I must be absolutely nuts.

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...

 

Last week we worked with the Major Arcana, or trumps; in this lesson we are going to take a look at the Minor Arcana, or the suits. Traditionally, the Tarot suits were Swords, Batons, Cups, and Coins. These might be called something different – although similar – in the deck you are using, The Rider Waite deck calls the suits Swords, Wands, Cups and Pentacles. I've seen Swords called Blades or Knives; Wands called Staves or Rods; Cups called Chalices or Bowls; and Pentacles called Coins or even Stones. Every deck has a somewhat different slant, and we just need to get familiar with its terminology.

 

Every suit has court cards; these are the cards usually called King, Queen, Knight, and Page. Just as the suits have somewhat different names through the different decks, so too might the court cards. For example, a Knight might be called a Prince, and a Page might be called a Princess, or maybe even a Knave. Again, we just need to learn the terminology of that particular deck.

The four suits of the Tarot represent the four elements: Swords to Air, Wands to Fire, Cups to Water, and Pentacles to Earth. Some early correspondences to Tarot will show Swords to Fire and Wands to Air. This is more of a magickal correspondence than a divination one, and it is Swords to Air and Wands to Fire with which we will work, for that is how nearly all Tarot decks use the associations.

 

The four suits are said to govern different facets of our lives. Very simply, Swords are thoughts, Wands are actions, Cups are emotions, and Coins are our material possessions.

For this lesson, we are not going to use the court cards, so take these 16 cards out of your deck, and put them aside with the 22 trump cards from the previous exercise. We are only going to use the 10 cards in each suit that are numbered 1 – 10, or Ace – 10. These cards are going to help reflect where we are in our lives.

 

You'll need to use a notebook for this bit. Make four columns on a page, and label the first column Material Satisfaction. Label the second column Emotional Satisfaction. Label the third column Mental Satisfaction; and label the last column Creative Satisfaction.

Under the column labeled Material Satisfaction, enter a number from 1 – 10 on how satisfied with the physical (appearance, home, possessions, that sort of thing) you are with your life, with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest. Do the same for the Emotional Satisfaction (how happy or unhappy you are) column, the Mental Satisfaction column, and the Creative Satisfaction column.

Get your Minor Arcana Tarot cards, the ones numbered Ace through ten, and look up the card in accordance with what you put in your columns. For instance, if you put a 5 in the Creative Satisfaction column, find the Five of Wands. Now go through the probing questions we examined a couple of weeks ago, and write down your observations of the card that correlates with your answer. How does what you observed about your card reflect your feelings? Is it reflective of your attitude, or far from it? Repeat this exercise for the other 3 columns; choosing the card that correlates with your answer. You'll probably find it helpful to write down your observations in a notebook, so you can reflect back on them.

Last week, we considered the two different sorts of cards in the Tarot deck; the Major Arcana (trumps), and the Minor Arcana (not trumps). This week, we are going to focus on the Major Arcana.

 

The Major Arcana consists of 21 numbered cards, plus The Fool, who has been given the number 0. (Some non-standard Tarot decks have more than 22 trump cards, and if you are using a deck that has more than 22 trump cards, that's fine.) Even in the Rider-Waite influenced decks, some of the trumps may be numbered differently. Again, we're not going to worry about that in just now. We're going to have some fun with the pictures.

 

This week, we're going to study the Major Arcana of the Tarot. Separate the Major Arcana cards in your Tarot deck from the Minor Arcana. The Major Arcana cards will be numbered 0 – 21 (perhaps in Roman numerals, perhaps not). Spread the cards out so you can get a good look at them. If your tabletop is too small, use the floor. The object is to get all the cards spread, so you can look at all of them at once.

 

Study the cards, and study them in detail. Ask yourself the questions we considered last week. When you feel familiar with the cards, choose the one card that sums up the kind of day you had yesterday. For example, if you went hiking, you might choose The Fool. Once you've chosen your card, it is a good idea to write the name of your card and why you chose it in a journal or notebook. (You're going to be gleaning a lot of information in the next few weeks!)

 

Pick up your Major Arcana, put your selected card back into it, and still keeping the Major's separate from the rest of the deck, shuffle them. Once they've been shuffled, choose a card at random. You'll need to write down the name and a brief description of this card somewhere, so you can refer back to the information later. Refer again to the questions from last week, and answer them with the information from this card.

Tomorrow, or later in the week, look back over the notes you made regarding the random trump card you chose for this exercise. As you read your notes, consider the type of day you had that day. In what ways did the notes you made about this card correspond to the sort of day you had? Did anything that observed about the card occur in your day? Did you notice anything about your card that might be attributed to the theme running through your day? 

