A Tarot Card for This Blog: The Nine of Shields

September 24, 2008 by shamanspath

Nine of  Shields: The Lady Ragnell
 
Magical transformation
through love
by being given
(or giving one’s self)
permission
to do what you really want to do 
and be who you really are.
 
Foresight brings success!
Adhering to one’s values. 
Diplomacy, prudence and honor. 
Fulfilling obligations. 
Popularity. 

Honoring a promise brings fortune!

Tarot Card for the Day ~ November 25

November 24, 2009 by shamanspath

Seven of Swords

The Sword in the Stone

This card shows up just about monthly.  It’s one of those cyclical reminders I’m grateful to see, because I think the information and direction in this card is SO tremendously important for all of us.  The clients that have turned this card in a reading, and really honored what it gives, have benefitted tremendously.

So −

As I now ask whenever this card turns for us,

We all remember the story of the Sword In the Stone, right? 

 [Aw, MAN!  Not THAT kind of stone!]

Well, sort of.  Maybe.  A bit.  You think?

What’s important for our understanding of the Seven of Swords is to know that Arthurian legends contain two sword-in-the-stone stories. 

This one takes place long after Arthur has become king, and involves the introduction of Galahad to the court of Camelot.  It’s a story that has been known in and told with a number of variations.

Here’s the essence of the story as it has come to me in my own Shamanic journeying.

The Camelottish folk were all gathered for the Christian feast of Pentecost (or Whitsun  ~ the 49th/50th day after Easter) when they saw a huge red marble boulder come floating serenely down the river and right up to Camelot dock, as it were.  Gleaming and protruding from said big red stone was an ornate sword so beautiful it had an aura of its own.

In some versions of the tale the rock is engraved with the words,

“This sword shall only be pulled out by the Best of all Knights.” 

Of course, pretty much every knight lined up to have a heave at it, jostling, grunting, bragging, swearing, betting, whooping, loudly discussing potency inducers, passing around copies of PlayKnight, quietly discussing horseback hemorrhoid remedies ~ about what you’d expect of boys in chain mail in groups.

They all had a go.  And failed.

Then a new, unknown young fellow quietly walked up to the stone.  Without a word, a hesitation or a glance in any direction, he took hold of the sword and pulled it from the stone like light piercing shallow water.  Then he quietly walked back up to the castle and took a seat at the Round Table.  

Thus was Galahad’s presence and stature made known to all, and thus did he rightfully sit in the Siege Perilous, a seat at the Round Table so strictly reserved that it was fatal to anyone else who sat in it.  (There were a few beefcake bimbos who tried.)

Which brings us to the interpretation of the Seven of Swords.  [You did trust I’d get around to it eventually, didn't you?] 

Traditional readings of this card are pretty down, with words like “dishonor,” “futility,” and “lone wolf” tossed about.  Some readers talk about a person who is intelligent but unorthodox, or suggest that it recommends vigilance against unexpected danger.

Me, I see wonderful and positive things in this card, especially as it is portrayed in the Legend deck.  Anna- Marie Ferguson, creator of the Legend deck, by the way, sees it as betokening inspiration, enthusiasm, and the instilling of hope, faith and strength.

[Anybody out there NOT up for that?  If so… GET HELP.  Now.  And possibly a side order of exorcism!] 

When I work with a client and we turn this one up (and it’s amazing how often it shows up in the career section of a reading), I say,

“Own your power. 

Own.

Your. 

Power. 

Own it WITHOUT EGO

but also WITHOUT APOLOGY to anyone.  

Be yourself.  

All of yourself.

Be who you really are. 

And get going at it.”

The Seven of Swords indicates that it’s truly time for you to own your skills, abilities, gifts, potentials, intentions ~ your POWER ~ and let yourself begin to move in a new direction with new purpose.

Now that we are into the beginning of the holiday season, with all its unique magics, it is good to remember that we honor our Creator and The Earth by becoming more and more who we truly are for the highest and best of all.

