o_0
- Mood:busy
For this exercise, we are going to use the complete deck, rather than separating it. Gather all your Tarot cards (court cards, Major Arcana, Minor Arcana) back into one pile and shuffle the deck thoroughly. There is no right or wrong way to shuffle the cards; it is a matter of personal choice (even though some people will get caught up in a little ritual of shuffling, and that is okay too).
Keeping the cards face down, pull one card randomly from the deck. Again, doesn't matter if you shuffle, cut, and turn over the top card; or if you fan the cards out and draw one, or if you put the cards in an opaque bag and draw one! The choice is yours; as long as the card is an unknown random selection, we're good.
If your card is a trump card from the Major Arcana, imagine this is going to be a recurring theme for your day. Don't panic if the images on the card look frightening; if you pull the Tower it doesn't mean that you're going to fall out of a building!
If your card is a court card, imagine this is a person, type of person, or personality trait that you are going to encounter today. For example, the Queen of Coins might make you think of your Auntie Jean, who has a jar on the shelf where she puts all the pennies, rather than keeping them in her purse to spend.
If your card is one of the numbered cards, imagine this is a small incident that might occur during the day, an opportunity that may be presented to you. For example, if you drew the Three of Cups, you might think of some news you could receive that would make you dance for joy.
Pretend that the card you drew is your daily prediction. Go through the observation exercise questions as we've done previously, and write down what you see about this card. Write your answers in a notebook, along with any thoughts you have as to how this might apply to your day.
At the end of the day, read back over your 'prediction'. What kind of day did you have? How did the comments you made prior to this day apply to how the day actually unfolded?
- Mood:busy
Making: Herein lies a quandary. I'd spent the last few weeks of Summer cutting up old jeans into 4" squares, and cutting up themed fat quarters into 4" squares. I probably cut up more than 3,000 squares (easily, actually, because a fat quarter makes about 20 squares, and I've cut up somewhere in the region of 600 fat quarters... but that's beside the point), and I've got them all ready go to on a patchwork 'raggy' quilt for my daughter. I had thought I'd try to get this finished for her for Christmas; but that is only a month away! And I'm not very good with sewing, even if it is only X across two four inch squares then sew said squares into strips then strips into rows. So I decided to relax a bit, take my time, do it for her for her birthday in September.
So then she calls me today, would I make her a quilt for her bed as she got cold last night <head desk, head desk head desk>. Now my daughter is not expecting me to sew, because she knows I'm not skilled at sewing, it is something I am learning. She has asked me to crochet her an afghan, themed to match her bedroom, because she knows I can crochet awesome patchwork afghans. However, this means a trip out of town to buy the yarn, and I really didn't want to take on a new project until after I'd sorted out some clutter, and brought some organization into what I was doing at the moment.
I am confident that I could crochet her an awesome afghan between now and Christmas, as I've crocheted many afghans in the past and know my capabilities. I am not confident that I could finish sewing this quilt between now and Christmas, as I've never sewn a quilt. I've never really sewn ANYTHING previously! I kind of feel like I've got half the quilt already done with having all the squares cut out -- or have I? And then there is the sewing machine. I've had it -- Singer Touch N Sew (Touch N Cuss!) for about 6 years now (it was a hand-me-down) but I've only just mastered how to thread it and wind the bobbin this Autumn, and that was because I bought the manual from the Singer site. Am I setting myself up to fail? Should I just stick with what I know and crochet the afghan, or should I hold my breath and take the plunge into waters unknown and sew the quilt? C'mon guys, depending on you...
Regardless of which I choose, all other projects, like fabric inking, apron making (and I actually bought bias binding tape, too!), sachet knitting, Tarot bag making, cookie baking... they're all going to have to go back burner. But I think the kid is worth it...
Reading: Yeah, right, like I've got time to do that!