 

The purpose of these exercises is to start to understand how the images on the Tarot are speaking to you. I'm reminded of the line in the film Smoke Signals, when Thomas has just returned back to his grandmother, after his adventure with Victor.

"Tell me what happened. Tell me what is going to happen..."

Although the Tarot has traditional meanings that are well worth studying and learning (in fact, there are volumes and volumes written on precisely this topic, and these meanings ought to be learned by a serious student of the Tarot), it is possible to start 'reading the Tarot' as soon as you open the deck. Do I advise you to do this? No, because for metaphysical purposes we need to bond with the deck. But that's okay; because in the lighthearted exercises in this class, bonding is exactly what you are going to be doing. We're going to keep it light, simple, and fun. You won't even feel it.

 

Pounce on your Tarot deck and randomly pull out a card. Pick a card, any card. Look at it closely. Look at the images; are they people or animals? What are they doing? What are they wearing, holding, or using? What else is in the picture with them?

 

If we look at the 9 of Coins from the Universal Waite Tarot on Aeclectic.net's page here: http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/universal-2/index.shtml The 9 of Coins is the card that is bottom center on the page. What do you notice about the card? Is the woman dressed in finery or rags? Does her expression look content or pained. Is the garden in which she is standing lush, or sparse; is it ill kept, or well manicured? Is the sky fair, or stormy? Is the building in the background a hovel or a ruin, is it a cabin or a castle? I look at this card, and I see someone who can afford the fine things in life; she is dressed well, standing in gardens that well attended, her face is content, the greenery of the surroundings is lush and plentiful, the bird looks to be a pet so she has enough wealth to feed and care for more than just herself; and indeed the traditional divinatory keywords associated with this card are achievement, success, and satisfaction.

 

The more information we can glean from the images on the Tarot cards, the more we can 'read' from them. It is possible to take any card, and consider a few aspects of it, and glean the meaning from it. This is why the Rider Waite Smith deck became so popular; it was one of the first decks of Tarot cards to put images on the Minor Arcana (the cards not considered 'trump' cards – we'll look at them in the next lesson), so that they, like the images on the Major Arcana (or trumps), told a story.

 

In order to obtain the story from the images on the cards, there are some simple, basic questions we can ask.

1. What numbers (if any) are on the card?

2. What words (such as titles or keywords, if anything) are on the card ?

3. What have you learned that this card meant in any previous work with it?

4. What are the characters on the card doing; what is their emotional state?

5. What do you think the characters on the card were doing prior to this image? What do you think they will be doing next?

 

These five basic questions can be expanded into a bit of fun. I like to also consider the following:

• If there was a cartoon speech bubble on the card, what would it say?

• If the characters on the card were singing, what song would it be?

• If this image was on a greeting card, what would the inside of the card say?

• If I was looking at this card from the other side (as in, from behind it, from a 180' perspective), what would I see? (In fact, there is a Tarot deck that does just this! Published by Lo Scarabeo, it looks very much like the original Rider Waite deck, but has the characters illustrated from behind, so we can see who is hiding behind the throne of the Empress, what would the Two of Swords see if she took off her blindfold, what lies ahead of the Fool. Have a look at some of the images here: http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/tarot-of-the-new-vision/ It is a very useful probing technique to get insight on a card!)

 

ysabetwordsmith pointed me to this list, which asks characterization questions (courtesy of siadea ). It also can be applied to the characters on the Tarot.

• What would the character die for?

• What would they refuse to do, under any circumstances?

• About what do they dream?

• What is their biggest nightmare?

• What single object would it be hardest with which to part, and why?

• What is their fondest memory?

• What is their worst memory?

• Who or what is their most significant influence?

• What makes them laugh?

 

You can probably think of your own questions, too, and that is great! That is the purpose of this exercise.

 

“Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.” ~~ Steve Wright

Most people, when they get a deck of Tarot cards, aren't interested in learning the history, the symbolism, or the mysticism of the cards. They want to read. So, after many requests, here is the introduction to a series of posts that will show the new Tarot card owner how to do just that; to look at the cards, and read what they are saying.

Of course, the above quote is meant in jest. Tarot cards cannot kill anyone; they cannot even accurately predict death. Like so many other divination tools, the Tarot has been mislabeled out of fear by those who don't understand it, and cloaked in mystery by those who either fear it, or wish to wield power. The Tarot is simply a tool, and not even specifically a fortune-telling tool. When used properly, Tarot can help us to unravel one of life's deepest mysteries, and that is who we really are.
 