Own your power.  No ego.  No apology.

Bright Blessings!

Quote for the Day:   It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching. ~ Francis of Assisi

 

Today’s Weather :  Stuttering mutherjumpers.  Anodize your periwinkle. 

On This Date:  1984 – 36 top musicians gather in a Notting Hill studio and record Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia. 

Tarot Card for the Day ~ November 24

November 23, 2009 by shamanspath

Strength

Percivale’s Vision

We’ve seen this card twice this month.  Good!  It’s always a fortunate card to turn up.  And it usually shows up not a moment too soon!

Obviously, this card betokens its own name: Strength, as well as courage and vitality.  Plus magnanimity − both toward you and emanating from you – [so feel free to send your favorite Tarot reader a beautiful and rare Italian silk almost-anything.  Thank you.]  The card can also indicate perhaps the most perfect light touch of luck.   [So give that a try, yes?]

Really pretty good!   So TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT!  ALL OF IT!!  [Otherwise what are you reading this for?]

Where was I?  [Come to that, Who was I?  Oh yeh...  Boring.]

The Strength card is one of the most utterly positive cards in the deck.  And it does offer a few useful, specific recommendations.

It is very important that you do not underestimate your physical and emotional strength at this time, or doubt the power and durability of your connection to Universal Life Force – God, Spirit, The Big G, Mr. Dylan, der Cheney-Fuhrer or Whatever-You-Name-It. 

In other words, don’t down yourself out or assume less of yourself than you may actually be able to handle.  If opportunities come, REACH!  If challenges come, PUSH BACK!  Don’t just crawl under the bed and hide. 

Believe in your ability to succeed and to attain that which you most desire, particularly in areas of physical healing and achievement and/or emotional connection and healing. 

Draw on your inner strength, which is truly far greater than you give yourself credit for.  So haul that butt up from under the bed.  Right now! I mean it. We’re all waiting.  Come on… Now!

Like many of us, you may need to begin investing some ongoing effort toward actually identifying and functionalizing your connection to your inner strength.  Our culture ain’t so good about that, unless you have forced yourself to march to the same “inner drummer” as everybody else.  Get to know your OWN connection to Source, and work with it.  

We have in us the brilliant, beautiful and eternal power of stars.  It’s up to us to find and focus it.

Anna-Marie Ferguson, creator of the Legend deck, feels this card indicates having the strength and vitality to realize one’s goals, and also ambition tempered with serenity – a gentle strength. 

When I work with clients, I advise them about an additional level of meaning to this card in this particular deck.  I find this to be the card of the visionary – the individual who can see higher, farther, and deeper than others can. 

Sometimes, even more important, this is the person who can see (distinguish clearly) the trees for the forest and the forest for the trees.  So give yourself credit for being able to see things more clearly, and define things more accurately and truly, than the madding crowd around you. 

Own your ability to be the visionary who can, as Robert F. Kennedy so beautifully put it, “…dream things as they never were, and say why not?”  Or see things as they really are, and say, “Nuh-unh sucker!  We don’t play that way NO MORE!”

Trust in your strength and draw on it.  Manage it well when you must, but draw on it.  Believe in your success.  And let your vision of WHAT CAN BE guide you higher and higher beyond the norm of what has been.

Bright blessings, light, clarity and joy!

Quote for The Day:  

– Remember ~ that which does not kill us can only make us stronger.
– And that which does kill us leaves us dead! ~  Terry Pratchett, from Carpe Jugulum

Today’s Whether:  Drivel, dravel, druvel.  Low-wandering bituminous oxymorons. Brush your yak.  

On This Date:  1868Scott Joplin, Ragtime composer is born.

And:  1991Freddie Mercury, Zanzibar-born singer of Queen, leaves the building. 

Tarot Card for the Day ~ November 23

November 23, 2009 by shamanspath

Five of Swords

Gawain’s Penance

Well, well.  Gawain has shown up (in two different cards) two days in a row. 

