Tarot Card for the Day ~ June 30

Strength

Percivale’s Vision

Fortune Cookie: 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.

http://strangerealms.multiply.com/photos/album/65/Legend_The_Arthurian_Tarot#photo=38]

[To see the card:

We last saw this card a tad over two months ago.  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 antique anything expensive. Thank you.] [This smarmy message brought to you by the committee to help Neal look more like a grownup.] The card can also indicate perhaps the most perfect light touch of luck.  Yesssss!

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

Where was I? 

[Come to that, Who was I?]

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, Tyra, Alanis, 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 yet full 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:  Prose books are the show dogs I breed and sell to support my cat. ~  Robert Graves

Today’s Whether:  A great Kozmic wedgie.  Defend yourself with Little Debbie Sonic Cream Grenades.

On This Date:  1908 – The Tunguska event occurs in remote Siberia.

Trees knocked over by the Tunguska blast.

Tarot Card for the Day ~ June 29

Six of Swords The Eachtra Fortune Cookie: Go deep within and find the treasure there, then bring it out to lovingly share with the world.    [To see the Card: http://strangerealms.multiply.com/photos/album/65/Legend_The_Arthurian_Tarot#photo=57]   Lessee… that’s a SIX two days in a row [yesterday’s caed was the Six of Cups].  So, if that has any special meaning for you… Good! As I’ve said other times this card has turned, the Six of Swords as I work with it has several layers of meaning, and requires a bit of storytelling and explanation.  So, once again, bear with me.  According to Anna Marie Ferguson − creator of Legend, the Arthurian Tarot  − The Eachtra is the Irish phrase for an Otherworld journey and adventure.  Among the Arthurian legends, one such adventure involved a great quest in which Arthur and his knights ventured to the realm of Annwn − the Celtic Underworld − to meet Arawn, the Lord of the Underworld. Depending on which version you harken to, this quest was undertaken to form a brotherly alliance, king to king, (or to do grievous battle, army to army) so as to win and bring back (or steal and bring back) High Magic and powerful magical tools for the grace and hope of Camelot.    Funny how variable those legends are.  I blame it on the monk mead.  Maybe it was just those wonderful little mushrooms they ate with their salads.          Yum.                                                         So, let’s see.  An otherworld journey and adventure…  That’s still a pretty perfect thing to have recommended to us right now − a time full of early summer magic, during which many of us (and many more people than actually realize it) are sensitive to a thinning of the veils between ordinary reality and the realms of spirit.  And so, in this magical season How will you let yourself explore the doorways to goodness, wisdom and healing that are available just now? Especially those which open by going deep within to find our own truer, better natures.  [I hope you’ll at least dream on it!] Anyway, back to the card, more or less.  In the teachings of modern “core shamanism,” journeying is the term given to the deep, powerful meditation used by shamanic practitioners to travel to alternate realities. Often, the first teaching journeys are to the Lower World –into beautiful, fruitful, healing darkness entered through an opening into the Earth.    So, in my work with clients, and based on my shamanic work, I’ve come to refer to the Six of Swords as The Journeywork Card.  This card directs us to go deep – deep within the self, into the core of our hopes and dreams, to the very essence of our being. It tells us to believe in, seek and find the beautiful, powerful, enlightening, inspiring treasure within us. And it asks us to then embrace it fully and bring it up and out into the world to share with and benefit all. Isn’t that why you agreed to come into this lifetime at all, after all?  Eh?  Eh? At all? Explore the realms of the sacred and the healing.  Go deep within and find the treasure there, then bring it out to lovingly share with the world.  Be part of the beautiful and powerful magics of the season. Bright blessings and miraculous journeys! [For more information on journeying, please see my article at  http://shamanspath.org/index_ShamanicJourneyIntro.htm ]     Quote for the Day: We have deep depth. ~ Yogi Berra Today’s Weather:  Sun showers.  Best offplanet chardonnay in the solar sytem.  Rich, distinct yet delicate in flavor and completely hurricane proof.    On This Date: 1880 – France annexes Tahiti. [No fools, those Frenchies!]

