'Oracle - The Prophecy of Love'
by Toni Carmine Salerno
As featured in 'Wellbeing Magazine' Summer 2003/04


The Oracle stems from ancient Greece and Rome – it was a shrine used to consult the Gods. Ancients Greeks and Romans would seek prophetic advice from the Oracle, which was usually symbolically represented by a statue of one of their many Gods and Goddesses. Contrary to popular belief, the ancient Greeks and Romans were very spiritual people, albeit their spirituality seemed to be mostly driven by the fear of upsetting the Gods and Goddesses who reigned supreme over Sky, Earth and Water. To appease the will of the Gods, they sought advise from the Oracle before undertaking any significant course of action. However, as statues do not speak, guidance would need to be delivered through a sign or event, which would in turn have to be interpreted as either a good or bad omen. The ancients, especially the Romans, believed in an endless array of superstitions. Whether something would be interpreted as a good or a bad omen depended on one’s personal beliefs and superstitions. The Roman emperor Augustus for example would not set off on a scheduled military mission if by chance he accidentally put his slippers on the wrong way that morning, interpreting this as a warning from the Gods.

In recent years our interest in the Oracle has resurfaced mainly through the use of Oracle card sets. There are currently many decks on the market, usually comprising an image plus a written message of guidance for each card. While this makes the current day Oracle a lot easier to comprehend, like everything else in life, it remains colored by our individual beliefs. We all view life from our own perspective and we each live life through our own individual truths.

What is truth?
Apart from unconditional love, the only truth I have discovered to date is that there is no one single truth. In physical life there is no such thing as ‘the truth,’ for we all see the truth differently. For example; a group of people are all against war, they want peace, get them together in one place to discuss ways of creating peace and without a doubt they will all have a different view on how it should be done. Someone may think that a certain person is beautiful while someone else may be of the opinion that the same person is not beautiful. Who is right and who is wrong? Who can make that judgment? Someone we may consider to be physically beautiful now will one day grow old and perish. So physical beauty is a transient thing, which is subject to change. If we look carefully we discover that only temporary individual ‘truths’ exist, not universal eternal ones. As Plato said ‘all in life is forever changing,’ all is in a continuous state of flux and transformation. There can be no ultimate truth within the context of space-time because everything within the realm of time and space is forever changing. In order for a universal truth to exist it must be unchanging, and not affected by space-time: it must stem from the eternal, spiritual heart of creation. Perhaps the only truth that fits these criteria is unconditional love. Unconditional love is unchanging, it accepts all as it is and flows with change rather than trying to resist it.

So what has all this got to do with Oracle Cards? I believe we are drawn to things like the Oracle because we want to make sense of life, we want balance, health, fulfillment and peace. I believe that we will never find these things while we have an ‘I’m right and they’re wrong’ attitude or ‘Everything in the world should be the way I think it should be.’ To get what we want out of life, we need to accept that there is no single truth that applies universally. The most popular Oracle Card sets seem to be those that touch a place deep inside our hearts - they contain messages and imagery that encourage us to be who we truly are. They encourage us to let go of the many masks we present to ourselves and to those around us as well as infusing us with inspiration and love. We are instinctively drawn to what brings us balance and love. There is a yearning inside all of us for love.

How does the Oracle work?
A picture speaks a thousand words: Sometimes one kind word is all it takes to change our lives.
Within an image it is not so much the subject matter that is important but rather the energy infused within it. This is also true with words, it is not so much what we say but rather than the intention behind our words that matter.
I have produced four oracle card sets to date featuring my artwork and writings. All of my work is created Intuitively, that is, I give no conscious thought to the creative process. Nothing is planned or worked out; rather all is immediate, stemming forth from within each moment, each word or brushstroke. I simply set aside the restrictions of the conscious rational mind and enter the abstract world of feeling. I often get feedback from people who have used my oracle cards telling me how accurate a message was for them, inferring that I have some kind of magical power that gives people the right answer to their questions. However flattering this might be, it is simply not the case. As I often explain, it is not the creator of an Oracle set that has the power of prophecy but the individual user. Each time you pick a card, you are intuitively guided by your own energy field or soul to pick the most appropriate card for you at that given moment. It is your own spirit, which through the medium of the Oracle helps you see, hear or feel that which will be of greatest benefit for you at that time.

To expand on this concept of soul, spirit or energy field, let us go back to the beginning. Try to imagine what things were like the moment the Universe was born. At some point far back in time, a tiny point of light within the underlying fabric of creation exploded, causing what we now term the Big Bang. Unimaginable heat and radiation expanded from a point smaller than the size of one atom to become the enormous and ever-expanding Universe of today. This mysterious super-luminous event triggered the seemingly endless cycles of creation and transformation responsible for the present day Universe. ‘We’ - ‘The Universe’ - continue to expand and evolve through time and space. We are part of this beautiful planet Earth surrounded by a sea of stars and galaxies spanning trillions of light years through space.

