Proximal Karma

Those who have known me a long time, and are paying attention, have realized, over the years, that I have what I'd like to call a pretty strong proximal karma. That is to say, I rarely have to spend time or energy on hate, 1) because it's not in my nature and, 2) because when I am wronged, my proximal karma usually has a very fast turnaround. I often don't have to wait longer than an hour for karma to bite back on my behalf.

That said, the flip side of that, is that my energy appears to be rather taxing on inanimate objects that can break. It's not quite as strong as my cousin's or my aunt's, both of whom have a polarizing effect on technological and electronic things. However, since purchasing my house, I've had a Murphy's Law relationship with my home, and everything in it.

Enter proximal karma. My cousin, who lives with me, is also now having things break on her. Big things. Most recently, and often, it has been her car. Today, her car decided to "piss antifreeze," as we are calling it, in the garage. She's taking the car to be fixed, however, I could not help but shake my head. In the last few years, if my house didn't break, my body broke. If my body didn't break, my car or my computer did. This strange energy seems to be leeching out into Karen's things.

Therefore, I must put a question forth to my fellow professionals - how do I clear this energy, or at least keep it from affecting my cousin?

Suggestions are welcome and encouraged.

Thank you in advance!

- Mel

Hubris

Today, my friends, I am struck by the desire to talk about hubris. I've always been fascinated by hubris, religious and societal. I find it hilarious. Honestly, I giggle every time my dog becomes incensed, stops right in front of me, and poops on the carpet. I know this does nothing to prevent him from doing it again in future, however, the fact that he knows he's being bad, he knows he'll be punished, and he goes ahead and does it anyway is one of the funniest things I've ever experienced.

Hubris makes me laugh. Not nervous, oh-my-God-I'd-better-step-away-so-I-don't-get-caught-in-the-lightning-smiting laughter. No, I have real, from the belly, shakes the whole body peals of delighted guffaws. I find it wildly entertaining that people know they will be smote, by karma, God, or society, and still go ahead and do some things anyway. It's rather like watching someone pee on an electric fence. Others may throw stones, but I grab the popcorn, sit back, and wait to be entertained by the hand of Fate. It's better than HBO.

In our community, we are well versed in the Rule of Three, whether we are practicing pagans or Christian church-going folk. Everyone knows this rule. Every religion has some version of the Golden Rule, the most important of all teachings. the pagan/Wiccan version being "harm none," the Christian version be "whatsoever you do unto the least of my brothers, you do unto me" or "love thy neighbor." Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, everybody has this rule.

Still, hubris abounds, providing hours of entertainment with a simple Google search (I regularly watch the kicked cat drop a flowerpot on its owner's head) or phone call to grandma to hear the latest poop about yea olde hometown. What goes around comes around and all that.

It still surprises - nay, delights - me that some hubris is so overt. Those "how dumb can you be" moments that give one pause to just stare and hope that social Darwinism will weed out the gene pool (no worries, I've already been weeded - there will be no little Mels laughing at the hubris of others). One such moment happened this week when my grandma came to visit the dog and me. I grew up in one of those towns where everyone knows everyone's business. In this town, one black mark against your reputation could follow you until the day you die. It's a town with its own rules, customs, and hostility towards those who "don't understand how things work around here."

A common custom in this town is an unspoken accord between neighbors, gentlemen's agreements about property lines dating back decades, if not hundreds of years, for which there has never been any need for something so official as an "easement." Some of the old gentlemen's agreements are going down on paper now, but most neighbors still care little if this neighbor's shed is one foot over their property line. The shed is there. It's always been there. If it is still standing a hundred years from now, nobody's going to say boo about it.

Everyone's property overlaps everyone's property, sometimes in the weirdest, most illogical ways, as only a town that has been settled since the 1800s can be. There are perhaps 20 large families to which everyone is related by birth or through marriage. Everyone knows what your grandfather did for a living, whether you distinguished yourself in school, and especially if you made trouble.

My uncle (the deacon) and my aunt (the popular Catholic school principal - do keep in mind the Catholic church is the largest in town, serving at least half the 20,000 population) had a legacy gentlemen's agreement with an old Victorian house cum law office, with which they share a driveway entrance. It has always been this way. They are the third owners of their home, and for nearly 100 years, no one who has owned their home has had any problems with the family-owned law office next door, with which they share a driveway entrance. The old Victorian law office's drive entrance actually serves as the entrance to the drives of 2 residential homes.

Recently, the owner of the old Victorian, a second-generation lawyer who had taken over his father's practice, retired and sold his business to a woman who "doesn't understand how things work." That isn't to say she isn't perfectly justified and in her legal right to demand that my aunt and uncle lay down their own driveway and stop using the aforementioned entrance they'd shared for a century. She is perfectly in her right. However, the hubris of it, knowing my hometown as I do, makes me giggle.

Even though I am loathe to leave my Fortress of Solitude in Burnsville, the imp in me wants to drive home to Hastings and park myself on the facing sidewalk, just to see the commotion when a backhoe suddenly shows up on my uncle's lawn. My uncle, who is part-manager of THE local charity foundation, a deacon, and a regular Habitat for Humanity contributor and worker, is needless to say just as well-known as his wife. Since my mother and her siblings never left Hastings, everyone knows that Dr. Mick is the son of Dr. Mel (yes, I was named after him), and used to practice dentistry at my grandfather's practice, now run by Dr. Steve, which serves at least a fourth of the community. Seeing Dr. Mick tearing up his yard is, as you can imagine, cause for a great big stir. People will stop. These are not people who will just look. These are people who have a vested interest in the community, are part of its inner workings, serve on God knows how many boards for banks and the hospital and the church. These are people who ask questions, and will be incensed to the point of righteous indignation to see the gentlemen's agreement broken, and Dr. Mick burdened so.

