“The figure in this card is completely relaxed and at ease in the water, letting it take him where it will. He has mastered the art of being passive and receptive without being dull or sleepy. He is just available to the currents of life, with never a thought of saying "I don't like that," or "I prefer to go the other way." Every moment in life we have a choice whether to enter life's waters and float, or to try to swim upstream. When this card appears in a reading it is an indication that you are able to float now, trusting that life will support you in your relaxation and take you exactly where it wants you to go. Allow this feeling of trust and relaxation to grow more and more; everything is happening exactly as it should.”
I think the tendency I may have had in the past with this card would be to interpret this information in such a way where I would ‘go with the flow’ as in to not apply myself fully, not direct myself, and giving up my self-directive principle within the interpretation that ‘life’, as some outside force or entity, has got everything taken care of, and I can just sit back and relax. Within this, what happens is that I get too comfortable and fall into the trap of ‘comfort zones’, where I end up procrastinating, becoming lazy and stagnant, and then accumulate undirected energy in the form of anxiety and stress, because deep down I know this way of living is not what’s best or beneficial to me or anyone.
Through walking a process with Desteni, I would now change my interpretation of the phrase “trusting that life will support you in your relaxation and take you exactly where it wants you to go” as a trust in myself AS life, with the journey being more of an internal journey of self-creation. The “where I want to go” is to reach my utmost potential, because this journey is where I actually have the most power and control in the form of self-control or self-mastery. I can ‘go with the flow in terms of getting to know myself, testing things and letting them play out to see who I am within them, and then check in with myself to see where I require adjustments and changes. Remembering that I am that force that I can trust, that Self-Trust that I have been developing and continue to develop. I can relax and be at ease within myself because I know that I can investigate and direct that which causes friction and dis-ease within me, and I can change it.
What I do not have complete control over are the external factors and situations I find myself in in life, and so there is a certain amount of ‘going with the flow’ involved there as I make myself “available to the currents of life” by remembering that I always have a say in Who I Am in any given situation, how I react to it, whether or not I judge or become emotional about it. I can direct myself to the best of my ability within the currents of life while not fighting or struggling against them.
“Being passive and receptive without being dull or sleepy” to me also means that I can let go of the desire for security and control over my external reality, which has the tendency to create stress and anxiety within me, and instead I can remain alert and aware of Who I Am within the waters of life, including the currents, the storms and the stagnations. Instead of trying to control the situation, I practice self-mastery and master the waters within me.
This process is only as difficult as we chose to make it. I have for too long accepted and allowed myself to subconsciously want life to be hard and to be a struggle, thinking and believing that if I am not burdened and struggling, that I am not fully living. What I can take from this is that I know I am capable to direct myself when things are difficult, and I enjoy a challenge – but that difficulty and challenge does not have to come from me struggling to control my environment or burdening myself with thoughts, judgments, reactions and fears. I can challenge myself instead with learning what it really means to take responsibility – to be and become self-responsible, to learn and practice self-creation, and what it means to create myself as the person I want to be. That, in itself, is challenging enough! There is no need to place any more difficulty than is necessary.
So, when I pull a card that is ‘an indication that you are able to float now, trusting that life will support you in your relaxation and take you exactly where it wants you to go”, I see this as my ability to direct myself, and to trust in, and not fight that self-direction, and within this, to continue to develop that trust in myself AS Life. I have often paired “going with the flow” with the words ‘structure’ and ‘flexibility’ in a complimentary support system of words that work best when lived together.
I just recently moved back to a farm and communal living environment, where there are lots of people and projects that have differing schedules as well as weather and internet requirements which change all the time. Additionally, there are animals and children with needs that can pop up unexpectedly. Needless to say, the structure here is ever-changing and ever-fluctuating, so developing a structure within this has been quite a challenge for me in the past.
The challenge is creating a structure and then being adaptable in every moment. This requires the ability and discipline to structure my time and schedule, as well as the flexibility to change in a moment’s notice, and the art of ‘going with the flow’, as I cannot think about only myself, and must flow with the other people, animals and environment. Having pulled the ‘going with the flow’ card on my first day back is quite a good support and reminder of words to live particularly in this environment. I am used to a life of school and work, both which basically structured my time for me. Here there is no such rigid schedule, and everybody must work together to get things done.
I look forward to living the words ‘go with the flow’, within the understanding that it involves developing the discipline of self-direction, and the realization that I can trust myself to walk the process to get it done. This puts me at ease and at peace because the process is a forgiving one, and I can walk it gently.