Tarot card for the Day ~ June 28

Six of Cups In Ector’s Keeping Fortune Cookie: Easy, sweet, nostalgic in a positive way, calm and comforting ~ that’s the theme to get you through the day. Well, this card last showed up way back in Jnauary.  I wish it would come around more often. Like, daily! As I always say to my clients, “Remember when you were eight years old and summer lasted forever, and all you really had to was love your dog, go swimming with your friends and dream about how wonderful the world can be?”   Well, that’s the energy and essence of this card. The Six of Cups is a card that bespeaks the beauty and the joy and the innocence and the wisdom of an almost ideal childhood.  So in your connections and interactions today: Look for a quality like that in all those you meet.  If you can’t find it, you’re probably not with the right people, at least for today.  So, if it’s at all possible given the day, keep on moving till you’re with someone or someones whose energy is those wonderful things.  Let yourself share in that vibe and be happy and comfortable there — and assume that you deserve to be there! Try to find new ways for yourself to be a calm, still, comforting pool in the center of the manic muddle around you.  Especially give yourself permission to be that way to and for yourself.  Call to mind all that which is and has been beautiful, and hopeful, and healing in your world, and keep those things flowing through your mind.  (If you do Reiki, for example, start Reikiing yourself and everything in your vicinity the moment you read this, and keep going from there.)    Also, this is a card that suggests you may have old friends re-enter your life.  Be open to that as a possibility today.  Easy, sweet, nostalgic in a positive way, calm and comforting ~ that’s the theme to get you through the day. Brightest, happiest blessings!  Quote for the Day:  There is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place where colors are brighter, the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again.  ~ Elizabeth Lawrence Today’s Weather: Black patent Doc Martens on an adorbale four-year-old impette; awe-inspiring robomoves from a five-year-old werewolf in training. Bust it!  On This Date: 1841 – The Théâtre de l’Académie Royale de Musique in Paris premieres the ballet Giselle.

Tarot Card for the Day ~ June 27

The Fool

  Percivale

 Fortune Cookie:   Follow your bliss!  Follow your bliss!  Know what your bliss is!!!  Follow your bliss! 

[To see the card:

http://strangerealms.multiply.com/photos/album/65/Legend_The_Arthurian_Tarot#photo=30 ] 

 Isn’t that a GREAT picture?

Okay, Y’all:  We saw this card less than a week ago, smack dab on the Summer Solstice.  And if you think I have nothing better to do than repeat tarot cards for people who weren’t… What? 

What do you MEAN I’m one of them?

Smart aleck spirit guides!

Anyway, to get back to the point here, somewhere: I’m always grateful whenever this card comes around again, for prolly more reasons than I can count.  Sometimes I think this may be the most important card in the deck, for us and for the world in this time.  It is in fact the FIRST card in the deck, which should give you some idea of the weight it carries.

Just as significant, it’s the antithesis to that state I see so often: folks lassoing their own private storm clouds, knotting them in place just above their heads and walking around beating themselves with a stick [or a riding crop, or electroshock device, if budget permits] while chanting that ever-so-helpful mantra, “Life sucks.  The world is doomed.  Life sucks.  The world is doomed.  Life sucks. The world is doomed, and I’ll probably be first in line to get whacked.” 

If these are in fact transformational times [and they are], then that is ZACKLY the wrong thing to immerse yourself in!  No?

So, back to the card. 

Da Ful: this card does not mean that you are a fool or are inevitably going to be foolish today ~ at least not in the way our culture perceives foolishness. 

I call this The Joseph Campbell card.  It’s the card that says, “You.  You.  Yeah, you.  FOLLOW YOUR BLISS.  NOW!  With joy, hope, excitement and expectation.  NOW!  ”

It’s therefore the card that offers you permission to go off on your personal quest, just like Percivale did. (And he became one of the three greatest knights of all, y’all!)

The important aspect (and for some of us, the hard work) is:

to actually KNOW what our bliss is (or would be). 

Because you see, when we get kinda down or times are tough, THAT is often the first knowing or believing that goes RIGHT out the window.

So, as I have written before, this is the somewhat rambling response I’ve given to a few clients when they’ve asked,

Follow my bliss?