Remember, the Victorian is a law office. It is my understanding that a law office thrives on the business it receives. I want to sit on a lawn chair, crack open a Coke, and see the new lawyer get exactly what she wanted - an empty parking lot. As I said, she is absolutely in her right to deny my aunt and uncle an easement. I simply question her sanity.

I become downright flummoxed as to her survival skills when other factors are considered. My aunt and uncle do not entertain more than one friend at a time. Being part of my mother's side, even their large gatherings do not get louder than the conversation at a funeral brunch, and end by 8 pm. My cousins are both grown and out of the house, so there are no small children running around. Even the dog is very well-behaved, because Dr. Mick would not have it any other way. The Victorian, and all of Hastings, knows that Dr. Mick has had his home on the market, so that he and his wife can retire to their lake home in Wisconsin. In deference to their respect for the Victorian's previous owner, they likely turned down offers on their beautiful home from prospective buyers who would have upset the tranquility of the neighborhood. I doubt they will honor such an unspoken accord now, and anticipate a group of loud, largely-unsupervised hellions will be gallivanting through the Victorian's prim bushes in a matter of months. I want to sit on the sidewalk, sip my Coke, and indulge in a little schadenfreude as I watch all this unfold.

I want to wave to the new lawyer as she realizes, with no small amount of horror, that one or two cars from the family once or twice a month in her otherwise desolate parking lot, is the very least of her worries, as her law office is parked RIGHT across the street from Todd Field, and football season is about to dawn. Football is a big deal in Hastings, and everyone goes out to support the team. Her parking lot will be overrun by loud, screaming teenagers and pop-dumping strangers trying to park as close to the field as they can.

The imp in me wants to copy all the Space for Rent advertisements in the "Star Gazette" in not one, but at least three different business villages within Hastings, and leave them next to empty beer cans, hot dog wrappers, pom-pom fluff, and blue-and-gold grease paint streaks that are about to adorn her blacktop wasteland.

Alas, I will likely only hear about it from my grandmother who, through the hospital auxiliary and all her friends from her many years of volunteer work, will have eyes and ears on the situation for decades to come, long after Dr. Mick and his wife have moved away. Three generations after you die, there are still some things for which the community has no forgiveness.

It is best to know such things before setting up shop there. As I said, I marvel at her lack of survival skills, and almost feel sorry for the wrath that is about to be visited upon her. Not an overt wrath. It is a quiet, slow, cold wrath that only this community can conjure, that one may not even be aware of until they have been completely frozen out.

In short, my friends, don't crap where you eat.

Harvest

 

Welcome friends.  Once again, I am on the hop, this one for Lammas.  We last left our intrepid writer/claims adjuster/Tarot reader/friendly neurotic, things looked rather bleak.  Luckily, I have had a very good month, reintegrated some of my healthier life habits of old, and am feeling much better.

This is one of my favorite disk cards from my first and still favorite deck, the Tarot of Transformation.  I think this one best embodies (pun intended) this last turn of the wheel for me. 





I know the usual Five of Disks pictures two people left out in the cold outside a church.  The card to the left was actually my first introduction to the Five of Disks - that of joyful release and celebration of form.

Ironically, it was my refusal to seek help, which I clearly needed - a need exemplified in a traditional Five of Pentacles card - that kept me stuck.  I learned from Nancy Antenucci that there are two religions - Love and Fear, and that you cannot serve both.  It's one of those concepts that's easy on paper but surprisingly hard in practice.  How do you know when you are serving Fear?  When does self-preservation turn into self-sabotage?  Can you even pinpoint the moment you lost your balance?  And is finding something to blame for it really that important, or is it possible to just accept you've stumbled and move on?

In all, I have reaped much wisdom these last months.  My hope is that your Lammas is offering an equally bountiful harvest to all of you.

If you did not come from there, please visit the blog before mine:

Christiana Gaudet - http://tarottrends.com/content/pentacles-fruits-harvest

Otherwise, next on the hop is:

Sandie Worthy - http://wp.me/pIIBV-kg

If there is a break in the chain, the Master List can be found at:

http://kareenatarot.blogspot.in/2012/07/tarot-blog-hop-master-list-for-aug-1.html

(And do drop a special thanks to Kareena Narwani for herding the cats this time around.)

Celebrate the Sunrise

Hi all!  Welcome back to the Tarot Blog Hop arranged, this time, by Chloë McCracken (http://www.innerwhisperscouk.blogspot.com/).  This month's topic is "Celebrate the Sunrise" and centered around Litha, the longest day of the year. 

This is also probably the shortest blog I've ever done.  I thought of doing a spread or waxing poetic about the many sunrises and sunsets I've seen, but then this has found me at least five times over the last month, and considering I'd never seen it before, I've decided the Litha message that wishes to speak through me is simply this:

Keep looking

at the bandaged place.

That's where

the Light enters you.

-- Rumi

Be grateful for your wounds, my friends.

If the chain is broken, please visit:

http://www.innerwhisperscouk.blogspot.com/p/litha-blog-hop-master-list.html

For the master list.

