Miscellaneous

#MyBestAdvice a (non) VR to Brian Cormack Carr

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GraveStone

So this will be an easy (and short one) for the questions thing.   Brian Cormick Carr over on YouTube introduced the hashtag #MyBestAdvice on his channel recently, where he shared what the best advice was that he has ever gotten in life, and where from, and then asked others to do the same.

For me, this was advice given to me by Z.  Growing up, I spent a great deal of time at her house because she was 1) my parent’s “Pagan Parenting” coach of a sort, 2) she kind of ended up functioning as my sister and I’s “godparent”, and 3) she did a LOT of babysitting of L and myself.

So, with all those factors in place, it’s not really much of a surprise that this advice comes from her.   I think I was around twelve?  Maybe a little older.   Perhaps she was worried about how I would turn out, or perhaps it was just another guiding step on teaching us values.  Whatever the reason, her advice was to read a poem named “The Dash” by Linda Ellis.

Here it is…

The Dash

I read of a man who stood to speak at the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on the tombstone from the beginning… to the end.

He noted that first came the date of birth and spoke of the following date with tears,
but he said what mattered most of all was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time they spent alive on earth
and now only those who loved them know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own, the cars… the house… the cash.
What matters is how we live and love and how we spend our dash.

So think about this long and hard; are there things you’d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left that still can be rearranged.

To be less quick to anger and show appreciation more
and love the people in our lives like we’ve never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect and more often wear a smile…
remembering that this special dash might only last a little while.

So when your eulogy is being read, with your life’s actions to rehash,
would you be proud of the things they say about how you lived your dash?

By Linda Ellis, Copyright © Inspire Kindness, 1996, thedashpoem.com

This poem changed my life in a very literal way. It made me conscious of my effect upon others and the world at large in a way that nothing previously ever had and created a “community perspective” that reached way beyond just my immediate family and friends.

This poem is the best advice that I’ve ever received, and holds a framed place above my altar in the bedroom where I stand to do my devotional each day.  A daily reminder to always look beyond myself and be mindful of the influence I have upon others and the world around me.

#MyTop5Faves a (non) VR to The Hermit’s Cave

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This is a reply to Simon’s newest hashtag over at The Hermit’s Cave on YouTube.   His question was what are your ultimate favorite Tarot, Oracle, Lenormand, and Playing Card decks… plus a wild card number five.   For his wild card, Simon introduced his favorite crystal, and I will be using that as my wild card as well.

Please keep in mind that some of these will change over time.  Others have been the same answer for years and years.

So, here we go….

Tarot of the Hidden Realm Favorite Tarot Deck — The Tarot of the Hidden Realm by Julia Jeffrey and Barbara Moore. This became my favorite from the moment it came out of the box.  It was much different than any tarot I’d owned to date, and when I ordered it, I wasn’t entirely sure how I would click with it.   As soon as the deck arrived and I opened the box and got the cards in my hands, though, all those worries disappeared.

I connect in a deep and profound way with the artwork in these cards.  The deck feels perfect, from the way they shuffle and fit in my hands to the artwork on the cards, and even the accompanying guidebook, which I see as more of a book of short stories than a guidebook.  I just love them.  In fact, I just recently bought a back-up set in case anything ever accidentally happens to the set I currently use.

Favorite Oracle Deck — For oracle decks, I’ve really found that it changes regularly. I have a “primary deck” for both tarot and oracle that I change out each month.   I might use others during the month as well, but these decks are my “deep dive” type of decks where I spend the majority of my time with them specifically.   I’ve found that whatever oracle deck I’m using during this time?   That ends up my favorite… at least until the next month comes along.

Flora Healing CardsCurrently, I’m combining the Flora Healing Cards and the Fauna Inspiration Cards (both by Phoebe Hunt and Rebecca Lefebvre) into one deck and using that as my oracle for the month of July.  These are beautiful cards filled with flora and fauna in watercolor imagery and include the elemental affinities on the top of each card as well.  On the back of the cards is a paragraph that explains the significance and guidance for the fauna or flora represented on the front.   I really like these.   They are not the normal gloss card stock, but something softer, which means you have to be a bit more careful with them than most decks, but surprisingly I don’t mind it with these decks, in fact…. it sort of “fits” really well.

1889 LenormandFavorite Lenormand Deck — This was difficult, but I think my favorite of all time is the 1889 Lenormand by Jennifer Sager.   I like the earthy colors and the artwork that is both soft and yet very clear at the same time.  It has that “old time” feel of the Lenormand decks I grew up with, but with a hint of modern style.

I have a feeling this will change if I can ever get my hands on a copy of Kelly Fitzgerald’s Story in Color Lenormand.  I’ve yet to get this deck into my collection, and it is not traditional imagery for the Lenormand by any means, but there is something about the images that I’ve seen that makes me think it will end up being a favorite for me.