I’m reminded of one of the worst movies I ever saw. It starred Sean Connery, in fact.  It was called Sword of the Valiant, and Connery played The Green Knight — brilliant casting, if you remember the legend. 

Unfortunatley, the director must have been aiming for an unsophisticated, probably American audience, or something.  He kept having Connery pronounce Gawain’s name GahWAYNE.  You could see old 007 become more furious every time he had to speak it. Nice costumes, though.

 

Oyeh.  The card.  Sorry.

Kindly PAY ATTENTION then, eh?

In the spirit of something resembling candor [but not actually being candor even though it looks remarkably like candor, as near as I can tell!], I will once again say that my interpretation of this card in readings veers away from that of most readers I know. Alive or otherwise.  Or in between.

Typical readers will say things like degradation, destruction, dishonor, loss.  Yummy, that.  Some might say something like, Move on.  Learn from your experiences, but be positive.”  Really helpful there.  Really.  I could come up with something like that before my morning caffeine of choice.  REALLY big help, and compassionate, too.  NOT!

Even Anna-Marie Ferguson, creator of the Legend deck, sees loss, regret, having to accept one’s limitations, or, at best, a valuable lesson, one not to be repeated.

Well buggrall that!  Phooo-hooooooooo-ey upon that !!!!

Based on my intuitive guidance and my experience over the last fifteen years or so, when this card shows up for a client, I stand, shamble up onto my soapbox, throw things at them, shake my jowls(all of them) and bellow:

STOP!   STOP!  STOP!!!

Stop turning your life

into one long gawd-awful penance! 

It ain’t supposed to be.  And you don’t DESERVE it to be!

And stop living as though you have some penance you think you’re supposed to do, especially if doing so seems “justified” according to the sad, warped old belief structures of some bozos who laid their nastiness on ya years ago  ~ even if they are/were people very close to you.  And even if you know they were doing the best they could. 

Reach out for joy, for beauty, for healing, for the highest and best of your potential. 

Constantly rubbing your own nose in the messes of the past will never bring about positive change.  Or a happy nose.

It will only keep you from moving upward, and may even keep you stuck exactly where you are, causing you to repeat errors and disappointments of the past.   

Don’t do that.  That is just purely NOT RIGHT!

Live! 

Know, know, KNOW that you deserve joy and beauty,

that you are entitled to reach for it at every moment

and with every ounce of strength and brilliance you have –

but know that YOU are the only one who CAN reach for it. 

Seek all that is uplifting, and wonderful, and full of Light!  Now!

Bright blessings and joy!  And did I mention JOY!!!?

Quote for the Day:   Only nothing is impossible.  ~ Grant Morrison

Today’s Weather:  Ratta ratta racka racka. (But look out the window, just in case.)

On This Date:  1963 – The BBC broadcast the first ever episode of Doctor Who, starring William Hartnell, which would become the world’s longest science fiction drama to date. 

And:  1995Grant Morrison asks readers of his comic book series The Invisibles to participate in a worldwide “wank-off” to give power to a sigil intended to keep the series in circulation.  [Really. Ya can't make this stuff up.] 

 

Tarot Card for the Day ~ November 22

November 21, 2009 by shamanspath

Knight of Swords

Gawain

Haven’t seen this guy since early September.  It’s one of those cards I have a trouble integrating into my life.

It’s a card that says,

Okay, okay, okay!  You over there!  And you.  You, too!  Everybody! Hey!  Everyone! Up’nat’em!!! 

The Knight of Swords is a card of action.  Fiery, passionate action.  So if there’s something you’ve been putting off, or something you have wanted to do but always delay, today is the day to get started.  With!  Gusto!

However, I will also share that this Knight has occasionally (actually ruddy well frequently) been known to leap before he looks, to the ultimate dismay of himself − and pretty much everybody then involved with cleansing him of the huge, deep pile of meadow muffins he has landed himself in. 