Hopefully, you arrived here via Donna L. Faber:

http://www.donnalouisefaber.com/blog/2012/6/11/celebrating-the-midsummer-sun-the-wheel-of-fortune-spins.html

To continue the hop, please visit Teresa Deak:

http://picsiechick.com/2012/06/gratitude-tarot-king-kindness/

Until next time, be strong, and embrace the light that comes in through your cracks.

Piracy is the Highest Form of Flattery?

The other day Nance e-mailed me to let me know something disturbing had happened with regard to Psychic Tarot.  Apparently, we've been pirated!

As the author of nine other books (all of them nonfiction educational books for children), this is definitely a first for me.  On  the one hand, I am very hopeful that our wonderful publisher, Llewellyn, grabs these people by the throat and shakes them until their necks snap.  Or perhaps something less violent, more in line with the spirit of the Rule of Three, but nonetheless equally effective.

On the other hand, that the book is popular enough to have drawn pirates is no small matter.  I don't encourage, endorse, or otherwise condone someone going out now and posting .PDF versions of Black Mambas all over the internet, but I am continually proud and grateful to have involved with the Psychic Tarot book and am inspired by the comments we receive back about it.  So far, the book has done more than reach that one poor soul in Montana without access to other Tarot resources that we hoped it would help.

That said, if you're thinking it doesn't hurt us to pirate the book, let me draw you a picture.  I currently work 50 hours a week as a claims adjuster, produce 3-4 other books a year, and still can't afford my own apartment.  Going in, I've always known that for the vast majority of authors, it will always be a labor of love.  The percentage of writers who actually make a living from the trade is very small.  So yes, it does hurt very much when your book gets pirated.  Though, I have to say, it was a rite of authorship passage I'd never expected.

Thank you all for your continued support.  We love that you love Psychic Tarot.  Keep the comments coming, but please, do buy the book (new, used, electronic, Christmas wish list).

We never tire of hearing from you, and wish you great success with your Psychic Tarot journey.

The Fire Tends to All

From the moment this topic was posted on the Tarot Blog Hop to this past Sunday, I have been trying to puzzle out my aversion to it.  As always, I watched the trend of my life, asked for guidance, sought synchronicity, and still my brain resisted "The Fire Tends to All."

It's a beautiful sentiment, and desperately I wanted to feel the quiet joy its messenger Andrew McGregor (http://www.thehermitslamp.com/2012/04/beltane-2012-bloghop/) found in it when he chose it for our topic.  (Do go along and thank him for herding the cats this time!)

I stopped at the Facebook page at least three times a week, gritting my teeth and wracking my brain every time I saw it.  The more I saw it, the more by back went up and my teeth gnashed together.  If you can believe it, over this same time, I managed to miss a few important parallels that would have explained my frustration if I hadn't had my nose pressed right up against the tree.  I'd go to work, where it turns out I am so good at my job I will be "laterally" moving into a position with ten times the responsibility and stress.  I'm excited, but I'm sure most of you understand the definition of "lateral" on the pay scale.  Then I'd come home and look at this topic, scowl, and go to bed.

Upon waking, I would return the texts from my cousin wondering if I knew if I had any book deals in the pipeline, as this will basically define whether or not we can move out together, as I will be absorbing 80-90% of the rent and utilities responsibilities.  Then I would fire up ye olde laptop, surf Craigslist for a part-time job I might be able to take on to get me closer to "our" goal, go to Facebook, glower at the blog topic, and wander off to work.

After returning from work, I would listen patiently as my mother tried to convince me the cure for all my ills is a trip with her to Spain.  For which I would not have to pay a cent.  Except that there must be something I can contribute.  And while I tried to tune out the roar in my ears, I went to Facebook, played Bubble Witch, and skated through the Blog Hop topic again, rolling my eyes and kicking myself for it being so difficult for me to figure out.

Lather, rinse, repeat.  For over a month.  And still, the lightbulb did not so much as flicker.

Then Sunday came, and I went out for coffee with a friend I haven't really spoken to for a decade.  She was talking about how she was between jobs, but had used the time to rekindle old passions.

"What are you reading?" she asked, knowing of old that I'd always been an avid reader.

I blinked at her.  "I'm... between genres at the moment.  I don't think I've read anything in...."  I shrugged.  It's been months.

"Oh," she said.  "Well, I'm also getting back into music.  I remember you did music."

When she knew me, I sang and played piano.  "No," I reluctantly admitted.  "I haven't done anything with music in... well...."  It's been over a year since I've touched the piano and I rarely sing, even for my own enjoyment, anymore.

"I'm also biking... and playing pool... and dancing...."  To my abject horror, the list went on and on.

I said the only thing I could.  "Wow."

"What are you doing?" she finally asked, truly curious.

"Uh," I said, "basically I eat, sleep, and work."

It was a stomach-wrenching moment of truth.  The lightbulb in my head fairly exploded, and I could vividly recall several conversations over the past month where I couldn't figure out how people could get so caught up in tending to other people that they completely neglected the basic necessities of self care.

I hated this topic because I knew I'd been tending everyone's fires - except my own.

And I know I'm not the only one.  So if you're reading this and you can feel the niggle of your own "aha" moment, for the love of God go get a massage.  Walk through a park, hug a dog, dance in your livingroom or go have a fancy dinner for absolutely no reason at all.  You deserve it, you're worth it, and above all else, you need it.

