Today's cyber-Tarot: Strength

The strongest creature equates, in my humble opinion, to the little ant, who can lift several times its own body weight (you try it, lol!). "Consider her ways, thou sluggard, and grow wise" (Book of Proverbs). She is not only the (relatively) strongest creature, but also very fierce and intensely military and warlike in her group endeavours: truly they seem not so much individuals, as a single social entity, a war-machine, building bridges of their joined bodies as part of the collective, totalitarian mentality/strategy. Fundamentalist Christians have some of the ant's militancy and collective strength in their "onward soldiering": don't they look scary? Shamans seem wisely wary of all insect-species on the other hand: perhaps because they never come alone, but bring all their friends and relations. Why does the ant on my Tarot have a little triangle of dots on her brow? Might this amount to some sort of theological fundie-ant? lol
And since no one has shown any interest in my new "art-form" of the "Tarot story", which had me so excited there for a while, I will consider that one "dead in the water" ;-P

You love me touching your balls, don't you, George? courtesy of priestyism.blogspot.com 

4 of Pentacles

disk 4: "slow down, you move too fast, you've got to make the morning last / kicking down the cobblestones / looking for fun, and feeling groovy" (Simon and Garfunkel). Slow down, you've a long way to go...why hurry past the scenery? "Just me and my shadow", moochin' along, in the mooch of life. "The mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path I walk in peace; with every step a gentle breeze blows, with every step a flower grows" (Thich Nhat Hanh). Boredom equates to a reflexive verb; you can only do it to yourself?

from a South American Tarot...you gotta love Condorito!!  

Queen of Cups from the Animal Tarot  

Tarot story II: the queen of Cups (mermaid)

(Relationship spread, Cat People Tarot.) Our little Page of Cups (see previous story below) has now grown up. As the water of water, I embody the essence of femininity, for yes, gentle readers, I can reveal that she equates to myself! I look quite youthful for a mature woman, or so they tell me kindly. Here I find myself in my native element at last, and everything goes just swimmingly! I haven't had to give up my fish tail to walk, and dance, as on daggers on dry ground, in the foreign elements of air and earth. I feel untouched by pain and tragedy when I dive deep. My best friends seem the dolphins (earth's 2nd most intelligent species, after us), who also hold the secret of ch'i, breath, and how to hold it for up to 1/2 an hour at a time; they have also saved my life in a moment of shamanistic spiritual emergency, by reminding me to breathe! They also laugh and play and communicate with each other all the time, and perhaps I, as the mermaid, telepathically with them? I have become a marine psychologist, to the cetaceans, you see, but do not always feel sure which of us amounts to the counsellor, and which the clients. I can tell you, you can establish some sort of telepathic link with such species through guided visualization/meditation. And remember not only to breathe, through your pain and crises, but also, like those angels called dolphins, to see life as a game! The loss of my first love, as described in my first story felt like another death, but I have now become so used to the constant transformations of "little deaths", that death has become another dear friend to me. I can even affirm that, galactically speaking, the power of death guides me! Clearing away the old to make way for the new, death seems the cosmic sanitation engineer. Unexpected changes, losses, failures, all cause an abrupt change of the old self, and not necessarily physical death, though I have found myself on the brink of suicide a few times. It can come in the ending of a familiar situation or friendship, or the loss of income or financial security. Either way, it always spells the beginning of new era. I found the true love of my life in a truly grounded shaman. His grounding cord plunged deep into the crystal core of Gaia herself, grounding and centering him. His recommended spiritual practice amounted to performing the Qabalistic Middle Pillar ritual on a regular, daily basis, to receive the white light in at the crown of the head, the lavendar at his throat, the yellow at his heart, purple around his loins, and to see the black earth as a small sphere beneath his feet... ADONAI HA ARETZ! LORD OF THE EARTH! (his true mantra). He took refuge in visualizing pyramid power around him daily, and knew that the kundalini fire cannot burn you, if you properly "earth" yourself . I found his company a respite after the heady adventure of the Knight of Cups, like a rest after illness which allowed me to recuperate. He felt to me a haven of calm and repose, not saying much, but his solitude refreshed and replenished me. We often retreated to his island hideaway, in temporary seclusion, for a bit of quiet R & R. We had a stormy crossing in his little curragh, a leather boat like St Brendan's, of the long 'navigatio'; the waves rose high and threatened to engulf our tiny bark, but the power he summoned remained with us, and the little feather he placed as a meditation focus, with a small seed of amethyst, remained unruffled on the deck. The sobering energy of the white light he invoked made our tiny boat into a haven of calm and safety, even as the sea and the winds continued to moan and roar. He made even a fragile little boat tossed on the high seas into a temple. How many times I thought I had spiritually "come home", from the early "born-again" fundamentalist days, to becoming a "born-again pagan" and Sufi adventurer. Sometimes he had the prophetic zeal of Elijah, which in turn consumed me, to "come home to a place I'd never seen before". Do all these "born-again" phases amount only to "just phases", unlike my "feminist phase" which has remained with me lifelong? And yet look at me, now that the goddess Hera has awakened in me, as even a "born-again wife", when I never thought myself the marrying kind before! Do they all just amount to deliria of Elijah's fevered imagination, yet more mad "chariots of fire" drawn by the tigers of wrath, painted on the walls of his island-cave and refuge, glowing eerily in the firelight? Could it just amount to another hobby-tiger, this new bee buzzing in my bonnet? We did everything in a whirl, from Zenith Pleiadian colour healing to Sufi whirling, drunk in the mystic "tavern of ruin". "Elijah, Elijah, what do you do here, keeper of the flame of the heart?" I ask. And he answers, "Anything, anything, as long it keeps the fire of the heart still burning." Only the transmuted gold will survive, when we have passed all the straw through the fire. *I fell into a burning ring (or abyss) of fire...* And yet one day he sent me away, wanting a more complete solitude. That drove me into severe depression, and even thoughts of, and attempts at suicide. Dark night of the soul: give me enough rope, and I will hang myself, or take enough Tolvon to go to sleep, permanently. Transit or return of Saturn, the greater malefic? She seems such a beautiful planet, with those rings; only sometimes she just feels her distance from the sun, as the love of her life. I had to take the long view, get a cosmic perspective, even put on a Leonard Cohen record to cheer myself up. After all, what would this separation mean in 200 years? And yet he says he continues to think the World of me, and I still mean the world to him! But he continues to see himself a servant of all Gaia's children, working for the liberation of all sentient beings. He didn't like the cool blues of Tom Waits, said it seemed too sexual, but then at first I thought the same about Ephemera, saying they amounted to mere "porn-girls", when he thought their music the purest of the pure... De gustibus non disputandum! The blues, or "song sung blue" seem only for those who, like Cat Stevens, "never knew what love is, until they got hurt" (The Hurt). Funny thing, though, listening to or, better still, playing them, you don't feel all that hurt, although they seem all about hurt. "And before you know it, it starts to feel good" (Neil Diamond, Song Sung Blue). You can even play cool blues on a broken guitar with one string missing, and you don't have to appear black, to sing with a black man's voice (ask Tom Waits, or even Elvis!) ...Still, ours does seem a 'funny' sort of marriage, doesn't it, with him still thinking of me as his soror mystica and all, and in an even 'funnier' way, I think of him exactly the same way!

