The Heart of Self-Possession

I'm taking part in an Instagram "challenge" for June, hosted by @spiralseatarot, that focuses on our connections to spirit guides. For Day 10 the prompt asks participants to pull a card around the way in which your guide is helping you at present.

New Orleans Voodoo Tarot/S.A. Glassman

As I was shuffling, Secret Societies came flying out of the deck. This card is typically associated with Justice in a traditional set of cards, but there is more going on here. This card shows an initiate into a secret society who is sent, hands restrained, into the wild to experience the feeling of being at the mercy of the cosmos. Animals could attack, you could trip and fall, you could lose yourself in the foliage in the deep black of night. But that is also the point: this card is about having such a deep rootedness in your identity, your history, such a deep understanding of who you are, that you can look fear in the eye bravely and not run away. You can allow these creatures of the shadow to look into your eyes, to examine every part of your being, without looking down, without feeling ashamed or unworthy. You stand in your own skin, with no inclination to prove anything, or to justify your place there, no impulse to apologize for who and what you are, no urge to lower others in order to feel mightier. That is the heart of self-possession, the essence of personal balance, the center of a cool mind that weighs the scales fairly and is open to being measured in return.

Yesterday I was reading an article about how much fear we deal with in modern society, on an everyday basis. Fear is a powerful tool that can limit our growth and prevent us from understanding the beautiful immensity of our own beings. If my guide is helping to support me in learning to fully embody and honor my own essence, how can I be anything other than willing to open myself to that teaching?