Update on the new deck

The workbook for the new deck is almost done and the refining of the sketches to send to the finishing artists is nearing completion as well. Hopefully we will be ready for investors by the end of the year. If you need more info, just comment here.

Strengthening your inner ear (so you can read better)

(This is from the ATS forums. I just posted it there and wanted to share some of what goes on with the world.)

I just had a dream, and I was forced to wake up by the alarm clock (need to do a Halloween podcast with the Vampire Metrou--their first one ever--let's hope it works out well). I was in an intense discussion and upon awakening I was sad that many of my (salient?) points had gone unspoken. I do like to think in a dream I have good points to make.

So immediately this reminded me of our chat here. Some things are difficult to do in a dream, read fine print, especially if you are dreaming about tomorrow's newspaper, or arguing definitively. Now my use of the word argument here is not meant in a "shouting match" kind of way. It is meant in the more Greecian sense ("I hopes") of dialog and having a point/counter-point friendly discussion about something. This discussion was very friendly by the way. Oh well, it is fading even now.

So one of the ways you can strengthen your inner senses (for lack of a better term at the moment to relate clearly what I am referring to) is to work on your dream skills. Your ability to read in a dream and recognize and remember words, listen to a song and sing along, or react to other people's spoken words--without waking up or having your conscious mind come stomping in and destroying the balance between awareness and "otherness" will help improve your reading skills to an amazing degree. This set of skills is also reciprocal. Your dreams will take on new dimensions of reality and fun that you had not realized you were missing.

This "stomping about" effect is exactly how the faeries see most humans; as uncultured troglodytes who lack finesse and by nature break everything they touch and have to shout to hear themselves think. It's not an unfriendly view--just one of weariness. Look around you and ask if you ever encounter humans whose sole awareness seems to extend to their line of sight. You can generally tell these people by the way they drive. But I digress (oopsie!)

The process is similar to writing, or as noted earlier, reading a really engrossing novel. My grandfather had the gift of being able to watch TV, listen to the radio, and read a newspaper all at the same time (and he married a MUCH younger woman and had 8 kids with her--yeah, he was a Scorpio, how did you guess? But the oil money he made certainly didn't hurt, I am guessing). The man's powers of concentration an observation were legendary. I wish I could have learned more from him. I doubt I can reach such heights, but a lifetime of practice can yield great results, so I had better start... um... at some point.

If you have bought a copy of The Easiest Way to Learn the Tarot--EVER!! please read this!

Two things actually:

1: Cairelle and I are doing Tarot podcasts. I dunno how many we will do. We will do them until it is no longer fun. If you have questions, please post them or get in the chat room and listen live when we are doing the show.

(here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/witchyliving/2010/10/25/the-easiest-way-to-learn-the-tarot--ever-part-1)

2: There are ongoing LIVE exercise practice sessions and Tarot games (coming soon) in the ATS forums. I want to make sure that anyone here who has bought my Tarot book has access to the free fun and instruction available to you. This is all for you, and it does not make me any money (as it is free and it takes a LOT of my personal time after work to stay on this). It takes time away from designing the new deck or writing Astrology For Witches, but it is important to me to ensure that anyone who wants help or wants to engage with other Tarot students and masters online has a safe, fun place to go.

But there are real humans doing real exercises and really interacting right now. Let's have fun yapping (positively) about the Tarot. How often do you get a group of Tarot enthusiasts together having fun? No pressure, just experimenting with the cards.

Okay, so there it is. Please let me know if you need anything, but the sandbox is open; come play with us!

:-)

Baby's first Ouija board!

Okay, so pardon my crappy Photoshop skills. I think it would be a hoot to make these from antique high-chairs. I would buy one, if, I had like a baby and stuffs.

New fun Tarot game just started! :-)

Hi,

For anyone who has a copy of my book (The Easiest Way to Learn the Tarot--EVER!!, not the one on training your dog to do yoga), or anyone who just wants to have some fun, one of my students just started a fun online game of Tarot tag based on Exercise Two from the workbook. The exercise is called "This happens to me, and this happens to you!" and builds Tarot comparison skills in a fun, relaxed, no-pressure environment.

So the game is a simple daisy-chain of getting a card recommended to you. You have to spot-analyze it and pull a random card for someone else. Do this in a FUN way, based on what the card says to you. No need to get too deep. This is supposed to be enjoyed, not stressed over. They will log in and take a turn at pointing out what they see and leaving a card for someone else. The game is called Breadcrumbs, or Hanzel and Gretel.