In the absence of today's cyber-Tarot...

The One Card spread is the most concise of all spreads. The Marseilles Tarot, an 18th century creation of obscure origins, the true oracle of the common man?
	Three of Cups (Abundance): A time of merriment and reflection spent in the company of friends and loved ones. The conclusion of a matter in plenty and perfection. The strength of a diverse community being brought together. May suggest a celebration, festival, anniversary, wedding, baby shower, or other joyous gathering.... like the Gawith BBQ I will attend today!! ;-))

A Tarot story: the Ugly Duckling (page of cups)

page of cups: the ugly duckling -

Who would have thought that someone who felt so physically unattractive as a child, could turn into such an elegant, swanlike creature? She had always thought of herself as too "butch" for a girl, but then, had she been a boy, she probably would have thought herself not butch enough. Sure, she would never have her younger sister's genuinely swanlike neck, but halter necks, plunging necklines and a cleavage helped, especially with her somewhat broad shoulders, and also swelling breasts (marked by Venus herself with a beauty spot).

	When younger, she would spend much of her time daydreaming, and her teachers would often have to direct her attention away from the window and back to the task or exercise at hand. She felt that she could become almost anything, but most of all she longed to write, books and poetry, and become world-famous as a professional author! She filled her notebooks with little stories, and also illustrated them with pictures of huge-eyed foals and fawns, graceful if also gawky, knobbly-kneed creatures, as she perceived herself; she drew them always with great wreaths of flowers around their necks. Sometimes she became the horse characters she imagined, and it felt so intoxicating to actually feel oneself gallop over the open plains, with the wind in your mane... Sometimes she even found herself sprouting wings and soaring like Pegasus, this shy, dreamy schoolgirl with the inkspot on her nose. The other girls thought her a bit strange, as in their "ranch" games she preferred to play one of the horse characters and gallop about neighing, snorting and whinnying, than any of their human characters.
	Then one day, having recently come of age, her mother found her in 'flagrante delicto' with a boyfriend, and told her she would have to leave home, since her mother found such behavior unacceptable under her roof. At first, it seemed hard, traumatic even, to have to leave her childhood home so unceremoniously, and all she could afford amounted to a little bed-sit in the city, but what freedom from the shackles of the past it turned into! Her mother's expulsion and rejection of her for her adult sexuality now seemed truly a blessing in disguise, a new beginning, in which the old childish ways had to die, but in order to allow for a wonderful feeling of rebirth, which she had only imagined herself to have known in the fundamentalist excesses of adolescent religious devotion.
	Now she could see so much more of her boyfriend! He swept her away with the passion of a rushing river, and his passion stirred or awoke such passion in her as well; this could not mere "puppy love" or infatuation, when they had both just come of age, surely? She scried all the quizzes in the glamour magazines for assessments of the status of their relationship on an almost daily basis, as well as poring over their tabloid horoscopes. He seemed as truly romantic as she, full of charm and beauty, but prone to extremes. As "romantics" in the true sense of the word, both of them had their ups and downs and occasionally violent mood-swings. Passion after all can represent outbursts of anger as well as the erotic, but it felt so good to blissfully "make up" after one or another of their outbursts, disagreements or temper tantrums! They both represented forceful idealists blended with gentle kindness, eager and intense, out busy "saving the world" or crusading for some cause, when not passionately locked in each other's arms! And the whole world seemed to smile on these two young hippies, hand in hand at any number of protest rallies, with flowers in their hair, as seemed the fashion of the times, and love-beads around their necks. This seemed truly the dawning of the "age of Aquarius", and a great time to find oneself, not only alive, but also adult enough to enjoy and explore the beauty of young sexuality!
	Then one day he became all quiet, thoughtful and brooding, and refused to tell her what was on his mind. Men come after all from Mars, she mused, and women from Venus? It seemed a miracle any communication could actually happen between them at all. Actually what concerned him was setting goals and a vision for the future, getting serious about the future. They argued about whether she could ever earn a living as a poet, and she ended up storming out, in tears.
	When she came back, he had gone, bags and all. And she had to admit she enjoyed having the bed all to herself for a change. Let him have his stupid, boring career as a chartered accountant. She would have her own, and eventually move out herself (no longer able to afford the rent they had shared), and she would always find plenty more fish in the sea, where that one came from! (The Creative Process spread and Palladini Tarot . Now you have a go, Sebi, and write your own "page of cups" story, or a story about any other Tarot character that takes your fancy? How about "The World According to the King of Swords"? lol)

