This one seems interesting. It’s a tag that’s been circulating video blogs, but since I don’t do those, I’ll write out my responses instead. Please also consider participating and, in the comments section, link me to your responses. Also, be sure to share with the blogosphere using the #IntuitiveTag.
I’ll be completing the intuitive tag in various parts. Here’s Part 1.
Share your first paranormal experience that comes to mind.
The first one that comes to mind happened about five years ago, no, maybe even more years ago than that. Know that I have a strange affinity with “11.” It recurs throughout my life and I, like a handful of others, always seem to glance over at the clock when it’s 11:11 exactly.
At the time of this occurrence, the address number of the condo that Hubby and I lived in was 109. The condo next door was 111. We had just moved into this condo, so I was not yet familiar with the neighborhood. In other words, hadn’t one clue where the nearest hospital was.
It was evening, a weeknight. Hubby was still at work and I had just gotten home to start preparing dinner. I had oil heating up in a wok and was chopping up the eggplant to be fired up in that wok. Meanwhile I was yapping away on the phone with my sister.
I lost track of the stove and FOOM! I turned around to see where the sound was coming from and oh my @#$%ing the wok was on fire. The flames were 3 feet high and melting the microwave that was situated above the stove.
“Gotta call you back,” I muttered to my sister on the other line. Then I dropped the phone and panicked.
In a state of panic, I couldn’t think straight. In that moment, it made more sense to me to try to run the flaming wok out of the house into the parking lot than it did to simply try to get it in the sink. I think it’s because I recalled watching something about putting water on a fire and the fire getting bigger, I don’t know, I’m just making excuses now. Anyway, in the moment, I grabbed the handle on the wok and dashed for the front door.
I love bone soup. Beef shank (that is mostly bone), a lineup of dried Chinese medicinal herbs, shallots, and carrots go into a big pot with water and is simmered for a whole weekend. The broth that results is magical. Serious! With the end result, we used everything but the bone. The fat skimmed off would be saved in the fridge and over the course of the week, used for stir-frying vegetable dishes. All the goopy herby junk would go to compost. And, well of course, the broth would be used for the most amazing soups and noodle soups you’ve ever had.
But those bones. What to do with the bones? Finally found a use.
In the past month, I opted to time my broth making to the lunar phases, once over the first quarter, a waxing moon, again through the full moon, and a final time through the waning moon, for a total of three cleaned shank bones. I noted how after the long, arduous cooking time for the broth, the shank bones pretty much could be pulled out of the pot clean, just as you see it above. I then rinsed them in rain water (the rainfall being perfectly timed where I live, if I might add, so that I could do that) and then buried the bones in sandalwood and sage ash, which I’ve collected over who knows how many times of burning sandalwood or sage here around the house, plus a quartz crystal for good amplifying measure.
The bones will then go through a few more processes this Friday through the new moon, which coincides with the first day of spring. So not only is the bone broth that I’ve made good for my health, but I’ll be able to put these bones to use, too.
Kumquat tea is the best for sore throats and coughs. You make that by first drying out fresh kumquats in the sun for a few days, then storing in an air-tight glass jar filled with sea salt. Let that sit in your basement for at least a month. When you want to make the tea, you remove a couple of the dried, preserved kumquats from the jar (that has been sitting in your basement for a month), steep it with boiling water, and add a few spoonfuls of honey for a great home remedy to cure sore throats and coughs. I’m not a big fan of kumquat tea or jars of salted fruit that’s been sitting in my basement. So I present to you candied kumquats, a great alternative. It still works and in fact helped soothe my sore throat and dry cough that I came down with over the weekend.
The fruits from our kumquat tree are pretty small, so I halved them only. If your kumquats are larger or like the store-bought ones, then you may want to quarter them. I pulled out all of the interior, which can be reserved for making tea or tossing with dark green leafy salads (either kale or baby spinach salads). The skin is the sweetest part, so I only make this candy with the skins. Continue reading “Candied Kumquats for Soothing Sore Throats and Coughs”→
Jardim Zoológico de Brasília, Brasília, Brazil. Source: Daderot via Wikimedia Commons
One summer in my childhood I was forced to attend a Buddhist camp at a monastery where we woke up at the crack of dawn to do shaolin and meditate, ate vegetarian, prayed our gratitude to everyone we knew and ever met before we could eat said vegetarian food, and had to sit in uncomfortable cross-legged positions while listening to lectures.
