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Coffee Grounds and the Integral Practitioner

Posted August 15th, 2009 by Emine

 

 
I got roped into reading many a Turkish coffee cup at the 2008 Integral Without Borders meeting in Istanbul. This is a favorite pass time in Turkey. I first started fortune telling with a group of friends in middle school. We would consume dangerous amounts of the thick liquid and read each other’s cups. Back then what we saw had to do with boys and parents and happily-ever-after futures; these days it has more to do with health, kids, reunions, or jobs.
 
There is the objective right hand reality, of course. You drink your coffee till the bitter grounds burn your throat, turn the cup over on its saucer, and wait until it cools. When you pick it up again you see that the grounds have left a complex pattern inside the cup (UR). The trick, for the fortune teller, is to make sense, to create a narrative from those patterns.
 
There are some (LR) rules. If the cup sticks to the saucer as you try to lift it, it means your wish will come true. If the grounds ooze onto the saucer as you lift it up, leaving behind a relatively clean cup, it means you will shed all your troubles. A bird is always auspicious. Depending on the majesty of the figure, either you will receive some good news or get a promotion, etc. etc. These are your guidelines, your tools, but it is really an interpretive game.
 
What you see in the cup will depend on who you are, your AQAL configuration of the moment, your Kosmic address (UL in this quadrivia analysis of coffee cup reading.) Who you are will determine both what you see of the other person and what you see in their cup -- will you see things like red power, amber convention, orange success, or green harmony? Or, will you see various aspects of all? This is all the more true because you do not use your rational mind to read a cup. You activate other ways of knowing, most especially your subtle energies and states.
 
This is clearly a recherché exercise of sorts, but it is also a dialogical (LL) one. It is primarily a zone 3 affair, not a zone 2 one. It is a process of creating a we-space, a mutual understanding; not assessing the insides of the fortune teller. So, how do you see something that will resonate with the other? Clearly if you say global things like ‘you will soon receive some good news’ that will resonate with everyone. They, in turn, will construct their own interpretations and narratives of what the coffee cup predicted and usually leave pretty happy.
 
But it is also true that you are often surprised at what you knew and how on target you can be about the concerns, dilemmas or wishes of the other. It seems to me the more you have done your shadow work and know yourself well, the better you are at distinguishing which of the interpretations that pop into your mind are purely of you and which are more of the other. Similarly, if you can activate all your AQAL dimensions of knowing, the more of the other you let into your consciousness and get a fuller picture. If you can readily access various mind states (or if you read a coffee cup right after you have done Big Mind Big Heart with Diane) you are bound to be truly astounded at how much you knew and actually initiate a fruitful conversation.
 
So, after all is said and done, you realize that this is not so much about the future as it is a minor miracle of we in the here and now – at best a we-space of depth, at worst food for thought for both parties. At the same time, you do wonder if that is really all; especially if Rollie has recently managed to confuse you with the concept of ‘seeing world lines’. Hmmm…
 
 

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coffeehouse therapy

Posted August 15th, 2009 by Anne Tyler Lord

That is cool! Thanks for more storytelling from the Turkish culture.

I am a therapist and you basically summed up what I do.  But, that sounds more fun.  I think I will set up in the local coffeehouse from now on!

 Anne Tyler Lord
Storytelling from the space of Integral Consciousness
Integral Poetry, Prose