Benevolence...

A gift or a curse?

I'm reading a book at the moment, it's titled "Benevolence" by Julie Janson. It's a story that interweaves historical events and characters and tells the story of Muraging, a young aboriginal girl who was later renamed Mary James. Based on the period in the 1800's when British colonisation arrived in the Hawkesbury River area, New South Wales, Australia. Julie Janson herself is a Burruberongal woman of the Darug Aboriginal Nation and her affinity with the characters and the story is beautiful, heartbreaking, and repulsive. It's palpable.

Reading this book has me reflecting on the feeling of freedom that exists in my world and that I’m so grateful for. To be free to be me and to live a life that is relatively safe, with no threats of my family being taken from me or my identity being deleted. I live on the land that was once an aboriginal settlement, the Boonwurrung in Port Melbourne, Australia, and grew up in a community on Wiradjuri land in New South Wales...

Typing the names of these places leaves a foreboding feeling and a deep respect for the land and its people. My mind can’t understand the atrocities, but my heart certainly can, and it aches. The British government of the 1800’s called it Benevolence…

Even though I've walked down this path of exploration over many years there's always more to integrate, more people to meet, interviews to listen to, another book to read another story to hear. My gut twists and seeks to learn more. I’m in awe of the land that I've walked upon all my life and I'm still discovering its hidden secrets, discarded truths and I know it is up to me, personally (us collectively) to discover the version that resonates personally and to walk with a renewed awareness on the earth.

When something affects us personally, we are pushed to become a witness of the Universe’s Benevolence and sometimes that can be a double-edged sword.

The closest I have been to questioning my safety was during covid. The Victorian state premier was threatening prison to anyone who didn't abide by 'the rules' that made no sense at all. And I wasn't afraid of being sent to prison. The police didn't even say anything when they saw me not within 'the rules'. He kept bleating out orders and threats and apparently thought that he was keeping us all safe and that it was for our own good. We should all be grateful for him.  His version of Benevolence.

He reminds me of this book and the fear that the British brought to the shores when they arrived in Australia. It’s not even close to the degree that Muraging was experiencing, nowhere near it! But the energy of living under a leader that thrives on fear and control, is another misleading form of the same theme.

There's always a blessing through chaos even though it really doesn't feel that way when we are in the thick of it.  When we run from what we don't understand it creates more terror. Where are they running to anyway?

This is the true meaning of Benevolence through the essence of the Universe.

The blessing is to be able to stop, observe and become the witness, be in flow with the experience, feel into it, accept it for what it is and then choose how you would like to react to it. And repeat this as often as we need throughout the day. When we can choose through awareness rather than fear we are practicing the gift of benevolence from the Universe.

I sat with the cards and pulled two:

What unconscious patterns am I be preparing to face? and 

What energy will best serve my breakthrough of this pattern?

When I saw these two cards come out side by side I, once again, sat in awe of the cards and their non-avoidant way of speaking to a topic.

#16 - THE TOWER (Mars in Aries): Frida Kahlo is the depiction in the Tarot Cards of the Modern Goddesses. From the LWB “Frida Kahlo rebelled against death by living fully with passion and intensity”.

The Tower card is the moment where the Ego has lost its grip on our inner being and the facade of a life once lived is no longer visible.  Only the remains and rubble of a previously considered and planned out life exists. Mars in Aries is hard to contain when its seeking attention and your inner being is screaming out to drop the façade that’s been holding you down and learn to fly!

What part of your life has felt like a prison that the ego has kept you imprisoned in? What are you ready to break down and through in your relationships, career, lifestyle, behaviours, finances, health, spirituality? Start small and weave in sympathetic magick in preparation for greater lessons.

#13 – DEATH (Pluto in Scorpio): Matangi, the Indian goddess of the arts, music, poetry, healing, and births. From the LWB “Matangi is both sound and silence. She resides on the tip of the tongue where we taste the essence of things, where we can distinguish the nectar of poison”.

I can’t help but notice in the image of the Tower there is a discarded spinal column and pelvis on the ground. And in the Death card, sternum and ribs on Matangi. In the tower we discard and destroy and in Death there is a rebirth.

In some tarot cards the Death card depicts a butterfly emerging from the cocoon. It made me think about the Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF) (from atmayoga.in) “is the sacred secretion, the fluid that initiates an alchemy of transformation”. And that the CSR also cushions organs, picks up needed supplies from your blood, and gets rid of waste products from brain cells.

By honouring your spine, it remains subtle and flexible, able to stretch beyond the limits of the mind to allow the alchemy of transformation to be realised.

What old thoughts or dogmas are you holding onto that no longer serve?  How can you stretch your mind and body more? And how can you become your own benevolent alchemist?

Something to ponder…

Tania x