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Archive for the ‘Lessons of the Tarot’ Category

Ask and You Shall Receive!


I am often asked to do home tarot card parties. I usually don’t know most of the people who will be attending so as I drive to the house I do my normal routine of getting centered, focusing ahead to the evening and tuning in to the vibe of the night. Instantly I become aware of very specific emotions that are connected to the participants of the evening. It’s a very interesting phenomenon that the people who gravitate together for any particular event, be it a workshop, card party, Reiki class, or seminar have something in common with each other even though they may all be strangers to each other. It is an aspect of the Law of Attraction. Like attracts like even when we are not always aware it’s going on.

When I first started teaching I would notice and observe this happening and marvel at the coincidence. Today I take a more aggressive approach and throw out a silent “Thank you” to the universe for bringing the right people together in the moment before I arrive. Ok, so maybe that part isn’t all that aggressive but it is purposeful. Simply acknowledging that the right people have come together would allow the magic to begin.

I have come to trust 100% that in universal energy we are always aligned with others with whom we can co-create a new possibility. The main obstacle is that we don’t communicate our needs with others and miss opportunities because we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves and our problems. I do know for sure though, that in any group you are bound to get a wide variety of perspectives of experiences, worries, fears and successes. Just by acknowledging this diverse dynamic seems to allow the like forces to begin matching up. The universe seems to work in mysterious ways – suddenly you may find yourself saying something or doing something that you wouldn’t normally ever say or do only to find the person next to you totally gets it and has the ability to help you.

I’m not suggesting that you go around blathering all your troubles far and wide. Discretion is still important, but consider that there is someone in your immediate vicinity with a solution to your problem or just a piece of advice that can help. Become still, listen carefully, and follow your heart. Your heart is the transmitter – receiver that will guide to the next best step. Trust your universe, your heart, and your self. You – no matter how you see yourself, are a  co-creator worthy of receiving the bounty of universal wisdom. Ask and you shall receive all the help you need! But you gotta’ ask!!!

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Lessons of the Tarot

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Just Get Out of Your Way!


The people I do tarot card readings for can generally be divided into 2 groups: group 1 wants me to tell them their future, group 2 wants to know what to do about something. They all have questions but the first group is not empowered in their present moment and just wants to hear good things about what is coming along, while the second group feels very empowered in the moment and wants to solve a problem. In the end all people must fall into the second group if they want a future that is different than the life they are presently living. To create a future that is different from the way life looks right here, right now we have to DO something different. We have to create a change.

As anyone who has had a reading by me knows I don’t do readings to tell you your future. I do them…and the only reason I do them, is to help people identify what their strengths and weaknesses are, what their possibilities and challenges are, and mostly to identify their true obstacles. I use the tarot to help people get out of their own way.

About 15 years ago I had a reading from a very gifted psychic who told me that I would do just fine if I could only learn how to stay out of my way. I had been starting to suspect that I was sabotaging myself on a regular basis but I just couldn’t find my way through the madness and I was very stubbornly trying to figure it out all by my self, which really just complicated things off the scale. I decided I needed a new best friend…don’t get me wrong I loved my best friend but she loved me too and there was a mutual non verbal no hurting each other policy in place. I needed to hear some brutal truth now and again. So I bought a deck of tarot cards. I learned to read to myself in the third person so I could be really tough on myself and wouldn’t take it personally ( hey whatever works!) and it worked. I got really good at identifying when I was getting in my way. I even got good at listening and doing what needed doing. Life got better – much, much better.

Most people don’t know when they are standing in their own way. They hate looking at the things they don’t like to see, and so they don’t… and they hate knowing what they don’t want to know and so they don’t! But I have come to realize that when someone is there to support you and tells you that what you are seeing is real, or what you ‘know’ intuitively is true, people can face the most difficult of truths. Once we can face something we are able to create change. And that ‘s why I do what I do. I am very willing to not always be the bearer of good and happy news, I am willing to say the low, down and dirty things. I don’t always like it but I will help you see what is real in your life. I have found that people have amazing resources of strength when they are face to face with what is real, it’s the illusions that we build that are difficult to stand up to. When dealing with illusion we literally feel disoriented, confused and usually immobilized.