It is easy to get caught up in the everyday seeming realities and concerns of life and forget that we form part of the Earth, which in turn forms part an incredible and unimaginably vast universe. If we could view our life from a broader perspective we would realize that our individual lives are but a grain of sand continuously influenced by the one great cosmic ocean – the Universe. So, we all stem from the one place. We are all infused with the same Universal energy and Life force. We are not solely our bodies, but part of an energy field or spirit that is universal in nature. All is interconnected energetically throughout the fabric of space-time. We are all part of one creation, which is infinite, innately intelligent, all-powerful and all-knowing. Another word for this energy or spirit is the Oracle. From the perspective of the Oracle, which exists outside the realms of time and space, past, present and future all exist now – they are all one. Plato may have been right when he described time as "the moving image of eternity." Furthermore, the laws of physics state that energy can be transformed but not destroyed. Energy simply changes from one form to another. This concept is one of the underlying principles that govern the universe and if it is true in physics, then, I think it must logically follow that the same principle is also true in our lives. Viewed from this perspective, death is simply a transformation from one form, ‘physical’ to another form, ‘spiritual’. So if past, present and future are all one and nothing is never lost, but merely changes state, it should come as no real surprise then that people like John Edwards can communicate with the spirits of those who have passed away. And if we can communicate with spirits who have passed on, then we can surely communicate with our own spirit while we are still in physical form - it is simply a matter of finding a way to access that information. This process is known as ‘Intuition’ and oracle card sets can be a powerful tool for accessing that inner wisdom.

 

Life – a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

We live in a world of duality, where there is a constant clash between the logical mind and the heart - between love and fear. Love resides in the heart and stems from our spirit. When we listen to and are guided by what we feel in our hearts, we are intuitively guided towards fulfilling our highest potential.

To do this we must learn to listen not to the often negative, fearful and restricted views of the mind, but to the intuitive, loving and gentle voice of the heart. We must listen to the voice of love. Love is the voice of balance; it is the positive voice of acceptance and grace. To love is to flow with the great golden river of life, not trying to struggle against it. The great golden river is the spirit of life. The desire to swim against the current stems from fear and a need to control.

The stress, pressure and fast pace of modern day life are enough to overwhelm all of us at times. Stress is simply the result of conflict between the heart and the mind – between being and doing what we truly would love to be and do and being and doing what we think we have to be and do. During stressful periods our ability to think and see situations clearly is often clouded in a haze of confusion.

It is hard to regain clarity and balance while thinking, ‘I should, I have to, I need to…’ Watch your thoughts and consciously switch your focus from ‘should, have, and need to’ to ‘I would love to’.
Think of the things you would love to be doing rather than the things you think you should do. Bring your focus to the feelings inside your heart…Listen. Your heart never says ‘should’ or ‘need,’ the heart only says ‘I love you.’

On an energetic level, all of creation was present within the original point of oneness prior to the Big Bang. It simply existed in another form. Perhaps the Big Bang was like the start of a movie; the story and characters already exist prior to watching the movie. But it is only through watching the movie that you get to experience it. Does the acorn not already possess the oak tree inside it? It does, simply in another form, in a form different to the one we are familiar with. So it is that all you would truly love to be, have and achieve in your life already exists inside you in the form of dreams within your heart surrounded in an ocean of love. To be fulfilled in life all we need do is to be in a balanced state of love and accept all of who we are, as we are. Love allows us to express the wonder and unique beauty we each hold inside us. Love allows us to follow our hearts and pursue our dreams. Love allows the light of infinite creation to flow through us, which can show us infinite possibilities for our life. Love allows the wisdom of the soul to shine through. To quote another of Plato’s ideas, all learning is simply recollection. All already exists within us.

The purpose of an Oracle is simply to point you in towards the direction of love – to help you fulfill your soul’s deepest desires and inspiration. An Oracle can be a set of cards, a paragraph in a book you open randomly, a butterfly fluttering by to lift your spirits, or it can come in the form of a perceived set-back designed to put you back on your correct course or align your dreams and aspiration with divine time and synchronicity. An Oracle can be a chance encounter with someone you bump into on the street, it could be a loving act of kindness from a friend or stranger, it can be the words in a song on the radio. An Oracle helps us tap into our intuition, always pointing us in the direction of the heart, where we discover the prophecy of love.



Copyright 2003 Toni Carmine Salerno