And, he has from time to time gone so far as to find himself moving with such great passion that, all unknowing, he oversteps appropriate bounds, doesn’t check out the situation and its implications thoroughly, and blows his rosy red Orkney rump up in the process − occasionally taking a pile of other good folk down with him in the destruction. 

If he thinks of them at all, he thinks of them as collateral damage.

Other readers see the Knight of Swords as representing skill and bravery, or wrath and war. [A wee tad of distinction there, don’t you think, there, friends?  Eh?] 

Anna-Marie Ferguson, creator of the Legend deck, sees him as a determined, intelligent young man [uh... person] – so keep an eye out – but also as someone who may be overeager to display heroics which causes him to misjudge. [Thus, the meadow muffins.]

SO: 

Get moving.

But take a few moments or a few steps back and check out the terrain pretty thoroughly first. 

And double-check that you are acting with integrity, and doing something that is in fact desired by all parties who have a vote (not to mention something that is in fact for the highest and best). 

 As I’ve said before:

That way you won’t paint your foyer in record time, but paint it the lavender shade that was discussed while tippling on New Year’s Eve rather than a pale ice gray − you know, the color that matches the paint chip that was left under your wallet before you headed to the hardware store.  Doofus.

Go after it, but go after it smart, careful, clear and clean!    

Bright Blessings and a Soft Landing!

Quote for the Day:

This book will prove the following ten facts:
1. A Goon is a being who melts into the foreground and sticks there.
2. Pigs have wings, making them hard to catch.
3. All power corrupts, but we need electricity.
4. When an irresistible force meets an immovable object, the result is a family fight.
5. Music does not always sooth the troubled beast.
6. An Englishman’s home is his castle.
7. The female of the species is more deadly than the male.
8. One black eye deserves another.
9. Space is the final frontier, and so is the sewage farm.
10. It pays to increase your word power.
 

      ~Diana Wynne Jones, from Archer’s Goon

Today’s Weather:  Pater Nostalgia degenerating into morgly frumpupances.  Span your bannerjees mindfully indeed.

On This Date:  1928 – The premier performance of Ravel’s Boléro takes place in Paris.

Tarot Card for the Day ~ November 21

November 20, 2009 by shamanspath

Wheel of Fortune

Arthur’s Dream

 A really good card for a Saturday, ‘cos we can spend the weekend thinking about it, practicing a little bit and working out how to implement its advice scme the new week. 

 In pretty much any reading, Wheel of Fortune augurs well, especially for the immediate future.  It usually betokens a happy change of fortune and the beginning of a positive cycle. 

 Some readers would say, hop on!  Make the most of your life, NOW!!!!

 I agree with those interpretations, but my work with clients has prompted me to put a particular spin on that energy, no pun intended, for a change.  When the Wheel turns up I usually say something like,

 Look.  Take a moment.  Pay attention here. 

 You’re finally in a position to really be on top of the world, in the way you have wanted to be. 

 So first of all, let yourself believe in that.  Let yourself KNOW it.  Do what you need to do to move beyond doubt.  As I’ve said before, doubt kills more dreams than anything anyone else could possibly do.

 A special tweak to this, though, and it takes a bit of explanation. 

 The card says that over the years, and perhaps particularly in the recent past, you have learned tough lessons in hard ways. [Whenever I mention this aspect to a client, I almost always hear, "Damn right I have."]  

One positive result of that is that you’ve developed a refined ability to pick up on and read the subtle vibrations of a situation – of situations in general – to a much greater extent than most people. 

This is a very effective tool for you right now. 

I repeat:

This is a very effective tool for you right now!!!! 

Honoring it, using it will be to your advantage.  Okay?  Are we on the same page here?

In fact, giving yourself permission to read and trust and use what you perceive about those subtle vibes (in an intelligent, I’m not gonna overload my mouth and blow my asshole up kinda way) is key to keeping yourself on top of the world. 