Tend the flame, my friends.

************

If you didn't come from there, the blog before mine is:

http://www.donnaleigh.com/apps/blog/show/13682627-tending-to-your-fire-tarot-blog-hop

To continue the hop, please go ahead to:

http://www.lavonneparker.com/apps/blog/

If the chain has been broken, the list in order can be found at:

http://www.thehermitslamp.com/2012/05/beltane-bloghop-masterlist-2012

Ostara

I'm back on the hop! And just in time for an Easter-themed post.

This time the theme for the Tarot Blog Hop is Ostara: Paint a Journey with New Life.

As I am mostly a Tower girl and a Tower reader (I rarely get people who are curious about a career change or home improvement. As Kali's sometimes willing minion, I mostly read for people who are one more bit of bad news shy of coming undone). So first I had to have a little giggle over the theme.

However, undaunted by current life circumstance, the Tarot reader rides forth to meet the challenge of Paint a Journey with a New Life. This time, I have chosen to do a spread.

I'm calling this the Ostara spread and am adding it to the Little Golden Book of Spreads. For those of you new to this blog, I'm a bit of a create-your-own-spread nut. Today is no different.

Also, I'm a bit of an organic reader. I let the vision dictate the spread, then work out the message later. (I just heard the screams of a hard core traditionalist in the background. Please refer to the "Psychic Tarot" book in the upper lefthand corner and make a hasty exit at this time if you were hoping I was going to solemnly intone the Rider-Waite meanings or even read out the Tarot of Transformation meanings of any of these cards. Love you all, bow to your superior accumulated knowledge, am actually in awe of it. But we don't serve that here.)

The intent of the above spread was Painting a Journey with New Life.

Lay the above spread starting at the lower left (the cards should slightly overlap). When you've laid three cards up the left side, continue back down (cards 3 & 4 are touching each other, 5 & 6 continue down the other side to mirror cards 1 & 2 opposite). Card 7 is drawn last and placed at the top.

Cards 1 & 6 (and 2 & 5) represent needs (1 & 2) and resulting actions (5 & 6) that were attempted in the past to bring about life change that did not pan out. In the second attempt (2 & 5), you can see you were brought closer to your goal, even if the action itself did not result in the life journey you were looking for.

Cards 3 & 4 represent an open path that would get you onto the life path you wish to be on. Card 3 is the need (as Cards 1 & 2 were past needs) and Card 4 is the action (as Cards 5 & 6 were actions taken based on past needs).

Card 7 is a message from the Divine regarding your life path.

I like this spread because it honors past actions as necessary in having gotten one to this point (even though they didn't pan out at the time), as well as offers advice on which of the many paths open to you on this point you should concentrate on. We all have a multitude of spokes that keep our wheel balanced and rolling. From the big issues: Do I need to concentrate on my career? My love life? My family? My health? To the more precise issues: Should I get a hobby? If I take on another hobby, how will that affect my social life? My time with my husband? My time to make healthy food that nourishes my body rather than running through the nearest drive-thru to conserve my time and energy?

It's often difficult to decide, or sometimes even notice, in the hectic whirr of it all which spoke might have weakened and needs the most immediate attention.

In order to create new life, move forward, and strengthen your path, this spread or any healthy dose of Tarot will help you see what needs doing and envision a healthy, balanced road ahead.

***

If you haven't already, please visit Kareena who came before me:

http://kareenatarot.blogspot.com/2012/03/tarot-blog-hop-ostara-paint-journey.html

Or continue the hop by visiting October:

http://readingsbyoctober.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/tarot-blog-hop-ostara-paint-a-journey-with-new-life-26-2/

What Would You Attempt to Do if You Knew You Could Not Fail?

One of these days, I am going to look up the astrology of this year (Tarot reader = yes. Astrologer = no.) and figure out why it has been systematically kicking my behind. I feel like I'm getting completely re-organized from the inside-out, and as a person who's already done that a time or two over the last 30 years (heck, over the last decade!) I would kindly like to ask the universe to knock it the heck off!

When I headed off to college in the last waning months of the year 2000 (little suspecting what a terrible, terrible choice in colleges I had made), my mother gave me a very solid, rectangular, metal paperweight engraved with the saying, "What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?"

My mother and I both thought the answer was obvious. She said, "Everything!"

I said, "Nothing."

Which, to this day, perplexes my mother. I understood her answer - knowing you could always succeed, what wouldn't you try? Trapeze artist, hula dancer, astronaut, hot air balloon guide. Guaranteed success, why not?

I, on the other hand, could not imagine what was to be gained without risk. If I knew everything I undertook was going to be successful, why expend the effort? Knowing the outcome robs life of its mystery and guaranteed success removes that refinement that only comes from failure.

By far the most worthwhile undertakings of my life have had in them the most risk. Tarot was a risk of faith. Guatemala was a risk of safety. Writing was a risk of security. The Center was a risk of community. Spain was a risk of sanity. Finance was a risk of purpose. I have learned more in attempting these than simple success could give me.

I have been blessed with the ability to succeed at many things, but not at everything, and I have to say I'm rather grateful for that. Without failure, why would we strive? Without risk, how would we value gain?

Here's an exercise. Draw a card with the intent of exploring how failure has enriched your life. It can be a specific failure or failure in general. You may just find what you see as failure was simply risk taken in pursuit of greater gain.

Keep striving, my friends!

How Can I Be the Best Candle?

