Tag: Earth

How Many Unicorns?

Unicorn_9PentaclesToday’s card is from a deck that I own but don’t really work with. It’s a themed deck where the artist worked in the theme in just about every card. Don’t get me wrong! I’m as airy-fairy as the next sparkly pink princess, but at some point 78 unicorns is a few too many.

Still this card reminds me to stop and pet the unicorn–or at least smell the roses. I try to do that when I go for my walks. Now my walks have a purpose. Well they have two purposes. Okay, four really if you do the math. Two dogs who both have to…well, you know!

So I get to see my block at a lot of different times of the day. Early morning grey. Noon blazing sunlight. Late afternoon shade. Night time shadows. It’s nice to see it and know it’s my ‘hood, my turf, my place in the world. And I have to remember to love it even in the downpours, the 100+ heat and all. I have to celebrate the breeze when it hits my sweaty face. I have to celebrate the rain plastering my hair to my head.

It’s all part of my Joy Seeking life, darlings. I have to accept that it is all good.

The Nine of Pentacles is the traditional card of acknowledging success while looking ahead to the next effort. Do you do that often enough? Look yourself in the mirror to congratulate you on a job well done?

If not you, who?

You really must be your own publicist, darling. Toot your horn as much as you toot someone else’s. If someone tells you that you are awesome, say, “thank you.”

Here.

Let’s practice that.

You’re awesome!

You know what to do!

Nine of Pentacles, Unicorn Tarot [aff]

Seek joy, y’all. Pass it on!

Celebrate What You Don’t Have?

Today’s card reminds me that my attitude can absolutely affect my pocketbook. I drew two cards at random from Roxi Sim’s gorgeous, colorful Pearls of Wisdom Tarot. I meant to pull one, but two insisted on coming out so two is what I’m working with.

I was struck by the differences in these two cards. In the Ace, she is celebrating all the things abundance CAN bring. Not has. Can. This is a card of potential, you see. It’s the beginning of what money can do. And not just money, but for this post, I’m going to stick with that.

Then move your eyes to the next card. Dying plants in the upper corners. A waning moon in the sky. A dark closed in room where two people fail to appreciate what they do have as they mourn what they don’t.

PearlsofWisdom_1Pent5Pent

Look at these cards again. In the Ace, all of the things are in the border. They aren’t hers yet. They aren’t real. They are in the works. They are possibilities. Her face is open. She is smiling. She is reaching up to the pentacle above her head knowing that the light flowing from both sides is her path to prosperity. All she has to do is walk it and believe in it.

The Five of Pentacles is so different. There’s food on the table (pears). There’s beautiful flowers (daisies). There’s even money and jewelery. He even has a pearl earring!

But there’s no joy.

Why is that? Is this card the “keeping up with the Joneses” card? I mean they both have clothes and a roof over their head. Sure, the candle is nearly out. The pearls show some missing so maybe they had to be spent? The money bags are nearly empty. But they are so closed off in this image. What can flow in or out when they are so closed?

I have this in my own life sometimes, don’t you? Days where I look at my bills in comparison to my bank account. Days where I wonder how I will make it to work because the E on my gas gauge looks like a T-Rex ready to take me down.

I have to go back to a saying a learned from my friend, Ruth Glendinning.

I walk in abundance.

Abundance isn’t necessarily cash in hand, darlings. It’s just having enough of what i need with some left over to share. And I do share. I give where I can including folks standing on the corner. No, I don’t want to get in a discussion about whether or not they “deserve” my help. Everyone deserves help–from Bill Gates on down. What that help looks like may vary of course. GRIN!

So here’s a challenge for you today. Take three minutes. Yes, 180 precious seconds of your day. Make a list of what you have. Not of what you want. Of what you have.

  • Food in the fridge?
  • Pets on the couch?
  • Books to read?
  • A TV to watch?
  • A computer to read this on?
  • Friends who make you laugh?

You feel me? Make a list of what you have. Call it “My Abundance List” and add to it every day. You will be surprised how abundant you can feel when you realize you have a toilet bowl plunger when you need one. 😀

Seek joy, y’all. Walk in abundance. Pass it on.

Ace of Pentacles and Five of Pentacles, Pearls of Wisdom Tarot, Roxi Sim

But I Don’t Wanna Go To Work!

Steampunk_8PentaclesToday’s card reminds me that I’m lucky. Blessed, in fact. It also reminds me that sometimes I forget this fact. I woke up wanting to call out. Was it because I didn’t feel well? Was it because I was in pain? Was it because there was some fun thing I’d rather be doing?

Nope. None of the above. I simply didn’t feel like going to work. It was just going to be another day of the same old shit. People complaining. Co-workers bitching. Sometimes the negativity at my office makes me want to run screaming into traffic.

