The Caregiver as the Page of Swords

Make a proper investigation first.
-- Buddha

I hold the Rider-Waite Tarot Deck and ask, "What helpful information can I pass along to the caregivers reading my blog?" I shuffle the cards, cut the deck, run my left hand over the spread and intuitively pull the Page of Swords (also known as the Princess or Daughter of Swords).

The Page of Swords, I believe, describes in a nutshell the ideal caregiver . Each and every caregiver who does not have the qualities and attributes of the Page of Swords must, simply must, develop them -- and fast! -- to serve their loved one effectively, to give their very best, to make the loved one's difficult situation a little lighter.

Here is a sampling of what various sources say about the Page of Swords.

The Little White Book that came with the deck describes the Page of Swords:

A lithe, active figure holds a sword upright in both hands, while in the act of swift walking.

The Tarot Directory, by Annie Lionnet, spells out the message of the Page of Swords:

This card indicates that you will have to make some careful decisions that require clear thinking and level-headedness. It is important to keep a proper sense of perspective.

In Tarot for Life: Reading the Cards for Everyday Guidance and Growth, Paul Quinn says about the Page of Swords:

Keyword: Investigation
Being: Emotionally detached, intellectually engaged, intrigued, observant, inquisitive, skeptical.
Doing: Asking questions, grasping concepts, getting the facts, cutting through obstacles, holding your ground, striving for objectivity.

In Tarot for Yourself: A Workbook for Personal Transformation, the author, Mary K. Greer, describes the Page of Swords and asks urgent questions of us:

Seeks justice and truth. Cuts through depression and heavy, stormy thoughts. Takes risks with communications. Cuts through cloudy thought to get at the truth of the matter.

Questions to Answer:
What do you have to say? What fears must you face?

Sample Affirmation:
I face my fears and depressions and risk cutting through them.

I don't know what more I could possibly add to what these books reveal. I don't know of a more perfect card, or a more targeted message for a caregiver. Be an active and swiftly-moving caregiver. Keep your head about you when making decisions related to your loved one and always, always, serve their best interests. Do your homework. Be an advocate. Make friends with your fears and your moods. There will be plenty of them along the caregiver's path.

What a great opportunity we caregivers have -- to give the gift of caregiving, and to give it wholly and willingly from the deepest part of our hearts.

Juliet's Personality and Soul Card

In my previous post, I talked about Romeo's Personality and Soul Card. Now it's time to talk about me and my Personality and Soul cards.

I made calculations to determine which of the Major Arcana tarot cards represent both my Personality and Soul cards and Romeo's (see instructions below for how to determine your Personality and Soul cards). You can think of the Personality and Soul cards as being similar to astrological signs. They are your personal lifetime cards. They help give insight into your life, to your personal journey.

The Personality card symbolizes what you've come into this particular lifetime to experience, learn, study. The Soul card indicates your soul's purpose throughout all of your lifetimes. As it happens, my Personality card and Soul card is the same card, and so is Romeo's, albeit we each have different cards. Because our Personality cards and Soul cards are the same, it means that we're both working specifically on our soul's purpose. It means that we are more focused, more direct. The word intense comes to mind.

My Personality and Soul card is The Hermit. Romeo's is The Chariot. Here's my take on what The Hermit symbolizes in my life.

The Hermit is about the inner life and spiritual quests, about the higher self, the inner voice and about following its guidance. The Hermit speaks directly to my life as caregiver to Romeo, as it implies that the forced limitation and circumstance of his dementia cannot be changed. Even time cannot change the fact that Romeo has dementia. Time will only make it worse, more pronounced. It will take Romeo over completely.

By accepting Romeo's dementia as well as my role as his caregiver, I've come to realize that it's best not to struggle against the the situation. And through this realization has come a sort of calm acceptance, a graceful humility that has helped me navigate the ups and downs of my caregiving life that could very well have been unmanageable without The Hermit's steady, wise influence. Not to say that there aren't challenging times -- there are plenty. However, The Hermit's presence is a reminder that I can choose to trust the bumps and falls that are part of being a caregiver, that come with loving someone with dementia. I can only watch in silence as our lives unfold, as Romeo's dementia progresses. I can only listen as my inner voice guides me to say, to do whatever is best for Romeo, for me.

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To determine your Personality and Soul cards, follow this process (from Tarot for Yourself: a Workbook for Personal Transformation, by Mary K. Greer):

Add together your month, day, and year of birth.

Example:

October 14, 1947

10 + 14 + 1947 = 1971

Then add each digit. 1 + 9 + 7 + 1 = 18.

