Peeping into Time

Today's card shows a man with a set of binoculars. Even though it's not intended, he looks a bit shifty, prying on those things far away. My boyfriend and I started watching Hitchcock's 'Rear Window' last night and it reminds me a little of that. I don't think I have seen that film since I was a teenager. There was a season of Jimmy Stewart movies on at one point and my mum and I would go up and watch them in my room on a Saturday afternoon while my dad watched the sport downstairs. 'Rear Window' was always one of my favourites. They never seem to play those old movies on the weekend afternoons anymore. It used to be a given when I was in my teens. I guess that the gap between now and the 50s is too great and many young people just can't relate. I don't miss the Carry On's or the naff British slapstick that always seemed to be broadcast around Sunday afternoon teatime, but I do yearn for old classics like Niagara, Sunset Boulevard, The African Queen, and Don't Bother to Knock.

Today's card is about looking into the future. That shady guy isn't peeping into windows. He's peeping into time. Today's name, Hey Resh Yud, is about clear vision. It is about removing blindfolds, cause and effect, and the ability to see the full-grown tree within the newly planted seed. So for today, the card either describes something I should have seen coming or a result in the distance of time that I have the privilege of witnessing now through foresight. This is a far more difficult concept to deal with than you might think. There are times where what we see can be so upsetting, worrying, or scary, that we pull down our binoculars and stop looking. Without the time it takes to make the journey to our destination in the future, what we see can be frightening. It's like drawing back your curtains and finding that a sapling in your garden has grown into a full-grown Oak tree overnight.

Sometimes, I think we choose to ignore insight. We push what we see to the side, hoping that things will somehow turn out different. Insight is a great way of helping us change direction. Cards can tell you what they see in the future, but if we couldn't alter the journey and our fate is fixed, what would be the point of drawing them in the first place? My lifestyle is very different to how it was a couple of years ago. My friend said that she thinks I have turned a corner. She is right, but I still see roads running off towards possible difficulties as I tread my own personal path. It's whether my foresight is strong enough to keep me on the straight and narrow. With a group of my friends trying to tempt me into a big and alcohol-fueled night out on the town this evening, I must stay strong if I don't want to slip into a place I have seen and visited many times before. Isn't that the strength and point of this kabbalistic name?


Illustration from The 72 Names of God Meditation Cards by Hyun Min Lee