There was one lecture I remember when a monk told us the parable of four blind men who came upon an elephant, felt it, and were describing the elephant based on what they were perceiving. I’m totally paraphrasing the details here, based on memory, but the point remains the same. One blind man came upon the elephant’s trunk, another the belly, another the leg, and another the tail, and each one concluded matter-of-factly about the whole character of the elephant based on that one part they were feeling. The elephant is long and cylindrical… No, are you crazy? The elephant is flat and wide… No, no, the elephant is like a column or pillar…
Thorn Mooney recently shared her thoughts in her vlog, “Paganism, Tarot, and Class.” You really should watch her video first before reading onward, but to give background for my thoughts here, I’ll try to recap.
Mooney talks about witchcraft as a practice occurring lower down on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a practice that is more concerned with practical applications, like talking to the dead, love spells, money spells, or getting jobs. She uses the phrase “real world, tactile, necessary things.”
Those who endeavor into the esoteric or metaphysical, she says, are more concerned with self-actualization, per Maslow’s hierarchy, which is at the top of the pyramid. They’re working through long-term emotional or spiritual concerns, striving to be their best selves, and can endeavor with these concerns because their basic physiological needs have been met.
She then talks about how all that translates in her professional tarot readings. She has found, per her own experiences, that those who request readings from her online tend to ask about issues relating to purpose in life, spiritual direction, meaning, connection to deity or deities, which she acknowledges are very “important,” but “not critically important in the sense that, oh, ‘I might be evicted from my home tomorrow'” important.
::nods:: I get that.
In contrast, reading requests she gets from the shop she works at (i.e., in-person readings, I presume), clients are asking questions like “I don’t have any money to afford a lawyer and my ex-husband has filed for full custody of my kids and the court hearing is tomorrow. What is going to happen? Am I going to lose my kids?” or “My child is physically ill and we can’t afford healthcare. What do you see happening to us?”
“I am obviously not qualified to offer legal or medical advice,” Mooney remarks, “and yet I am repeatedly put in the position where I am asked to provide input, and technically [that input] is not from me, it’s from the cards, but that’s a really blurry line.”
Mooney continues, describing the nature of these lower-level-per-Maslow’s-hierarchy questions as “gritty,” noting that it’s rare for someone in that context to be asking her about finding higher meaning in the world.
And Mooney hypothesizes that it’s tied to socioeconomic class.
I chat with tarot grandmaster Christiana on the Psychic Café about the process of writing Holistic Tarot, using the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, a little bit on the I Ching, and, of course, my signature discursive splattering of chatter.
Christiana’s Psychic Café is aired every Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern time. If you miss it live, you can watch the recording on Christiana’s YouTube channel. She has interviewed some amazing people in tarot and the spiritual community. I’m a loyal follower of the Café. Also be sure to check out Ms. Gaudet’s tarot blog, Tarot Trends.
I had a ton of fun yesterday meeting with all the editors and staff at North Atlantic Books. Love reading (tarot reading) for creative folks. As a tarot practitioner, you really can feel the difference. The air and general vibes have this pulse of energy you just don’t get in any other reading venue. There’s me with the lead editor behind Holistic Tarot, Leslie.
Everyone at NAB needs to be thanked, however. Authors always get all the credit for a book, but based on what I’ve witnessed over the last year, me writing the book was the easiest part of it all! What these people do to take my submitted manuscript and transform it into what you see above–and what you’ll be buying, I hope–is truly a miracle of birth. Except, really, it’s no “miracle,” like some sort of divine intervention. (Sorry, Divine!) It was a ton of brute hard work, human effort, picking away at details, editing and editing again… and editing again… and layer after layer of very personalized attention from each and every single person who laid hands on this manuscript. The one Divine part was connecting my book to North Atlantic Books. Everything else was a lot, a lot of love and labor.
How do you not adore Kate from Daily Tarot Girl? She’s the author of The Ultimate Tarot Journal, which is a comprehensive tarot journal that is indispensable to anyone who is just starting out in activating their intuitive juices. Outside of tarot, she has many different talents and all sorts of knowledge, which is probably why she’s a great life coach.
We chatted for an interview and other than the fact I may have a little too much makeup on and rambled a whole lot, going off on tangents that now in retrospect make no sense, I had a lot of fun. This was my first video interview for Holistic Tarot and I hope the rough-around-the-edges-vibe (from me, not her– oh goodness, Kate was all professional and graceful and stuff) isn’t too off-putting.