Here is an example of the game from my workbook:

Me: 4/Pents

My cheap boss refuses to give me a raise! I didn't like him anyway.

You: Knight of Pents

I have so much money, I need to stop and think about where to invest it.

Anyway, it's free, and if you wanna have a bit of short-attention fun fin a game of forum tag, it's over on my server. Not to worry, I am not trying to lure anyone away. This is my home. But as my student created the game on the site that is devoted to learning the Tarot, I am gonna leave it there. If you are interested, it's over here:

http://forums.advancedtarotsecrets.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=112

(you have to log in first) http://forums.advancedtarotsecrets.com/

Is gravity really a generic force? I don't think so! (here's proof?)

(Just another re-post from Witchy Living--this one is a synapse-melter.)

It's raining today. I work outside--painting; so I have the day off. 11am and I am already bored. So naturally I did what any self-respecting Thing 1" (and yes, I actually have a red Cat in the Hat "Thing 1" tee shirt, which I adore) troublemaker would do when they found themselves bored on a rainy day:

I went over to the NASA website and pestered there astrophysicists with the following question:

Is gravity REALLY a "generic" force?

Gravity is thought to be a generic force.

But is it?

I am having serious doubts about this. If so, why do clusters of stars not simply collapse under their combined gravitational pull? What if elements in various states create a variable? Example: instead of Gg (generic gravity) the formula was more like Gaa, Gab, Gca; where (the composition/state) of elements times density times mass created shades almost undetectable by previous measurements, but while refusing to combine to create one giant wavelength of gravity, instead created a narrow-band spectrum of gravitational pull? I apologize for not having better terminology to explain my thoughts on this. But in this way stars would collectively tug on each other, but not massively gang up and slam into each other. Thanks for reading.

So I sent them that question--and that makes me happy. Stoopid lousy eggheads. What do they know after all, anyway?

You are "God." Am I wrong?

(This is a re-post of a discussion I started on Witchy Living that I liked so much I thought i'd repost it here, since WL is a private board.)

I was about to call it a night when I received an email from some "Law of Attraction" guru with the following headline:

Recently one of Neale Donald Walsch’s daily messages included the comment “You Are God”.

I have been saying that for decades. I think this Neale guy may have heard someone quote me. Actually my line would be "I am 'God'," and when other people would shriek in horror I would take my right index finger and jab them in the sternum with a short, sharp, shoving motion and say "and YOU are 'God,' and you, and you," going down the line. But this is not about whether there are in fact one or more "supreme entities" or "super" happy helpers. This is about who makes the decisions in your head.

I don't know about you, but I decide what color "red" is, and what chocolate tastes like (it tastes like magic!). I decide what rules I will follow, and what philosophies I will believe. At one point I CHOSE to believe in the whole Jesus mythos, but then I started looking at facts and testing out "whether magic really worked or not." Fortunately this phase began when I was still a pre-teen. You may be more tolerant of screaming baby idiots who refuse to hear anything but their own religious opinions shouted throughout their worlds (the perceptual area around them). Me? I am sick and tired of stupid people DECIDING that they are so pathetic and worthless that they must slavishly bow to an invisible entity (versus, say, respecting, dancing with, conversing with, loving, ignoring, shouting at, or simply "realizing there is nothing to do any of the preceding to" if that is how they happen to feel). It is not the fact that sheople (sheep people) are dumb. It's that they are so prevalent, and desperately afraid that anyone might discover the fact that they are wrong.

So, to me, magic is about accessing (insert preferred name or label here) whatever your path is. You can be accessing nature or Nature, your Buddha-nature, (Hindu) Godhead, (Huna) Godhead, God and Goddess, the fey, Loa, ancestors, animal spirits, or any other entity or energy you bond with. But inside of you it is just that: you. I adore the fact that everyone here celebrates (______) and accesses (______) through (______) and that this is an important part of your life, and that you feel comfortable enough to come here and share YOUR vision of (______) and magic with the rest of us.

YOU (inside you) is unique and special, but through your interaction with (______) you connect with all of us in our interaction with (you know who, or is it "whom"?). I appreciate that everyone here, at least to my knowledge, is comfortable with their own "divinity" (just a generic term, please substitute one you like better if need be) and can sidestep getting hung up on the misconceptions that somehow we are all flawed and need mommy and daddy in the sky to wipe our butts every five minutes.

So here's to you. YOU make the rules. You decide which rules you will follow, and most important, you decide how magic works and what steps you have to take to get results in your world (that area around you that includes everything you can personally perceive).

Thanks for being you.