George, your horns seem showing!! lol 

pictures courtesy of http://circleoffire.blogspot.com ;-)) 

Some whizz-bang desktop application sharing for Sebi!  

fool/clown: What can I say? Fools seem everywhere, we all equate to that, in leaving our home, for what? Every tear you have shed amounts essentially to the homesickness of the fool, for the home he never left, in truth. Like the Devil, the Fool knows you have to put on greasepaint and personality to survive in this world, and truly fools rush in, where even fallen angels fear to tread. No less fallen (or ascending) than the Devil, he weeps, like the little mermaid, whose new-bought feet dance as on daggers. And yet truly, if you have become a no-body to become somebody in this world, that same somebody must become a zero again, Zero the Hero, to re-align with our true self... A wise fool constantly parodies him/herself. See Fool card below, on this blog! ;-))

post Burning Man festival

Greetings Magical Friends!

Abbi and I have recently returned from the Burning Man art festival in Northwestern Nevada. How can one convey, in the space of an email, the experience that is Burning Man? This year, more than 40,000 people attended, from all over the world. We drove the ten hours from Las Vegas to the playa. In Spanish, playa means beach, but there's no swimming or surfing to be found here. At one time, millions of years ago, this whole area was under water. These days, the water is long-gone for most of the year, and the ground is a fine, packed, deep layer of silica dust.

Once we got to the Burning Man entrance, we followed the burma-shave style signs. Their messages were all about the mind, the brain, the ego, the selves within. The theme for this year's Burning Man was "Psyche," and most of the art installations were related to the theme.

We spent our time exploring interesting art installations, meeting old and new friends, and making music and magic throughout the camp. We had a great time out on our bikes, zooming around from place to place, seeing all there was to see. On one of our nights, we went through the Maze located at the base of the giant neon Man who would burn. There were at least thirty rooms, little revolving cubicle doorways, unexpected dead ends... and finally, after a long search, the staircase leading up.... to an open platform, looking down on the top of the Maze -- where you could call words of encouragement or confusion to those in the Maze -- and then more stairs leading up to the Man. If you had enough people working cooperatively together, you could turn the Man to face a different direction, further confounding the people in the Maze. The Maze was only open a few nights and they had to take it down on Friday night since the Man was going to burn on Saturday amidst a huge array of fire spinners and pyrotechnics.

Light Wizard Gary Stadler, along with our webmaster Bryce Kuhlman -- with their amazing crew from Arizona, Las Vegas, San Diego and more -- set up the Inner Mind: a humungous air inflated pointy-topped dome containing a smaller inflated dome inside. The top held a huge bright light shooting out of the top (ala the Luxor in Vegas). Inside the inner dome was a huge, interactive brain made of nearly 3000 microprocessors. There were thousands of little LED lights zooming around, representing thoughts, in all different colors, which you could control...

"Passage" was the name of a large metal sculpture of a mother and child. The installation started about fifty feet away from the sculptures, with cement footprints in the playa -- and filled with fire -- representing where they had walked. Looking at them, mid-stride, we could see that water flowed down from their hands, and that the mother was passing a handful of fire to the child. The mother was probably about thirty-five feet tall, and the child was about twenty feet tall, all made out of scrap metal (bike chains, horseshoes, little horses...). The couple who created it were welding on it for the first few days, and had it completed by Friday night.

The Flaming Lotus Girls brought out their Angel of the Apocalypse: a propane-shooting, flame throwing sculpture of a gigantic bird, about fifteen feet tall, partially buried in the playa with its beak, 12 distinct wing tips, and part of its belly sticking out... the amount of flame coming out of the wing tips could be controlled just by pushing a button, and they let everyone push it!

And there was so much more. We brought out the Alchemical Fire Circle and did one all-nighter on Wednesday night. The music, the drumming, the singing, the magic, the ritual and spontaneous co-created ceremony went on through the night until well after sunrise. It's such a gift to be able to share this magic at such a special place.

Jeff's favorite quote from Burning Man is: "If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!" To see event more astounding images... check this out --
Gary sent this great graphic novel style comic book report of the Burn.

Magically, Jeff McBride

"dear John", will it ever get better than this?

