Event in Sonoma: Taoist Magic and Tarot Divination

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The first hour will be a talk on Taoist cosmology, the history of Fu talismans, the 13 principles of craft as derived from the Yellow Emperor’s Classics of the Esoteric Talisman, intersections of science and magic, and how practitioners use divination to know and then craft to change.

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The second hour will be a hands-on workshop where you will use tarot divination to help you design and craft a Fu sigil, working with Chinese oracle bone script. Fu sigil paper consecrated on 11/11, cut and prepared at 11:11 am, and then consecrated at 11:11 pm will be provided for your use. You can take some home with you to craft the sigil. It is recommended that the final sigil be crafted on the day after the workshop, on the full moon.

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I’ll bring my Jiao Bei divination moon blocks and set them out on the table top for anyone who seeks to use them for a personal divination. Free for your use at any time during the event. Please handle respectfully.

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Event Downloads:

The 13 Principles of Craft (PDF)

Tarot and Fu Sigil Crafting Workshop Handout (PDF)

Zip File of Oracle Bone Script and Sigil Images

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All attendees will also go home with a consecrated and blessed pocket gemstone, with the hopes that it helps you along in all your magical endeavors.

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For more detailed metaphysical correspondences of the gemstones per my perspective, check out this previously uploaded PDF for a glossary of gemstone correspondences. Find the entry for the stone you picked (or the stone that picked you…) in the PDF if the one-two word correspondence on the yellow card wasn’t clear.

Glossary of Gemstone Correspondences (PDF)

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Limited copies of Holistic Tarot and The Tao of Craft available for purchase for $20 each.

There will also be book signings if for some reason that interests you.

Book Review of Shamanic Astrology by Lucy Harmer

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When I cracked open the front cover of this book, I didn’t even know what shamanic astrology was. I didn’t even know spirit animal signs were a thing. So that’s where I’m coming from as a book reviewer– not a place of knowledge or expertise, but the place of a beginner and how this book might serve the beginner.

Shamanic Astrology: Understanding Your Spirit Animal Sign by Lucy Harmer (North Atlantic Books, 2009) introduces the twelve spirit animal signs of the Native American medicine wheel and how these animal signs correspond with our date of birth. Prominent public figures in the metaphysical community, such as Judy Hall (The Crystal Bible) and astrologers Derek and Julia Parker, Dr. Steven Farmer (Earth Magic and Animal Spirit Guides), Vicki Noble, creator of the Motherpeace Tarot, and so many more have thrown their positive weight toward Shamanic Astrology to give their endorsements.

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The book is delightfully comprehensive. An introductory chapter acquaints you with shamanic astrology, the medicine wheel, and both the solar and lunar cycles. Then Harmer dives into the background of how spirit animals are interpreted, i.e., seasons, cycles, winds and directions, elements and clans, metaphysical correspondences, life paths, etc. Each of the twelve animal signs are covered, starting with a profile chart, description of personality, key metaphysical correspondences and influences, and then general insights into that sign’s luck– career, money, health, and then love. In the love section, compatibility with the other animal signs is provided. Shamanic Astrology closes with advanced material on the medicine wheel and the lunar calendars.

Now let’s take a look at the twelve spirit animal signs. Later in this review, check out Table 2.10 from Shamanic Astrology, which outlines the strengths and weaknesses of the twelve spirit animals.

Table 1.1 from Shamanic Astrology. Click image for closer viewing.
Table 1.1 from Shamanic Astrology. Click image for closer viewing.

Continue reading “Book Review of Shamanic Astrology by Lucy Harmer”

Tarot BlogHop: Tarot and a Seven Course Brunch

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I’m thrilled to be participating in the “Foodies Guide to the Tarot” BlogHop hosted by our co-wranglers Jay Cassels and Arwen Lynch Poe. The topic was left wide open for us bloggers to go in any direction of our pleasure, as long as it had to do with tarot and it had to do with food. I’m thinking I’ve done just that.

The Major Arcana of the tarot deck can be subdivided into Three Septenaries. The First Septenary of the Major Arcana is about the primal dramas of the ego, expressed by the first seven Keys of the Majors: Keys I through VII. You can read more about the Three Septenaries here.

Menu Planning with Tarot?
Menu Planning with Tarot?

Inspired by the First Septenary, I will be preparing a seven course brunch for Hubby and me. (Jay and Arwen: the hubby thanks you for your BlogHop topic idea). Here we go.

Continue reading “Tarot BlogHop: Tarot and a Seven Course Brunch”

Shadow Work with a Tarot or Oracle Deck

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I’ve put together a self-guided workbook that takes you through one session of shadow working with a tarot or oracle deck. I used an oracle deck I created for myself, which I share for free here (scroll down). Go there and you can download all digital files for it to print out and produce your own copy of the deck.

Continue reading “Shadow Work with a Tarot or Oracle Deck”

The 2016 Card Reading Magic Summit

Click the banner to sign up.
Click the banner to sign up.

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The amazing and illustrious Tori Hartman, author of the Chakra Wisdom Oracle Cards has organized an incredible event–an online cartomancy summit. For access, you’ll need to register. Click on the banner above and register to partake in the summit. Registration is free right now! How cool is that! And just check out the lineup of speakers.

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No matter where you are in your card reading journey, there is always more to learn about this art that none of us can ever truly perfect. So Tori Hartman has put together a free virtual intuitive festival. By registering, you’ll get the benefit of rarely-heard insights in conversations with well-known groundbreakers and up-and-coming experts.