What the hell does that mean?

You start by knowing what your heart’s true desire is [provided it’s moral, of course.  And pretty close to legal.] If necessary, take some time to hone your understanding of what that means to you, for today, anyway.  Do it over an extra cuppa if that’s all the time you have.  But do it.

Then, no matter how impossible or illogical it may seem, like −

I’m gonna write a children’s story about an orphan boy who goes to a school for wizards, and it’s going to be so beautifully done it’s going to earn me enough to support myself and my family for the rest of my life.  It’s going to make me the first person to ever earn a billion dollars from writing fiction − [like that could ever happen!]

 − take your first single small step on the path that follows your bliss. 

And see what that leads to. 

Then take the next step. 

And see what that leads to.  And so on.

The difference between The Fool and some other Tarot cards that offer permission to follow your own unique path is that The Fool in particular says,

 “Stay connected to your heart, moment by moment. 

Know that your heart may change, and so your direction may change, moment by moment.  But DO NOT allow yourself to think less of yourself, your efforts or your path because of that.  Go where your heart tells you and you will achieve more than most will ever even hope for.”

This is the card of the Sacred Fool, the Holy Fool.  The one who is open to divine inspiration and honors it by following his or her bliss, harm to none and love for all, always.

Let me remind you [troooooo-leeee for the umpteenth time] of how The Fool’s gift once applied to me. 

I was watching one of the shows in the second season of “Torchwood” [if you still haven’t picked up on that BBC series, I think you’re missing something. Especially now that season 3 is out on DVD. But start with the first season.]  One of the characters made the point, in a way that hit me harder than I remember any TV show ever doing, that humans on Earth are almost always at war. We tell ourselves that we are fighting “the war to end war for all time.”  Over and over and over.  

And I was really shaken.  Because, for just a moment, I had a glimpse of humans, with our nearly angelic powers and potentials, side by side with the reality of how we ignore them, or maybe even worse, use them in ways that are just plain selfish, demeaning destructive and stupid, moment by moment.

And I got the very clear message that a big chunk of the problem is that we are following old habits, old programming. NOT following our bliss. Not honoring that which is angelic in us.  Not reaching for that which is for our Highest and Best. 

But we can.

And then I came into the office and drew The Fool card and found great blessing in the message that that there is ALWAYS the possibility of doing it all differently

IF we know our hearts truly truly;

IF we honor that which truly resonates for the Highest and Best,

 which is always one with OUR Highest and Best;  

 IF   we

 follow

 our

 bliss.

Wishing you a day of magic, and the sacred, and your true path.

 Brightest Blissings!

 Quote for the Day:     Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius-and a lot of courage-to move in the opposite direction. ~ Albert Einstein 

 Today’s Weather:  Platypus crudités on a MelMac floral tray.  Create guarding wards with a Pez Popeye and an old Toshiba laptop. 

On This Date: 1954 – The world’s first nuclear power station opens in Obninsk, near Moscow. [I think we’re all bozos on this bus.]

Tarot Card for the Day ~ June 26

Knight of Shields

Bors

Fortune Cookie:  Know your goal, believe in yourself and in your ability to attain it. Don’t jump through hoops for anyone; move at your own pace.  But be sure you do move and keep moving.

  [To view card:

http://strangerealms.multiply.com/photos/photo/65/13 ]

This card last showed up almost exactly two months ago.  I’m glad he’s back.

Typical readers would find in this card such things as rectitude [which one of my spirit-guides calls “retch-itude,”], utility, and responsibility.  One has even suggested it predicts a message of good news to someone who really needs it. [Can I see a show of hands from all the folks who vote for that one?]

So anyway, see how all those might fit into your day. 

Anna-Marie Ferguson, creator of the Legend deck I use, writes of an honest hard-working man, a supporter of tradition and order, and solid, steadfast progress.  If any of those describe what you need for the day or the times to come, keep an eye out for them or, better yet, embody them:  BE THEM.  Don’t get caught up in any whirlwinds blowing through, and fergawdsake, don’t create ’em ! 

