Gaian Tarot Artist's Journal

Summer's Here!

It's a glorious morning . . . 70 degrees now and going up to 82, they say.  Can you believe how thrilled we are? Remember, it was snowing here less than a month ago.

I'm having a grand time getting to know my new "secret spot", aka my new back yard.  I know my herbs and my native plants pretty well, but I don't know most of the ornamentals that are planted here.  So it is great fun to watch things bud and bloom, and try to figure out what they might be.   

Instead of herons, we have quite a neighborhood of Steller's jays, and we've watched Deer and Raccoon roam through our yard.   Lots of LBB's too (the ubiquitous Little Brown Birds).

I'm going to take my art supplies outside and spend the day there.

Cleo and I are very excited!

Seven of Water, Final

Sketch - Seven of Water

Yes I'm back on track with the Sevens and feeling so good about it!

For me, the Sevens are about: being focused on your path (like that Major 7, the Chariot); initiation; setting a goal; inner work. Water of course is the suit of dreams, compassion, spirituality and love, as well as fantasy and illusion.

Here we see a fellow who has chosen one dream out of many possible dreams, and is drinking it down.  It's the moment of commitment for him.

In a nice bit of synchronicity, this week I initiated a new goal for myself: an early morning water aerobics class.  How's that for a literal reading of this card!

Amy's Gaian Reading

I had the privilege of reading for a few people at the Readers Studio with my Gaian deck-in-progress.  One of those people was Amy Lamash who does the Tarot Calendar. 

Amy has posted a lovely, detailed account of the reading we did together and she’s given me permission to link to it.  I think you'll enjoy hearing about how one person internalizes the meanings of the cards as it applies to her own situation.  Thanks Amy!  I'm glad the reading was so meaningful for you.

Amy wrote to me and mentioned that she started going out to sit by the river after work since coming home from the RS, which is one of the ideas that came to her from her Wisdom Self through the reading.  I was so pleased to hear that!  One of the intentions I set with the Gaian deck when I first envisoned it was that I wanted to inspire people to get out and spend more time in Nature, learning directly from Her rather than just from the metaphors, symbols and images of Nature.   And here Amy is doing it.    Blessed be!

(If the link doesn’t work, go to www.hudsonvalleytarot.com, click on "My Readings", then the reading with me.)

A Trillium for May Day

Craig and I went for a walk in the woods last week on Earth Day and came across the first trilliums of Spring.  I offer this photo today, for May Day.  Trilliums are somewhat rare, delicate and evanescent so it is always a thrill to come across them in the woods.

We were up a bit late last night celebrating May Eve (amaretto! yum!) and this morning dawned overcast and cool.  I missed washing my face in dew — raindrops had to do.   

Here's a few posts of mine from May Days past:

2004:  The First of May
2005:  May Morning
2006:  Songs for Beltane
2007:  A Blessed Beltane

May is here!   Blessed be!

Home from the Readers Studio

I’m home from another deeply satisfying Readers Studio.  This is one Tarot event I will just not miss, even though the ten-plus hours of travel to and from the east coast is exhausting.  (Yesterday was my rest, recoup, and reconnect-with-my-sweetie day.)   

Even now I have a collage of mad images and snippets of conversations, faces and readings dancing around in my head.   I realized on the way home that the folks I connect with at the Readers Studio are becoming another family for me and these events are our family reunions.  Even though we may only see each other once or twice a year, our bonds are strengthened each time and go a little bit deeper. 

I love being with people who really “get” me and value the work that I do.  I love being able to share my unique gifts with others and be appreciated for it.  (Who wouldn’t?)

I’ve been involved in a number of spiritual and mundane groups over the years, and I’ve found that the people of the Tarot tribe are some of the warmest and most generous people anywhere.  There is a significant lack of superiority/ego among the Tarot luminaries — the authors, teachers and deck creators.  They are accessible and totally down to earth.  Is there something, do you think, about a lifelong study of Tarot that helps people maintain this balance of self-confidence and humility?  I wouldn’t be surprised.

A-Taroting We Will Go

I just watched the sun rise over Manhattan from my 11th floor hotel room in Newark, and a lovely orange ball of fire it was!  It's warm here on the east coast — what a change from home.  I'm here at the Tarot School's Readers Studio and already spent yesterday evening hanging out with some of my Tarot buddies -- James and the Toronto contingent, Corrine and Dan from Minneapolis, Julie from Watertown, Wisconsin, Thalassa from San Francisco,  Debbie from NYC (who so kindly allowed me to ship my vending gear to her flat in the city) and more lovely people I just met.  The hotel bar concocted a number of Tarot-inspired drinks, including the "Taro-tini." I tasted Debbie's "Death" and it's definitely a winner, though I'm more likely to stick with Temperance (a virgin strawberry daiquiri).

I'm headed downstairs now to set up my vending table, looking forward to a grand day of laughter and learning.   See ya later!

Random Thoughts on Earth Day

(Earth Day morning!  This is the same view as the photo I took two days ago. Welcome Spring!)

I have a few thoughts and links for you today, on Earth Day 2008.

Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, makes a good case in this NY Times editorial for why we should bother to “go green” these days, in the face of discouragement and despair that whatever we do won’t be enough to turn the tide of global climate change. 

It’s about a change in consciousness. 

“Sometimes you have to act as if acting will make a difference, even when you can’t prove that it will,”  Pollan writes.   “That, after all, was precisely what happened in Communist Czechoslovakia and Poland, when a handful of individuals like Vaclav Havel and Adam Michnik resolved that they would simply conduct their lives ‘as if’ they lived in a free society. That improbable bet created a tiny space of liberty that, in time, expanded to take in, and then help take down, the whole of the Eastern bloc.”

More April Snow

(View from the deck off my new studio, formerly the master bedroom.)

We woke up to this cold beauty.

Come into stillness, it seems to say . . .

Snow in April

How strange is this?  (For us, in the temperate Northwest, very strange!)