If the resulting number is 1-22 (as it is in this example), this is your Personality Number. Then match up the number with the corresponding Major Arcana card. In this example, it's the 18th Major Arcana card, The Moon. To determine the Soul Number, add 1 + 8 = 9. The corresponding Major Arcana card is #9, The Hermit.

When the birthdate number adds up to be more than 22, reduce the number down to 22 or less. This is the case for both Romeo's birthdate and mine.

Romeo's birthdate:

November 23, 1944

11 + 23 + 1944 = 1978

1 + 9 + 7 + 8 = 25

2 + 5 = 7

Corresponds to Major Arcana card #7, The Chariot

Juliet's birthdate:

September 28, 1952

9 + 28 + 1952 = 1989

1 + 9 + 8 + 9 = 27

2 + 7 = 9

Corresponds to Major Arcana card #9, The Hermit

When the birthdate is reduced to a 1-22 number, the corresponding Major Arcana card is both that person's Personality and Soul cards. This means that in this lifetime, you're working specifically on your soul purpose, which makes you more focused and directed.

Romeo's Personality and Soul Card

I must admit that I have a difficult time reading Romeo's tarot cards. I suspect it's because of his dementia. The information that's transmitted to me is scrambled, garbled, out of focus, and I haven't been able to relate it to his life...because his life isn't a typical life. It's a life with dementia.

I am by no means an expert at tarot. I dabble in it. Or should I say that I dabble at dabbling in it. So I'm lost and don't know what to make of Romeo's cards. Nevertheless, I'll take a stab at it. Who knows? Something useful or insightful may come out of my ramblings.

I made calculations to determine which of the Major Arcana tarot cards represent both Romeo's and my Personality and Soul cards (see instructions below for how to determine your Personality and Soul cards). You can think of the Personality and Soul cards as being similar to astrological signs. They are your personal lifetime cards. They help give insight into your life, to your personal journey.

The Personality card symbolizes what you've come into this particular lifetime to experience, learn, study. The Soul card indicates your soul's purpose throughout all of your lifetimes. As it happens, Romeo's Personality card and his Soul card is the same card, and so is mine, albeit we each have different cards. Because our Personality cards and Soul cards are the same, it means that we're both working specifically on our soul's purpose. It means that we are more focused, more direct. The word intense comes to mind.

Romeo's Personality and Soul card is The Chariot. Mine is The Hermit. Here's my take on Romeo's Chariot as it relates to his life (for an interpretation of my Personality and Soul card, see the next post).

Typically, The Chariot is about harnessing and directing all of your forces toward your goal, about taming your fears and staying in tune with your inner wisdom so you can fight for what's important to you, to meet your challenges and be able to succeed.

As Romeo's Personality card, as his Soul card, does this accurately represent what his life has been about? I do not know. He's had dementia during most of our time together, and I don't know if his recall of his life is accurate. I know he was and still is a spiritual seeker, that it has been his driving force for many years, that he traveled to India from his home in Britain and then eventually to Oregon to be with his spiritual teacher.

Throughout Romeo's life, he wasn't interested in raising a family, he wasn't interested in developing his career as a computer programmer, and he wasn't interested in accumulating material things. His life was about spirituality. His goal was spiritual development, his goal was enlightenment. Period. He was focused, it was easy for him to stay on target, and he struck down obstacles with such ease that they hardly seemed like challenges.

In this sense, The Chariot proves him right as a Personality and Soul card -- he most definitely has been successful at directing all of his energy toward his goal, toward spiritual development, and he's been so successful that a number of people believe him to be enlightened. I know better -- I've lived with him -- wink, wink, grin, grin. But he is the most spiritually developed person I know. Romeo is my hero, my rock, my lighthouse.

Now, with dementia, Romeo's light is fading, and he no longer thinks of spiritual development. He doesn't quite follow the logic in our spiritual discussions, although he comes up with some insights that wow me.

Is the tarot game over? Does Romeo have any life purpose and soul purpose left? He claims he has no goals. I think he does. He may not be conscious of them, but he is definitely living a purpose, contributing something in his every day life, at least on his "good" days. He is a channel for Love. It seeps out of him as he greets people, as he speaks with them, interacts with them, and even as he simply sits silently. He is Love. Simple, pure. He melts hearts and raises the level of love present in the room. What an honor it is for anyone to be in the presence of this man -- whether they know it or not.

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To determine your Personality and Soul cards, follow this process (from Tarot for Yourself: a Workbook for Personal Transformation, by Mary K. Greer):

Add together your month, day, and year of birth.

Example:

October 14, 1947

10 + 14 + 1947 = 1971

Then add each digit. 1 + 9 + 7 + 1 = 18.