In this card I see [and you should take as a role model]

one who considers himself —  objectively — the most powerful knight in the forest,

with NO doubt whatsoever that he will meet his goal,

no doubt he will achieve his quest,

no doubt he will do whatever he has set out to do. 

None!

How much?

None!

Therefore, he is calm. 

He is in no hurry. 

He feels no need to impress anyone for any reason,

no need − ever − to leap over a tall building in a single bound just because somebody else might like it. 

He goes slowly, perhaps almost plodding at times, just putting one foot in front of the other to get where he needs to go. 

HOWEVER, he is always conscious of his goal,

aware of what will be necessary to get there,

and always in motion toward his target, until his mission is accomplished.    

So, once again:

Know your goal,

believe in yourself

and your ability to attain it,

don’t jump through hoops for anyone,

and move at your own pace. 

But be sure to move and keep moving.

Bright blessings, slowly, surely, constantly!

Quote for the Day: Keep your sense of humor, my friend; if you don’t have a sense of humor it just isn’t funny anymore.  ~ Wavy Gravy 

Today’s Weather: Tweezles rampant.  Guard your pecadilloes.  

On This Date: 1284 – the legendary Pied Piper leads 130 children out of Hamelin, Germany.  [Yes, for real. Sort of.] 

Tarot card for the Day ~ June 25

Five of Spears

The Pursuit of Igraine

Fortune Cookie:  Take out those old, dried dream seeds.  Dust them off, plant them and water them. See if you don’t make the world burst into bloom again!

Well, let’s knock the dust off of this card, which we haven’t seen on this blog since back in September!

As a beginning to my pontification upon the Five of Spears, lemme say that there are several cards in the deck that recommend things along the lines of, “Follow your Bliss,” or, “Do what you love,” or, “Pursue what you really want.”  Right?

But as my friend Ginny said in a comment on the blog, “I think the hardest part is knowing what your bliss is.”

I dunno if I’ve ever heard that from any normal person under sixteen or so.  So it must be a condition peculiar to modern Western [alleged] adults.  Often, we buy into concepts that create a war within us ~ concepts that say, “You can’t hope to succeed, doing what you enjoy.  You’ll fail. You’ll starve.  Take your medicine. Grow up!”

Like these people? 

On one of John Lennon’s school reports at Quarry Bank School a teacher wrote, “Certainly on the road to failure.” 

In prep school, Bill Gates ran into trouble for skipping classes, not turning in homework and spending day and night − in the computer room.  [No future in that, right?] 

Henry Ford gave up his family’s farm to go tinker with machines.  And he founded two car companies that utterly failed before he created the Ford Motor Company. 

And let’s not forget Edison, who said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”  And, “Many of life’s failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”  Not to mention, “I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.” 

Even Donald Trump, who has said, “The most important thing in life is to love what you’re doing, because that’s the only way you’ll ever be really good at it,” has had to stare down bankruptcy and be called a failure by pundits, politicians and everyday people by the millions. 

And The Beatles (fer Godzake) were rejected by Decca Records, being brushed off with, “Guitar groups are out of fashion.”

That’s a list of failures well worth emulating, and a group of people who followed their bliss ~ in radically different directions. 

Ultimately, it’s like what I told my stepson as he was heading for college:  “Find what you love to do, and do what you need to do to be able to do it incredibly well – better than anyone else, even.  Because whether it’s digging ditches or doing rocket science, somebody’s making a million dollars a year doing it.  No reason it shouldn’t be you.  No reason it can’t be you.”

Which FINALLY brings us back to today’s card.  [NO, I didn’t forget!  Jeeze, have you considered decaffeinating for a week or two?]

The Five of Spears indicates a deep need to reconnect with passion in your life.  Not just passion of the steamy, rumple-the-sheets kind, although that maybe can apply if that’s what’s a big issue for you now. 

Rather, the card asks you to stop and take stock of what really sets your heart and soul ablaze − what drives you, what you’d truly like to have the world remember you for a hundred years and more after you’ve gone.  Also, and perhaps as part of that, it’s important to go back and let yourself reconnect with old dreams you had put away − or thought you had “become too mature for” − long ago. 