She and I talked about first getting into tarot, our approaches to tarot, and the misunderstandings about tarot we both face. I also plugged my book, of course, and we talk about what inspired me to write it. (Actually, I don’t think I really answered her question… that turned into one of those tangents… so sorry…!)
If you’re looking for a professional tarot reading, I highly recommend contacting Kate. Just watch her weekly card readings to get a great sense of her style.
So I’m driving to work in the morning stuck in a rush hour traffic jam. My car is effectively parked on the freeway and I’m running late for a meeting. I mutter obscenities and am freaking out about whether I’ll make it to my meeting on time. Just then my finger inadvertently pushes the change-radio-station button on my car steering wheel and it’s Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated,” or a snippet of it.
Chill out, whatcha yellin’ for?
That’s all I hear before I hit the change-station button again and I catch the start of my current #1 favorite song, Enrique Inglesias – “Bailando.”
I’m happy now. Super happy. Because “Bailando” makes me happy. Also it’s not easy to catch the start of a song you like off the radio. You always land on it mid-way through or near the end. This time, I got to hear “Bailando” in the entirety. A gift from the Universe.
What? . . . It is.
That wasn’t the first time stuff streaming out from the radio made sense with what was going on with me in the moment. I gave a shallow example, but it was the most recent. Other times much more serious stuff was going on when randomized snippets of songs from the radio didn’t seem so random and played just when they needed to be played.
The other day an author, psychologist, and acclaimed academic had on the signature line of his e-mail the following quote: “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.” ― Albert Einstein.
Yes, I thought. Yes.
Not that I’m saying God has nothing better to do than to talk to me through the lyrics of pop music playing on radio stations. But still.
Anyway I did have a tarot point in all this. So often the messages we get from tarot are like those inexplicable coincidental (or synchronous) moments with the radio. I’m not claiming that those weirdly-timed snippets of pop songs are a form of divination. (Radiomancy? Hey, it’s got an Urban Dictionary entry; must be a real thing.) But it’s a synchronicity that, given the timing and given what’s going on in our lives at that moment, takes on personal significance that causes us to reevaluate what we’re doing or where we’re headed. It’s a moment of strong connection between ourselves and something bigger and greater, something that often feels divine.
Like many a tarot reader, I get that handful of clients who either want to be willfully ignorant of my ethical approach to tarot or who, in spite of knowing that I don’t do fortune-telling come to me anyway wanting me to tell them their fortunes. They are always the same clients who end up disappointed when I don’t tell them that their futures hold great riches and it will all be a beautiful fairytale ending, happily ever after with their preferred lovers. Worse yet, I feel used and my skills abused.
Yes, tarot does shine the way for us and can help illuminate our life path so we see clearer, but it doesn’t give us an easy solution. There are no easy solutions and if you’re getting a tarot reading with the hope of hearing an easy solution to your problems, then I’m afraid you don’t possess the wisdom to properly use tarot as a tool and really shouldn’t be going to readings at all.
Hearing “Bailando” on the radio didn’t solve the traffic jam. It didn’t change any of the conditions of the road I was driving on. However, it changed my mindset. And made the condition not only bearable, but pleasant. That moment of connection with the divine, that coincidence, that so-called radiomancy wasn’t about making the traffic jam go away or asking or wondering whether I would make it to my meeting on time. It was about me, and how I’d spend every moment of my time on that freeway. I could spend it cussing and wondering about the unknown, or I could roll with it and sing to “Bailando.”
Often the messages we get through tarot are synchronous, coincidental in ways that convince you it wasn’t just a coincidence, but because the message didn’t contain the answers or easy solutions we wanted to hear, we dismiss it and miss that moment of connection with God. And what a shame that would be.
I’m an avid follower of fashion and beauty blogs, and those bloggers frequently post a glimpse into their handbags du jour. Certain fashion magazines include a feature where they photograph the contents of handbags belonging to celebrities. Don’t people care about what’s in the bags of tarot readers? Specifically, do tarot readers carry tarot paraphernalia around with them wherever they go? Or no, that’s crazy talk?
The above is the bag I carry. It’s by an independent handbag designer who I know personally and adore. He hand-weaves each of these bags! Well, not he himself, but his team. He’s the head designer now. Fancy. His name is Sydney and his label is SD Marvel. Definitely check his bags out. I cannot recommend them more highly. I rave about them to anyone who will listen.
benebell wen 