Cooking: Turkey burger and oatmeal. Not as strange as it sounds; it is what the albino dog eats. He's allergic to dog food, so I cook for him; turkey burger, fleshed out with some oatmeal, with a bit of diced veg and some garlic added to it. It's a Dr. Pitcairn recipe for delicate constitutions, and it seems to be working.
- Mood:
anxious
- Mood:creative
o_0
- Mood:busy
- Mood:busy
Inside: Still downsizing. I have found 3 afghans that need sewing together, and a drawer full of unfinished tapestry canvases (which I inherited, I might add; my lack of conviction isn't quite so bad as to have quite this much unfinished stuff lying around -- see below). I'll find time to put the afghans together and donate them somewhere, and my daughter has a home for the canvases with learning disabled people who love to do crafts. So that's another bit cleaned out and downsized. A lot of the stuff I'm downsizing was simply a great buy at a great time; porcelain angel heads when I was making beaded dolls, totem stones when I was working the market stall, that sort of thing; or stuff that someone was going to throw out and I rescued it to freecycle or donate to a thrift store or something. I have to be realistic about what I think I'll have time to do, and get rid of what I don't think I'll have time to do. End of story (again, see below).
Making: Having a blast designing knitted coasters, sachets, bay bootees (two of my friends are expecting their first grandchild early in the new year) and even tree ornaments. I've bought some sponge paint pads from the Dollar Store to use on the stamps. I think I'm going to have to theme my crafting days like I theme my journal days; Tuesday's journal is Tarot, maybe I should devote Tuesdays to working on my Tarot deck, Wednesdays to knitting, Thursdays to sewing... but would anything ever actually get done?? (Note to self: probably would get done, but take longer, but even that is an improvement on the UFO's that are in drawers and cupboards...)
Pondering: Launching a business identity with website, business cards, brochures, etc in the coming year for my crafts and readings. Am I being negative in thinking that while I probably won't get much actual income from the website, that for the most part it will be a good exposure tool?
Writing: No writing this weekend, unless you call writing knitting patterns writing, and I'm only writing them so I can publish a couple freebies to a knitting community next week. I am seriously considering dipping my toe into the fiction world though, and publishing snippets in my journal for critique. Where as I don't see myself as a novel writer, any writing is going to improve my skills as a writer on the whole, right (write!)?
- Mood:creative
- Mood:creative
Not only am I attempting to sew, but I'm attempting to print onto fabric.
Does anyone have any simple ideas (as in a fifth grader could do it, because that is about where my skill lies at the moment) as to how to use a rubber stamp to print onto fabric, and make the stamp permanent, so it lasts through several washes?
Thanks...
- Mood:
weird
Outside: It's finally stopped raining! Last night was stunningly clear, and for the first time this year, I thought I sensed a good frost in the air. I awoke too late to check, though; by the time I was walking the dog all that was left of any potential frost was a beautiful blush on the grass. I think the last rose has bloomed for this year; the knockout roses are looking decidedly faded and droopy (another indication that we've had a frost....).
Cooking and Baking: It feels like a fudge weekend! And I've found a recipe for fondant icing I'd like to try. Might have to start a pot of beans too; nothing quite like good old British 'beans on toast' for cool weather comfort food!
Making: Good heavens, I'm spoiled for choice! I'm intricately enjoying designing gift bags. People keep asking for hats. I want to knit the dog a coat -- several coats, all decorated for the seasons. I want to put together a couple of patchwork afghans. I want to knit a sweater for my husband and a cardi-coat for myself. Anyone got a spare few weeks of time they could give to me?
Reading: Knit Kimonos by Vickie Square and Tarot for Writers by Corrine Kenner. I recommend both! The kimono book has some designs that are kind of 'out there' and others that are very inspiring (bearing in mind that as soon as I start to follow a patter, I end up adapting it and putting the original pattern away). Tarot for Writers is a very interesting read on how to use the Tarot to fire creativity and imagination. Included are writing prompts, exploration games, and brainstorming techniques. Many of the techniques are similar to the probing questions I use in the Tarot Tuesdays; why did I never think to apply them to fiction <palms face>?
