Jack Eats A Fudgicle

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Another clever one from Nina ...

What Makes A Good Tarot Card Reader

Ask yourself this question: What do you look for in a tarot card reading? Do you seek answers to a specific problem? Do you want confirmation on something? Or is it a relationship? What will happen with your career? What will the future hold? Let’s explore this on an even deeper level, and ask -- Do you seek objective guidance, or would you rather be told what to do? Your honest answer along with a discerning mind, good old fashioned communication, and common sense will lead you to a tarot reader whose capabilities are in perfect synch with the reading you’re looking for.

All divination implies the exchange of personal power. It occurs quite naturally in the tightly woven fabric of the interactive energy inherent in the intuitive process. If a reader’s intentions are good and your mind is open and relaxed, the interaction is smooth, open and informative. It can be mind-blowing! If a reader’s intentions are selfish or ego-based, even unintentionally, you’ll note the interaction may feel controlling, frightening, or intimidating. A reader might express a strong desire to be agreed with, for example; or express their own fear within the context of your reading. It behooves us to remember that even gifted psychics are human, walking their own path, and making their own mistakes. It doesn’t mean that you have to share that journey, however.

Objectivity is the primary quality of a good tarot card reader. An experienced reader might also identify as a healer and compassionately assist with problems of the emotion or intellect insofar as you are willing to allow them to. They will never push their will on you. Within the context of your interaction, a reader’s goal might be to pave the way for the next step on your spiritual journey by offering spiritual tools without making you feel obligated in any way to use them. Essentially, a good tarot card reader, assuming the role of spiritual advisor, will guide you carefully and sensitively to self-empowerment by encouraging you to look for your answers within.

Tarot cards, psychic clairvoyance, and any other form of divination including astrology is rendered mutable by free will or our ability to make choices. Nothing is cast in stone against the time proven resilience and unpredictability of the human spirit. Excellence in tarot guidance by an advanced reader is best offered as an alternative to blind reliance on external forces or influence, even if it means that in doing so, your reader doesn’t promote or benefit his or her own practice. And if this is truly your reader’s intent, eventually, and out of spiritual necessity, your evolving spiritual advisor will exercise discernment in who they read for, consequently choosing where they invest their time and energy. It is part of what might be a natural progression for both of you on your personal spiritual journey and where your individual paths may intersect.

When misused as a function of the ego, reading tarot cards can be a control ploy used for personal gratification or a scam for profit. A spiritually minded reader won’t simply tell you what you want to hear. He or she will approach every reading with an open heart, absolutely no judgment, and will be willing to walk you through a mutually satisfying journey of symbolism that doesn’t use fear or intimidation to control the flow of energy and conversation.

Even tarot card readers walk their own spiritual path. It’s wise to remember that the presence of psychic gifts doesn’t always imply the presence of spiritual integrity. Some readers may eventually straddle the fence between discernment and ego gratification in order to decide once and for all why they are reading cards. Their decision will have an impact on the quality of tarot card reading you receive from them. Take the time to engage your reader in conversation. Discover where they are on the spectrum of their spirituality and then make your own informed decision.

Originally Written on September 2, 2009

This has been editted from it's original version.

FROM OUR WORKSHOP: Live Love Laugh

"Live Love Laugh"

© October 21, 2010 by Donna L. Faber

A tattoo designed and rendered for my cousin Pam

Over the last year, and through the miracle of Facebook, I've been blessed with the rediscovery of cousins, formerly estranged cousins, from my father's side of the family. There are loads of them, and some I connect with more than others. This tattoo was designed for my cousin, Pam, whom I connect with. She wanted something that would commemorate this good time in her life; a time of rejuvenation, re-emergence and rediscovery. But she wanted to do it while always acknowledging the love she has for her children, Mitch and Jack, and the poignant memory of their father.

So, Pam, this one’s for you!
Love,
D♥

Three is a Magic Number

If you believe everything that Sesame Street taught you, and for the most part I do, you’ll believe that three is a magic number. You’ll believe that the Crocodile King really did need a worthy son, the lady bugs all attended that picnic, and Gracie Slick really did sing a very clever song about numbers. She did, really. Like me, from the time of early childhood, you’ll know that three heads are better than one. Larry, Moe and Curly proved it. You may even know that two’s company and three’s a crowd. Most of all, three is a magic number to me personally. It’s the number of people in my family … 1, 2, 3. It’s also the magic number that brings us to our next tribute witches.

Witches and other magical women have appeared in threes since the beginning of time. Well, at least since the beginning of half way decent literature, making their first and precedent setting appearance in Shakespeare’s play “MacBeth”. As the official Three Witches or Weird Sisters, these supernatural women were drawn from mythology and legend, and represented rebellion and treason in the worst sense (as Wiki states it). We’re not talking about the Three Graces here, goddesses of charm, beauty and creativity. Or even the very lovely Maiden, Mother, Crone virtues in Wicca. Indeed, these are your more malignant types, representing deceit, betrayal and murder, all nefarious values upon which countless pieces of art and sculpture have been rendered throughout history.

The magic number three doesn’t lose its poignancy moving into modern media. It very simply transmogrifies into something more understandable, something that requires a lesser attention span. There are three sisters, all witches, in the series “Charmed”, which by the way, is set in San Francisco, the city I most adore. There were three vixens in the movie, “The Craft” before the fourth showed up and they all got greedy.

Three.

This leads me directly to my favorite witchy threesome, and the witches to which I give tribute in this installment … The Sanderson Sisters in Disney’s movie, “Hocus Pocus”.

Believe it or not, it was just on television this morning.

These three sisters are my favorite for various reasons, not the least of which include Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy.

“The movie opens in 17th century Salem, Massachusetts where three witch sisters — Winifred, Sarah, and Mary Sanderson — transformed a boy, Thackery Binx, into an immortal black cat as punishment for trying to prevent them from absorbing the life force of his younger sister, Emily. He fails to rescue her and instead is cursed to spend eternity as a black cat. The witches are tried and executed by the locals. However, thanks to a curse created by Winifred's magic spell-book, they vow to return when a virgin lights the Black Flame candle on a Halloween night when the moon is full (wiki).”

Winifred is played by Midler. She is the loud mouth, red-headed, buck-tooth sister, who is the most powerful magically, and the brightest lit of the three dim bulbs. Demonstrating where the lines between real life and television can often blur, it is no strange coincidence that Midler has since become a headliner in the modern day Sodom and Gomorrah, Las Vegas, and holds her crowd in a hypnotic trance, just like she did in the movie. Her sister, Sarah, is played by none other than Sarah Jessica Parker, aka Carrie Bradshaw, who reigned supreme in another fabled city known as New York, this time ruling with a a laptop, and an array of unusually hypnotic outfits. The last sister, the chubby one who was most prone to various canine tendencies, and rode on an airborne vacuum cleaner, was played by Kathy Najimy. Najimy also moonlighted as a plus size nun in Whoopie’s movie, “Sister Act”. Since then, she has lost considerable weight, shrinking & growing, shrinking & growing, thus demonstrating her powers of transmogrification. All three Sanderson sisters are undeniably stupid, so much so that they couldn’t outwit the three children who released them from 300 years of hell and then tried to send them back.

So, without further ado, I give you The Sanderson Sisters …