The Devil and The Star

The title to this post refers to two cards I pulled up when recently getting my Tarot reading by a fellow PCV. Needless to say, getting The Devil was a little unnerving. However, the card came up in the slot for "the past," and was followed by the hyper positive, all evil erasing card, The Star in slot for "the present." Whew. Of course, we all have our inner demons and destructive behaviors that hold us back and bring us down, which is what The Devil card represents. The advice most generally given is to acknowledge this reality and come to peace with it. Try to ignore it and is gets a hold on you, give into it completely and you turn into Charlie Sheen.

Sometimes it just feels easier to throw in the towel in the face of frustration and disappointment. I relate this now to my ongoing work in the community. Things rarely turn out as you'd hope. You plan activities, invite people, and only a couple turn up, or the school last minute changes the hour of your activity, or it rains, etc, etc. But here you are, for TWO years, what can you do? You keep trying, you experiment, and try to move forward. In the last leg of this experience I look back to some of my "failed projects," and realize they weren't failures at all. I had thought of them as such because they didn't go as far as I had wanted, or we didn't do all my planned activities. But bottom line, we did something. I did work with teen girls on self-esteem and pregnancy prevention. My literacy group made visible progress, from being shy kids afraid to speak out to kids reading stories and performing puppet shows for their peers.

In the day to day as well, when we can acknowledge what it is that holds us back and make even the smallest steps to balance it out we can make change. Even if it's small, it counts.