How You Do One Thing Is How You Do Everything

From Whence We Came

I’m a child of the 60s. Being part of the counterculture, rejecting the status quo, speaking out for equal rights, and standing up against tyranny is in my bones.

I truly believe my Resistance-leaning personality goes back much further than advocating Women’s Rights and protesting the Vietnam War. Where does this natural inclination to resist draconian authority originate? I believe lifetimes ago.

Maybe I was branded as a witch—and hanged, burned, or drown. A palm reader told me that I was once a scribe in Atlantis who outed government cover-ups and was banished in disgrace after facing ridicule fueled by the existing regime.

Who knows? Maybe I was Baba Yaga, the fabled witch of Slavik folklore, who also was wrongfully accused and cast out from her home to live in the forest. She later was redeemed, but spent many years isolated from her community. (There are alternate versions of that story that position Baba Yaga as a child-eating ogre… most likely written and repeated by those threatened by feminine power.)

Of course, many women identify with these and other archetypical patterns. Some women believe they were once Joan of Arc, Mother Mary, or Mary Magdalene.

All are true. It’s not necessary that you or I actually once lived as these historical figures. It’s their energy that we embody. And remember, energy cannot be created or destroyed, said Mr. Science, Albert Einstein.

So that’s why I say that it’s in my bones. The soul exists through many lifetimes and carries forward the lived experiences at a cellular level. The physical and spiritual DNA we inherit is at the very core of what makes us who are.

Perhaps that’s why history repeats itself. What I do know is this:

It’s time for a new story.

How you do one thing is how you do everything.

The patriarchy is a container for a belief system of values that is indoctrinated from birth. It’s so ingrained in our culture that almost no one, born anywhere on Earth, is immune to absorbing the construct from infancy forward.

So it’s not a shocker that these tenets are embedded in every aspect of our lives and culture, by what we see modeled in our families and communities, to the movies and television programs we watch, to the books we read, and the music and lyrics of our favorite performers.

But once you become older, or educated enough to question the status quo, or witness the ill effects of “the way it is,” you can’t leave the legitimacy of the paradigm’s authority unquestioned.

That questioning isn’t limited to the actions of the outside world. It begins at home and with oneself. What have I agreed to accept as the norm? as right? What practices and beliefs that don’t serve me or others have become part of my daily life?

And once you start examining your life, your home, your habits, it becomes evident that there’s very little contradiction between your culture’s values and your own lifestyle.

How you do one thing is how you do everything.

An insight of that magnitude can feel overwhelming if you desire to make change. The question most often pondered is, Where do I start?

If you’ve come to the conclusion that most authoritative systems don’t serve the good of the masses, or that the food you’ve been consuming most of your life isn’t nourishing you, or that the healthcare system favors illness over wellness, then you’ve already started.

You notice you choose different movies and television programs to watch. You read different books. Subscribe to different publications. Choose different friends and partners. Use different vocabulary.

Not all of these, of course. And certainly not all at once. But over time, things shift. And that is the way to change the world. One step at a time, one person at a time, beginning with yourself.

Once you begin to pay attention, you realize you have more choice than you thought. People with similar questions and ideas come into your awareness. If you look past what is visible in the mainstream, you find alternative options are available. You start to surround yourself with people and lifestyle choices that support your true beliefs.

That’s what I did. My journey to living an authentic life began about 30 years ago, one small choice to do things differently at a time.

So it won’t come as any surprise to you that my Tarot deck of choice favors a matriarchal structure, rather than the traditional, patriarchy-influenced decks. And since I read cards the way I read literature, it is one way that I…

Walk Away from the Patriarchy using Tarot

I have much to say about Tarot and the patriarchy, and most of that will arrive in the next public issue. As an introduction to that…

I’m including this section and above photo to provide a graphic illustration of patriarchal (bottom row) vs matriarchal (top row) influences on culture, imagery, and general approach to life.

Tell me, could you tell a story by just looking at the words/images from the cards shown in the top row? the bottom row?

Which row shows images more relevant to your life?

These are identical spreads I created using the two different decks. At first glance, you’ll probably notice that the cards do not appear to be identical at all in image, number, or suit. And you’re correct.

The foundational paradigms of the decks are completely reversed. And that changes everything, prompting the question:

Can the world as we know it be turned upside down?

The next post will answer that question.