The Three Fates spread is a popular way to gain insight into the past, present, and future. The William Blake Tarot explores the mystical vision and artistry of the renowned English painter and poet. It has long been the deck of choice for artists, writers, musicians, and thinkers.
	The left card represents an important element of the past. Seven of Poetry (Boldness): "The times require that every one should speak out boldly: ...every man should do his duty, in Arts, as well as in Arms, or in the Senate". Standing up for yourself and your beliefs. Telling the truth despite everything. Tests of integrity, firmness, and commitment. Doing the right thing even though it hurts. Facing the envy or enmity of others. Proving yourself against rivals and competitors. Finding the courage to resist organized, institutional, or governmental oppression. In the creative process: Maintain your artistic tenacity and courage despite any criticism, disapproval, or influence of societal prejudices or market pressures. (I cannot replace this with my own interpretation, since I have no idea what this corresponds to in the regular Tarot - possibly 7 of Cups - which would explain why I get the feeling of his past paranoid "weirdness" persisting in his rants, and his very over-active imagination, to the point of paranoia, i.e. still not quite recovered, although apparently grounded and lucid?) ;-P
	The middle card represents a deciding element of the present. Nine of Science (Swords) (Despair): Experiencing mental anguish or self-pity. Grief. Depression. Feeling isolated and alone ...not to mention damned frustrated when all he seems to want to do amounts to TALK!!! And our compatibility seems not in the intellectual sphere, but the purely physical, if anything ;-P
	The right card represents a critical element of the future. Angel of Science: "Quis basin demonstret? (Who would demonstrate the foundation?)". Floating in the realm of pure or abstract thought. Objective, unemotional, and unbiased thinking. Mental speculation, exploration, meditation. A brilliant insight bursting through. Stimulus to organize or systematize. Precision and clarity of vision. In the creative process: An intellectual vision or perfect insight inspires you to rise above yourself. (I can get so over this, with the help of the Tarot, and my own intellectual integrity! I just refuse to let him make a fool of me any more, not to mention delay my precious phone call to B.E., which I did not feel up to last night! ;-P) ;-))

3 of Pentacles

disk three: In the cold, pharisaical so-called "chapel of love", the 'words of wisdom' of Marilyn Manson ring in my ears as the coins clatter coldly on the collection-plates: "this isn't god". You cannot serve both God and Mammon, hypocrites! Hence, as I shun the chapel of Mammon, may my heart not turn into a chilled chapel but a torrid temple this winter, I pray! May my righteousness, not to mention kindness, truly exceed that of the scribes and pharisees, and may I put them all to shame by the way I walk my talk, in galactic integrity! Three little coins in a fountain - such seem your mistaken little theological, calculating, wish-fulfilling suppositions about God and Trinity, and you cannot buy that with money, at any price, cheap or dear...

What the Bleep study group will do on Saturday (update)

>Our Meeting this Saturday will investigate Quantum Physics, which is a system that does not follow the rationality of previous sciences. Toward that end, if you wish, you may want to look at my latest blog: "Stephen Hawking's Mail" on my blog spot: http://ansur.blogspot.com.

Who or what represents the observer that determines the nature of the particle?

Does an ultimate observer exist?

Can we be conscious of that observer?

What do you think you would see if you looked through the eyes of the ultimate observer?

(Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle)

How do others’ observations affect us?

Does every observer affect the world the same way?

What causes differences?

(Bell’s theorem and non-locality)

i.e. “For quantum theory to work, information must travel not only at the speed of light, but instantaneously.” Non-locality suggests that information, that can appear anywhere in the world, connects everything in the world.

What establishes which communication we receive?

What does non-locality imply for how we can know the world?

How would this change our lives?

So-called classical reality (the world of commonsense, and the science that got us to the moon and back) fades away like the Cheshire cat. Dorothy, we do not find ourselves in Kansas any more (my answer to the question on Jen’s blog amounted to an exploration of the fairytale of Oz, ‘my’ fairytale, in which the ‘Oz’ of the Wizard of Oz and the Oz of local Australian reality mysteriously overlap). I begin to see how the mysterious act of ‘coming home’ (simply by clicking together one’s ruby-red slippers of thought) can enable one to live both in the local Australian reality, and the mysterious ‘great Oz’ of afterlives and next lives.

What has radically altered your experience of reality?

Shamanic journeys (by bus) into the mind of Bjorn Erik, outside of consensual reality; his radical deconstruction of the Bible (by rewriting it in red biro, line by line); his laying down of the “levitical law”, also a divine right of kings, and therefore also of the king of Swords (see Tarot interpretation below).

How did the experience affect you?

Religion can never amount to “the same thing” again, i.e. far from the understanding of the fundies that a “fixed, true Word of God” exists, the words of any text, biblical or otherwise seem to flicker and glow with a superposition of palimpsests, of possible other meanings and interpretations.

What would it be like to experience quantum reality through the senses, as opposed to intellectually?

See image above! Lol

What does it imply?

The meaning of anything does not seem anything we can fix down in one, final, definitive statement. I.e. once, I experienced “the meaning of life”, while watching Monty Python’s Meaning of Life in Norway in fact, and while it blew me away into ecstasy at the time, with a feeling of “eureka! This seems it!!”, I could not put it in words, and in fact became mystically tongue-tied, aphasic at the time, until sex brought me down to earth again… ;-))

>And so, when Eigenvectors eschew the Eidolon, the event horizon may either Plonk, Plink, or go Spoing! But more about this in future lessons.

