Moving On

Im not one to scan newspaper supplements for astrology or horoscope readings. i do have a set of tarot cards though. they were given to me by a really special friend who said that i might need them someday. being only 10 at the time, i was quite bowled over by her prophetic statement (and romanticized it endlessly in my mind - in most cases i was this huge aviation tycoon and i needed to consult the 'sages' - as i called it - for wisdom!) A couple of months back however, going through every teenagers griefs and pains, i actually was rummaging through some old stuff and found this set again. half amused - half exasperated, i sat on my bed and, with the required questions on my mind, i pulled out a card. It was a '8 of water'. the book told me it translated into, to sum it up, 'to move on'. not sure how 'moving on' had anything to do with my problem or solving it, i put the pack away, assuming the time hadn't come to consult them yet. (my tycoon years would be in need of them for sure!)
But 'moving on' got me thinking. to move from... to move past... to get on with your life. a very interesting article i had read once spoke about death in life (this is not 'a coward dies many times in his life, but the brave die only once' bit). we die at every stage. or we are supposed to die. most distinctively when we go from a baby to a child, child to teen, teen to young adult and so on. but we also die with experience. a death in the family, maybe even a random event that struck a cord. its like a snake shedding its skin, or a pupa to a butterfly. its the same entity, but with time its appearance and characteristics might alter. a sort of darwinian evolution at the individual level. we change with experience to survive. the to need to learn from experience equates to a struggle to survive.
My biggest 'what a load of bullshit' moment when i read the 'move on' tarot, was that i assumed there was nothing to move on from. (my inane explanation was that moving on meant there was baggage to be dropped, but a 19 yr old didn't have any baggage DUH!) but its not about baggage or about some distraught childhood that i might have had, it was simply that i hadn't died completely. that i had gone from pupa to moth (butterfly sound too flamboyant!) without dying a pupa. letting go closes a chapter. letting go is a form of dying. it was many months after i first stumbled across this card, that it started to make sense. my one biggest regret, however, is that this was probably my moment of need earlier foretold, and not the 'tyconic' one i had envisioned!