Welcome to Spiritual Simplicity, our free quarterly Ezine! Let’s get the official stuff out of the way first. If you are receiving this Ezine it means that you have signed up or communicated through www.PsychicSupport.com or www.dharma-talks.com . If you didn't sign up, it means someone thought that you might be interested in Spiritual Simplicity and signed up for you! If you don't wish to receive this Ezine, just respond with "remove" as the subject and we will remove you from our list. We DO NOT sell, rent or ever give a way your email address to anyone!

We look forward to sharing all sorts of loving spiritual ideas and stories that will help you bring more simplicity into your spiritual life as well as your everyday life. We find that inspirational stories and understanding some basic spiritual principles have helped many of us to weed through the mass overdose of Spiritual information out there. We will make every effort not to add to an already overwhelming amount of information. You can look forward to short, yet to the point, easy to comprehend insights ranging from Metaphysics, Tarot, Near Death Insights, an occasional channeled message as well as help for those who are coping with Cancer or other terminal illness. As you can see, a little for every interest!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In This Issue... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1. Sponsor's Ad

2. Cindy's Feature Article: Tarot and the Tragedy

3. Classifieds

4. Dave's Feature Article: Scar the Humpback Whale

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*** Sponsor's Ad ***

Private, Professional, Psychic Readings, by Cindy Griffith

Discover Cindy's interactive web site where she has monthly contests for free readings, Special offers, Stories, Answers to metaphysical questions, Her calendar, Resources and More.

Go to http://www.PsychicSupport.com

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*** Cindy's Feature Article ***

TAROT AND THE TRAGEDY

The following question was posed to me, via my agent. She and others wondered what significance might The Tower card, in the tarot, have as far as the September 11th tragedy. Now for those that are not familiar with The Tower card, I will also explain it the best I can. You will see a roman numeral XVI on the top. This is 16. The card has a black background with a gray tower on top of a gray mountaintop. There are clouds that are gray as well. You see, at the top of the tower, a yellow crown that is blown off the top of the tower by a yellow arrow coming down from above. The arrow is made to look like a lightning bolt. There is fire coming out the top of the tower and the three windows. There are two people jumping out of the window (one with a red cape) and these yellow Yods also seeming to be falling from the sky, almost like rain.

Eden Gray, in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, states that The Tower is said to be the tower of ambition built on false premises. The lightning is seen, as divine fire that destroys only what is evil and purifies and refines what is good. The crown of materialistic thought falls from the tower and the man and woman are falling from the tower of material security, after a brilliant glimpse of Truth. The Yods signify the descent of the life force from above. Traditional Tarot books usually define this card as Chaos, Change, conflict, catastrophe, overthrow of existing ways of life and old notions upset. Gray says "Disruption will bring enlightenment in its wake." I think this is significant for us today.

The Tower is the card seen to represents the realization of a higher power (God) taking off the "crown" of ego. That is why you see the lightning bolt striking and blowing the top of the tower off. It is like when you realize that you are not the only one here, that there is something much greater than you. It is like a fire burns through you and clears away that egocentric side of yourself. You can't take yourself quite so self importantly any more. This is why the people are falling out of the tower and they are not harmed. We are more than our ego, yet we need the ego to live in the human world. It is just that the ego needs to learn it’s place and that it is not the top banana! It is said that the people falling out of the tower represent the ego and that once they land, they will be cleansed and renewed, not killed. All that you built in your life that was soooo important because of your focus on your ego, (your bodily needs, etc.,) gets torn down and you get to start over, on a new and fresh foundation. You then rebuild with the ego-less thought of co-creation and what is built will be strong as it's foundation includes God.

The interesting thing for me was that for the world the twin towers represented our financial interests. These are more egocentric interests and by destroying the towers it brought out the humanitarian or spiritual interests of our people and the rest of the world. Our security being based on our financial strength took the focus away from Spirit. Many of us were really shook up and felt like stability had been taken away when we watched the stock market drop after they reopened. Some of us did some soul searching to see what might we put our faith in if our financial world bottomed out! It is definitely thought provoking.

From what we know, the goal of the terrorists was to bring down the symbol of our financial focus. They were making the point, in a disturbed way, that we should realign our sense of security with Spirit. It is a message that many of the Spiritual teachers and religious leaders have been trying to tell us for a long time. In it’s own bizarre way, it worked. We banded together, gave a lot of donations of money and time. The good part for us is that we turned a tragedy into a spiritual growth opportunity. The entire world came together and faith in Spirit and in our countries beliefs stood strong. Not what the terrorist planned, but it shows that the human spirit is always evolving and that we can learn, grow and evolve from even the most dreadful experiences.

I have also done the Tarot Numerology of the day and it turned out to be a 5 which represents the tarot card, The Hierophant or The Pope. In Tarot, this card stands for Big Brother, Institutions, Government, Corporations, etc., (also the Mafia and the Internet) The United States is also a 5. It was an interesting "coincidence." One of my clients, a wonderful artist and very sensitive man, is also a 5 and he told me that he was feeling almost suicidal the week before the tragedy. Many of us had odd feeling that we couldn't explain. My heart hurt for days before and I said it must be stress of planning a wedding. I think that he had an even stronger reaction as his own numerology is the same as the United State. It gave him an even stronger connection!