Favorite Playing Card Deck — The Daydreams expansion pack of the Dixit Cards. They are not a regular playing card decks, but they are game card decks, which I personally use as intuitive oracle decks.  So maybe these should have gone up in the Oracle section?

Faunae Playing Cards Playing cards as in poker decks?  This one is slated to change very, very soon… but at the moment it is the Aqua and Creme playing cards put out by Bicycle (and are notoriously difficult to photograph), which I think might be out of print now, but can still be found on eBay from time to time.  I like them because I find the colors (as well as the distressed look of them) very soothing.   I say that they are is slated to change very soon, though, because I have backed a Kickstarter deck called the Faunae Playing Cards, and I have a feeling once I have them in my hands I am going to be enamored.

Labradorite Palm Stone The Wild Card — Favorite Crystal — Labradorite has been my favorite crystal for as long as I can remember.   I connect really well with the energy of this stone (at least, as long as I avoid putting it on my forehead during meditation).  I find labradorite to be very soothing for me, and often meditate with a piece resting at my solar plexus, which can ease anxiety when I’m having issues in that department.  I’m a big fan of the large palm stones in particular, as I like that sense of “weight” with this stone, more so than any other.

 

 

#WatchingTarotTube (non)VR to Art and Tarot by Dee and Katey Flowers

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TarotTube

So “TarotTube” is essentially a section of the YouTube community that focuses mostly on tarot, or metaphysics and tarot.   This quiz came from Art and Tarot by Dee and Katey Flowers, who are a couple of the content creators of that small community (small as in relation to YouTube as a whole, as the community is actually quite large).

1. How many channels are you subscribed to?

Currently, I am subscribed to 192 YouTube channels… although to be fair, they are not all tarot related, or metaphysical related, or pagan related.  I also subscribe to a lot of educational channels, humor channels, music channels, etc.

2. When do you normally watch TarotTube?

On Saturday.  And sometimes during the week while I’m working or doing other things.  I will also sometimes listen while driving (with Waze up on the screen instead of YouTube, of course).

3. How do you balance watching TarotTube , reading tarot, and making your own videos?

Well, I don’t make my own videos, so there IS that.   But essentially for balancing everything, it comes down to multitasking.  So much in my life really boils down to multitasking.

4. Is there a difference between videos you like watching and videos you like making?

Again… I don’t make videos.  So question three and four don’t really have much to do with me.   But, I included them anyway.

5. Who is the first TarotTuber you subscribed to and do you still watch them?

Hmmm.  I’m not sure if it was Avalon Cameron or Ethony, actually.   But yes, I still watch both of them.

6. Who is the most recent TarotTuber you subscribed to?

I’m pretty sure my latest was Tattoo’d Spirit.  Or it might have been Épine Du Veil … or possibly Atypical Tarot ?  I’m not entirely sure which one was last.

7. Share an old favourite TarotTuber!  

Aside from the two already mentioned above? One of my favorites is Simon over at The Hermit’s Cave.  Another that’s not quite as long in the tooth on YouTube would be Brian Cormick Carr, who has a lot of really good content for exercising your gray matter in relation to tarot and the metaphysical.

8. Share a new favourite TarotTuber!

Becca Tarot Night Owl  She was the first live chat I visited, and is very warm and welcoming. Also Tangerine Layla* The Sleepy Oracle, who is always a great watch for a little lightheartedness and fun.  One more is Heather Carter, who like Brian mentioned above, also makes some really thought provoking videos.

9. What is one of your TarotTube pet peeves?

The “One Trick Pony” Syndrome.  By which I mean that there’s no variety.  ALL they do is one thing without ever deviating into other things. (Such as only doing  tarot reading videos, or only unboxing videos, or only deck walk-through videos, etc.)

10. What have you learnt from watching other TarotTubers?

There is no way for me to outline this as there is just too many things and the vast array of what I’ve learned is too diverse, but I get a lot of fragments of knowledge and ideas from different videos, not to mention different perspectives and methods of looking at the cards and/or using them in my own life.

#5Things I Use Everyday & Can’t Live Without

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flower-887443_960_720

Becca Night Owl, over on Youtube did her first VR tag.  And, well of course I don’t do videos, but I do like quizzes, so I’ll answer here.

Her question for the #5Things tag is… What five things do you use every day and can’t live without?

Now, this list is really more what I -don’t want- to live without to be honest.  As I’m a firm believer in the survivalist in my nature.  That said?  I’m not kidding about #3.  Medication-free means I’m very, very up close and personal with the overwhelming urge to off myself.

In no particular order…

1)  A deck of cards.  It doesn’t matter if they are playing cards, lenormand, or tarot, preferably.  But oracle cards, Dixit cards (which I use as oracle cards), or even Kipper (which I don’t know how to read but could use if needed), will do.  Not just for my daily draw, or even to keep my hands busy, but because you can also play games with them and that works for me when left to my own devices.   If I was stranded on a deserted island and I had no cards?  I’d make myself some cards.  They’re just that important.

