This evening, one of my friends/clients will be the focus of some professional consulting I’m doing for hir. We’ll open and close with sharing in the style of PeerSpirit circle methodology in order to set the tone and to harvest any wisdom and strategies that come up. The middle section will consist of people working in pairs — telling stories about the person’s work, choosing tarot cards to represent the qualities in those stories, and creating greeting cards addressed to the client that offer hir some provocative mission statements and concrete wishes for hir business over the next year. Should be fun and motivating for all! My intent is that my friend’s innate leadership qualities will shine AND so will those of everyone present at this evening’s gathering. It is so!
Archive for May, 2009
A Fun Consulting Process
Posted in 1 on May 29, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Beyond Ourselves
Posted in 1 on May 27, 2009| 2 Comments »
I’ve mentioned before that Evolutionary Tarot takes us beyond ourselves. We’re invited to explore themes, situations, and concepts that are about humanity at large, our world, our cosmos. Our experiences mirror something larger that’s going on. We carry that larger energy. When we discover or heal something around it, we discover or heal something in the bigger pool of life. Here are some questions that we can ask ourselves, journal about, or take to the tarot:
- What in our world am I willing to notice?
- What in our world am I unwilling to notice, but might need to anyway?
- What am I willing and able to do about it?
- What am I unwilling and unable to do about it, but might need to anyway?
- If I do something about it, what change is likely to occur?
What comes up for you as you explore these questions? We’re here and we’re listening.
A Gift of Clarity
Posted in 1 on May 25, 2009| 4 Comments »
This afternoon, before the reiki class disbanded, we pulled out the Voyager Tarot and asked, “What healing gifts from this weekend do we take out into the world?” We got the Woman of Crystals.
We took turns latching on to a part of the card image and letting it speak to us. The answers we received were:
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Minds that are clear, open, peaceful, and centred
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Openness and clarity that allow us to channel healing from Source to Earth
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Clarity of vision to bring light into the world
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The remembrance that we are internally flawless
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The sense of being guardians of a beautiful, simple tradition
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A desire to practise that helps reiki to flow that gives us the desire to practise that helps reiki to flow…
Thank you to Liz, Jen, Monique, and Sue for these beautiful insights!
Pleasant Evening and a Dream
Posted in 1 on May 24, 2009| 5 Comments »
Still in Beamsville. Today’s portion of the reiki class was beautiful. People are experiencing the energy in personal ways and finding a sense of the peace that could be.
Bev and I just got back from our friend Sue’s place in Vineland. We enjoyed a splendid dinner on her back deck, then she cut some rhubarb for us with her big knife in the dark. Can’t wait to make pie and other goodies with it. Murphy the ginger-hued cat was a big help.
Looking forward to tomorrow’s reiki time. It’s always fun to see people’s response to the two-on-one and three-on-one treatments.
Last night, I had a dream that on one level was for me yet on another level was for other people or groups to consider. The essence of the dream is that I’m in a fundamentalist culture (of many stripes). I try to escape their grasp by levitating. I have a key that allows me to infiltrate a fundamentalist complex. I’m here to demonstrate (NOT preach) how to be myself, to awaken them from a cultural trance of unconscious conformity that forbids them to be themselves.
The dream sparked many questions, which I’ll explore in my journal and through the tarot. Among these questions are:
- What are the many stripes of fundamentalism in my culture and in myself?
- What key do I have that allows me access to the complex of fundamentalism? in self? in others?
- What does my true self look/feel like?
- How do I demonstrate that authentic selfhood? How might I yet do so?
- What cultural and/or personal trance might we/I be in?
- How can I awaken us/myself from this trance?
- How do I forbid myself from being myself? How do I forbid others from being themselves? How do I allow others to forbid me to be myself?
Many questions to consider. I thank the Dreamweavers for offering me this vision/dream.
Adapting to Setbacks
Posted in 1 on May 23, 2009| 2 Comments »
I’m at Lakeside Retreats in Beamsville, ON, to teach a first degree reiki course this weekend. Before I left Toronto, I pulled my card for the day from the Voyager Tarot — the 5 of Worlds. James Wanless, the deck’s creator, keywords this card “setback”. Among the ideas I jotted in my journal about this card were:
- Adjust professional circumstances
- Change financial expectations due to shifts in my work
- Ask myself, “What’s the opportunity or gift in this setback?”
Someone called to say they can’t come for the reiki training this weekend. Setback, shifted work, less money coming in this weekend. Where’s the opportunity? My friend Jennifer, a level three practitioner, is helping out this weekend. So, without the other attendee, there’s an even number of people here. I like even numbers of participants/attendees because they can partner up and I can remain focused on guiding the process without having to be distracted by doing the activities. This might sound silly to some people, but for me it’s a huge help to have the even number. So there’s one gift in the initial setback. Another gift in this could be that each person who IS here this weekend gets a bit more personal attention. This too is a very good thing.