If the resulting number is 1-22 (as it is in this example), this is your Personality Number. Then match up the number with the corresponding Major Arcana card. In this example, it's the 18th Major Arcana card, The Moon. To determine the Soul Number, add 1 + 8 = 9. The corresponding Major Arcana card is #9, The Hermit.

When the birthdate number adds up to be more than 22, reduce the number down to 22 or less. This is the case for both Romeo's birthdate and mine.

Romeo's birthdate:

November 23, 1944

11 + 23 + 1944 = 1978

1 + 9 + 7 + 8 = 25

2 + 5 = 7

Corresponds to Major Arcana card #7, The Chariot

Juliet's birthdate:

September 28, 1952

9 + 28 + 1952 = 1989

1 + 9 + 8 + 9 = 27

2 + 7 = 9

Corresponds to Major Arcana card #9, The Hermit

When the birthdate is reduced to a 1-22 number, the corresponding Major Arcana card is both that person's Personality and Soul cards. This means that in this lifetime, you're working specifically on your soul purpose, which makes you more focused and directed.

The Caregiver Pulls the Queen of Cups

You don't have to go looking for love
when it's where you come from.
-- Werner Erhard

Cards featured in previous posts:
The Emperor on a Caregiver's Path
The Tower and the Caregiver
The Fool's Journey With Dementia

Another day, another tarot card. Today the Queen of Cups jumped out of the deck to share her wisdom as it relates to my life.

This interpretation of the Queen of Cups is from The Tarot Directory, by Annie Lionnet:

A readiness to express your innermost feelings to the world is the message of the Queen of Cups. Someone who embodies her qualities may play a significant role in your life, or you may be ready to embrace these attributes for yourself. You may be about to start a project that gives your creative or artistic skills great expression, or to embark on a relationship that is warm, loving, and sensual. This card suggests that you are tuned into the promptings of your unconscious mind and the inspiration that springs from within. Your foresight and maturity will help you to make choices that are beneficial to you. Your ability to know how you are feeling acts as a strong harmonious influence that others find endearing.

And from Tarot for Yourself: A Workbook for Personal Transformation, by Mary K. Greer:

The Queen of Cups channels feelings, emotions, dreams, visions. She is the Muse, the Enchantress. She is psychic and deeply emotional, fluctuating like the moon in her emotions. She must be near water and reflects the unconscious in others. She is usually empathetic and understanding, but can be moody and deceitful. Love of love.

Questions to Answer: Who wants to protect you and shower you with affection? How are you working with or expressing your unconscious? How are you expressing your emotions? Who is insipring you with their dreams and openness?

Sample Affirmation: I recognize the depth of my emotions and my ability to attract and enchant those around me.

Finally, from The Tarot Handbook: Practical Applications of Ancient Visual Symbols, by Angeles Arrien:

The Queen of Cups represents the responsibility of communicating your feelings accurately during the water sign months of Pisces (February 21-March 21), Cancer (June 21-July 21), and Scorpio (October 21-November 21), or to water sign people in your life. The Queen of Cups also requires that you reflect yourself honestly as you make changes or give birth to new identities, new forms, new talents, or new life styles. It is important that you express yourself authentically to water sign people and in the water sign months as you make these changes or give birth to new parts of your life. As a visual affirmation, the Queen of Cups empowers an individual to express feelings honestly and responsibly.

Oh boy, am I in joyful trouble...how can these cards be so right all the time?!!!

The Emperor on a Caregiver's Path

The universal order
and the personal order
are nothing but different
expressions and manifestations
of a common underlying principle.
-- Marcus Aurelius

You may recall from two previous posts that I sometimes pull a tarot card to help guide me through the day. Previous posts:

The Fool's Journey With Dementia

The Tower and the Caregiver

Today, the Emperor showed up.

Here are a few thoughts about what the Emperor symbolizes: authority, handling the material part of life, inner strength, manifesting creative ideas, creating order out of chaos, exercising authority, setting boundaries and working within a structure, analyzing and thinking rationally, making tough decisions, beginning and initiating new things.

These sound like great "qualifications" to include on a resume, but by showing up today, the Emperor reminds me that it's time to play an active role in setting my life in order. It's time to take control of my situation, put my life on a different course. Romeo's life in the nursing home is under control. His care happens without effort from me. I want to channel my newly-found time to creative, productive endeavors. It's time now to examine, perhaps to reaffirm, where my ambitions lie, to rediscover what I'm doing, organizing, building. Time to make decisions about my future -- a future that does not include Romeo. My work cannot include Romeo.

According to the Emperor, my vision of this new future includes translating my dreams into reality, acting on my decisions, and taking personal responsibility for all of it. I am driven to achievement, to working hard for whatever I determine to be the new course of my life.