In fact, go back in your mind to when you were four or five years old.  What were your dreams, your hopes, your knowings for your life and the evolution of the world back then? 

Take out those old, dried dream seeds.  Dust them off, plant them and water them. See if you don’t make the world burst into bloom again!

Bright blessings!

Quote for the Day:  Passion is the element in which we live; without it, we hardly vegetate.  ~ George Gordon, Lord Byron

Today’s Weather:   Earthlight stardancing all about the realms.  Eat a peach.

On This Date: 1678 – Elena Cornaro Piscopia, a mathematician and linguist, is the first woman awarded a doctorate of philosophy [from the University of Padua].

In Celebration!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pu0Fn1oRN4

Tarot Card for the Day ~ June 23

Eight of Swords

Guenevere at the Stake

Fortune Cookie: Reach out. Ask for help. Let yourself receive help − help of all kinds from all appropriate levels. Especially seek assistance from those who are extremely capable of helping you understand, take on and overcome the difficulties [or go after the new goals] that may be trying to creep up [or that are emerging]. 

[To see the card:

http://strangerealms.multiply.com/photos/photo/65/59  ]

Okay.  For those of you who weren’t paying attention when this card showed up exactly three weeks ago…

Yo! Yo!  Ovah Heeeyah!  Yeah.  Heeeyah!  I’m tawking to you!

PAY ATTENTION!  

[And by the way, what DIDN’T you ask for help with back then that you might have.  Eh?]

As I said the last couple of times this card showed up, this is really one of those cards that a client only has to see for about a second before they start whining and puling.  Can’t say I blame them, based on how the Eight of Swords is usually depicted.

Even in my Legend deck, the largest elements are Guenevere tied to the stake, wood piled about her, the executioner (looking very much like Lurch from the original Adams family) ready to set the pyre alight.  Charmin’ all ’round, ’tis.

So when intuitive consultants (Tarot types) typically offer interpretations along the lines of bad news, conflict, slander, crisis, regret and being held at a disadvantage − I suppose I can see why a client might whimper some.

However − as most of you have already begun to say under your breath – ol’ Nealio, he don’t see it THAT way. 

Let’s think about something for a second.  [Yes, you have to.  Have another coffee or a strawberry cough pancake for pity’s sake.] 

Why do people come to guys like me for a reading? [Be nice.  Remember, I STILL know your email address.] [And besides, I need the answer to that question for a summer marketing blitz.]

People should NOT NOT NOT come to a Tarot reader just to hear what’s gonna happen.  They SHOULD work with people of my ilk to learn what THEY need to know that will help THEM maximize success and optimize outcomes!  BIIIIIIIG difference! 

I like a phrase my wife shared with me.  “Some American Indians think of prophecy as that which can be changed.”

So, you come to me for a reading.  The Eight of Swords turns up.  You start looking for a place to hide.  You find you don’t fit under the table and you can’t leap from the window because we’re in a basement.

So I say,

Wait a minute! Wait!  Wait!  Wait!

[Wait!]  Don’t leap (or claw your way up) to conclusions! 

The first thing this card is telling you is that, if you’ve been feeling bound, trapped, concerned that there’s some negativity trying to bring you down, you’ve been right.  You’re not just being a wuss.

But!  BUT!!!!!  Look carefully at the card, Watson. 

 

The Queen is tied to the stake and about to become an order of crispy-crunchy, dipping sauce upon request, no vegans please.  However, peer more closely [I’m exerting peer pressure] and you’ll see there are knights coming over the hill, riding to her rescue.  And, if you remember your old Richard Harris movies, they will succeed.

This card is a gift to you, warning you in advance of possible crisis and other down-side realities.  And sure, if you freeze like a deer in the headlights, you will become Highway Delight.      

How should you deal with this card?  Do what Guenevere did. 

Reach out. 

Ask for help.  

Let yourself receive help − help of all kinds from all appropriate levels. 

Especially seek assistance from those who are extremely capable of helping you understand, take on and overcome the difficulties [or go after the new goals] that may be trying to creep up [or that may be emerging]. 

That will lead you to the most positive outcome possible, and even to a successful turnaround of the situation.