It will help you if pay attention to the fact that the Wheel of Fortune is always in spin, and remember you can move along with it at the right moments and in the right rhythm. By doing so you can keep yourself from losing your footing and being dumped into the moat.

As I’ve said before with this card, one of these days I’ll have to do an article listing some of the excuses I’ve heard, and… used, for not going with what we KNOW from reading the vibrations of a situation. [Like, "My boyfriend will find me annoying.  He doesn't like to be contradicted."  Get a clue, M'Dear.  He already finds you annoying.  And he's gonna find you annoying ANYWAY!]  [Or, "She would never do that to me.  She's my FRIEND.  She TOLD me so!"  Oyeah?  Betcha she already has.  Twice.] 

I’m not asking you to be paranoid — just honestly connected to the intuitive insights that come to you AS THEY COME TO YOU!   

There’s an old shamanic saying: “You know what you know.  Do what you know.” 

With the Wheel of Fortune, I’d tweak that a touch to say, “You know what you know.  Believe in what you know.  Act − in a skillful, respectful, savvy way − on what you know.”

Make sense?  Please?

Top o’ the world to ya!  Permanently!!

Bright blessings, joy, success and light!

Quote for the Day:  I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don’t have as many people who believe it.  ~ George Carlin

Today’s Weather:  Lemur-like wazzawiris.  Lumicate your panjandrum and keep it near the door. 

On This Date: 1877Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record and play sound. [Tommy can you HEAR me?]

40 days remaining till the end of the year

Tarot Card for the Day ~ November 20

November 19, 2009 by shamanspath

Temperance

The Cauldron of Annwn

This card came up almost exactly a month ago. It’s not necessarily an Aquarian’s favorite card.  But it is good advice.  This card says very directly how it would have you go about the day:  

 

temperately, calmly, easily,

neither striving to leap over tall buildings in a single bound

nor being a slug and hiding under the covers till nightfall. [I've already got dibs on that space.]

It’s a card that counsels you to guard against those little wee tendencies to go to extremes − even supposedly positive ones.  Seek moderation today, and patience, and perhaps even a touch of diplomacy, no matter how much you might wish to just nuke the silly m#%@%@f**&##@s and be done with it!

When this card shows up in a reading, I often suggest that the client may be on the cusp of a substantial change.

BUT the way to best and most positively bring the change into being is to go about the transformation slowly, thoughtfully:

braiding or blending together the old with the new until, over an appropriate time, the new alone becomes who you are and what you do. 

It’s a card of making profound and helpful changes slowly, by not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  [But for pity's sake, DO let yourself begin the process of change.  Don't let yourself be a sitting duck where you are.]

So, let yourself explore how you would like your life to be, and how you would wish to move in positive new directions. 

Then stop and honestly take stock of who you are, where you are and how you have gotten there.   

Specifically acknowledge the good parts, the successful aspects, the skills, abilities and characteristics that are worth keeping and using and developing as you go forward. 

And blend them into the new you that is coming onto being.

Bright blessings and timely, comfortable and comforting emergings!  

Thought for the Day:  Inward calm cannot be maintained unless physical strength is constantly and intelligently replenished.. ~ Buddha

Today’s Waether: Dithermebobs and phalangial wispgizzler cowboys.  Wear a canvas poltroon in a seasonal color. 

On This Date: 1820 – An 80-ton sperm whale attacks the Essex (a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts) 2,000 miles from the western coast of South America (Herman Melville’s 1851 novel Moby-Dick is in part inspired by this story).

Joke for the Day: A guy comes upon a box of apples.  Upon it is a sign that says:  “Please take one apple — God is watching.” He takes an apple and hikes on down the road.  About twenty minutes later he comes upon a big box of cookies with a sign that says:  “Take all the cookies you want –  God is watching the apples.”  [Thanks, Mike!]

Tarot card for the Day ~ November 19

November 18, 2009 by shamanspath

Knight of Cups

Galahad

This fellow showed up for us last July.  It’s always a good energy & good advice card.

I think of this as the card of the sacred quest. 