2)  My  phone.  I hate to say it.  I really do.   But it’s my connection with you and that’s what matters.   So I guess you could say it isn’t my phone at all but YOU that I can’t do without.  I love you.

3)   My antidepressants.  Life isn’t worth living without my antidepressants… literally.

4)  Labradorite.  The qualities of this stone include grounding, dispelling anxiety, strengthening intuition, and tempering negativity… among other things.

5)  Citrine.  The quality of this stone that I find the most important, and the reason I wear it daily, is that it releases anxiety and transforms negative energy into positive energy.   It also is known for being emotionally balancing, activating creativity, encouraging self expression, and helps enhance concentration.

The last two stones, I have made into small charms and attached to my medical bracelet, meaning that I wear them 24/7.

Story of the Sacred Circle Tarot

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Usually, I do a group post for my deck modifications, since I’ve been doing quite a few of them over the past little bit.   But this particular modification was so surprising and so transformative, that I felt that it needed its own post.

First, a little backstory.

My very first deck was given to me, and so was my third.. fourth… possibly also my fifth.  I was raised by Pagan and Buddhist parents, and my mother gifted me the Gypsy Witch Fortune Telling cards when I was about ten years old.

Gypsy

It isn’t really a deck that I use anymore, although I still own both the deck I was originally given as well as a version of the deck that is over 100 years old.

Soon after, I was given my first Lenormand deck (which is the system that I first learned with), and then a handful more of them over the years that followed.

Blue_Owl

When I discovered the Ryder-Waite-Smith system, I was curious and eager to learn, and I requested a recommendation from the shop owner for a learning deck.   Now, I’m not sure why they recommended the Sacred Circle Tarot for this.  And, at around fourteen years old or so?  I wasn’t “centered” enough in myself or the RWS system to realize this deck was not going to be a good match for me, or to speak up and tell him “Um, no. How about a different one.”

kf3cex3h

So, I bought the deck and I struggled with it.  I slogged through the reading, and fought with the deck at every turn.  For a while, I even thought that the RWS system was just not for me, and I retreated back to my roots in the Lenormand.

I’ve moved on since then, and back to the RWS.  I’ve discovered a multitude of decks that speak to me and that I enjoy (as you can clearly see by my list of decks that I now own).  But, I never got rid of the Sacred Circle Tarot I’d struggled with so horribly in the beginning.

Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of deck modifications, and I have been eying the Sacred Circle deck with serious consideration since the first time I modified a deck.

Finally, I decided to take the plunge.   This is, hands down, my most aggressive deck modification to date, but I have to say, I’m really pleased with the results.

SacredCircle04

The first thing I did was trim the cards, of course.   You can see in the above image the difference that this made in the size of the cards.  A deck that was once oversized and on the edge of awkward has been cut down to the size of a mini deck.

It was the first card I cut that made me realize what my issue was with this deck all along, actually.   I trimmed the Tower first (because, well yeah, it was just fitting in this case), and as soon as it was trimmed, I was amazed at how much more I connected with the card.   What I realized is that those great big, highly intricate borders were what had turned me off to the deck to the point that it was nearly impossible for me to read with them or use them in any capacity.  Although there are a few borders in the Major Arcana that are beautiful, as a whole they’re impression on me is startling, garish, and in some cases an almost violent assault on the senses.

SacredCircle02

So, I cut them off.   All of them off.   The borders, the titles, the key words.   All of it but the main center picture on each card.

Suddenly, this deck felt much better.   The images spoke to me (although… not all of them), it felt good in my hands, it shuffles well and is screaming “use me, use me, USE ME!”.  The only issue I still struggle with is the “photo-shopped” imagery, which is a far and above improvement over it’s original incarnation.

I did have a small problem, though.  The Queen of Swords and the Warrior card (the Strength card) were a little too similar in my opinion, and a few of the other Major Arcana cards were easy to mix up.   The ones with people, I mean.    So, I decided to go ahead and use a fine point Sharpie and number the Major Arcana cards.

SacredCircle03

I didn’t really need to do all the cards in the Major Arcana, but I liked the consistency of having them all done, so I numbered each of them with their roman numeral correspondence.

What is not consistent is the placement of the numbers.  This is because the cards (and images) are now so tiny that there isn’t a lot of room to select any one place to put the numbers in the same spot on each card.    So instead, I tried to find wherever there was a good space that the numbers would both fit, and be visible.

Finally, I then edged the deck in black.   I did this in a less precise way than I usually do my decks.   Normally, I take each card individually and edge the card, wipe the excess with a microfiber cloth, then repeat a second time if needed.