Welcome new friends. Hello to the old. I decided to participate in a Tarot blog round robin around Imbolc. The theme you see above is "How Can I Be the Best Candle?"


I gave it a good month's worth of thought. I tossed around several ideas, such as how fascinated I am that a candle represents all four elements in one form (fire on the wick, earth in the wax, water in the melted wax, air consumed by the flame). How strongly I feel that the challenge of the Hermit (the light for one) is to become the Star (the light for many). I even thought of several tenets of being a good Tarot reader. All of them were fine ideas. None of them spoke to the heart of what I felt it was to be the Best Candle.


So, I asked for clarity. And once again, I walked into another one of those "be careful what you wish for" situations.


As most of my loyal followers know (hi, Mom!), I don't support myself by Tarot or writing. When I do mention the day job, I refer to it only as my "Clark Kent" job. I tend to mention it as little as possible.


For who would suspect, despite ten books, the best possible Tarot mentor, and some very stout encouragement from every English teacher I had from fifth grade up, that I, Melanie A. Howard, would ever spend 40 hours a week...


As a claims adjuster!


Ladies and gentleman, the secret is out. I spend the vast majority of my time making money for money's sake. I work for a finance institution that hires out to other finance institutions and handle five times as much money in one day than I make in a year.


In my list of jobs, it is by far the one I have been best at. I was a fine children's book editor. I was a good teacher. I am an excellent writer and a sincere Tarot reader.


But I am remarkable at finance.


As the months after my return from Guatemala turned into years, I wasn't sure whether I was more surprised or horrified by this glaring reality. After all, what was I building? Who was I serving? How could I possibly be enriching the world?


It's easy to forget sometimes, in the world of "good" and "evil," that not all of us get to be the candle planted righteously at the head of a nonprofit organization serving widows and orphans. Someone is the candle on the other side of the phone line explaining how to reboot your internet, how to work your steering wheel touch controls, how to return the dress that was so cute in the catalog but hideous in person. Someone is the candle who arranges a payment plan for you when your life takes a turn, reverses the overdraft oopsie you didn't mean to make....


... and reviews the settlements received on an auto account in the event of an accident to make sure all parties paid correctly.


The Best Candle lights the Best Candle in others and illuminates the dark places. Whether your candle is in the Sistine Chapel or at the register at a gas station during a power outage, the purpose is the same. Shine a light wherever you are planted.


***


For those of you following the Imbolc post cycle, I invite you to click on to Michael Banuelos:


http://moderndayoracle.com/

If you did not just come from there, the blog before mine was:

http://personaltarotwithmatt.com/blog/

Thankfulness Spread

There was a rumor that this Melanie engineered spreads, but no evidence of it has been seen in quite some time. Fear not, the spreads continue, and really are catalogued in the little golden book.

I was going to do the following spread on Thanksgiving, but I was so disheartened by the materialistic display surrounding Black Friday (did anyone else notice how Thanksgiving basically got mowed over this year?) that I couldn't summon the proper frame of mind. When I engineer a spread, I do a little "gee, wouldn't it be cool if..." but I do a real spread. I don't feel it honors the vision to just lay the cards out willy-nilly in the pattern just to record it. I want to know what message it brings.







I call this the Thankfulness Spread. Mostly because I have a hard time spelling cornucopia.

(For those with a nice monitor, yes, those are glass pumpkins underneath a glass tabletop.)

If you can see, this spread begins with the Page of Coins and ends with the Four of Coins. Which is perhaps a little backward in how you'd think of the cornucopia - starting at the mouth and going to the tail - but that's how it turned out (I don't question, I just record). There are nine cards in this spread.

Card 1 (in this case the Page of Coins) represents the seeker's awareness of his or her own gifts/his or her personal, internal relationship to and treatment of those gifts.

Cards 2-8 are a listing of the many gifts and talents life has offered the seeker (and looking at my own, these may be gifts the seeker may not be aware of, may have disregarded, or may not have looked at in the light of it being a "gift").

Card 9 (in this case the Four of Coins) represents how the seeker is putting his or her gifts to work in the world.

So, save this one for next Thanksgiving or trot it out when you feel you need to get back to the intangibles. And be truly thankful.

The Baby and the Bathwater

A friend of mine once told me that I never change. My grandfather, God rest his soul, theorized that people don't change - they just become more who they are. I'm not sure what's going on astrologically (despite being a Tarot reader and a rather adept psychic, I prefer to be completely surprised - I only look for hints when I feel it is necessary), but since about last August, I've been caught up in some sort of strange turnabout where I keep looking at my life backward instead of forward.

I'm a soldier through it kind of girl. Forward, always forward. I regret little because I realize at every point of the path, I was who I was and made my choices based on where I was and what I valued at the time. I don't often wistfully look back with starry-eyed "what if." I simply take what I learned from success or failure and apply it to future situations.

This new perspective of looking backward to see what I may have left behind is therefore both bizarre and disturbing to me. I'm not sure if this is happening because I am two years overdue for my two-and-a-half-year escape and reinvention cycle that has occupied the last decade of my life or what exactly is going on, but whatever it is feels large and important and is progressing at an annoying crawl. I do know I've had the itch to leave Minnesota for the last two years, and that this time for reasons unknown I've been compelled to stay.

