Today's Card
Final Sunset
Final Sunset and I have a funny relationship. If you read the initial post from when I first started these Color Wisdom Card posts, you may have seen this story already. But to make a not terribly long story even shorter, last month I was dealing with the sudden illness of my Grandmother which had me feeling a great deal of conflicting emotions. Being 3000 miles away from my family and not being able to be there I only had second hand information to go on and it kept changing depending on who I talked to. Over the course of day the stories would go from "she might not make it through the night" to "she's doing great and talking about leaving" back to "it's not looking so good". The fact of the matter was that in a matter of just shy of a week she ended up in the hospital with a general sense of not feeling well to being diagnosed with acute leukemia to passing away quietly in her sleep. I was thankful she didn't end up spending months in hospice on morphine just waiting to die but sad that I wasn't able to physically be there to see her one last time (in fact because of the distance the last time I saw her was last summer when I was home on vacation and I was looking forward to moving back east this fall and being able to spend more time with her).
But about three days into the whole thing I was just getting so tired of the mixed and uncertain messages and I decided to pull out some cards and take a peek. I grabbed this deck because it was near my desk and it was one that I didn't know well so I thought I could use the information from the cards in an objective manner. I pulled this card. I spent about five minutes crying my eyes out and then read the book and took some time to just let go of all the horrible feelings that naturally surround you when you're dealing with the death of a loved one. This turned out (to me) to be a blessed card that gave me a chance to mentally prepare for the phone call that would come a few days later saying she passed away. At that point I had no reason to cry and instead was just grateful for her release.
So...let's see what the book has to say.
The message with the card is "A life has come to its spectacular conclusion." Final Sunset is a member of the orange color spectrum, a color of emotions which carries active energy, courage, optimism, and affection. It's a color that wants to bring us inspiration and that reminds us that we need to walk the walk if we want to actually get anywhere. Final Sunset shows us that everything comes to an end and the this process of completion can be a gift in and of itself. The sunset color is a blended color of different reds and oranges that can be full of blazing fire. Sunset is a color that can't be controlled; the finality of sunset comes no matter how hard you try to hold it back. Sunset can help propel us into action and can be a great color for releasing anything that we're feeling stuck with.
The Story...in brief...
The tale of Final Sunset lays out the accomplishments of a man who served his country in battle during WWII but who wanted nothing more than to follow his dream to be a stage actor. Night after night, after a days hard work serving as a paratrooper and lending support to his fellow soldiers, he would go to sleep dreaming of the theater which would take him away from the horrors of war.
Eventually he was able to realize his dream. He received awards, metals, and accolades for his service to his country but he spend the rest of his years being on stage or supporting those on the stage, living his dream of acting and being part of the magic of the theater. He made many friends during his days there and find that both those who loved him for his talents on and off the field would keep him alive in their hearts for many years to come.
When it was time for him to return to the Goddess his only child came to his graveside to honor her brave and beloved father. He was taken to be reunited with the friends and heroes from the war who he'd loved and known in his life taking the time to pause and reflect, being grateful for having lived the life he did before moving on to whatever the next part of his journey would have for him.
The Meaning...
We often spend far too much time focused on what has to come next, what the next task that needs to be completed is, that we rarely get the chance to truly enjoy the ending of something we have done. I like to this of this as the "breathing time". Sadly we don't get enough of it; or really, more to the point, we don't allow ourselves to have that time. Final Sunset is about looking back and seeing all the great things we have done and then preparing for what will be next. We need to have time to honor where we've been before really moving on to the next phase. If we don't it's as if all that we have been doing has really never been fully enjoyed.
For Today...If you have something in the works and you are getting ready to finalize a project of some kind, stop and take time to enjoy it before feeling you have to just jump on to the next thing. Give yourself a little room. If you don't have anything going on at the moment, stop and think back in your life on something that you did that was important in your life and ask yourself if you ever had time to really enjoy the end of that cycle or did you just dive right into the next phase? What did you miss by not getting to take that time to reflect and enjoy? This is just as much a part of the experience as anything else and when we don't allow ourselves this time of closure with the things we do, it's almost like it never really completed its process.
