Susan Marte’s Ocean Oracle – Crab

Same Basic Message

Given that we’re starting a new week, I asked for some collective guidance, because surely we could all use something to hold onto amidst the insanity. Lo and behold – yet again, we receive the same basic message.

There’s no way anyone would’ve believed it if one of us had time-traveled back ten months to our naïve selves celebrating on New Year’s Eve and described what we just witnessed in the last six days. And I literally mean just the past six days – starting with the debate debacle, which is now taking on overtones of suspiciously germy intentions, and ending with the Ride to Nowhere DT indulged in early this evening.

Shifting Our Perceptions

I kid you not. I consulted the Ocean Oracle and simply asked what we need to keep in mind this week as we seek to maintain some semblance of balance and normality in these distinctly imbalanced and abnormal circumstances. I chose Crab – Lateral Thinking.

I’m going to quote the entire passage directly from the guidebook because, well, it all feels relevant. Do with it what you will:

26 – Crab – Lateral Thinking

The Story

“It just wasn’t working anymore. The way he was doing it was just not working. He had gone down to the beach to think. His head was full of ideas, different avenues, where to go, what was the best way, which way would work. Thought after thought after thought. Round and round and round. He settle himself by a rock pool and stared into the deep blue water left behind as the tide receded. Movement caught his eye. It was a crab, seemingly trapped in this space. He watched as the crab moved this way and that, trying to get himself out of the pool. Back and forth, round and round. Still, the crab could not breach this prison. He watched as the crab stilled itself and then began moving in a different pattern. This allowed him to break free and move off in an entirely new direction, freeing himself from that which confined him.

The Messages

Are you being pinched by a situation where your regular thought patterns, your regular mode of doing things, is not working? Incorporate lateral thinking, thinking outside the square. Remove yourself from how you usually attack situations. Shift your perceptions. Try a different tact to help come clear from what keeps you stuck.” (emphasis added)

One Short Month Ago

Only one short month ago, we received our first clear message that we are to begin shifting our perceptions if we’re to successfully navigate these extremely unsettling times.

Five days ago, that message was reiterated, albeit simply via my own spontaneous suggestion that we engage in some deliberately thoughtful tracking of our perceptions as we encounter each day in this potentially provocative October – what with its two full moons and myriad other powerfully challenging astrological aspects.

No sooner had I spit those words out when, well, ‘just another day in 2020’ unfolded.

So let’s do this. We cannot shift our perceptions if we’re not aware of our initial perceptions. We must start questioning how we look at our world. What are we willing to accept as normal? Do our assumptions about people, institutions, structures in our society, still have validity?

What are we seeing? What are we hearing? Is it too difficult to believe our eyes or ears so we tell ourselves it’s not what is right in front of us?

Clearly, our perceptions are a key to navigating these times. To shift them, we first must know what and where they are now.

(T-418)