This card offers an end to adversity and a new beginning.

Let me repeat that for greater effect:

This card offers

an end to adversity

and a new beginning.  

But you have to reach out for it and grab the help when it’s there.  (After all, don’t you owe it to all the rest of us to make your life, and thus the greater vibration, better?)

Feeling tied down or tied in knots?  DON’T try to handle it alone.  Reach out.  Get general support from all those who care about you.  Engage those who have the strength, skill and wisdom to help you free yourself and move on to new, bright possibilities.  And make it a habit not to go solo any more.  Reach out.  Ask for help − of the highest and best kind.

Bright blessings, hope, peace and joy!

Quote for the Day: I get by with a little help from my friends.  ~ Those British Guys

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrOY6myQz4g&feature=related

 Today’s Weather: Carry the plague.  Amuse your friends.   

On This Date: 1901 – First exhibition of Pablo Picasso‘s work opens.

  

This is the 175th day of the year.

Tarot Card for the Day ~ June 23

Two of Cups

Tristram & Isolt

Fortune Cookie: Be there! Be open!  Reach out for the ☼☼☼NEW☼☼☼ that is coming into your life!  Let yourself be available to receive and pursue it.  RIGHT NOW!!!!

We last saw this card in early April ~ twice!  And it’s a GREAT card for one of the first few days of official summer here in the Northern hemisphere.  So pay attention and take advantage of it fer the luvva the Green Man!

And, once again, my interpretation of the card varies some from the norm. This surely no longer surprises anybody.

Many readers would respond to this card by suggesting things like friendship, affinity, concord, union, even love.   Some might say it bespeaks a complementary match, or a solid relationship.

Anna-Marie Ferguson, creator of the Legend deck, finds things like the beginning of a trusted partnership, rapport and the forming of strong emotional bonds.

Not even I would be idiot enough to fight with that, or to want to. So especially if any of those interpretations resonate with you – in terms of what you’re seeking lately or in terms of what the Universe seems to be offering today – honor it.  Seek it.  Go after it full tilt. 

[To see the card:

http://strangerealms.multiply.com/photos/photo/65/17 ]

 But when this card has turned up for many clients, the intuitive information that almost always pops out of my mouth is,

 “Look:

Some amazing (or beautiful or tremendously healing or whatever) NEW ENERGY(or opportunity or person or position or vision) is trying to come into your life.

It will, if you let it, sweep you off in a wonderful, beautiful, incredibly positive NEW DIRECTION. 

 LET IT!

LET IT!

LET IT! ” 

 So:

Be there! Be open!  Reach out for the ☼☼☼NEW☼☼☼ that is coming into your life!  Let yourself be available to receive and pursue it.  RIGHT NOW!!!! 

 Bright blessings and beautiful new directions!

 Quote for the Day:  No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world. ~ Robin Williams 

 Today’s Weather: A magical Familiar in the form of a battered derby hat.  That’ll confuse ’em!    

 On This Date: 1988 – James E. Hansen testifies to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources that it is 99% probable that global warming had begun.

Tarot Card for the Day ~ June 22

Nine of Shields

Ragnell

Fortune Cookie: What is the magical transformation of yourself and your life you would have by being given permission (giving yourself permission) to do what you really want and be who and what you really are?

[To see the card:

http://strangerealms.multiply.com/photos/photo/65/10 ]

Another magical card for this week!  We last saw it in mid-April, and this is always a good card to work with and learn from.  [You may notice that this is the card I pulled when seeking information about how I should think of my blog itself, and what I should hope to offer through it.]

The Nine of Shields asks that we be open to

magical transformation – of ourselves and our lives –

through love

by being given

(or giving ourselves)

permission to do what we really want to do 

and be who we really are. 

It is therefore useful to look at this card from this perspective [i.e., ASK YOURSELF THIS!]:

If I could change myself and/or my life in any and all of the way(s) that I wish to in order to be true to myself −

What would I change? 

Who and what would I be? 

What would I ask of life this time around? 

What would I give to the planet at this time? 

How would I give it?

Then ask what baby steps will get you moving in that direction.  And love yourself enough to let yourself begin and take them.  

