Gaian Tarot Artist's Journal

9 of Air - Gaian Tarot Card of the Week

What do we most need to know for the coming week?

9 of Air

Well I have to admit I’m not too thrilled to see this card today. Interesting that my friend Beth Owl’s Daughter pulled the infamous 3 of Swords for her card of the week today, and here I am with another heartbreak/grief card, the 9 of Swords/Air. We were both tempted to put the card back and pull another!

Still, the important thing to note is not so much the storm of emotions in the card, but how we deal with them. In the card, the woman is releasing her grief and despair into the earth, where it is grounded and transformed. She gathers strength from the earth and the knowledge that She Who Watches “has her back,” and is able to move on. The affirmation I wrote for this card is: I allow the Mother to heal my sorrow as I open my heart in compassion to others. 

What does this card say to you, dear Readers?

Reflecting on 2009: What Goes Down Must Come Up

(Warning: this is a long post, but it’s a juicy one.)

This is the story of how my personal experience of 2009 began in near-disaster and ended in something resembling triumph. Today I reread my blog posts for the whole year, month by month, to see what kind of theme I might discover. What a doozy of a year! It was a Wheel of Fortune year for me, in Tarot parlance, and there were indeed dramatic ups and downs. 

I signed a contract with Llewellyn in December 2008 for the Gaian Tarot, and I had a whole year to finish the deck and book. This gave me some breathing room, or so I thought. In January there was a lot of drama in my family with an elderly cousin who went missing, and more drama around our finances and housing situation. The recession hurt Craig and I badly because of our investment in the real estate market (we owned two houses when the recession hit, with a legal commitment to buy a third. The two houses were for sale for months, with no takers). We were sliding towards foreclosure on one of the houses, as well as possibly losing the house we were living in. Several of my posts in January had to do with finding ways to keep one’s equilibrium and peace of mind during difficult times. (For those of you who have asked: a year later, the police are still investigating my cousin’s disappearance.)

A Few More Resources for 2010 Visioning & Planning

I had such positive feedback to my article on Visioning for 2010 here, on Facebook and in response to my newsletter, that I want to share a few more resources with you:

My marketing coach Elizabeth Genco Purvis just published an excellent post on creating positive habits instead of making resolutions for soul-based entrepreneurs. I especially like the suggestions to track your income, signs that you're on the right track, clients/customers, and things you're grateful for. Yeah baby!

Christine Kane just released a cool little tool to help you clarify and choose your word for 2010.  Looks like a very juicy journaling exercise.

My friend Waverly Fitzgerald sells an excellent e-book on "New Year's Dreams," which leads you through exercises that help you identify your goals, themes and dreams for the year ahead.

And Goddess Leonie Allan has just released her own beautifully rainbow-colored e-book,  "2010 Creating My Goddess Year Workbook & Planner".    

I bet one or more of these resources will inspire you and get you moving toward the life of your dreams in 2010!

(P.S.  None of these are affiliate links!)

Gaian Tarot Card Back

Here's my design for the back of the Gaian Tarot cards.  You should not be able to tell if a card is upright or reversed when looking at the back of it. The wreath is made of the same blessing herbs that are on the World card:  cedar, sage, sweetgrass and lavender. (These are also the same herbs that come in a little bag with the GT Limited Edition.)  The starry sky is taken from the background of the Star card.  Lotsa good juju there!

Revised 5 of Water

I redid the Five of Water completely, for a couple of reasons. I felt that the artwork on the original was not up to my usual standards and I began to worry about the fact that I used a stock photo as a reference for the three boats, even though I paid for its use. Using stock art is such a grey area that I decided I was better off not using stock photos, even though I paid for them. I'm changing two of the Children cards for the same reason.

Here's the wording that goes along with the new 5 of Water (from the Gaian Tarot companion book):

A woman sits on a misty shore, wrapped up against the cold. She holds a scrying bowl in her hands but no images have arisen in it.  Her longing gaze is directed inwardly as the fog of depression descends over the scene. In the distance, a boat is moored to the shore.

When you get this card in a reading . . . 

You are hovering on the edge of grief, despondency or discouragement. You may be disappointed, regretting lost opportunities or missing someone terribly. Depression has been called “anger turned inward,” but also “intuition unheeded.” How might you reclaim your neglected intuitive abilities? What message do you need to receive from your intuition? It can be hard to find a way out of the gloom, and yet it is not impossible. There’s a boat in the distance that will take you through the mists to the farther shore. What may be in store for you on the other side?

When you read the Shadow side of this card . . . 

You may fall deeper into depression and despondency, refusing to move beyond grief or disappointment. Being sad may have become a habit that is hard to break.  Alternatively, you may find the courage to paddle out of the fog into renewal and recovery. There will always be those who are willing to help you, but you must make the choice to heal yourself.

Affirmation

I will join the flow of healing that moves me out of depression and despair.

Let me know what you think about the new art!

The Priestess: Gaian Tarot Card of the Week

What do we most need to know for the coming week?

The Priestess

What a card for the week that bids goodbye to the Old Year and ushers in the New with a bright full Blue Moon!  

This week I am deep into completing the final artwork for the Gaian Tarot (finally!  really!) while working on my Life Review and visioning my goals and dreams for 2010. The word, or theme, I have chosen for 2010 is Prosperity.  To receive the Priestess card today means this to me:  I am to trust my inner guidance, my intuition, the small voice within, above all other voices (maybe even louder ones).