And the above comments about the fundies' so-called "Word of God" also apply to so-called "fixed, standard Tarot interpretations", because in the end everything will either plonk, plink or go Spoing! lol

I don't really feel qualified to judge between all these possible interpretations of quantum theory, as they all appear to have something going for them (even the more "way out" and "trippy", New Age, "consciousness creates reality", and "many worlds" ones!) as each one seems to take an aspect of it and stretch it to its limits. They all seem to me like the proverbial blind men trying to describe an elephant, from the part of it they can grasp. I still feel drawn, if anything, to Bohr's traditional Copenhagen interpretation, and its "don't ask-don't tell" implications, with the proviso that an ultimate meaning does seem to exist, only we can't really say anything meaningful about it. These derives from my pragmatic experience as shamanic visitor into the non-censual world of psychosis. The only difference between a mystic and one locked up as incurably schizophrenic, seems that a mystic knows when to shut up (so that he or she does not locked up)! This really seems to relate to the philosophy of Wittgenstein, namely, "mystical experiences" amount to real possibilities, and genuinely exist, but we cannot say anything meaningful about them in words others can understand, and therefore we should not try to. The experiences of ultimate meaning we do occasionally experience simply transcend the limitations of human language.

And as you can see, a lot more questions remain than answers... ;-))

wheel of fortune = the guardian angel: Do you feel lucky tonight? Do you feel born under a lucky star (Jupiter rising)? Don't let it go to your head. Too many lucky synchronicities can go to your head, swell it, to a swollenness of Jupiter, and then, lucky Phil, your luck just ran out, you seem likely to topple into a madness of over-enthusiasm (psychosis, mania). It does indeed seem always better to light a candle (or several) rather than curse the darkness; let your inner child take your lucky-mascot teddy-bear (or whatever other stuffed animal) and snuggle up in the bear-cave of your heart with all your other lucky talismans and amulets. Remember also the purifying mysteries, the sobering mysteries, of Osiris slain and risen, of the Eternal Feminine who always leads us on, of the Melbourne movie Angelbaby. Some "Adriana" or other always leads us on, with her Goldenlight of the heart, but you must fit the pieces of the jigsaw-puzzle very carefully, bit by bit, till the whole Scrabble-game or Lego-construction becomes complete...

Today's cyber-Tarot: knight of cups

knight of cups, peace-star, beauty of water: adolescent infatuation. "They say we're much too young to know..." Does this feeling equate to mere 'puppy love', or something more? Young love can endure, surprisingly, with a tenacity exceeding your wildest expectations, contrary to all popular myth and pop-psychology a la Oprah. This pain also seems something you will not necessarily grow out of...but it seems a "pain" you would not do without, or not? In the words of an Indian sage: "the eyes of love are in reality tinted delicately red as the lotus".

And this card turns out to represent the answer to the Two of Cups I deleted, that I thought only I felt with regard to a certain person: apparently he feels a little bit about me like this, and could not stay away! ;-))

Tarot reading for Nathaniel, whom Usch and I just met in the tram today, if he logs in!

The Relationship spread provides insight into the interaction between two people or entities. It seems the spread of choice for questions about partnerships, be they in romance or business. The Renaissance Tarot equates to a modern deck, with symbolism drawn from the heroic age. None of my regular readers will know Nathaniel from the proverbial bar of soap, but by a strange and spooky coincidence, today's cyber-Tarot, Justice, appears in his spread, so I know that one appeared especially for him, from a "chance" encounter (which just goes to show, no such thing really exists!) lol
	The card at the top left represents how you see yourself. Three of Cups (Abundance): A strange but beautiful occurrence. Omg, this card also turned up, by spooky "coincidence", as my personal card of the day this morning! It refers to a postcard I sent once to my son from not-so-distant Warburton: "having a lovely time - wish you were here", which can also summarise Nathaniel's recurring dream! Dreams can also seem like postcards or emails from apparent strangers we know we have known "before". The "3" of the card also referred to a weird dream of my own at the time, in which I had not one, but three sons! What this card seems to represent equates to finished, or unfinished karmic business?
	The card at the top right represents how you see your partner. The Sun: Glory and rejoicing. The light of reason. The flower of manhood. Inspiration in poetry and music. Igraine, the dawn star: Round belly, round and golden as the sun, round golden globular discs of breasts - truly, "your belly resembles a heap of wheat, surrounded by lilies" (Song of Songs). This Lady of the Sun squats astride a moon-crescent disc, crying aloud in pangs of childbirth, crowned with 12 stars (Revelation 12). If we could capture these pinpricks in time-exposure photography, they would describe great whirling streaks encircling her in a halo of glory. The lost child about to enter re-birth has not yet felt the birthquakes; he remains undisturbed in repose in the womb of the sun?
	The card in the center left represents how you feel about your partner. Ten of Swords (Ruin): Calamity. The failure of a hero, foretold in prophesy, but brought about by the hero's own choices. Sword ten: give up expectations that in all likelihood cannot come to pass, even though this seems as brutal as the Biblical injunction to "cut off the hand that offends thee"! ;-P
	The card in the center right represents what stands between you and your partner. Eight of Cups (Indolence): simplicity - especially on those days, like Boxing Day, that seem one huge anticlimax, or merely hungover, after the "big, special days", like Christmas. Come back to reality, normality, sanity of regular free-flow of 5th-dimensional energy (big Zen chuckle!). No need for disappointment, although when all the water leaks out of the bucket, the reflection of the moon, a reflection of a reflection, seems also lost (Zen parable). Mostly, just be*here*now, or you might miss something really important in the present, by hankering for something that might or might not happen in the future! Even the feasts of "no-occasion", everyday life, can amount to special feasts, of presence!
	The card in the lower left represents how your partner sees you. Justice: The vindication of the just and the punishment of the unjust. Rule of reason. Balance of power (=karma). The spider's comfort: "Worry no more, you soldier's son / Just walk on by, and you'll be fine" (Finn Corey's William Blake project). The yin-yang of opposing complementarities bound together in the spider's web of life, threads of fate and karma binding each to the other - the red and the green - Martian militancy and Venutian harmony reconciled in fairness at last - this seems what I would truly call a miracle, a "win-win" situation, as per A Course in Miracles! Behind thyself (TVAT TVAM ASI), in each facet of Grandmother Spider's web to which she has bound you, even the jewelled prismatic eyes of flies that the spider will eat for breakfast tomorrow - in this wondrous web of interrelationship, even the spider and the fly become one, for the spider only eats itself, whatever it eats! (I would even go so far as to suggest, there may exist karmic reasons why you cannot see him, other than in dream, right now, and the dream figure of your glorious "solar" love - see above - may in fact represent a projected image of your own beauty and potential!)
	The card in the lower right represents what your partner feels about you. Page of Coins: An intelligent and sensible young person. Dependable and practical person who yet hides mysterious corners of himself and hoards secret treasures. An admirer of the patterns of heavens, the makeup of nature, or the language of numbers. Stone maiden, earth of earth - "daddy's girl". Your daddy might seem a snowman, for all the warmth he gave. Even now, you seek your grandmother's house, little girl lost in the wintry woods. Your bare feet turn blue in the snow, but however lost, lonely, orphaned and estranged from your earthly parents you feel, know that the brightness of your spiritual home blazes in the defiant red of your cloak and hood. Your dress is innocent, virginal white, and four and twenty blackbirds pipe from the pie lovingly packed into your basket of goodies for Grandma. Their carolling awakes even the butterflies and swallows into an untimely spring. Snow covers the signpost that should show you the way, Little Red Riding Hood, and no flowers bloom for you yet, on or off the path... I love this card, because it shows our genetic resemblance to our earthly and even spiritual parents, even when we feel most estranged or alienated! Hey, there, little Red Riding Hood, you do not seem as far out of your way as you think.... ;-))
	The card in the center represents the present status or challenge of the relationship. Page of Cups: A young person of sensitive and meditative nature, capable of deep loyalty and profound affection. "Ugly duckling" -earth of water: who would think that someone who thought him/herself so ugly as a child, could grow up into such a beautiful adult? You could have had deep feelings of insecurity about your physical attractiveness as a child, but, be told, you have now turned into the most gorgeous swan, and not the "duck" they expected you to turn into!