So I laid in bed (after calling in and finding out that, once again, there was no time available) trying to reset my mind. What was one positive thing I could find to hold on to?

Then it hit me.

I had a job.

Period. End of story. I have a job that helps pay my bills, put food on my table. I have a job that doesn’t make me do hard labor. I have a job.

And that, y’all, was how I reset my mind. I got out of bed knowing which card I wanted…or at least which suit. It had to be Pentacles since that is the suit of physical labor (as well as other things). And the Steampunk Tarot was what I worked with for yesterday’s weekly Tarotscopes.

I love this card. The task seems endless and mindlessly repetitive, right? Unending. Same old shit.

But our girl has made it her own. She has created each disk with a different flair. She’s put herself into her task. Her focus is on how to make each piece uniquely hers.

I can do that. I can make each interaction with my customers uniquely mine. I can take pride in what I do.

I still may need ear plugs to divert the continual kvetching from so many of my co-workers, but that’s okay. I’m also blessed to have a job that pays me enough to indulge in Bose® QuietComfort® 15 Acoustic Noise Cancelling® Headphonesnoise-cancelling headphones. (I got a deal and found these for $79 on some group thingy last year.)

Find joy in the mundane, everyday tasks today. That’s your 180 second challenge, y’all. Three minutes of acknowledging that what you do for your job is worth it on some level.

And if it isn’t? If there is truly no joy in your job? Use that 180 seconds for brushing up your resume and get the hell out. Don’t be that black hole of negativity that others have to avoid. Please.

Eight of Pentacles, , Llewellyn [aff]

Seek joy, y’all. Pass it on!

Balancing Prosperity With Budgets

DreamingRaveb_2PentaclesToday’s card is from a really pretty new deck. I’m fast falling in love with it. In a strange way, it reminds me of Dana Driscoll’s Tarot of Trees. I can’t really place my finger on exactly WHY it does but it has something to do with the intensity of the colors, I think.

Here we have the Two of Pentacles. Traditionally a card of choices, I see this raven as something of a trickster. There is a connection between the twos and the Major Arcana II the Magician so maybe that is why. Of course, the Raven CAN be a trickster in many beliefs.

Still, here it looks as if he is pulling coins out of thin air. It can certainly feel that way when we are making money choices, can’t it? As if we don’t have enough and will never have enough?

I think this card is a reminder to me to think abundantly while living carefully. I have a lot of good things going on right now so I am able to afford things I couldn’t in my 20’s. But that doesn’t mean I need to buy the whole horse when I all I want to do is ride one hour a week. 😀

How do you balance your abundant living thinking with your carefully budget life? Do you think one negates the other?

I don’t. I think carefully budgeting myself while calling in prosperity is my “Yes, okay” to the Universe. I’m making a promise not to squander the abundance. I’m making a choice to be careful with my wealth.

And? I don’t see wealth as money alone. Pentacles are the suit of community and earth as well as money. So my friends and family and pets are all covered in this abundant life.

Today I accept that I live in abundance. I acknowledge my right to a prosperous life. I embrace the wholeness of my wealthy, healthy self.

Seek joy, y’all. Pass it on.

Two of Pentacles, Dream Raven Tarot, Schiffer Books, 2013

When Are Your Sacred Moments?

zentangle016Today’s card is a reminder to me to look at all that I have. I was reminded of this by my friend Cathie who is my Kansas self. She commented on this tangle that it reminded her of looking down on a garden.

The traditional Nine of Pentacles shows a woman in her garden admiring all that she has. She is wise enough to know that prosperity isn’t just money. Do you see the nine coins in this image? They are there. You just have to look for them.

Sometimes we just have to look for our wealth. We just have to know where it is. In Joanna Colbert’s newsletter today, she offers ways to make any journey into a pilgrimage. You should probably subscribe to her newsletter. They are one of my highlights when they arrive.

Joanna is preparing to kick off her next Seasonal Practices journey for Beltane. I can’t recommend this enough. She’s a marvelous teacher.

The Nine of Pentacles is, perhaps, a teacher as well. It teaches me that I am living a life I love. Are there places I might want to tweak a bit? Sure. But that’s not dissatisfaction so much as it is knowing I can move up another level. I can increase my joy that much more.

I am beginning to do this by acknowledging where I need to create space–where I need to make quiet sacred moments for myself.

So your challenge today is to create a quiet sacred moment for yourself. Just for 180 seconds, that’s all. Three minutes of intentional acknowledgement of that time.

Zentangle, Arwen, 2013

Seek Joy, Y’all. Pass it on!

She Had To Trust Herself

OracleTarot_8Coins003Today’s card reminds me that the best way to get to Carnegie Hall is practice, practice, practice. There’s another piece to that as well.

Believe, believe, believe.

How do you know when your talents and skills are good enough? When it is time to put on your party dress, doll up your hair and show off?

