Rage, Scorpio Moons & Asking Too Much

The Gaian Tarot’s Five of Fire captures my current feeling perfectly. I am working on a project that involves pulling all of my many Tarot spreads into one place. I did a search on one to find out when I first published it. Can you imagine how surprised, angry and hurt I was to find it stripped down but with my words still attached? And when I looked further at this site, I saw another of my spread’s again with the exact same verbiage that I used in my post here on my site?

Two spreads.

And not even one whisper that I was the originator of these spreads. This professional Tarot consultant came to my blog. She read my words, then took them and posted them as her own. I have a few buttons that will put me into instant Scorpionic (my moon) rages. Hurting my family is one. Stealing my work is another.

I share my work because it brings me joy. I hope that you do use these in your personal and professional practices should you be so moved. However, I do not want to see my work posted on someone else’s site without any freaking attribution.

Am I asking too much?

I am going to write this person a letter asking them to either remove my spreads from their posted repetoire or give me attribution by linking my name and site. Is that too much? Am I overreacting here? Should I expect that another profession Tarot consultant should have the respect and courtesy that I would give someone else?

This sort of thing makes me want to kneejerk. I want to lock my site completely down. I want to slap a lawsuit on her. I want to report her site for copyright infringement. So many reactions and not a one of them is joyful. Not even close to that.

Instead of that Five of Fire spewing wrath in a focused way, I want to be my Three of Water self. Seeking joy. Seeking play. Seeking others of a like mind. I didn’t expect to find my work ripped off like this. I just thought I would find the first date it was published. I did. It was in 2005. But what does it matter if someone can just steal from me like this?

As I said, I don’t want payment. I don’t want anything other than what I consider to be my due right. Attribution of my work to me.

Am I asking too much?

I’m moving from anger to deep sadness as I write this. Sad that someone would be so crass, so heinously ill-mannered, so damned asinine as to steal from a fellow consultant. It makes me question her ethics. It makes me question her choices. It makes me question her very moral fiber. Does she think it’s just okay to do this? Was it even a blip on her conscious when she knowingly and willfully copied my words to her site?

I just can’t know. But I want to know. Am I asking too much?

UPDATE 9/27/2011: I did write to the person and she has apologized as well as rectified the situation. Thanks for listening to me vent. I don’t blow often but when I do? 🙂 It ain’t pretty.