You may find it helpful while working with these lessons to keep a notebook or a journal. This can be part of your existing journal (should you keep one), or you might want to keep a specific journal just for the Tarot (being the Virgo that I am, I have a myriad of journals for a number of purposes!). Throughout this series on the Tarot there will be exercises that are to be kept in your journal, and this will build into your very own 'how to read the Tarot' workbook if you allow it so to do. I strongly urge all of you who are planning to take learning the Tarot seriously to keep a separate journal specifically for your Tarot work. I do this with composition books; by the time I am finished, I have quite a collection of composition books, each with my own interpretations of the lessons and information. A 'Library of Shadows' you might say!

When I was selling crystals and dreamcatchers and doing readings at the Folk Festivals, many people would stop by my market stall and ask, “You don't really believe in this stuff, do you.” My reply was always the same, “I don't believe in it, I know it.” I don't have to believe in my heart beating for it to keep beating, I know it is beating. And I know that 'this stuff' works, too.

Yet how do we really know if anything works? I'm writing on a computer now, but it only works as long as I'm operating it. I have heartworm treatment for my dog, but it only works as long as I remember to give it to him. I have a relationship with my spouse, but it only works because we both take the time and effort to make it mutually rewarding.

We've all seen infomercials on the television, advertising the latest gadget that we absolutely have to have to make our lives complete; how did we manage to live without it! Compare the infomercial to our stereotype of the fortune teller at the fair; if she was 'really' so great at predicting the future, why didn't she predict the winning lottery numbers and retire to the mountains?

The Tarot is not the latest greatest wonder gadget. Like any other tool, it has its strengths and its weaknesses. There are things it can do (such as provide clients with possible outcomes to circumstances in your life) and things that it cannot do (like predict the exact date someone will marry).

When I first tried to learn to read the Tarot, it was easy for me to believe I couldn't do it. The images on the cards always spoke to me differently than they spoke to my teacher, so she told me I was doing it wrong. I would start to work with the cards, but what I gleaned from them was not what my teacher or my latest book told me I should be seeing, so I put them back on the shelf. But I really wanted to read the Tarot, though, so sooner or later I'd buy another book, and another set of cards, and try again, only to find I didn't necessarily agree with what that book said, either, and back they'd go.

Finally, my dear friend Karrie enabled me to see that I wasn't wrong because I was not seeing exactly what everyone else saw, I was just different. She enabled me to see that our relationship with the Tarot is very intimate and personal, and why we need to learn that language ourselves, rather than memorizing meanings from a book. Once I started that, a whole new world opened up for me. The purpose of this series is to start that world opening up for you, too.

I consult the Tarot on a daily basis. I use it not to predict what is going to happen, but to give me advice. There's a world of difference! I use the Tarot to give me a 'thought for the day' on which to meditate. I use the Tarot as a picture book, to tell me a story about an issue on my mind. I use it to give me a 'heads up' when I need to make a quick decision about something. I use it as a mirror to reveal to me things about which I might not be objective enough to see clearly. And no doubt I use it for even more; those are just some things that come quickly to mind.

 

haikujaguar is selling bookmarks, with a special deal if you buy more than one. Five styles are available. The artwork on them is amazing! And they go for a good cause, too.

The One-Card Draw is drawing to a close (heh, get it, drawing? oh well...)

Thank you to all those who participated. If you missed getting a card pulled, don't worry. I'll be drawing again on the 16th of November, and also today from 2pm EST - 5pm EST miintikwa will be continuing the readings.

Blessings everyone! Thanks for accompanying me on this journey!

Greetings!

Welcome to the debut one-card draw, where I am featuring my work-in-progress with the Tarot of the Grandmothers.

I am a professional intuitive with around 2 decades of experience and currently work full time for a psychic network. I've read at all sorts of events from psychic fairs to folk festivals to mind/body/spirit weekends. I'm a member of the ATA and am a TCBA certified professional reader.

In these readings, I will be using the Tarot of the Grandmothers, a deck on which I am working and hoping to have publicized one day. The reading you get may 'not' be like any other reading you've had in the past; I ask that you just roll with it, because the way these archetypes images speak to me is fairly unique. Any feedback you wish to give me is gratefully appreciated.

I'll get to as many readings as I can until 1pm CST, at which time miintikwa will pick up the baton and read this afternoon.

Thank you for joining me on this journey. Be blessed, everyone!

Just to let you know I'll be doing the debut One-Card Draw tomorrow, Friday the 16th of October, from approximately 9am - 1pm central time.