And now this strange, sucking vortex of the past has hold of me. In my forward march, I keep telling myself that what is left behind is not important. Obviously, if it isn't part of my life anymore, it isn't meant to fit in my life, and the Universe has dropped it that I might make room for something else. Usually, if I'm having a fit of nostalgia, one half hour at the piano where I remind myself just how unskilled I really was is enough to cure me of backward thinking. This time, it won't let go.

I keep running into situations where I need to question what I value. Where I not only need to remember the bad structures I'd built in my life that required demolition every time I left "home," but the good structures I'd also had in place that went down with the rest of the building. It seems some things I'm meant to relive and revive - the good and the bad. To what purpose, I do not yet know.

I do know my inner soldier is tapping her foot, checking her watch, and wondering when the next flight leaves.

Work

Last night we had the Women's Gathering in Hastings (3rd Friday of every month) and the theme was Remembering and Synchronicity. I made Macaroni and Cheese for the occasion (we try to coordinate the food) and didn't burn it! I also led a Synchronicity activity involving Tarot.

Using the Tarot of the Crone, I spread out all the cards in a line and told the gathered to choose one that would provide insight into something you once had or were that would help your current life if you could incorporate it back in.

I didn't just officiate, I chose a card, too. Mine shocked me. Then pissed me off.

The others got messages about power and connection and reclaiming. What did I get? The Five of Disks - WORK.

I swear, if you could have but heard the SCREAMING in my brain at that one. But for those who couldn't, it went something like this: "Work?! WORK?!! I swear to the SWEET JESUS if I work any harder it is going to KILL me! Remember that night off I had this week - oh wait, I don't because I didn't HAVE one. And you, Universe, DARE to imply I am not working HARD enough?! SCREW YOU!!"

Today, I'm going to get a massage. I might see a movie in the theatre for the first time in months. I might even go shopping just for the hell of it.

And... after making all these plans... it occurs to me the Universe is not above a little reverse psychology.....

Personality

Last weekend was the Women and Spirituality Conference in Mankato again. I've been every year (except the year I was in Guatemala) since Nancy taught the High Priestess. This year, she taught the Wheel. (For those of you who know me well, work out the irony of me missing the Lovers.)

I love the conference, I love the people, I love the atmosphere, I love spending time with family and friends. It's always one of the best weekends of my year. Plus, I get to read more and learn more Tarot! And get exposed to things I've never heard of, such as dowsing.

For the last few years, I've brought my cards and done readings and the Blessing and Breathing Center table. I don't do many readings in a year - this is Minnesota, spit in any direction and you'll hit a reader of some kind, especially at the Women and Spirituality Conference - but I always know the ones I do are because I was exactly where I was supposed to be for exactly the person I was supposed to be there for.

My cards do not act like cards that only get about twenty uses a year, however. Go into a room full of all Tarot people, and saying your decks have personality gets you a sagacious nod. Say something like that at your office, and they call the men in white coats. Still, they have distinct personalities, especially my three or four reading decks.

At the conference last weekend, I'd set up my little table with the New Star deck, the Tarot of Transformation deck, and the Legacy of the Divine deck. I read with those three almost exclusively now. The New Star was sitting furthest to a left. A friend of mine and Nance's came over and set her coffee down on the little reading table.

Now, I can "hear" them, sort of like a little echo in my head. I knew the New Star, my harsh grandmother deck, was annoyed. It is a relatively rare occasion for someone to admit to me that they can hear them, too. About thirty seconds after the coffee went down, up the cup went again. Apparently, my New Star deck gave one heck of an energy flash about it.

I thought it was hilarious. It was also nice to know it wasn't just me who "heard" them.

Balance - The Scales

Tarot likes to come find me even and especially if I don't go find it. Ironically, this would usually be my "busy season" where Tarot is concerned. Yet adding health issues to the scale has completely thrown off that delicate balance and as a result, many things came tumbling off.

I have a lazy way of playing Hidden Object games as a kind of calming method. Hidden Object game makers are very fond of putting Tarot cards and signs of the Zodiac (I've caught a lot of Rider Waite, but surprisingly also a lot of Ciro Marchetti - I hope they're using his stuff with permission!) especially in the very popular "thriller" or "scary" Hidden Object games (insane asylums, urban legends, abandoned haunted towns with a tragic history are very, very big). The last game I played, the Libra sign was everywhere (just goes to show even in tech land, you can't escape synchronicity).

My rising sign is Libra. You'd think that would mean I had an easier time with balance. Ha, not so much. I actually end up gravitating toward the darker side of the sign. Rigid resistance to change. The whole world getting thrown out of whack if one thing goes to pot. Supposedly, I'm air, air, air. Gemini, Libra Rising, Aquarian Moon. You'd think with all that air, I'd just naturally flow with things, like the element. You'd think.

Instead, my health went whacky, I missed 2 of my book deadlines, I've really pulled back socially, I blew my diet, and everything feels like it's gone completely out of control.

Enter Libra. Like the knock of a kindhearted Jehovah's Witness. "Mel, I know it may be against your religion right now, but have you given thought to getting your life back in order?"

Sounds simple. Pleasant even. It's really trench warfare fought against yourself. Sometimes it feels like you're gaining and losing the same trenches over and over again.

But, the signs are right. It is time for another forward offensive.

I say good luck and fair winds to the rest of you who are fighting the good fight to keep the balance. It's not as easy as it sounds!

I'm Not Dead Yet!

I think I might live! Just kidding. I've been told I'm being unusually quiet (2 months, wow!). I feel like I've lost at least a month. Seriously.