Hard to say, isn’t it?

Know why?

It’s because we may have practiced, but we don’t believe. We don’t trust.

We don’t trust.

That bears repeating because it’s part of the key to this card. She had to just finally let go and trust that she knew enough, was skilled enough, was enough.

She had to trust herself.

She had to realize that she was smart enough to know that talent alone isn’t enough. Dedication to your craft is the best way to honing your skill. Belief in your own power brings something amazing to that combination of skill and talent.

What do you know enough? What skill(s) are you holding back on simply because you don’t trust yourself?

  • Is it worth it to deny yourself that moment in the spotlight?
  • Is it worth it to hold back your own beautiful brilliance?

I don’t think so. I think it’s time for you to shine. Let the world see how amazing you are.

Today I celebrate my place in the sun. I am more than enough. I am loved and loving. I am a brilliant woman ready to show the world my stuff.

What about you?

For your 180 second challenge, write/sing/draw/pray an affirmation that celebrates your own shining self. Feel free to use the one above if you like. Then speak it out loud to yourself. I mean look yourself in the mirror and say this affirmation, darlings.

Make it a beautiful day. Shine. Your Carnegie Hall moment is here.

Seek joy, y’all. Pass it on.

9 of Coins, Oracle Tarot, Lucy Cavendish

Safe, Secure & Apples

There won’t always be apples! That tree could die. It could get cut down. He might fall from the tree. And what about that rabbit anyway?

Today’s card is one that never fails to make me smile. Even on a day like today when I got news that I didn’t care for, this little boy examining his apple makes me happy.

Why does he examine the apple? Do you think he is looking for the bad spot? At his age? Nahhhh, he’s just looking at the pretty, shiny red surface. He’s considering where to sink his teeth in. He’s considering how much he will share with his lop-eared friend. He isn’t worried about where the next apple will come from.

In fact, our Child of Earth from the Gaian Tarot is pretty secure in the knowledge that there will be more apples where this one came from. I mean all he has to do is climb that old apple tree behind him to get more.

And the adult in some of us is thinking:

There won’t always be apples! That tree could die. It could get cut down. He might fall from the tree. And what about that rabbit anyway? It might run off! It could get hit by a car or eaten by a coyote.

Child of Earth don’t care.

The Child of Earth understands that his basic needs are taken care of. He is secure and safe.

And that’s what really matters. If you are not secure and safe when you read this, stop reading right now and make that happen. There are places and people who will help you.

If you are secure and safe when you read this, stop worrying so much about that next dollar in your bank account. Let this moment–this one right now–be your joy. You are not in a situation that requires police or medical intervention. You are safe. You are secure. There are more apples coming. The bunny is your guide to joy today so hop along, darlings. Hop along.

Seek joy, y’all. Pass it on!

Child of Earth, Gaian Tarot, Llewellyn Publishing, 2011

Dreams, Misses & Stones

Today’s card reminds me that dreaming isn’t enough. And doesn’t that just bite? if that isn’t enough, what else has to happen?

Here is the Ace of Stones with some thoughts on this predicament. What ideas do you have? What’s on your mind? Instead of dreaming about how your life would change IF that dream/idea/concept/story happened, consider this.

What do you waste by not trying? What opportunities parade past while you second guess, make lists, consider all the parameters?

What if you’ve actually hit that delicate fulcrum point where it is time to act?

This Ace of Stones from the Wildwood Tarot urges us to move from thought to physical manifestation. It says that the time is not nigh. It’s right now.

Make it happen today. Write that first page. Cut that first piece of wood. Kick that wheel into motion.

Make it happen today. That’s the clarion call of this card.

Seek Joy, Y’all. Pass it on.

Ace of Stones, The Wildwood Tarot: Wherein Wisdom Resides,Sterling Ethos, 2011

Skeins, Momentum & Projects

Today’s card isn’t a card but there is a card I think about. This is a project I’m working on. I have a lot of projects. I do my weekly Tarotscopes, my monthly Tarotscopes podcast and even a monthly magazine column for a gay magazine that is local to the southern California area. You can see Rage Monthly here if you like.

I stay so busy that I forget to make time for MiMi. I talked about that on Saturday. And I did what I said I was going to do. I did only for me that day for the most part.

The 7 of Coins is the card I drew. This is a card about completions and projects. It’s often seen as the gardener’s card with a man reviewing his harvest. In fact, I just got this as the card of the day last week. But this image is of my crochet project. It takes 4 skeins. This is one skein complete so it is 25% done.

More to go, just like the 7 of Coins. I’m admiring what I’ve completed, but I’m not stopping. What have you started that you need to complete? What momentum do you need to keep going today?

Seek joy, y’all. Pass it on.

P.S. I forgot to mention! Check out my one hour webinar coming up 8/22!