Like I need more ideas for things to do!!
- Mood:
whirling dervish - Music:The Hamster Dance (!)
- Mood:awake
- Mood:busy
- Mood:
tired
My husband has been out of work for several months due to an injury, and only just started back a few weeks ago. Consequently we're still playing catch-up with the bills. We were expecting a check to come before the end of the week, and said check appeared in the mail today, for a tidy sum more than we were expecting.
I hustled down to throw the check in the bank and then catch the insurance agent because the car and house insurance payment was due yesterday. I got to their office to be told that we not only were paid up until April 2010, but we had a refund coming.
I stood there dazed, because the monthly premiums are not small, and to be told I could keep that money PLUS be given more... w-o-w.
Our television quit working this last summer, and we had planned to use part of the check we got to buy a new telly. Then I found I needed 2 new tires on the car, so figured the tv would have to wait awhile longer.
Now we can get a tv and tires!
I celebrated by frivolously purchasing a small chocolate malt from the DQ as I left the insurance agency. I'll wheeze like hell tomorrow, but first chocolate malt in over a year? It was worth it!
________________________________________
( Now for those of you who are interested in seeing me explore fiction writing, this is how today's event would unfold as a chapter, or at least a part of a chapter, in the long piece on which I am working (which is mainly self-indulgent, but who knows)... )
- Mood:creative
In Indiana, it is illegal for a liquor store to sell cold soft drinks.
- Mood:busy
And I feel a bit presumptuous answering these, because as of yet I don't even consider myself a writer! Hmmm, let's see, over the last 22 years. Articles published in the Komondor Club magazine in the US, in the Komondor Club of Great Britain in the UK, in the Blessed Bee magazine in the US, in Knitting World magazine in the UK, several articles sold to and published in Prediction Magazine in the UK, many classes written for different online schools and newsletters, and three CD's have been produced by Fylde Folk of my songs. (You'll notice that none of this is fiction!) So you guys tell me, am I a writer?
1. Are you a “pantser” or a “plotter?” Plotter. Typical Virgoan anal-retentiveness. Have to have it all mapped out in my head before fingers even touch keyboard. Oh, sure, I'll weave and dive and bring in new bits on impulse, but the whole story, complete with chunks of dialogue, is already in my head before I even start.
2. Detailed character sketches or “their character will be revealed to me as I write”? Both. The main players are so detailed they are already alive in my mind. They'll show me their personality nuances as I give them voice, and new characters will pop up as my main characters develop, but my main characters are nearly always good friends of mine by the time I start to write.
3. Do you know your characters’ goals, motivations, and conflicts before you start writing or is that something else you discover only after you start writing? Usually I know them. Intimately. But sometimes someone will develop a quirk I didn't see coming.
4. Books on plotting – useful or harmful? I can't say as I've ever used one. I tend to find an author whose style I appreciate, then use their methods as an outline for my own.
5. Are you a procrastinator or does the itch to write keep at you until you sit down and work? I keep putting off writing fiction because I'm frightened I'll fail. When writing articles or classes, once I start writing, I'm in a world of my own until I stop. I guess I itch until I have this unbearable desire to scratch, and then I scratch and scratch and scratch til the itch is gone.
6. Do you write in short bursts of creative energy, or can you sit down and write for hours at a time? Once I start writing, I tend to keep writing. I have to remind myself to drink, take a break from the chair so I don't get back ache, to eat. When it flows, I can write and write and write some more. When it's not flowing -- well, we won't go there (smirk).
7. Are you a morning or afternoon writer? I'm an 'oh-my-gods-I-need-to-write-this-now' writer. I've been known to get an idea for a class and jump out of bed at 1am to start writing.
8. Do you write with music/the noise of children/in a cafe or other public setting, or do you need complete silence to concentrate? It doesn't matter. As long as no one is talking directly to me, where my attention has to be diverted from my writing so that I can answer them, I'm good. I just go into my own little world...