Card Reading Magic is an online event that features 18 speakers. It will take place between September 14 and 18. For more details, you’ll have to sign up.

During this virtual intuitive festival, you’ll discover:

– How to gain more specific, in depth information from your readings
– The five essentials of card reading
– How you can use your intuition more effectively and naturally
– Mistakes that keep you from accurate readings
– How you can shift into the zone of being a card reader quickly and easily
– Simple techniques to move away from the guidebook
– How to put the story together for your clients by linking cards
– The insider secrets of self-publishing decks from experts who have done it

September 14 through 18, 2016.

Mark it in your calendar, folks.

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A Free Gift?

Oh yes. By the way, every speaker will be giving away a free gift. Let me just tell you, I couldn’t quite figure out the instructions for what I was supposed to do exactly in terms of the logistics for giving away said gift. I know it’s related to getting you to register for the event through my link. So this is going to be my best guess for what I was supposed to do about the affiliate link, free gift, and such. So first, here’s my link:

https://gj248.isrefer.com/go/crm/benebell/

Here’s a shortlink of that link that’s easier to remember:

http://tinyurl.com/cardreadingsummit

Click on my referral link to register and, well, register. Free gift or not, it’s going to be an awesome summit, so register regardless.

Then e-mail me at benebellwen@gmail.com to let me know you’ve registered. Then I’ll email you the free gift!

What’s the free gift? It’s a 30-page [edit: added new sections, so now it’s] 35-page workbook, “Independent Shadow Work Cartomancy Session.” You’ll get it as either a DOCX or PDF file. In your email to me, let me know your preference.

09/01/16 Update: Okay, sorry but the “email me and I’ll send as attachment” routine was a bad idea. This post went up, I went to bed, I woke up, checked email, and it was bombarded with boldfaced emails for as far as the finger could scroll. Eeps. So we’re not doing that anymore. Instead, the honor system. Please register using my affiliate link and as my thank you gift to you, download the “Independent Shadow Work Cartomancy Session” workbook below. Choose between PDF or DOCX, or heck, download both if you really want.

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DOCX | Shadow Work Session with the Cards

PDF | Shadow Work Session with the Cards

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So register, mark September 14 through 18 in your calendar, and email me to [edit: see above links for direct download] get your free “Independent Shadow Work Cartomancy Session” workbook. It’s a 30-page 35-page, 1-2 hour guided tarot or oracle card reading and shadow work session you do for yourself, the results of which, I have to imagine, are going to be provocative.

See you at the summit!

Review of Healing with Whole Foods by Paul Pitchford

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Healing with Whole Foods: Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition by Paul Pitchford (North Atlantic Books) is one of those reference tomes every holistic healing practitioner will want to have in the personal library. I’ll be reviewing the Third Edition published in 2002. It was first released in 1993 and since then, over 500,000 copies have been sold and no wonder.

Click image to enlarge.
Click image to enlarge.

Healing is well-organized, which is a prerequisite for any reference book. He begins where every holistic healer using traditional Chinese medicine would begin: covering Qi vitality and the binary of yin and yang, which he then expands on to cover hot/cold temperaments; interior/exterior physical conditions; and diagnosing for excess versus deficiency.

Continue reading “Review of Healing with Whole Foods by Paul Pitchford”

The Chariot Card: Guest Post at BiddyTarot

Banner from BiddyTarot
Banner from BiddyTarot

Brigit’s BiddyTarot is one of the most popular (I even dare say the most popular) tarot spot on the web. And it’s for good reason, too. She sustains the site with incredible content. Brigit is compiling a free e-book, Real Life Lessons from the Major Arcana, a collection of 22 essays by 22 tarot authors, each writer covering one Major Arcanum.

I chose Key VII: The Chariot for personal and sentimental reasons. Click on the above banner to go straight to my article over at Biddy. Also, be sure to download the entire e-book for FREE (how cool is that!) by clicking on the below banner or going here.

Continue reading “The Chariot Card: Guest Post at BiddyTarot”

Gemstones and Crystals Glossary

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I love gemstones and crystals. I also like to keep a personal glossary of metaphysical correspondences for the gemstones and crystals I acquire. That’s what this document for free download is. I’m sharing with you my personal glossary in hopes it might be of use to you.

I’m providing both the PDF and DOCX for free download below. Both the DOCX and PDF versions have “smart headings,” so if you open the left-bar navigation pane in either Microsoft Word or your PDF viewer (in Adobe Reader they’re called bookmarks), you should be able to navigate between the alphabetically listed entries with ease. All correspondence reference tables at the back of the document are also enabled as “smart headings.”

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The docx file is given to you so you can edit or redesign the document to suit your own needs.

You can also download a program, like Calibre, and convert one of these files to a PUB or MOBI file for your e-book reader.

Updates

  • First Posted: 2016 Aug 3
  • Updated: 2017 Aug 6
  • Updated: 2017 Sep 27
  • Updated: 2018 Sep 21
  • Last Updated: 2019 Oct 21

My Responses to the 10 Questions Every Tarot Reader Must Answer

Tried to find a photo of me with tarot cards. This was what I came up with.
Tried to find a photo of me with tarot cards. This was what I came up with.

Writer and tarotist James Bulls posted a provocative piece on the 10 questions every tarot reader must answer. Check out the post here. I thought I’d answer them for myself, so here we go.

Continue reading “My Responses to the 10 Questions Every Tarot Reader Must Answer”