I had a wonderful group for my “Tarot and Joy” workshop tonight in the PantheaCon Divination Suite! Thank you to John and Fred for inviting me to speak!
I’m sharing the workshop handouts for those who were not able to attend!
The worksheet with the reading spreads is here: http://bit.ly/2Ig1JAL
The sheet of quotes is here: http://bit.ly/2GMjmpk
I hope you enjoy working with these!
I’ll be at PantheaCon 2019 all weekend! In fact, we came down this afternoon and are settled into the hotel.
Friday, I will be at The Divination Hospitality Suite hosted by John Hyatt and Fred West (Room 947), presenting “Tarot and Joy”. We usually turn to Tarot for answers when we’re stressed, depressed, or facing some kind of crisis on our lives. Let’s step back and look at our relationship with Tarot, and bring some joy to the conversation. We’ll discuss how we create joy in our lives, ways to spread that joy, and ways to work with the Tarot to tap into our innate joy. Just like any good friend who always listens when you’re blue, Tarot deserves to share the good times, too!
Saturday at 1:30 PM, I will be doing a workshop on “Bind Runes for Magical and Practical Purposes” in the Boardroom on the second floor. While you can combine runes to create words (who doesn’t like spelling their name in other alphabets?), runes can also be combined to join their energies for magical purposes. Bindrunes can be used to create talismans to empower the wearer with good health, cleverness, strength, and other qualities. Runes can also be combined to create a symbol of personal power, or as a way of marking your possessions so others know the owner of that cup, dagger, or other very cool object. We will create our own talismans. Basic drawing supplies provided, but you are welcome/encouraged to bring your own. (No, really, bring your own art supplies if you can!)
There are a number of workshops I plan to attend (who can resist Rachel Pollack, Mary Greer, or Kristoffer Hughes?). I will also be spending time in The Divination Hospitality Suite (Room 947) and the Sanctuary of the Braided Path (Room 960). Both of the suites will be offering various workshops, and the Sanctuary will also be conducting rituals. Check your PantheaCon program for details and times!
I have ribbons
and stickers
which can be yours for the (nicely) asking!
See you at PantheaCon!
My mother was perfect—the perfect wife, mother, chatelaine, hostess, employee—whatever she did, she was perfect at it. As a child, however, I was far from perfect, though I gave it a serious try for many years. I still have a number of complicated feelings and unresolved issues concerning perfection.
Some days, it manifests as an unreasoning perfectionism; other days, it’s a rebellion against perfectionism, and reminding myself that done is better than perfect. Still other days, it comes out as the feeling that since I can’t be perfect, there’s no reason to try. The amount of sleep I’ve had the night before has a significant effect on my perspective (on this and many other things). This struggle with perfection directly affects my relationship with my deities and my attempts to live a life of active belief.
My Gods and Goddesses aren’t perfect, which makes it easier to love Them and understand Them. They don’t require me to be perfect, but They do require that I live my faith—not simply utter prayers and make offerings, but to actually take the lessons and apply them to my self and my life. (Some days, I’d really rather just pay to build a temple and not consider my actions or their consequences—but money is no substitute for action, and one cannot buy enlightenment or self-improvement, no matter how much some new age-type authors might wish us to believe otherwise.)
Some days, I can face myself and say “this thing is good, and this other thing is better than it was, and this thing over here needs so.much.work.” Some days, I don’t want to face any of it—not the good, and especially not the bad/difficult/shadow parts of myself. But if I’m going to declare myself a person of belief, then I need to live that belief, even when it is inconvenient, uncomfortable, or flat-out terrifying. If I don’t bring my whole self to my practice, my practice is incomplete, which is disrespectful to my Gods and Goddesses, and disrespectful to my own soul.
And that’s why it’s called a spiritual practice. We have to practice thinking and acting in the right manner in order to learn the habit, and then practice more in order for the habit to become a reflex. One day, I would like to be able to look at my thoughts and see that the reflex is consistently one of compassion, rather than judgment; that the reflex is one of calm confidence, rather than self-doubt and fear of failure. I will get there, possibly even in this lifetime.
Practice makes perfect, and I have such a long way to go. All I can do is keep going, and keep practicing.
“The test of faith is whether I can make space for difference. Can I recognize God’s image in someone who is not in my image, whose language, faith, ideals, are different from mine? If I cannot, then I have made God in my image instead of allowing him to remake me in his.” ~ Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
While the quote is from a Rabbi, it applies to all of us who claim a belief in Deity, regardless of which path we follow. Here in the U.S., it is easy to find examples of this in far too many of our public officials, who profess some form of Christian faith, and then act in ways and enact laws that directly contravene the teachings of Jesus so completely that He would drive them out of their offices with a whip were He to manifest in physical form today.
But let us not focus solely on the mote in their eyes, when we have boards of our own to contend with. In the Northern Traditions community, do we not have our own problems with those who claim to be followers of the Norse Gods, and use that alleged faith to engage in acts of hate based on their personal biases? As recently as Friday, January 25, 2019 (two days ago, as of this writing), two white males who are members of a group calling themselves “The Wolves of Odin” were harassing people at a mosque in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The mosque staff had to call the police to have the men removed. The men claimed they were there “just to ask questions”, but one of them was wearing a toque with the Arabic word for “infidel” on it—it’s difficult to believe they were there in a peaceful attempt to gain cultural understanding.
But our prejudices don’t have to take such extreme forms to be problems. It’s often a more subtle manifestation— a fleeting thought of “what is that person doing leading this ritual?’ or “I wouldn’t have expected someone like that to be interested in what we are doing”.
That person is somehow different from us, and we question their presence in our space. Perhaps not for a reason as obvious as race or gender, but more subtle things, such as judging/rejecting on the basis of body type or appearance, or questioning someone’s intelligence based on the way they speak—both so incredibly common in our culture, and a form of judgment that is so ingrained that we often aren’t aware of it.
What brings that person into the space (which is not our personal space, but the shared Our space of ritual, blot, ceremony, etc.) is the same reason we are in the space—a devotion to our particular God(s), a commitment to serve our God(s), and a desire to celebrate our devotion with others in a meaningful and respectful way.
I have been to events where newcomers were greeted and made part of the gathering, and events where none of the regular members could be bothered to say “hello”, much less properly welcome those were were not already part of their group. For some groups, inclusivity means “all are welcome”; for others, inclusivity means “we will include you if you are already one of us”.
I know which type of group I prefer to be involved with, and which kind of person I prefer to be. I still have a lot of work to do around judging people (this blog post I wrote last summer is still applicable), and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one.
Becoming aware is the beginning of change; acting on that awareness is required to complete the change.
Once we know better, we can do better.
May our Gods bless us with the wisdom to be aware, and the strength to take action.
I can finally announce this publicly! I will be one of the speakers at the UK Tarot Conference in London, October 11 – 12, 2019!
The amazing speaker roster features Mary K. Greer, Caitlin Matthews, Katrina Wynne, Avril Price, Richard Abbot—and me!
This year’s theme is “The Tower”, as it’s the 16th year of the conference.
My presentation will be “Your Friend, The Tower—It’s Tower-iffic!” When the Tower card turns up in a reading, most people are not happy to see it. The prospect of destruction isn’t a fun thing to contemplate, but like all Tarot cards, the Tower has more than one aspect. We’ll look at the Tower to see it could possibly be seen as a positive indicator in a reading, using a spread I created specifically to work with this challenging—and exciting!—card.