9. Computer or longhand? (Or typewriter?) I balked and balked at writing directly into the computer; now I do it that way most of the time. I'll do outlines, brainstorming, and that kind of thing in front of the telly, but the actual writing goes right into the computer and then is immediately saved to a storage device, even if it is only Google documents. I lost 6 classes that were in progress, and the start of the very first piece of fiction I ever tried to write when a computer crashed about 3 years ago. N-e-v-e-r again.
10. Do you know the ending before you type Chapter One? Usually. Most of my ideas for fiction start with a great ending, then I work backwards.
11. Does what’s selling in the market influence how and what you write? I can't comment really, because I'm so embryonic at doing this. Current trends do influence what I submit to knitting pattern magazines and new age publications. One of the reason I am girding my loins to write a bit of fiction is I've heard that 'crossover' stories are gaining popularity, and most of what I an inspired to write is metaphysical fiction, as opposed to science fiction or fantasy.
12. Editing – love it or hate it? Not really experienced enough to comment, although I do remember having to edit one of my classes something like seven times before it was finally in a fit state to upload. That was NOT fun.
Bonus questions: (snagged from a post by
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
rebekah1213 )13. Why do you want to write? I've always written. In 8th grade we had to keep a journal as part of the class assignment. I still have that journal, and I have been adding to it for nearly 40 years. Sometimes I write several times a day. Sometimes I write every couple of years. But I still have the journal. In it are ideas for stories, poems, sketches, tears, laughter... And I've always told stories. I was taught to read the Tarot by telling stories. I told stories to the neighborhood kids when I babysat. I told stories around the campfires at the feet of my Medicine Elders. I told stories in the tent villages at folk festivals I worked. It comes natural to 'tell' stories; I want to see if it comes natural to 'write' stories.
14. Do you want to publish your work? Why? For my non-fiction that is easy. I want to share what I have learned. Too many of my elders have died and taken their knowledge to their grave. I'd like to put what I have learned 'out there', just in case anyone might need to use it one day. But fiction? I don't even know that I want to publish it. I just want to be good at it.
15. Do like to write alone or do you like to work with other? Alone, alone, alone. While I'm writing, it is MY world. I'll share it with you when I'm finished. Unless, of course, I invite a guest to write a lesson in a class. That's different than in a piece of fiction, I think.
- Mood:
thoughtful
In this lesson, we are going to be working with the other sixteen cards of the Minor Arcana; the court cards of each suit. Place them on the table or floor, so that all cards can be seen at once.
In your notebook, write and complete the following sentences:
The thing I like most about myself is _____
my looks, my achievements, and my possessions,
my compassion and willingness to understand,
my ability to logically work through problems,
my ability to take appropriate action in any given situation.
My approach to working a jigsaw puzzle is ____
I start enthusiastically, but eventually I'd get distracted.
I'd start right in and would stay dedicated to it until it was completely finished.
Before starting the puzzle, I'd study the box, and get a feel for the design.
I'd ask my friends if they wanted to come help me work a puzzle.
The answers to question 1 all relate to suits: 1 = Coins, 2 = Cups, 3 = Swords, 4 = Wands.
The answers to question 2 all relate to the court cards: 1 = Page, 2 = Knight, 3 = Queen, 4 = King.
Look through the court cards and find the card that relates to the way you answered the questions. For example, if you answered 1 to the first question, and 4 to the second, then your chosen card would be the King of Wands. Don't worry if your chosen card is not your physical gender. In this instance, the genders are used to represent archetypes and energies with which we are working; male being active, female being passive, that sort of thing.
Now repeat the observation exercises from previous weeks. In your notebook, write down what you observe about your card, and how that relates to your observation of your self. Is it similar? Does it mirror who you think you are?