The draw will feature cards from the deck which I am designing, the Tarot of the Grandmothers. This deck takes is rooted in the Wisdom of the Archetypal Grandmothers from many different traditions, and I am very excited to be giving it a 'test run'.

Don't worry if you miss this, though, because miintikwa will be picking up the banner with her one-card drawing when my draw is finished.

Normally we wouldn't be reading on the same day, but miintikwa usually reads on a Friday, and I am planning on doing my one-card draws on the 16th, and it just so happens that every now and then the 16th is going to fall on a Friday!

I'm looking forward to doing this, and miintikwa and I are looking forward to seeing more shared cyber-funded activities start to flourish.

I've decided to do the one card draws on the 16th of the month. It is too near the end of the month to interfere with the beginning of the month, too near the beginning of the month to interfere with the end of the month, and being born on the 16th day of the month, I may just remember that I have something scheduled.

Therefore the one-card draw will debut on 16 October, which is a Friday (fanfare please!).

I will be using the prototype cards for the deck I am designing for the draw. Some of the meanings and names will be fairly familiar to Tarot aficionados, and some of the meanings will be a bit adroit. It's my deck, I'm allowed to run with it!.

Remember to pimp me to your friends. I've had over nearly 2 decades of reading professionally, I currently work as a professional intuitive, I'm a member of the ATA and I'm TCBA certified as a professional reader.

I'll keep nagging you closer to the time.

My friend ysabetwordsmith is having a poetry fishbowl on the 13th of October. This month's theme is horror. I'm particularly intrigued to see what occurs around the shapeshifting theme, as I have a penchant to shapeshifters and shapeshifting myself. Ysabet is very talented at putting random ideas into effective poetry; I invite you all to stop by and feed the fish!

Greetings everyone!

I'm taking a bit of a poll.

Several of my LiveJournal friends feature fishbowls and one-card-draws quite regularly through their entries. I'm contemplating doing this.

I'm a professional (TCBA certified) intuitive with over 20 years reading experience. I've written articles and taught classes on how to read Tarot and other objects, and I've made considerable progress in designing my own deck.

Now, dear LJ friends and family, I want to open this up to you. Would you like to see me offer a monthly free draw? Reading either traditional Tarot, my own oracle cards, or stones from my medicine bundle? If so, I can start with October.

Answers on a post card please... (and feel free to pimp me out to your friends who might be interested).

Blessings,
stonetalker

Talk about square pegs in round holes...

Earlier this week I posted that others supposedly more experienced than I had led me to believe that I could not read Tarot cards because I didn't read the cards 'their' way, and I learned that was an outmoded belief system. I can read the Tarot. Quite well, in fact.

I now realize that I've been equally misled about my painting skills.

See, I love to paint. I love the colors. I love the feeling as the hues flow from my paintbrush (and quite often my fingers and thumbs when the brush won't cooperate). My teachers throughout high school always graded my work as 'adequate', but suggested other ways of doing it. Ditto college. Ditto when I took A-Level art in England.

The teacher there was great, though. I'll always be indebted to her.

I'd started working in clay, because it was three dimensional, but I was never completely happy with what I produced. I attended the college open house and I met the art teacher (funny, I met the writing teacher that day too... I wonder if there is a pattern emerging, with ysabetwordsmith telling me I could indeed write, and another friend telling me I could indeed read tarot...). The art teacher -- Kathleen although her last name escapes me (6 degrees of separation; anyone know Kathleeen W who teaches at Blackpool and the Fylde College?) -- looked at my attempts at sculpting and told me I needed to learn to draw.

I enjoyed the art classes immensely. I enjoyed the escaping of working in a factory and dealing with financial shortages (ahem, another pattern??) and getting away from it all for 5 hours a week. To say I was successful is rather an exaggeration, though.

Kathleen was always telling us, "Draw what you see." When we did our first nude, I did just that. I saw a series of triangles where the muscle tissue lay under the skin. My nude was just that, a series of adequately proportioned shaded triangles. Kathleen just rolled her eyes and said, "We haven't covered Picaso yet."

Another time we were doing a still life, and I was getting increasingly frustrated because I couldn't make the bowl look round by building it up, like I could with clay. Finally Kathleen let me loose on a collection of items in the studio. String, paste, sand, whatever made me happy, as long as there was paint in it. I think once I added my fingers to the mixture rather than work with brushes (something else that made Kathleen roll her eyes) I managed to produce something of a passing grade.

So you see why I liked this teacher; she 'did' let me explore being me, even though I still had to conform enough to adapt to the curriculum.