Starting at the end of May, I started having attacks of vertigo. The one in mid June took me out of commission for more than two weeks. Reasons are still being investigated, but we have found out I need bifocals (yes, at the age of 29). Hopefully, that will take care of the headaches, which have lingered, and all will be well in Mel land once more.

7-10 business days from now.

So, until then, with you in spirit if not in blog.

-Mel

The Tower

Those who know me well, especially those who know me well as a reader, know I have a very personal relationship with The Tower. I pull it, and encounter it, over, and over, and over again. One would think this is because I haven't quite learned or ingrained the lessons of this particular step of the journey and thus need to repeat it.

You might be surprised to know I have never viewed it this way. I think some teachers on the Fool's Journey have more than one thing to teach you, and that one should not be afraid to return for more schooling. The High Priestess is hardly the only temple you should be able to return to again and again to receive new insight.

Heck, I visit Kali a lot more than I visit my High Priestess. Judge that whatever way you will, but I have learned many important things from my return visits to The Tower:

1. Sometimes everything has to fall down at once and sometimes it doesn't. Remember when things feel like they're falling apart that not every structure in your life has become weakened, unhealthy, or has outlived its usefulness. Your life is a series of constructions, and usually, they wear out one at a time. Don't burn the village just because the roof caved in on the town hall.

2. Don't be afraid of the leveling earthquake or of Pompeii. Before the phoenix comes the ashes.

3. Sometimes you need to take it apart to see what's inside.

4. Courage and character are not tested or acquired in happy rose gardens. What defines you are the choices you make when the storm comes.

5. If you decide you're tired of building with the same materials, try some new ones. You might surprise yourself.

I hope The Tower proves to be as rich a mine of wisdom to you as it has to me. What revelations has The Tower given you?

May Angels Send You Home

It is a sad week for those of us who attend the Women and Spirituality Conference every year in Mankato. We have been missing, for two years now, a familiar face. This last week, our favorite angel painter, Paul Klages, died after a long struggle with cancer.

Paul was a gifted artist and a great human being and a friend of the Blessings and Breathing Center. His angel artwork was inspiring and uplifting.

He will be greatly missed, both from the Mankato conference and from our lives.

Another Gray Day

My gramma tells me that my grandpa used to say "another gray day" a lot to describe the weather - we are, after all, Minnesotans & this describes 70-80% of our weather. It may not be precipitating, but sometimes you wonder if the sun is ever coming back.

I don't like the expression because it reminds me too much of how depressions feels, like fingernails down the chalkboard of my past. One must understand the phrase is uttered with a kind of stalwart powerlessness - it's gray today, it was gray yesterday, it's going to be gray tomorrow, and we just have to put up with it and soldier on.

I won't lie and say I no longer have depression. I don't know if one is ever "cured" of it. I'm beginning to suspect it's a chronic disease. Most of the time, I am simply happier, better equipped to deal with the low points, and more hopeful about the high points yet to come.

But, this whole week has been "another gray day" inside and out. And I find that incredibly frustrating. It affects how I interact - or don't interact - with people. It affects what I eat - and shouldn't be eating. It affects my motivation to write, my motivation to do anything, really. I just went to see King Tut yesterday and was, for the most part, nonplussed. Not because it isn't incredible, but because everything I feel about anything is muted by a dark cloud. I hate being here because I work very hard, all the time, to not be. And don't even get me started on "fair" and "not fair," I could rail at the Heavens until Judgment Day.

It's Easter and I have absolutely no desire to go see family. Honestly, when I get this way, I don't know if the feeling this way is worse than the pretending to be happy. If it were Thanksgiving, I suppose I would say I am thankful that this doesn't happen as often as it used to, that this is a surprisingly low slump that has not had an equal in three years, and that is something to be very grateful for. But this is Easter, about new beginnings, rebirth, glory, rising. And I seem to have backpedaled. What's the message there?

Still, I am hopeful tomorrow will be sunny, and I hope everyone else's Easter is a happy one.

The Non-Threatening Introduction to Tarot

Last night we had a lovely Women's Gathering at the Center. The theme was "Let Your Soul Sing," and Suzi crafted an original meditation designed to help you get in touch with your spirit and let it let out its unique sound. It was really a lot of fun (Tre's approach was laughter, and it was infectious!).

The lovely Woman Warriors (as I like to call them) who show up at every function and gathering we ever throw (small but proud core group who really know how to represent) formed a little klatsch after the other women had filtered out, and we got down to the nitty gritty of how we would throw our Psychic Spa. Basically, we wanted to showcase the gifts the organizers & core members of the Center have & were thinking of doing a Psychic Spa in May for the Women's Gathering. Our perennial problem is that we have the largest number of people show up for events where we have contracted in outside talent (past life regressionist, soul painter, etc.), when we have staff members (like me) who host/chair/perform at Women's Gathering with nary a peep of response. *sad face*

It is rather costly do get outsiders to come in and present (not to mention the "but... but... hey, I'm gifted!" element that I think Karen & I especially get a little pouty about) when we could be raising more funds if we could keep most things in house (funds we use to do things like outreach, supporting the annual breast cancer walk, cover the cost of feeding everybody... cover the cost of feeding everybody...), but we just aren't raising the interest in our own internal offerings that gets raised every time we have someone else in. This is a subject of many meetings, debates, and hair-pulling, as you can imagine.