The symbolism of the Emperor indicates this, and I also feel a strong intuitive sense of it. It is time to get to work, time to point my energy to the outside world, to give it the fruits of my caregiving experience. At this point, I'm not sure what that looks like, nor do I have much of a clue. I know only that I, like the Emperor, will follow up on these ambitions, will take an active role in shaping my future, and will do it with the true authority that is rooted in the wisdom that comes from my heart.

The Tower and the Caregiver

We turn to God for help
when our foundations are shaking,
only to learn it is God
who is shaking them.
-- Charles C. West

Last night I had an "aha" moment, a lightning flash of revelation, if you will, where I realized, where I really KNEW that I had just experienced a shift in consciousness. I am done, finished, living my life as I have been.

And today I randomly pulled this tarot card -- The Tower -- and oh dear. Yep, it's true. There's that lightning flash, there's the fire destroying everything I have built to this point. If catharsis is not yet complete, it's close.

This is a true upheaval, a crisis of the soul. Yet, since this shift in consciousness last night, I am calm in the face of the chaos. I move forward, intensely rededicated and refocused to certain aspects of my life, while leaving room for other possibilities to surface.

The rebuilding has begun even before the tower has been completely toppled. I expect that these foundations which I cherished will also liberate me as they crumble. I expect the rude awakenings that have come my way, one after another, after another, after another, have accelerated my growth. Seldom do I experience many of life's upheavals. Instead, I either stand by, an unconnected third party unable to tear my eyes from the morbid scene, and simply watch the unfolding, or participate only as an actor on the stage of my life.

Yes, I am going through major changes now that Romeo lives in a nursing home. Things will never be the same again. Yet, I now have the chance to rethink, reevaluate, and rebuild my life to what I want it to be. I now have the chance to realign with my true self. And while this is a tumultuous process, there is a new sort of freedom and spiritual growth sprouting from the base of that tower.

The Fool's Journey With Dementia

Fear Not.
What is not real, never was
and never will be.
What is real, always was
and cannot be destroyed.
-- Bhagavad Gita

Some mornings I'll pick up one of my tarot card decks, ask it to remind me what I need to remember that day, and choose a card. Each time I've done this, a nugget or two of juicy information I probably would not have thought of on my own surfaces to guide not only that day, but the others that follow.

Today's card is The Fool. The photo at the right shows The Fool card from the Rider-Waite tarot deck. Although there are hundreds of tarot decks (if not thousands), the R-W is commonly used to depict the symbolism of the tarot. Many decks are based on the symbolism in the R-W.

But this isn't a blog about tarot, so I'll cut to the chase and tell you what The Fool told me. It relates, of course, to living with Romeo's dementia. I give much of my time to Romeo. I do it because it's required of me, because I want to, because I enjoy being with Romeo, because I want him to be as content and comfortable as possible, because what we have together goes beyond common romantic love, beyond a typical husband/wife relationship.

This journey with dementia that we're in the thick of is the major theme in both of our lives currently. It is quite likely our lives will go on this way for some time yet. Whether or not it does, the longer and further we travel the road, beyond the gates of the city, beyond what is generally considered a life of normalcy, the more Romeo and I must fly by the seat of our pants.

The Fool, you see, represents the both of us, Romeo and Juliet -- not just Juliet, not just Romeo -- but the two of us, each as separate Fools, as well as the two of us combined into one Fool. The Fool reminds us that this dementia trip is no ordinary journey. We are called on to live in a place where anticipation is the norm, where not knowing what will happen next or when it will happen is standard operating procedure. We are called to invoke our courage, to live in a place without fear, to live this wonder tale with joy and gratitude.

As Romeo's dementia progresses, we travel with everything we need already in our possession: courage, love, ecstasy, wonder, intuitive guidance, creativity, innocence, trust. The progression of Romeo's dementia, the fact that I can no longer care for him at home, calls him to draw on each of these characteristics constantly (if he can remember) as he goes about his day. Having dementia is difficult for him.

Romeo's dementia likewise demands that I, as Romeo's caregiver and advocate, continually come from the essence of who I am to stand up for Romeo each moment of every day since he cannot, to love him for who he is (for he is not his dementia), to live our lives together, and to live my own life as well, separate from Romeo. To live with wonder, with ecstasy, without guilt.

It also demands that I ride the waves of creative energies coming my way on the crest of this wonder and ecstasy, that I transform it and transcend it, that I travel without looking where I'm stepping, trusting that a little nip at my heels will be enough to warn me of any impending danger in time to act. And to do it all alone.

As serious as it is to live with dementia, to be a caregiver for someone with dementia, there is much living to be done within it. Romeo and I are on an accelerated journey to...somewhere.