The point of all these ramblings is I have discovered I can paint. I can paint reasonably well, in fact. Just because it looks more like folk art or The Beatles' Yellow Submarine (thank you Peter Max) or something from Morgan's Tarot than a Turner or Rembrandt doesn't mean it isn't art and doesn't mean it isn't acceptable art. Just because it doesn't conform with someone else's idea of art doesn't mean it has no value. It has value to me. Talk about enlightenment!

(ponder) Perhaps this is why Van Gogh is my favorite 'old master'; he too didn't conform. My friend Ron calls Van Gogh 'a dauber' (Ron's hero is William Morris). Ron would probably call me a caricaturer (if that is even a word). I know he calls me a hippy (laughs)!

The point of this post is that I am learning not to take others' opinions to heart. I'm learning also not to impose my opinions onto anyone -- including myself -- because I'm learning that for the most part my opinions are now outdated and no longer fit the Old Crone I am becoming. 

I'm breaking molds, reaching out, touching new realities. I'm enjoying what I paint, I'm painting what I enjoy. I may even make some of my creations into collages or bead embroidery one day.

I'm discovering a whole new world of creation free of constraint and preconceived ideas, and life is becoming very very VERY rich indeed.

I think I am loving turning 50. Watch this space......

I found this 'really' useful Tarot exercise on Mary K. Greer's blog.

After studying the Tarot for nearly 20 years, and telling people for that long that I couldn't read it, I discovered something amazing this summer. I can read the Tarot. Quite well, in fact. I just had teachers (and books and other Tarot readers) tell me I was doing it 'wrong'. Apparently I either didn't lay the cards out in the Celtic Cross which I supposedly 'had' to do, or the meanings I got from the cards didn't agree with the meanings someone else got from the cards, ergo I must be 'wrong'.

And it was that 'ergo' that was 'wrong', not the way I was doing things!

I also find it interesting that as I am exploring Shamanic Astrology and making manifest my shamanic garden and writing about shamanism in classes at the Grey School of Wizardry, now I realize that the Tarot is also speaking to me shamanically, and very vividly, too. Fancy that. I'm seeing all sorts of correlations and correspondences, and the Tarot is not just speaking to me, it is whispering and singing and shouting and dancing and invading my dreams. I don't think I have ever been quite so prolific in my writing since I have started working with the Tarot once again.

When I first realized that I 'could' read the cards -- only I did it 'my' way rather than the way everyone else told me I 'had' to do it (duh moment, I've always done things 'my' way, why should this be any different?!) -- I banged my head on the desk, because I have -- as I mentioned -- spent the last 18 years drooling over Tarot decks then passing them along to someone else because I didn't think I was gelling with them. I took four different Tarot classes from four different instructors; never finished one of them because I was so very frustrated that I wasn't seeing in the images what they told me I was supposed to see.

Maybe I had to spend the last 20 years learning about the Totem Animals and Spirit Guides, working with stones and crystals and herbs in order to get me into a place of receptivity so, that when I did finally start working with the Tarot, I could fly with it like I am doing now. Some nights I don't even want to go to sleep, because I just want to keep writing and studying and working with the archetypal images. (Never fear; this is actually developing into dream work, and another Grey School Class on "Dreaming with the Tarot"!)

The moral of this? Never ever ever let someone tell you that you can't do something, just because you are doing it differently. What is the quote? "Either I will find a way, or I will make one," (Phillip Sydney).

My friend ysabetwordsmith always told me I was a better writer than I thought I was. She helped me with ideas, worked with me when I got stuck, and edited my work to the point that I started to recognize what errors I was making before I made them. She enabled me to want to better myself. Thank you, so very much, dear one.

And now, I have "Astrological Tarot" to write!

PS:

Current 'drool deck' is Tarot of Dreams by Ciro Marchetti. Yes it is digital art, but oh my goodness what talent!

Current 'pen and ink' inspiration comes from our own haikujaguar (although she probably doesn't even know I exist *grins*). Seeing her past work has given me the urge to get painting again; something I haven't done in over a year.

Apart from writing, my most recent addiction is knitting tarot card bags. Maybe I should change my name from Rainbow to Tarot....

Welcome to the Picasso School of Cosmetic Surgery!



Well, it made me giggle........

When I was in Montana last year Bear and I drove past a couple of the entrances to the Blackfeet reservation. At each entrance stood one of Jay Laber's sculptures.

Jay goes into Nature and finds manmade things that have been abandoned, then creates awesome interpretations of Native American life from them.

His work has to be seen to be understood, and even then people are amazed by what he creates simply from old junk.

For more information, visit this site:  http://www.firstpeoplesfund.org/Grant%20Programs/Fellows/Fellows2003/JayLaber.htm