[Oh. Yeah.  I guess that WOULD be kinda important lately, huh?]

Therefore, if you have been feeling that your life really isn’t going in the direction you and God (or The Universe, the Universal Life Force, the Big Enchilada, Madonna, The Voice of John Cleese, Brangelina – whoever) agreed to before you accepted birth this time around:

HEY!  YOU! 

Don’t you think it’s time to reconnect and GET GOING?

Some readers might interpret the Knight of Cups as the coming of a messenger, advancement in the world, or a graceful but not warlike person of great masculine energy [think Baryshnikov, I guess. Or George Clooney.  Or Brangelina.].  Others could say it indicates someone (maybe you?) ingenious, full of original ideas.

Anna-Marie Ferguson, creator of the Legend deck I use, feels this card betokens a tempting proposal which deserves serious consideration.  Also, an approaching opportunity for advancement.  Or an unexpected gift.  So if something like that crosses your path today, assume you deserve it, accept it fully and gratefully, and run with it! 

I still like my intuitive interpretation best.

Think upon the commitments for this lifetime

              that you made before you came into being. 

 Determine the next few steps

                        to keep you moving along that path –

 or the first steps that will be necessary

                                to move you back onto that path. 

And GET GOING!

Bright blessings and remembrance of your sacred self!  

Quote for the Day: We don’t need lists of rights and wrongs, tables of dos and don’ts: we need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever.   ~ Philip Pullman 

Today’s Weather:  St. Katharine’s borscht bursting from the clouds like Jerry Lee Lewis on a three day jag! 

On This Date: 1863 – American Civil War: U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the military cemetery ceremony at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

And: 1977Egyptian President Anwar Sadat becomes the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel, when he meets Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and speaks before the Knesset in Jerusalem, seeking a permanent peace settlement.

Tarot Card for the Day ~ November 18

November 17, 2009 by shamanspath

The Universe

The Giants’ Dance

 

Saw this one in mid-August or so.  And it’s absolutely one of the most glorious, hope-filled positive cards in the deck, so PLEASE know that such energy is available to and for you today.  Don’t waste the vibe by talking yourself out of what may be! 

The card in the Legend deck pictures a Goddess/dancer moving ecstatically, free under the stars within Stonehenge (the Giants’ Dance, as it was once known).  Anna-Marie Ferguson, creator of the deck, finds this card to be a harbinger of liberation, the attainment of a long-sought goal, and the culmination of events, efforts and experiences from the past.

Some readers find assured success, emigration and a change of place in this card.  Others see a promise that the querent – the person having the reading done − will become all that she or he can IF they are confident enough.  

[Need me to repeat that for ya? 

You will become all you can

IF you are confident enough!

As I sometimes say in my readings, remember:  you’re never too old to become a Mouseketeer.] 

When this card comes up, I ask clients:

What would dancing free under the stars be for you? 

What would give you that sense of

freedom,  

security,

elation,  

ecstasy,

connection to beautiful and eternal and renewing Source and its most healing , empowering rhythms? 

Now:

what can you do

and

what will you do

to begin to give that to yourself?  NOW! 

The Universe is your oyster.  It will give you back your fondest wishes, if you will be clear within yourself about those wishes, be true to those wishes, hold them close moment by moment, and honor them.

In our daily lives, we very often become wrapped up in the seeming necessities of the moment.  We lose track of our more profound, more eternal and inspiring hopes, wishes, beliefs − and powers. 

So, starting today, reconnect with that higher, more hopeful vision of yourself and your life.

KNOW that you have all that is necessary to bring it into being. 

This is a card of successful completion, harmony and lasting happiness. 

Believe!

Bright blessings!

 (Please share this card with someone who needs a little boost today.)

Quote for the day: Insist on yourself; never imitate. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today’s Weather:  Casual meteors. Preternaturally ambitextural cloudiness and tweezling gooseberries.  Duck!   ҉

 On This Date:  1477William Caxton produces Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres, the first book printed on a printing press in England. 