While you’re at it, it might also be a good thing to take a look ’round at the people you care most about. 

Ask for guidance about what you might offer (without negating who you are or what your hopes are) to help them seek and attain their magical transformation through love by giving them permission to do what they really want and be who they really are.

Honor and integrity are important elements in the revelations of this card as well. 

It might be worthwhile to go through the story of  The Lady Ragnell to get a sense of what this card can be about.  That will require a Nealio’s fracturized beat-all-to-hell and put back together-sorta faerystory version of the legend behind the card.

The story begins when King Arthur is challenged, at peril of the loss of his kingdom, to discover the answer to an ancient riddle. 

The knight Gawain, Arthur’s nephew, sets out to answer the riddle for him, and eventually he encounters the hag Ragnell.  She offers the solution if he’ll take her to give it to the King personally. 

Gawain takes her to Camelot and presents her to Arthur, who asks for the answer.  She replies that she will whisper the answer into the King’s ear − if Gawain will promise to marry her.  Arthur says, “Good God, woman, you must be freaking kidding me,” or Medieval words to that effect.  Gawain selflessly consents to the marriage to help his uncle Arthur, Ragnell reveals the secret to the King, and Camelot is saved.

The wedding of Gawain and Ragnell goes ahead as planned, and the new pair retires to the bedroom. Ragnell asks, “Won’t you give me a little kiss?” and Gawain dutifully does so, then turns away, contemplating how truly wretched the rest of the night, not to mention his life, will be. 

When he turns back to her, he is astonished to find the most beautiful woman he has ever seen standing before him.  She explains she had been under a spell to look like a hag until a good knight married her and kissed her with kindness, if not affection.  He is, of course, delighted.

“But wait, fair knight,” she says, or, “Hold up, homey,” or something like that.   “Wait. You must understand that my true appearance will be restored for only half the day.”  She gives him the choice to have her beautiful at night, when they are alone together, or during the day, when they are with all his friends in Camelot.

Without hesitation, Gawain tells her that she must have the choice for herself. This generous, unforced, unrequested answer lifts the curse for good, and Ragnell’s true appearance and nature return forever.  And Gawain does the Macarena around the room, being such class act.

So, what is the magical transformation of yourself and your life that you would have through love by being given permission (and/or giving yourself permission) to do what you really want and be who and what you really are?

By the way, you might like to know the riddle and its answer.

The question was, “What is it a woman desires most?”

The answer (two versions):

“Her own way.” 

~ OR ~

“The right (sovereynté) to decide for herself.”

Bright Blessings!

Quote for the Day: I do not fear Satan half so much as I fear those who fear him.  ~ Saint Teresa of Avila

Today’s Waethyr:  Wear your favorite joules.  I promise an electrifying day! 

On This Date: 1783 – A poisonous cloud from Laki volcanic eruption in Iceland reaches Le Havre in France. [The Laki eruptions in 1783-84 have been estimated to have killed over two million people globally, making Laki the deadliest volcanic eruption in historical times. The drop in temperatures, due to the sulfuric dioxide gases spewed into the northern hemisphere, caused crop failures in Europe, droughts in India, and Japan’s worst famine.]  [Yipes!]

 

Not to make light or anything…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxuaUaS4rU0

Tarot Card for the Day ~ June 21

The Fool

 

  Percivale

Fortune Cookie:   Follow your bliss!  Follow your bliss!  Know what your bliss is!!!  Follow your bliss! 

 

Isn’t that a GREAT picture?What a GREAT card for the Summer Solstice [which occurs Monday at 7:28 AM EDT]. And since this is the card for the Solstice, that means it is also the card for the ENTIRE summer.  So plan ye thy summer en accorde wi’ that which ye shall finde herein.  Or something.

Anyway, to get back to the point here, somewhere: I’m always grateful this card has come around again, for prolly more reasons than I can count.  Sometimes I think this may be the most important card in the deck, for us and for the world in this time.  It is in fact the FIRST card in the deck, which should give you some idea of the weight it carries.