Other than showing us the truth of a situation, the tarot will reveal another really key thing to solving our problems; it shows what is most relevant to deal with. So often we tend to focus on the wrong things, blow them out of proportion and then get very busy trying to solve them. But in making mountains out of mole hills we tend to lose our direction and just stay unhappily preoccupied. As we spend our time ineffectively chasing our tails, grumbling about how hard it is to get anywhere, we dig ourselves in deeper and deeper until one day we realize that we are totally exhausted and mired in the muck up to our necks. We also come to bitterly realize that the problem hasn’t changed. The tarot helps us identify what the real issue is  and what the most important thing we can do to get through it. Like it or not.

The other thing I like about using the tarot to understand my problems is that it never overrides my choice. I always get to choose if I want to listen, I never have to fear being judged, I never have to do anything I don’t want to do. It’s only a touchstone, a way to check in with myself. If I decide today to do nothing about something I’ve learned, the message will still be there tomorrow when I am perhaps more able to get out of my way.

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Enter the Fool


I have a lot of friends who are fools – I mean down to the bone foolish. I love them.There is never a dull moment when the fool comes on the scene! Over the years I have come to cherish the fools and try to emulate them as often as possible. I have learned to not let appearing foolish stop me.

In the tarot the fool card signifies the innocence of mind that allows infinite trust in the universe and one’s God. Through the very energy of trusting we come to engage in life adventures that otherwise wouldn’t have been available. The fool teaches us to risk our normal conservative safe ideas for those a little more daring. He shows us how to traipse merrily towards the edge of reality instead of well back from the edge where most of our mothers would prefer we stay. He shows us how to release our critical judgments in favor of a taste of adventure.

It is the fools that guide us into tomorrow; they are the pioneers, the scientists, the inventors, the visionaries, the poets, the musicians and the artists. They are the dreamers with their faces pointed towards the heavens and their feet lightly dancing on the edge of all known reality. They see things differently and act accordingly.

It is only on the edge that a new reality can be created; it is where our vision and perspective is the clearest. Most people are too afraid to wander to the edge where a wrong step could prove disastrous. But the fool shows us that to dance along the edge of all that is safe, risking all that is dangerous, is where we find our truest essence. Here we will find our greatest capacity to love, to laugh, to trust, to feel compassion and to expand. It is at this edge where we come to understand our magnificent ability to connect with faith to the divine matrix of life. In this foolish place we learn that the landing area for the next step will be provided; is already there, in fact, even though we may not be able to see it.

So often I see people immobilized in fear, afraid to trust another in love and in business; so afraid that opportunities slide by. Too afraid to move out of their mundane lives, they choose instead to sit safely in their controlled predictable lives. When we only engage with what we can control we will continuously recreate the patterns of the past. While the past provides us with great memories and teachings it doesn’t offer us the opportunity to grow. Only stepping out bravely towards a new unknown will breathe new life into a wilting soul. The fool is not, however, about being reckless. It is about learning how to be in complete harmony with ones’ environment and being thus able to take advantage of opportunities as they present without fear of endangering ones self. The fool only appears to be reckless and careless by those who are over-cautious.

It is the inherent nature of the soul to seek expansion through experience. When we limit the possibilities for new experience we cause the soul to wither and fade. The soul is a luminous expression of vitality that yearns for new adventures, regardless of possible pain. Our soul knows that it came to life to live a plethora of experiences not just the safe and easy ones.

As we move through our days we will without doubt encounter a host of fears that threaten to limit our experiences. I challenge you to take stock of what stops you. How often in your day do you take the comfortable route, do the same old same old, and deny a new invitation preferring to sit back on the sidelines laughing at the fools having fun at the edge. Aspire to be the fool, little by little, inch your way towards the edge. Dare to peek at the life you could be having. If this makes no sense to you, make friends with a fool today, see the world through his eyes and see how light the world becomes!

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