And: 1945Wilma Mankiller, first female Chief of the Cherokee Nation is born.

And: The Feast Day of Saint Odo of Cluny. 

 ҉     ҉     ҉   @@@Happy Birthday, Lovey!@@@   ҉҉     ҉     ҉

Tarot Card for the Day ~ November 17

November 16, 2009 by shamanspath

The Emperor

Arthur 

Hmmm….

This guy last showed up in late August. So it might be worth taking a moment to ask yourself how things just now are similar to how they were around then. 

It’s okay.  I’ll wait.  Go ahead.

Really.  Go ahead.

Good.

So.

This is a powerful, positive card [and I know bunches of folk who can use one at the moment], that encourages us to see the goodness flowing to us and our world.  Even more, it asks that we believe in it and be open to it.

Anna-Marie Ferguson, creator of the Legend deck, writes that this card betokens

wisdom and power,

conquest and conviction,

courage and ambition

balanced with

reason and fair play.

It can also herald a caring person with many responsibilities, so have an eye out for someone like that. 

I perceive The Emperor to be a card of intellect well used and accomplishment attained. 

For some clients, I find that it indicates they may be thrust into a new position of power, even if they have not sought it.  When that is the case, I ask that they accept the new responsibilities (and the attendant opportunities) graciously.  I say something like:

“If the Universe didn’t think you were ready for this, it wouldn’t have put you in a position to receive it.  So go for it and be brilliant about it!  You can be, you know!!!!!”

Be open to the helpful counsel of others, so that a greater wisdom can be attained and acted on.

This is a card of progress and security.  So believe in that – own that − as a true, evident and inevitable possibility.

Use your wonderful intellect very well today; that’s why you have it.  Seek wisdom through the counsel of others who truly have something helpful to offer.  Know that, through such actions, progress and security can be yours.

Bright blissings!

Quote for the Day:  When one door closes another one opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us. ~ Alexander Graham Bell

Today’s Weather: Portentous pancakes of pandering.  Or is it just weird waffling toward mid-morning?  Carry a pocket wolverine.

On This Date: 1558 – Elizabethan era begins: Queen Mary I of England dies and is succeeded by her half-sister Elizabeth I of England.   

 And a special apology to Peggy for last Friday’s violation of my promise not to do wife jokes online or onstage.  

Question for Clients, Friends, Bloglodytes, Etc.

November 16, 2009 by shamanspath

 

Question for Clients, Friends, Bloglodytes (Blogolinis?) and Everybody
  
Hi, Y’All ~
 
This question really applies to the nice folk in the Greater Cleveland area, but I’d be interested in feedback from all around. 
 
Some of you may be aware (because of the ruthless marketing demon who inhabits my keyboard) that I have written a couple of versions of a piece called “Alex, the Christmas Imp.”  It began as a children’s story, and has evolved into a fantasy for folks of… several ages. 
 
Anyway,  I’m thinking of doing a public reading of the children’s version, followed by a couple of sections from the… other version, so I can get some feedback via moment by moment audience response.  Or lack thereof. 
 
I would be doing the reading as a (relatively low-priced) fund raiser for a couple wee not-for-profit organizations; one of them might be a small church.  It would probably occur the week of December 7, before we’re all in final holiday frenzy.  It might be in Lakewood.
 
It would likely be in two segments of about 35 minutes each with a short intermission.  There might be some option to purchase refreshments. 
 
So, the questions are:
 
1. Do you think you might join me for such a thingy?
2. If you have kidlets of whatever age, would you bring them along (possibly at a reduced fee)?
 
[By the way, a THIRD version of the piece is available as a radio play on archived streaming audio at WKSU.  The link is  http://www.wksu.org/alexandra/  .]
 
So please let me know what you think.
 
Thanks so much!
 
Blessings,
 
Neal
 
P.S.  I apologize if you have received (many) more than one copy of this.  Darn that marketing demon!