The United States year card, the Tarot card that relates to the US this year, is also a 5. It means that this year (from July 4, 2001 through July 4, 2002) the United States will get to experience it’s Soul energy in full force. This is the year that the United States chooses to go to war to defend freedom not only within it’s own borders, but also the world. Tarot Numerology is a fascinating and accurate introspective and divination tool.

Simple? Well... Interesting and thought provoking to be sure! Next issue, I will state from the beginning of the Fool’s journey and each issue we will explore the spiritual side of the tarot, card by card!

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*** Classifieds ***

How to cope with Terminal Illness.

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**Personal Phone Readings** - !!! This IS NOT a 900 Number !!!

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*** Dave's Feature Article ***

SCAR THE HUMPBACK WHALE

Once upon a time. I want to start by saying that because when this story happened it was before my near death experience. Now that I look at it through Spirit, I see it much differently. I now know this story as a much more rewarding experience and wish to share it with you.

Once upon time, we were working with a small tethered submarine off the New England Coast. When we arrived at the work site we noticed that the Humpback Whales were migrating along the Coast. One whale in particular became well known to us, we nicknamed her Scar. Because she had come to close to too many sightseeing boats, so close that the propellers had cut her and her body was covered with scars. Now we figured that Scar was either very friendly or stupid anyway she was a nuisance to shipping. We were working on the ocean floor with our remote operated submarine (ROV). Part of the job required us to launch the submarine everyday so we could survey the ocean floor. To launch the ROV we would lift the submarine from the deck into the sea. Then we would lower the submarine and its cage into the water. After the cage was submerged the small submarine would undock from the cage. Then remote operators would fly the submarine to the sea floor. My job as chief engineer was to insure the submarine was in proper working order. After the submarine was in the water I would normally attend to other ships duties. But Scar made this job different. When the submarine would undock and start to work its way down, Scar would swim under the submarine and began bringing the ROV back to the surface. This of course drove the operators crazy. There was no way they could keep Scar from doing this. Scar thought the small sub was a baby whale and she was trying to bring it to the surface so that the baby could breathe. She didn't want the baby to swim so deep, so she was trying to help it. The scientists and the operators couldn't think of anyway to stop Scar. Then someone thought maybe a diver could distract Scar long enough to get the sub on the bottom. When the sub was on the bottom Scar would leave it alone.

I was the lucky one chosen to go out and distract Scar. So before we would launch the submarine each day, I would get into our zodiac (a small rubber boat) and play around to see if Scar would come. When Scar would come, she would roll on her side so she could look at me with her huge eye. When scar would look at me I felt as if she were looking into my soul. It was a strange and wonderful feeling. Then I would get out of the boat and swim with scar until the small sub was on the bottom and the ship would signal me. At that time we all thought, including myself that scar was a nuisance and that there must be something wrong with her. But no one wished her any harm. And after a few days she no longer came by to visit. The call of migration and her natural rhythms probably pulled her away. But we all remembered her.

Now after my near death experience and many years later I was hiking one day when Spirit reminded me of Scar. I now see how this experience in my life was meant to remind me about unconditional love and the beauty of nature. Scar was not crazy and there was nothing wrong with her. I remember her eye looking at me and when I recall this now I can feel her unconditional love. She had no fear of us and only wanted to do what was right. And she would do it in a most loving and respecting manner. The strength of love overcame her fear of us. And her role in life was to show everyone how beautiful a Humpback Whale is. She would try to roll on her side and take a look at us and understand us. She was willing to undergo the pain of being run over just so she could look at us and communicate love to us. She would show us what beauty and love is. I wish now that I understood this when it was happening so I could have told my shipmates that scar wasn't crazy.

Unconditional love is larger than we are. We have trouble understanding it because we believe that love has conditions. When we love someone we expect him or her to respond in a certain way. That is putting a condition on love. Unconditional love is endless and unifies everyone and everything in this universe. (Kind of large isn't it) It's hard for us to constantly think this way as humans, so for us to conditionally use love is easier. To keep it simple would be to love unconditionally. We keep adding a step to our love and making it complicated. Maybe that is why so many think of love as troublesome. If we expected nothing in return for our love, that would be a truer love.

Everything you do in life is to either give love or receive love. Whether it is in your work or play you are always trying to give love or receive love. Every action that every human has is trying to do one or the other, because you all want to be loved. The societies that mankind has built were built on human emotions. As messed up as they might seem, they give you all the ability to live the life you chose to live. Every act you perform is a call for love or to give love. Even the emotions that you think are negative are ends to a means for love. Greed, hatred and hostility are acts with emotion that you do. You do this to make yourself into what you think will make you be loved or give love. Your gardening or the intense effort you put into work are all making you be the person that will receive love or be able to give love. Because love is everything and everything is love. So when you can love unconditionally you will be a different person and you will have made a giant step for humanity.