Today's cyber-Tarot: Justice - the spider's comfort

"Worry no more, you soldier's son / Just walk on by, and you'll be fine" (Finn Corey's William Blake project).
The yin-yang of opposing complementarities bound together in the spider's web of life, threads of fate and karma binding each to the other - the red and the green - Martian militancy and Venutian harmony reconciled in fairness at last - this seems what I would truly call a miracle, a "win-win" situation, as per A Course in Miracles! Behind thyself (TVAT TVAM ASI), in each facet of Grandmother Spider's web to which she has bound you, even the jewelled prismatic eyes of flies that the spider will eat for breakfast tomorrow - in this wondrous web of interrelationship, even the spider and the fly become one, for the spider only eats itself, whatever it eats!

Tarot reading for Christopher, as requested

The Creative Process spread is designed specifically to peer into the nature of a project or creative undertaking. The William Blake Tarot explores the mystical vision and artistry of the renowned English painter and poet. It has long been the deck of choice for artists, writers, musicians, and thinkers. There are only a few autographed copies of the Blake Tarot left, so if you want one, buy it now!
	The card in the middle represents the creative force behind the project, be it a person, organization, or other entity: Error, or... The Devil: who, or what, seems to run your life? A devil of a good question. It seems kind of hard to smoke your last cigarette down to its filter while wearing your theatrical gloves. Who, or what, seems running your life may not represent so much a physical addiction (though most of us have plenty of those, unless we represent the insufferably "righteous"!), as your compulsive thoughts of self, thoughts that run on autopilot, as mechanically as memorised lines in a script, a stand-up comedian's spiel; the greasepainted persona and daggy hat he presents to the world, equates to your own persona/ego hiding, or revealing your true self? The eyebrows we can paint on can seem so much more attractive than those with which nature provided us. It seems up to you: nature or art? The choice, as always, remains yours. The devil does not always come disguised as an angel of light, but sometimes a shambling, daggy, wise-cracking clown, wise guy rather than wise man, the glowing tip of his cigarette representing his long descent from the son of thunder on high; a fallen angel, after all, remains still an angel, not descended, like the rest of us, from apes!
	The card on the top represents imagination - the prophetic image that stems from the creative force of the previous card to initiate the project. This is the poetry or voice of the undertaking. Five of Music (Melancholy): "Whatever is Born of Mortal Birth / Must be consumed with the Earth / To rise from Generation free: / Then what have I to do with thee?". Emotional disappointment. Existential angst. Spiritual insights following a sad event. Separating and moving on. Sadness, loss, grieving. Acknowledging your mistakes. Releasing ties and attachments from the past. In the creative process: Convert the pain of disappointment or loss into artistic expression. Let go of something old or dead and move on to something new and alive. grail five/5 of Cups: He didn't like the cool blues of Tom Waits, said it seemed too sexual, but then at first I thought the same about Ephemera, saying they amounted to mere "pornojenter" (="porn-girls", Norwegian), when he thought their music the purest of the pure... De gustibus non disputandum! The blues, or "song sung blue", as this card suggests, seem only for those who, like Cat Stevens, "never knew what love is, until they got hurt" (The Hurt). Funny thing, though, listening to or, better still, playing them, you don't feel all that hurt, although they seem all about hurt. "And before you know it, it starts to feel good" (Neil Diamond, Song Sung Blue). You can even play cool blues on a broken guitar with one string missing, and you don't have to appear black, to sing with a black man's voice (ask Tom Waits, or even Elvis!) ;-))
	The card on the left represents emotion - the feelings aroused by or surrounding the ideation of the project that takes place in the previous card, the music or scent of the undertaking. Reason: Using your head to get through a situation. A time to define or obey the rules. Yielding to or being the boss, or authority figure. Patriarchal or traditional approach is favored. Fathering issues. Pan, or the Emperor: Bats in the belfry? Bees in the bonnet? The delusions of full-on chronic paranoid schizophrenia seem nothing more than an over-inflated male ego ("I AM both the Father and the Son"?!!)