love is the Answer.” The greatest of the world’s philosophers and every world religion knows this. Incorporating it into our daily lives and actions is where the difficulty lies. If this is the one key to evolution, will we ever arrive?

LIKELY OUTCOME OF OUR EVOLUTION: Devil Reversed, with Discovery (Awareness/Message/Revelation)

Sadly, we are so closely married to our animal nature, to our need for the physical, to the destructive parts of ourselves that create our own gain at the expense of the rest of the world, that we are most likely to keep in this adolescent phase, to continue to slay to get what we need, to succumb to ego and perception, and to to be bound to the material world. Temptation overrules love, or at least keeps us from loving outside our inner circles. We will continue to live on half-knowledge, chaining ourselves to where we are. We’ll continue to judge on surface appearances, and believe that our way is the only way. This creates a great boundary in our lives, and we continue to oppress.

The Devil card binds us to inertia and fools us all-the-while it is happening. For we see glitz and glitter and lose sight of what is really at the heart of what we are seeking and what we need. Personal pride takes over and our shadow selves rise up. Even those who consider themselves righteous can be overly virtuous at the expense of causing pain. Humanity is – as a whole — overly obsessive about the wrong ideals. We are living in spiritual blindness as a whole, and creating quite an illusion for ourselves while doing it.

We are asked by the Deck of Shadows to continue to work toward awareness, to keep hearing the messages trickled before us, and to have a great revelation, a great awakening, to see what is truly the heart of the matter. Discover it.

HAVE WE EVOLVED?

According to tarot, only slightly. Tarot sees us as being too bound to the material and to our animal nature, but if we could get past the powerful lure of what steers us from evolution — love and equality — only then we will see a huge shift toward true evolutionary depth. Computers and technology don’t seem to come forth in this reading at all, as they aren’t considered the heart of human evolvement. Rather, what is seen her is more at a soul or spiritual level. And living in a material world, we are so deeply bound to our animal nature, that the material is what is keeping us turned away from what we are really seeking. Love, compassion, and equality at all levels.

Hear the song Love is the Answer by England Dan & John Ford Coley by CLICKING HERE.

Name your price
A ticket to paradise
I can’t stay here any more
And I’ve looked high and low
I’ve been from shore, to shore, to shore
If there’s a short cut I’d have found it
But there is no easy way around it
Light of the world, shine on me
Love is the answer
Shine on us all
Set us free
Love is the answer

Who knows why
Someday we all must die
We’re all homeless boys and girls
And we are never heard
It’s such a lonely, lonely, lonely world
People turn their heads
And walk on by
Tell me is it worth just another try
Light of the world, shine on me
Love is the answer
Shine on us all
Set us free
Love is the answer

Tell me, are we alive
Or just a dying planet
(What are the chances)
Ask the man in your heart
For the answer

And when you feel afraid
(Love one another)
When you’ve lost your way
(Love one another)
And when you’re all alone
(Love one another)
And when you’re far from home
(Love one another)
And when you’re down and out
(Love one another)
And when your hopes run out
(Love one another)
And when you need a friend
(Love one another)
And when you’re near the end
(Love)
(We’ve got to love)
(We’ve got to love one another)

Light of the world, shine on me
Love is the answer
Shine on us all
Set us free
Love is the answer
Light of the world, shine on me
Love is the answer
Shine on us all
Set us free
Love is the answer…

Here’s wishing you, a tarot-filled week of compassion and love.

Donnaleigh
www.Donnaleigh.net
Hear my tarot podcast at www.TarotTribe.com
Join me every Friday on Storm Cestavani’s daily Psychic Friends Live at www.StormOnAir.com