In this case, I took sections of the deck and did the edges of these sections all at once.   This causes the ink to bleed a bit  in between the cards, adding a touch of a messy border to the fronts and the backs, which was the idea.  I think that bit of “messy’ in the border goes really well with the artwork on the cards and I’m really happy with the results.

SacredCircle01

Now?  After one night’s worth of work on altering this deck, it has been (nearly) completely transformed.  It no longer feels uncomfortable or awkward, and I no longer feel any inclination to avoid it or set it aside in the bottom of my tarot chest.  Instead, I love the way the cards feel in my hands, and aside from the photo-shopped look of some of the cards, I’m very happy with the aesthetic.

The Aliens Among Us

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Today, I was tagged by Normal Happenings in a writing challenge.

“They”

Detail an experience of yours (real or fiction) so bizarre you think you might have encountered an alien from another world.

So, as usual, when I get put on a spot, my mind draws a blank.   Don’t you hate that shit?   Anyway.  After half a day of contemplation I finally decided to share what happened to me a few months ago while on the road.

When I first came home from this experience, I shared it with you.  I was shaken up (and feeling a little triumphant) and poured it all out.   Now I’m going to reflect back on that experience here.

So essentially, it boiled down to an experience with road rage.    I was on the highway (two lanes in either direction) on my way back to Seattle from a trip up north.   The traffic wasn’t particularly heavy and flowing fine, and as usual, I was driving a good ten or fifteen mph over the speed limit.  (Yes, I know.  I know.)

This speed allows me to move smoothly past cars in either lane without “whipping” from lane to lane like a nutcase.  It’s a comfortable speed for me when dealing with a minimum of four to five hours of driving.  (I really need teleportation.  Seriously.)

Anyway.  I had just passed a black truck going a good deal slower than myself.  I glanced over my shoulder at the truck as I passed, confirming I’d passed him and was pulling away, then changed lanes.     Apparently…. he sped up to try and block me from changing lanes (some people are just assholes and love an opportunity to show it?) and I ended up accidentally cutting him off as I hadn’t realized what he’d done until after the fact.

I had a moment’s grimace and a mental “shit, sorry” moment.  It happens.

rage4But this guy took things to a WHOLE new level when he then began first riding my ass, and then trying to change lanes and whip around me to get in front of me.

When I wouldn’t let him in front of me (because hello, erratic behavior at high speeds on a highway is a BAD idea) he then tried running me into the concrete median, then into the ditch a bit later.

I knew letting this guy in front of me on the highway was a bad idea, and I knew that losing him on the highway would be impossible.  He was…. I mean, just wow.  Erratic, enraged, violently aggressive with that truck of his, and he was going to cause an accident.     So, I decided to take an exit and get off the highway in the hopes that maybe I’d be able to lose him somewhere.

Instead, he followed and, in the middle of the street, whipped around me by going into oncoming traffic and then blocked the road with his truck, forcing me to stop in the middle of the street.   He then proceeded to get out of his truck and start in my direction.

I felt this was a really BAD idea, so I backed up (in the middle of the street).  A semi started coming our way, and I guess he figured the current situation was untenable to him, so he got back in the truck.   While he was getting in his truck, I quickly passed around him and hurried ahead.

He caught up, of course.

To keep hmi from getting in front of me again for a repeat performance, I used the left lane and got right up behind a car.  I felt bad riding their ass, but I didn’t want to let him get in front of me again because this had definitely become an issue in personal safety.

For just over 2 miles, I rode this car’s ass while he drove beside me in the right lane with his window down, screaming obscenities at me, flailing out his window, giving me the bird, etc.    TWO MILES!

I then (finally) managed to lose him as, while he was stuck in the right lane (and traffic was becoming more busy so he was definitely going to be stuck in that lane) I used a last-minute redirect before a traffic light to slip into the left turn lane and turn off.   He was forced to go straight.

Fortunately?   I have a very innocuous car in a very innocuous color, so once I was away from him, even if he saw my car again there’s a good chance he wouldn’t be able to be sure it was me.   Just to be safe, though?   I took an alternate route back to the highway to be back on my way.

In the time since this happened, it has been suggested I should have driven to the police station and pulled into the lot to sit there for a bit.   And you know what?  I really like that idea, and I think that’s exactly what I should have done.  Unfortunately, I didn’t think of it at the time.

That said? The focus of this post is on the driver of that truck.  He left me shaken and a little freaked out.   And reflecting back now?   I sit here wondering… How does anyone get -that- angry?  Where does that kind of anger come from?  How does someone allow anger to enrage them to the point where your actions are violently aggressive danger to not just yourself or the person you’re upset with, but the population at large?

This type of overwhelming rage is something beyond my scope of understanding, no matter how many times I try to wrap my mind around it.  How does the human condition even have room for this type of rage and resulting behavior?

Alien?  Absolutely.