Present Path Tarot
Navigate to your best life
BCE: Before Cell Era
Tonight I brought back a lost personal tradition of playing music during a bath.
The last few years, I have chosen to watch a movie or show from my laptop beside the tub.
From audio cassettes to CD’s and then my beloved iPod, my classic tub-side company had always been Nina Simone, Tom Waits, Van Morrison, Nick Cave, Belle and Sebastian, and other soothing crooners.
Granted, the music I listened to today was on my phone and the selections were in part likely chosen by an AI algorithm. But, truth be told, it did a great job DJing.
Best of all, it wasn’t screen time, and that was a nice break. I work on screens a lot and then relax on screens a lot. It’s a constant stream of stimuli.
I held out on getting a smart phone until 2011, when most of my friends had already switched from a flip phone. I know that my brain has morphed and adapted since then, and I want to train it back to some better habits.
I heard on a YouTube short today that time condenses as we engage with novel concepts. This explains how scrolling passes time so quickly.
The stoics engaged in a practice now called, “The Stoic Pause” to temper the speed of time. They would deliberately take a moment between a stimulus and their response. That would be a lot of pauses in the modern day, but worth attempting.
The stoics also would force their presence to remain focused on a single task at a time. I heard Nick Offerman say on the Daily Show that young people are choosing classic more classic hobbies like knitting and wood working. This delighted the heck out of me.
For those of us over 40, we can harken back to a bygone self. I have been thinking of who I was BCE: Before the Cell Era. I am craving bringing back some of these hobbies and practices, and wanted to offer the idea out to you to consider what is something you miss from your pre-smart phone self.
What are some ways you passed the time pleasurably before 2007?
What do you miss about life before smart phones?
How did your attention feel different?
I have some luddite friends, people who avoid technology. Each skirt the modern world in their own unique ways. They inspire me to see that we don’t have to cut ourselves off completely to give ourselves some breathing room.
I can choose to get out my ukelele and use the app on my phone that helps me learn new songs. It still feels nourishing in a non-screen way.
You can also go full old school. I did some wool felting the other day. It was super satisfying.
The 1952 noir book I’m reading by Raymond Chandler is fun. I am absorbed in both the mystery of the scarred socialite man who’s on the lamb and how everyone just shows up at each other’s apartments unannounced all the time.
Writing in my journal free hand feels different in my brain from typing or swyping.
What do you do that feels anachronistic or timeless?
Where in your day could you add a practice that your grandparents likely also did?
How can you take back something you may have lost since instant gratification became so normal?
Take part in a past time that is over 500 years old when you come in for a personal tarot reading with me. (We can use Zoom with the same benefits.)
Engage in rich human connection when you bring in a companion for a Tarot Together session.
Celebrate the upcoming Halloween season with a classic witchy art when you hire one of the fabulous tarot or palm reader from Portlandia Fortune Tellers to entertain.
Relish in the traditional delights this weekend.
Reconnect with the Old You,
Jenna Lynne Roberts