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HOW YOU UNWITTINGLY ECLIPSE WHAT YOU DO

HOW YOU UNWITTINGLY ECLIPSE WHAT YOU DO

Last updated on: July 27, 2018 at 6:14 pm by Camelia Elias

HOW YOU UNWITTINGLY ECLIPSE WHAT YOU DO 2018-07-27T18:14:56+02:00 Camelia Elias

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Ciel de France Playing Cards, 1950 (Photo: Camelia Elias)

There’s no such thing in life that’s not called ‘selling’. From the minute you step into life, the steep climb that’s called ‘learning how to sell yourself’ starts.

You’re a sweet baby and learn to grace your mother with a charming smile, you get the lollipop.

The whole premise for the existence of school also rests on learning how to build an identity, skills and competences that you then sell to others.

I’m thinking of all this because it’s eclipse day while I’m enjoying some vacation on top of a mountain in Norway, which means that I have time to re-design my website, or look at the websites of friends that I don’t always have time to enjoy.

Norway bliss (Photo: Camelia Elias)

Something strikes me that has to do with how we eclipse what we’re doing, all according to the domains or careers we’re preoccupied with.

There’s a marked difference in the way we use language to emphasize what we sell, even when we don’t call it that.

Selfie in Norway, pondering on the meaning of life

As a university professor my biggest sell was defined in terms of skills and competence. As an entrepreneur I get enticed to define what I sell in terms of services and products.

Why is this so? Universities are into services and they sell education to students, though you’d be hard pressed to see a university that’s not reluctant to call what they do ‘a business that sells services and products.’

At the other pole, I see that many of my friends in the interpretative and contemplative arts, from divination to Zen and other such related branches, refer to their offerings in terms of services and products. In reality I see that what they sell is very much skills and competence. Why not think of it in those terms?

The point that I’m trying to make here is that, via language, we often eclipse what we do – to our detriment.

If you’re a diviner, how might your website look like if you started calling what you sell knowledge, skills, competence, and originality?

If you’re with the university, how might your sense of worth change if you admitted the reality that as long as you sell your knowledge to students, or go out and beg for a large sack of money for your research from the rich corporations, you’re in no way more special or intelligent than the merchants of the world?

In my own description of what I do these days, I’ve refrained from calling what I sell ‘services’ ‘products’, ‘skills’, ‘knowledge’ or ‘competence’ as I see all this as a unified pack already, part of my constructed identity that I don’t even bother to identify with, as it changes all the time.

What I find most reassuring these days, precisely due to the constant changes that we all undergo whether we like it or not, is that along with the selling pack, what informs our existence is a whole lot of cluelessness.

What do I sell today?

Today I sell the Zen idea that every day is a good day. You’re welcome to buy it.

A new cycle of tarot prompts starts already tomorrow, and it will reflect questions and insights that spring from my interpretative skills, knowledge, and competence as a diviner and philosopher of the cards.

The pack is also original as I’m pretty sure that no one else can match what I have to say, for the simple reason that no one else has access to my head, in precisely the same way I have no access to other people’s heads. So this originality is a far cry from the type of arrogance that sometimes I happen to be accused of suffering from.

Eclipses are good to watch, not apply to your life unwittingly.

Ask your cards:

How do I eclipse what I do, and what might be a better strategy of coping with the darkness that I create around my activities than the natural waiting for it to pass?

Perhaps your cards might say something of this sort based on these images:

If you’re too concerned with what the bad and power-mad kings of the world have to say about what you do, you can be sure to eclipse not only your activities, but also your good health.

If an eclipse happens, make it magical, by calling on the good King to preside over the flow of things.

Make what you have to sell sexy and erotic, pulsating with fresh blood through the hearts. Dance with one partner who becomes you, not with the one who brings misfortune to your business.

Enjoy the eclipse. May it be magical.

♠

Stay in the loop for cartomantic calls, or hop onboard Every Day is a Good Day that starts tomorrow.

About Camelia Elias

Camelia Elias, PhD, Dr.Phil., is a former university professor. After 20 years in the academia, she left her career to pursue her interests in teaching and writing on the philosophy and practice of reading cards. She works with contemplative arts, oracular language, and martial arts cartomancy and Zen at her own school, Aradia Academy. You can read more about the author here.

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