Serenity of minding my own business

What can I do today to help keep me on the course that will change my life for the better?

This card from Tarot de St Croix by Lisa de St Croix is the Four of Pentacles. The LWB says only, 'The child is the Emperor of her domain, focusing on building a castle without concern about the tide. Meaning: controlling your own projects.'

Now, I find this interesting. 'Controlling your own projects' reminds me very much of the 12-step literature I've been reading lately. The one lesson that is repeated over and over again is that there are things in this life that we are powerless over and that we should learn to accept this. Buddhism has a similar philosophy, teaching that the struggle against accepting reality is the cause of all suffering. We are also taught to tend to our own business and no one else's. I like how this little girl is building her sand castle in the safe zone (just above the tide line) instead of far, far up the beach near where the cars are parked. It shows that she has trust and that she also acknowledges that she is powerless--that there are things that she cannot control. In this case, her business is to get on with building her sand castle. She takes  precautions - she has set a 'boundary', the tide line - and then she focuses herself on her own task. She doesn't sit and stare morosely out to sea, afraid to make a start. She doesn't build the castle on the wet sand, defying the ocean to come in and knock it down. She knows that she is both safe and not safe. That things are under her control and beyond her control.

The thing I can do today to help keep me on the course that will change my life for the better is to 'keep to my side of the street', as they say in recovery language. And also to remember that while there are things beyond my control, things I am powerless over, I don't have to fear them. I can live alongside them, by letting go, with the same serenity and acceptance shown by this little girl.

Tarot de St Croix, Devera Publishing 2013