To envision prosperity in a year when erudite pundits are warning us that the economy will take another nosedive during the second half of 2010 may seem to be a foolish, silly thing to do. And yet . . . I am envisioning prosperity for 2010, for myself, my family and my community. You see that owl swooping down in the background there? She is whispering to me:  “It’s time to let go of outmoded belief systems that have left you struggling to pay the bills most of your adult life. Shift those mindsets, baby! That’s your task for 2010!”

On another level, the Priestess card reminds me that I myself am a Priestess, ordained twice, with 25 years of service to the Goddess / earth-spirituality community behind me (and hopefully 25 more ahead).  The work I will do this year will not only benefit me, but will continue to benefit the community.  I am enacting my calling.  And I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes: “Vocation is the place where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.”  (Frederick Buechner)  A priestess is one who has found her vocation, and lives it every day.

And what about you, dear Readers? What does this card say to you?

“Time Out of Time” ~ Visioning for 2010

(I sent this article out to my newsletter list earlier this week. Thought some of my blog readers might appreciate it, too.)

It's that liminal time of year again . . . the “time out of time,” as my friend Waverly Fitzgerald of Living in Season calls it. These are the magical days between Solstice and New Year's, which I extend to my birthday on January 7th. Waverly writes: 

For many years I've been celebrating the famous Twelve Days of Christmas, a magical time between the end of the old year and the start of the new one.

The idea of twelve significant days is an ancient one. In Babylon, the twelve intercalary days between the Winter Solstice and the New Year were seen as the time of a struggle between chaos and order, with chaos trying to take back over the world. The notion that these are days outside of ordinary time shows up in many cultures. . .

It seems clear that this is a magical period, a time out of time, whatever dates you choose. It is a special time, existing outside of the usual rules, when work is forbidden and all routines should be turned upside down.

I like to use this time period for reflection and review of the year past and incubating visions for the year ahead.

Following Waverly's lead, I always do a Life Review at this time of year and set intentions and goals for the year to come. As I looked over last year's goals, I noticed that I had done a grand job of meeting or surpassing many of them, but I made little or no progress at all on others. It's possible that I just set way too many goals for myself last year. But maybe I just need a better system. So this past week I set out to see who else was talking about goal-setting in the blogosphere and what new ideas I might incorporate into my Visioning for 2010.

My marketing coach, Elizabeth Genco Purvis, reminds us to celebrate our successes, even the little ones, since “success leads to more success.” Elizabeth is also the first one who explained to me how important it is that all of our goals and intentions be followed by taking action. (Or, at least it's the first time I really got it.) We set a goal or make an intention, and then brainstorm ways to make it happen. Then we take action. And take action again! 

A Blessed Solstice to All

 I posted this video last year, but I hope you don't mind that I'm posting it again. I had almost forgotten about it myself. I took many of the photos in the slideshow — some show winters on our beloved island, some show the snowstorm in our own backyard last year, and some show the Lucia Parties over the years.  Cate Kerr took most of the snowy landscapes. My beloved Pop is the "wise man" on the snowy road, just down from our island house.

This video still touches my heart.  We hope it touches yours, too.

A Blessed Solstice to all!

Click here to play a Quicktime movie (high res version) or click here for the YouTube version.

“In the Bleak Midwinter” performed by Craig Olson

Music by Gustav Holst (1906)

Lyrics by Christina Rossetti (1872), revised by Craig Olson (2006)

Photography Credits:

Snow scenes by Catherine Kerr and Joanna Powell Colbert

Interior scenes by Paul Bingman, Chele Eva Armstrong and Joanna Powell Colbert

A Gift for You: Beyond the Cedar Moon

My sweetheart has a Solstice gift for you:  From now through Christmas Day you can get a free download of his entire first album "Beyond the Cedar Moon" with no strings attached.

He says:  "Just click the link and follow the prompts. Feel free to share or give as a gift. It's DRM-free, high quality 320 kbps mp3 or loss-less audio.  (That's geek-speak for "really cool!")"

This is one of my alltime favorite albums.  Just exquisite songs (in the acoustic singer/songwriter genre).  Oh, and I co-wrote one of the songs, "Ave Stella Maris."   Enjoy!

Beyond the Cedar Moon by Craig Olson

St Lucia Party 2009

It is our favorite party of the year, when we gather with beloved friends and family to honor St Lucia, the Lightbringer "who heralds the imminent Return of the Sun," as my friend Helen Farias wrote on her party invitations back in the day.  Helen, who was the original founder and editor of the Beltane Papers, started the Lucia Party back in the 80's.  I read about them in TBP when I lived in California and was utterly charmed. I was honored to be invited to Helen's parties once I moved to the Northwest. Helen died of breast cancer in 1994, and we could not bear to celebrate again for a couple of years. In 1997, St Lucia's Day (December 13th) fell on a Saturday and it was a Full Moon to boot. How could we not celebrate?  Craig and I, along with the Circle of Stella Maris (our mermaid sisters and brothers) have been hosting the party each year ever since.  

This is the first Lucia Party in Rainbow Cottage, which is about half the size of Heron House on the island. It meant we had to cut the guest list way down, which is very hard to do. There were about 35-40 guests this year, which is a comfortable size. There were a few years on the island when 70 or 80 people came. We just can't manage that many people here.

I started our parties based on the traditions I remembered from Helen's parties, and of course our community added our own touches — lots of live music, since we have so many musicians among us, and ending the evening with a drum circle. We also read the poem "The Shortest Day" when we light the candle of Little Yule.  Many of the young women who have "played" St Lucy over the years grew up coming to the parties. My young friend Chloe, who was St Lucy this year, has been to our Lucia Parties almost every year of her life. 

I'm thinking about writing an e-book (for next year!) on "How to Host a St Lucia Party." Is that something any of you would be interested in?

Here's some photos from this year's party.