Now, I have all kinds of theories running around my head as to why this is, but I experienced a new element last night that I had not taken into consideration. You might have to be from Hastings to understand how this works (or another "biggest little small town in America" - you know who you are), but I was talking to one of the women who I think I've seen only once before, and after she talked about how she uses a pendulum and talks to her spirit guides and meditates, she asked me a very surprising question.

"So, does your mother support your... lifestyle?"

I should add that, in a circle of five energy-reading women, this question was directed at me.

I can't be sure, but I think my eyebrows may have hit my hairline. It took me a good fifteen seconds to figure out what "lifestyle" she was referring to (she had, after all, just finished describing her own journey with energy), then I finally got a little help from my more "with it" brain cells. *Tarot - cough - Tarot!* "Yes, she's very supportive," I said.

"Oh," the lady responded with what I interpreted as skeptical surprise. "Well, isn't that nice."

I don't know why it keeps surprising me that people have some very funny ideas about what is still "holy" (aka: will not prevent you from being a good, God-fearing, upstanding, Christian member of the community) and what is just plain kooky (aka: apparently ME).

God love my Warrior Women friends, right after the Gathering was over, and the Psychic Spa was being fleshed out, one of the first things they started talking about was how to make people understand how wonderful and non-threatening Tarot was. Most of them helped me out (probably with great uncertainty at the time) by being some of the first people I read for while doing my apprenticeship readings. They all love Tarot now. Two of them even got their own decks for the first time this week and are so in love with and excited about them (and I'm excited for the great relationship they're going to build with them, there's nothing like your first deck).

I appreciate the loyalty, and am so happy that they've seen the beautiful things I see about Tarot. And I worry, now more than ever, if one of the obstacles the Center is facing is not, in fact, me. I mean, as an ambassador for Tarot practice, I'm about as non-threatening as they come. I'm very Regular Joe at the Women's Gatherings. I consider myself to be a thoughtful, accepting, mostly laid-back person who gets to do this really exciting thing. I just keep forgetting that people, even people who have been introduced to and involved in other "New Age" stuff, still think Tarot is evil.

And I keep trying to think of the magic way I can dispell that. One of the Women Warriors suggested we do an exercise like we do to start the Psychic Study Group - each draw a card from a Tarot deck (I brought in my Crone deck for study group) to open the gathering or as a kind of check in. I keep hoping the longer I do this, read cards in the small town while still being that same person who helps out at the charity walk and writes children's books and comes from a good family, etc, etc, etc, the more of a dent I'll make in some of the crustier ideas.

We'll see. In all, I'm just glad there are a really strong, great group of people who are excited about Tarot and are supportive. I'll bet they'll make fantastic ambassadors themselves. Strength in numbers, eh?

Tarot from the Lotus Position

We had the first meeting of our writers' group today (if you are a writer, I highly recommend one). It was fantastic. I swear we could have talked forever, and I am really excited about the work my group-mates are doing. I think we must have covered every topic under the sun, but we did get around to religion. Not just "gee, I'm Catholic, gee, I'm Lutheran," but an actual deep discussion of culture and religion and cultures that readily adopt new traditions/icons into their religion (Hindus) and cultures that don't (*cough* fill in the blank *cough*).


We talked about how these days Westerners (like me) with such unlimited access to information & exposure to other cultures and belief systems now cobble together their own understanding from pieces of countless teachings. The pros and cons of that have been endlessly debated (eg: raising up belief systems where you take all the benefits and none of the drawbacks and everything is roses & faeries), but I am a believer in taking what feeds you and strengthens your connection to the Divine, no matter where it comes from. This does not mean I don't believe in consequences, or that a faith-filled life should suddenly be without struggle. It just means I believe Truth has many faces.


The conversation swung around to the nuts in Florida burning the Qur'an. Being me, I brought up religious persecution and Tarot readers ((oh my God, woman, isn't that horse dead yet?!)) and the story I heard at MATS about the librarian who tore the Tarot card in half. I said you just don't. You don't burn the Qur'an. You don't tear up Tarot cards. You don't deface the Holy Bible. You don't vandalize Shiva. You just don't do these things. It's about respect.


My group-mate smiled when she saw how wound up I got about it. Then she said, "After you attain enlightenment, burn Buddha." I guess a Zen teaching is that once you reach enlightenment, you need nothing but that enlightenment, not even the path that brought you there. She was, of course, also referring to our attachment to these religious/spiritual "things." I Googled, and found two Buddhist stories about the statues of Buddha being burned/dismantled to serve a practical purpose. I am also familiar with the Mandalas of Tibet and the alfombras for Pascua - both beautiful examples of sand art, both showing the impermanence of even the most beautiful things. How something you work very hard to build can be destroyed.


Still, I had to admit, I would be beside myself if one of my working decks were torn to pieces. Tarot is not a religion, but it does exemplify certain values and beliefs and, the way I use it, it encourages a deeper connection to the Divine. I explained how a Tarot deck you own and have worked with set side-by-side with its brand new out-of-the-plastic double (the same deck) is visibly changed. Your working deck is thicker, puffed up higher, more worn. It has absorbed the oil of your hands and the energy of your spirit. I imagine someone who had faithfully underlined, read, and re-read their dogeared copy of the Holy Bible would feel the same way.


What are we afraid of, really? What is so threatening about allowing people to connect to God in their own way? Why, of all things, do we tear apart other religions? Honestly, I think it shows a weakness of your own faith if you need to attack other belief systems to sustain it.