? In the bad, old days they would have trepanned your skull to let the evil spirits out... Pan as horned god, for Christians the very epitome of evil. In these bad, new days, their trepanning tools seem more sophisticated (we have moved on from lobotomies and ECT to psychopharmaka), but in reality they still seem as crude as sledgehammers to the fragile neuronal contents of the skull... He walks the streets like a regular guy, but if you look into his eyes, and worship him, "you recognise that ancient face" (Mike Scott), you see him suddenly loom larger than life, and suddenly you wonder if your perceptions also take on the shades and lurid hues of religious psychosis - but old stars never die, they just fade away, getting younger and younger, until the day they make their big come-back - let the Christmas bells ring: "So follow Christ as best you can / Pan is dead / long live Pan!" (Mike Scott, a musical authority on the subject of Pan). He returns, not entirely happy about it, but looking forward to it in his grimly apocalyptic way... This new "frying Pan" demands not so much a revolution, as a new Inquisition! lol "Come with me, on a journey beneath the skin / we will look together for the Pan within" (Mike Scott), i.e. your own inner majesty and divinity as a 'regular bloke'.
	The card on the bottom represents thought - the analytical process of organizing the project and capturing the emotional content of the previous card. This is the science or vision of the undertaking. Man of Music: "Music as it exists in old tunes or melodies ... is Inspiration, and cannot be surpassed; it is perfect and eternal". Using emotional self-control. Experiencing a sense of self-integration and mastery. Feeling at the top of your form. Swaying others with your gift of expressiveness and fluency in the language of the unconscious. Ability to interpret dreams, oracles, and omens. Be cautious of a tendency to overestimate yourself. In the creative process: Dedicate your considerable powers to help others and for creating beauty in the world. King of Cups, grail King: fire of water - who knows ever what my King Scorpio, my King of Hearts, wants, deep down? He seemed once, like all with more than their fair share of Scorpio, heavily motivated by sex, and now not at all... Irene the Viennese psychotherapist spoke rightly: she had never known a Scorpio without a profound sexual dysfunction somewhere. According to Edna O'Brien's Wild Decembers, all mental illness seems about sex, as well... Maybe for all men, sex only seems alluring while unattained, and unattainable; once attained, it becomes "boring" - for Scorpio men in particular, the thrill seems to consist in the waiting, the wanting, the hoping, the chase - he once said, he only married, "to see what it would be like". In a profound way, we find ourselves learning the Buddha's 2nd Noble Truth: "all suffering comes from attachment/craving/grasping/desire". "Be still, my soul, and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing" (T.S.Eliot).
	The card on the right represents manifestation - the real work involved in completing the project, and the form it will take upon culmination. This is the painting or touch of the undertaking. Six of Science (Passage): Opening the way or clearing obstacles. Movement of information. A Rite of Passage. A stressful journey. Seeking a sense of purpose. Receiving guidance from a higher source. Exploring new terrain. In the creative process: Your imagination needs to be uncovered or unleashed by resolving contradictory elements and seeking spiritual guidance. Sword 6 (I guess): spirit-journey. Enfolded in the wings of a snowy white swan, we glide through interdimensional barriers to other realities and parallel universes, this spirit-sister and I. I made her acquaintance so long ago, I no longer recall her name - she still wears military khaki and jungle camouflage on her face and helmet, which makes her appear more butch than her true identity. The swan (Miranda from Picnic at Hanging Rock?) winks, its whiteness of nostalgic innocence, or innocent nostalgia, not yet charred to the black more typical of Australian swans. I find myself enrobed in a hooded enchanter's cloak of purple, tied under the chin with a long gold tassel, and covered all over with little gold stars - it makes me appear more sexless and androgynous than I feel. The willow-branches part silently, and we glide through them... This little trip proved a pleasant spot of R&R, by your leave ;-)) And in the light of all the musical references above, especially Mike Scott, I feel a little shameless plug for his new album to be in order: Greetings Waterpeople! KARMA TO BURN - OUT IN SEVEN DAYS, NEW WEB PAGES UP NOW The new live Waterboys album KARMA TO BURN is released next Monday, 26th Sept by Puck Records. It is through all usual channels and by download from iTunes, Napster and www.od2.co.uk. Amazon is taking pre-orders and you can order a copy by clicking here. Our new KARMA TO BURN web pages are live now, featuring an exclusive interview with Mike Scott on the making of the album and how the Waterboys work as a live band; background notes on the creation of KARMA TO BURN; and a unique series of reports from some of the wildly different Waterboys concerts over the past two years. Access the new pages by visiting www.mikescottwaterboys.com and clicking on the KARMA TO BURN album cover thumbnail. With love and light from all of us at www.mikescottwaterboys.com Omg, this new live album includes all Mike Scott's and my personal favs, including The Pan Within, and Long Way to the Light (my own 2 of Pentacles, which I shall reveal later, in another reading, on another day?) :-))

