Playing the Hand You've been Dealt
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Still life at Santa Fe International Hostel
Card URL: http://www.zaporacle.com/card/playing-the-hand-youve-been-dealt-2/
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"The fates guide him who will; him who won't, they drag." — Ancient Greeks

Play the cards you've been dealt with impeccability. Skillful play involves accepting the cards you have at the moment, a focus that is easily lost if you fantasize about the cards you would have preferred to be dealt.

Our incarnation supplies us with long-term cards and a more dynamic flow of short-term cards. Hindus believe karma determines key birth variables: intelligence, physical strength, physical beauty, and social position (the family you were born into).

The fact that you are reading this indicates that you were dealt into incarnation. You received a set of cards at birth, and are dealt new ones throughout your life. The cards represent resources (inner and outer), opportunities, and challenges. Joker and wild cards are dealt as shocks and unexpected events. The unconscious person interprets these cards as good or bad luck. If they get a run of cards they like, they presume upon their luck and gamble disastrously. If they get a run of cards they don't like, they indulge in self-pity, curse their fate, and look to be rescued by new cards. The Warrior has a more consistent focus on playing skillfully with whatever the hand is at the moment. A Warrior with a capital "W" seeks to play the present hand to promote core values such as developing greater awareness and service to others.

Depending on how this card occurs in your reading, it may also be a message about your relationship with the oracle. If you've been given cards that tell you what you need to know but not necessarily what you want to hear, don't keep picking new cards to look for ones more to your liking. If you already know the answer, don't abuse your relationship with the oracle by seeking repeated confirmations. Hexgram # 4 of the I Ching, "Youthful Folly," says:

"It is not I who seek the young fool;
The young fool seeks me.
At the first oracle I inform him.
If he asks two or three times, it is importunity.
If he importunes, I give him no information."