- Mood:
pleased
Pondering: Whether to let you guys read the one piece of fiction I ever tried to write. I can write classes and 'how to' stuff fairly confidently, but I've never really tried to write fiction to be marketable. I once wrote a short (historically and geographically correct) story for a competition, but it fell flatter than flat. And some days I just don't feel confident to put myself out there to be critiqued on something about which I'm already feeling less than confident. This is one of those days.
Making: All but four hats (of the order for 11 plus the 3 my daughter wanted) are finished. I've made several little gift bags and I'm bored with that for the time being. I think I might knit slippers tonight. I'm refraining from buying slippers for the next 5 weeks, because they'll all be on clearance after Christmas and I can wait that long, but at the moment my feet are cold!
Appreciating: The art in
ellenmillion 's gallery, the helpful sewing hints from acelightning and jenstclair , the networking and support of all the wonderful people I'm meeting, and the success of yesterday's One-Card Draw.- Mood: thankful
lessthanthree has this meme running on her journal at the moment. I thought it was rather interesting to see what people wanted to know about us, and how it all went around. The questions she asked me, and my comments to them, are listed below. What is required, should you wish to also play, is that you leave me a comment telling me one reason you read my journal (or if you don't feel like sharing, just say hi).
• I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity.
• Update your journal with the answers to the questions.
• Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions.
From
lessthanthree 1. What is your favorite tarot deck? Artistically? Intuitively? Nostalgically?
Hard one! Because I see Tarot as a tool, and different tools are used for different things.
I like the Rider Waite Smith Tarot for teaching. My favorites artistically are the Anna K Tarot and the Tarot of Dreams. Intuitively I like the Tarot of the Cloisters (it's round, so every card has 360' of interpretation). Nostalgically I like the Morgan Greer Tarot because it was the first one I ever had, the Tarot of the Cat people because a dear friend who no longer walks this earth gave me her deck when she knew she was dying, and the Morgan's Tarot, which isn't really Tarot at all but is just too fun not to include.
2. What led you to tarot?
Do you know, I have absolutely no idea! I guess it just sneaked up on me! I've always been interested in metaphysics, and I've always been interested in the different art styles of the different decks. I tried for years to read them, but the people who were teaching me always told me I was doing it wrong. Finally, my dear friend Karrie (who gave me the Cat People Tarot) told me that I wasn't doing it wrong, that the cards spoke a subtle language unique to each of us, and I was just hearing my own language rather than someone else's. This is why I'm doing the Tarot Tuesdays; so that people can learn the language the Tarot is speaking to them, rather than learning parrot fashion what someone else thinks the cards say. Don't get me wrong, there is great value in the traditional meanings; but each of us speaks with our own accent and intonations, and the messages from the Tarot are the same. And I find the Tarot is very much like many other things I've tried; the more I teach it, the more I learn about it.
3. What is the best response you've ever gotten to a reading?
That is difficult, because I just put it out there. To quote one of my Buddhist friends, I give people what they want, so they'll want what I have to give. Tarot -- for me -- isn't about predicting the future, it is about understanding the here and now to create the desired future. Some people just aren't ready to take responsibility for their own destiny. The ones that are... we have a good time during the readings!
4. The worst that you can share?
On the line for which I used to work, someone once asked me if they were going to stop smoking. I tried to get them to see that the question was subjective, that I had no right to take away their free will, so they cussed me out, told me I wasn't psychic at all and had no business working as a psychic, and slammed down the phone. Yup. That probably falls under 'worst response.'
5. What do you do when you aren't reading tarot :)
I knit. I garden. I cook. I make soap and kitchen cosmetics. I bead. I work with leather a bit. I do a bit of crochet. I write. I play with my dogs. I visit my out of state friends and family. I write folk music, and sing. I watch tv and / or films if they intrigue me, but not just to be 'watching' something. I try to learn something new every day, whether it is a new knitting technique, new skill (such as the sewing I am trying to master now), or a new word. I like word games, but no one ever wants to play...
- Mood: amused
- Mood: amused
Profile
- stonetalker
- stonetalker
- Website
Syndicate