Just as significant, it’s the antithesis to that state I see so often: folks lassoing their own private storm clouds, knotting them in place just above their heads and walking around beating themselves with a stick [or a riding crop, or electroshock device, if budget permits] while chanting that ever-so-helpful mantra, “Life sucks.  The world is doomed.  Life sucks.  The world is doomed.  Life sucks. The world is doomed, and I’ll probably be first in line to get whacked.” 

If these are in fact transformational times [and they are], then that is ZACKLY the wrong thing to immerse yourself in!  Eh?

So, back to the card. 

Da Ful: this card does not mean that you are a fool or are inevitably going to be foolish today ~ at least not in the way our culture perceives foolishness. 

I call this The Joseph Campbell card.  It’s the card that says, “You.  You.  Yeah, you.  FOLLOW YOUR BLISS.  NOW!  With joy, hope, excitement and expectation.  NOW!  ”

It’s therefore the card that offers you permission to go off on your personal quest, just like Percivale did. (And he became one of the three greatest knights of all, y’all!)

The important aspect (and for some of us, the hard work) is:

to actually KNOW what our bliss is (or would be). 

Because you see, when we get kinda down or times are tough, THAT is often the first knowing or believing that goes RIGHT out the window.

So, as I have written before, this is the somewhat rambling response I’ve given to a few clients when they’ve asked,

Follow my bliss?

What the hell does that mean?

You start by knowing what your heart’s true desire is [provided it’s moral, of course.  And pretty close to legal.] If necessary, take some time to hone your understanding of what that means to you, for today, anyway.  Do it over an extra cuppa if that’s all the time you have.  But do it.

Then, no matter how impossible or illogical it may seem, like −

I’m gonna write a children’s story about an orphan boy who goes to a school for wizards, and it’s going to be so beautifully done it’s going to earn me enough to support myself and my family for the rest of my life.  It’s going to make me the first person to ever earn a billion dollars from writing fiction − like that could ever happen!

 − take your first single small step on the path that follows your bliss. 

And see what that leads to. 

Then take the next step. 

And see what that leads to.  And so on.

The difference between The Fool and some other Tarot cards that offer permission to follow your own unique path is that The Fool in particular says,

 “Stay connected to your heart, moment by moment. 

Know that your heart may change, and so your direction may change, moment by moment.  But DO NOT allow yourself to think less of yourself, your efforts or your path because of that.  Go where your heart tells you and you will achieve more than most will ever even hope for.”

This is the card of the Sacred Fool, the Holy Fool.  The one who is open to divine inspiration and honors it by following his or her bliss, harm to none and love for all, always.

Let me remind you [perhaps for the umpteenth time] of how The Fool’s gift once applied to me. 

I was watching one of the shows in the second season of “Torchwood” [if you still haven’t picked up on that BBC series, I think you’re missing something. Especially now that season 3 is out on DVD. But start with the first season.]  One of the characters made the point, in a way that hit me harder than I remember any TV show ever doing, that humans on Earth are almost always at war. We tell ourselves that we are fighting “the war to end war for all time.”  Over and over and over.  

And I was really shaken.  Because, for just a moment, I had a glimpse of humans, with our nearly angelic powers and potentials, side by side with the reality of how we ignore them, or maybe even worse, use them in ways that are just plain selfish, demeaning destructive and stupid, moment by moment.

And I got the very clear message that a big chunk of the problem is that we are following old habits, old programming. NOT following our bliss. Not honoring that which is angelic in us.  Not reaching for that which is for our Highest and Best. 

But we can.

And then I came into the office and drew The Fool card and found great blessing in the message that that there is ALWAYS the possibility of doing it all differently

IF we know our hearts truly truly;

IF we honor that which truly resonates for the Highest and Best,

 which is always one with OUR Highest and Best;  

 IF   we

 follow

 our

 bliss.

 Wishing you a day of magic, and the sacred, and your true path.

 Brightest Blissings!

Quote for the Day:     Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius-and a lot of courage-to move in the opposite direction. ~ Albert Einstein 

Today’s Weather:  Womping great sun showers all upon the lee.  

On This Date: 2004 – SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight.  

  

To celebrate the Summer Solstice, one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite artists:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B7sH5QLyXY