- What’s your most recent setback?
- What’s the opportunity or gift for you in this experience?
- What’s the opportunity or gift for someone else in this experience?
- Remember a time when you encountered a sudden change?
- What creative, innovative thing were you able to do in order to adapt?
- What resources and strengths did you discover in yourself as result of this experience?
Please let us know. We’re listening and we want to learn.
Scents-sational
Posted in 1 on May 20, 2009| 2 Comments »
On Sunday, a friend stated, “May really is the month of smells.” She’s right. Lilac, chestnut, crabapple, and others hand us an olfactory cornucopia at this time of year. Smell is a sense that is very old. It connects us to the more ancient parts of the brain. It’s certainly a big memory springboard for me. Potatoes and onions in a pan take me right to Grandma Moses’ kitchen. Plumeria whisks me to Hawaii at age 10.
A few years ago, Mary Greer wrote The Essence of Magic (alas, out of print) a book that combined tarot with aromatherapy and ritual. She also created a set of Major Arcana essential oils that were fantastic. She no longer does them, but I still have mine. There’s something about mingling scent with image that really cements a tarot session (or any other insight process) into my consciousness, thereby helping me to enter into the experience of change more powerfully. Maybe that’s why I like incense in my devotions. I often begin my day with morning recitations accompanied by a smudging of sage then sweetgrass, followed by my card for the day. My nose knows what’s good!
Seeking
Posted in 1 on May 19, 2009| 2 Comments »
My card for today is the Child of Wands (Seeker) from the Voyager Tarot. I’m invited to be a seeker, to approach life with beginner’s mind, to dare to explore personal growth. And I’m invited to serve fellow seekers through my work and being. Who will join me in seeking and walking the mystery?
Mary Greer’s Upcoming Toronto Tarot Workshops
Posted in 1 on May 19, 2009| Leave a Comment »
James Wells is happy to host
Toronto Workshops with Mary K. Greer:
A Summer Solstice Weekend of Tarot Exploration, Learning, & Enjoyment!
The Magic of Tarot (Saturday, June 20 — 10:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.)
at WonderWorks, 79A Harbord Street, Toronto.
William Butler Yeats believed that through symbols you evoke and align yourself with the Spirit and Nature of what you want to create. As Tarot readers we work with a set of symbols that describe life’s lessons and experiences, as well as our spiritual potentials. You can, like The Magician, use these images to draw from the Spiritual plane to create what you desire on the material plane. In this workshop you will learn practical techniques for using the Tarot to move into the realm of archetypes and Spirit, and then return, changed by their qualities and characteristics. As Florence Farr defined magic, it “unlimits our experience.” Learn techniques for self-empowerment that will help you take the limits off your spiritual, personal, and political goals. Discover how to focus your abilities in order to become an agent for conscious creative change. Transform your readings into conscious acts of magic.
The Tarot Profiling Game or Rosson Process (Sunday, June 21 — 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.) in James Wells’ home near Castle Frank subway station.
You’ll want to share this game with others. Mary says that she can’t recommend it highly enough to all levels from beginning tarot readers to professionals and teachers of tarot.
Register early as space is limited!
Full payment holds your space.
Contact James Wells at (416) 96… or at evolutionary_tarot@yahoo.ca
Gust of Prairie Wind
Posted in 1 on May 18, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Yesterday, I was at Jeannette’s monthly “Becoming the Medicine” circle. In my heart, I prayed to the spirits for an indication that Auntie Alice’s soul was okay and at peace. Her spirit guide was named Prairie Wind. Jeannette always begins the circle by asking people to announce any events etc. that they will be hosting or that they know of. While I was making my announcements, the doors to the adjacent room blew wide open and a huge gust of wind entered the space. I was moved to tears, because I knew that Prairie Wind was present and saying, “All is well.” Truly the ancestors were with us giving their best love and wisdom as we listened to one another’s insights and offered and received healing. Blessed be!
White House Dinner Dream
Posted in 1 on May 16, 2009| 2 Comments »
Last night, I dreamt that I was an honoured guest at a formal dinner in the White House in Washington, DC. Obama was present, many staff members made sure that everything was “just so”, and many glamorous people enjoyed the event, including several people from my neighbourhood in Toronto. To help me illuminate what this dream might be about, I pulled a card from the Voyager Tarot:
Three of Crystals (Creativity). The dream invites me to creatively work with the many ideas that I have at this time, to convene my creative thoughts and/or writings into one place where they can mingle and celebrate one another’s brilliance. The dream reflects my capacity to bring diverse, even seemingly contradictory, thoughts and ideas together and to nurture them in a way that allows a clear new whole to sparkle. It reminds me to reflect and plan before I express my thoughts aloud.
Evolutionary Tarot & Circle Ways 