Today's cyber-Tarot: Knight of Pentacles

Knight of Pentacles: earth warrior - adolescent initiation / vision quest. Go back to the time the elders of the tribe should have initiated you into the ways of the tribe - whether you feel they did so successfully, or not. If you feel they didn't, re-initiate yourself, with your own confirmation ceremony, bar- or bat-mitzvah, or vision quest. If you feel they did, relive that wonderful experience now, and keep it alive!

The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Tarot: my blog reinvents itself again ;-))

I should re-subtitle this blog A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Tarot since my friend Sebi has given my reading the accolade "Best Tarot Reading in all known universes, and multiverses", lol!

However, as I commented on his blog, that could get a little hard to prove, as no one really knows what goes on in all known multiverses, let alone the unknown ones, except maybe "God", as defined by What the Bleep (the "superposition of all spirits or essences everywhere") or Hermes Trismegistus ("God = the circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference nowhere") ;-))

One mystery of the universe, in particular, seems why this post comes up underlined, and I cannot see an underline thing, to remove it, and also why Sebi, for whom I especially intended today's cyber-Tarot reading of the 6 of Pentacles, did not heed it last night: he has turned night into day, and now not so much carpe's the diem, as the nocturne, in the middle of the day! lol

The Happy Squirrel as "hidden trump"

http://www.tarotdoug.com/blog/2005/04/happy-squirrel.html

Hehe, couldn't we all use a little "happy squirrel" right now? lol

6 of Pentacles: today's cyber-Tarot

To make this into a proper Tarot blog, worthy of the Tarot webring, I propose to transcribe my notes on each card as it appears, from my own customised Tarot notes, ok? This will seem highly idiosyncratic to some, and diverge in many ways from the standard interpretations, but it will also represent the fruits of my long and very personal reflection on each card.

6 of Pentacles, or Discs, in my Tarot, represents a bottle of Nozinan sleeping pills, with 6 spilled out. I found that Nozinan could seem good for you, even it seemed, for Bjorn Erik at times, when he could not get enough sleep! When your circadian rhythm has gotten completely out of whack, and turned night into day, especially in the long, dark Scandinavian winter, or at the peak of their long, bright schizophrenic summer, do yourself a favor, and realize the importance of sleep for mental well-being: many do indeed become psychotic (if they did not show any signs already) merely by depriving themselves of dreams, or turning night artificially into day. And if your day seems one long psychotic dream/nightmare, even more so!! Six Nozinan a day can keep the shrink at bay, and the patients and staff happy, so "do yourself or someone else this favor", and give the gift of sleep, either to yourself or someone else. Of course, if you really mean to end it all, you may need something a lot stronger. Charity begins with yourself, but it seems also wise to let sleeping Dogs (and others) lie, for as long as they need to ;-))

A new and illustrated Tarot reading for Sebi and Aidan

The Relationship spread provides insight into the interaction between two people or entities. It is the spread of choice for questions about partnerships, in romance or business. The Cat People Tarot, a perfect tool for dreamers and idealists, also came up re me and B.E., see next post!
	The card at the top left represents how you see yourself. The Devil: who, or what, seems to run your life? A devil of a good question. It seems kind of hard to smoke your last cigarette down to its filter while wearing your theatrical gloves. Who, or what, seems running your life may not represent so much a physical addiction (though most of us have plenty of those, unless we represent the unsufferably "righteous"!), as your compulsive thoughts of self, thoughts that run on autopilot, as mechanically as memorised lines in a script, a stand-up comedian's spiel, the greasepainted persona and daggy hat he presents to the world, equates to your own persona/ego hiding, or revealing your true self? The eyebrows we can paint on can seem so much more attractive than those with which nature provided us. It seems up to you: nature or art? The choice, as always, remains yours. The devil does not always come disguised as an angel of light, but sometimes a shambling, daggy, wise-cracking clown, wise guy rather than wise man, the glowing tip of his cigarette representing his long descent from the son of thunder on high; a fallen angel, after all, remains still an angel, not descended, like the rest of us, from apes!
	The card at the top right represents how you see your partner. The World: Gaia: Who appears, seemingly in the firing line of the planets lined up for, or against, her, like giant billiard balls in a game of planetary snooker, Jupiter directing the eye of his giant "red spot" upon her, benevolently/malevolently, Saturn and all the rest not far behind. This pristine blue smoky marble of a planet without borders, hung like an icon on the black velvet backdrop of the 3rd millenium iconostasis? Within her crust and mantle, her old sea-beds and molten lava core, Gaia (pron. "Gee-a") seems the oldest divinity of all, wreathed in ancient Mayan smiles, and laughing all the way to god knows where, her final destination in the uncharted waters of space, through which she makes her way as gracefully as any turtle. She won't get there tomorrow, maybe, but get there she will (remember the fable of the hare and the tortoise).
	The card in the center left represents how you feel about your partner. King of Pentacles: "Grounded shaman", fire of earth, very appropriate for a sidereal Leo/Virgo combo, a royal person as your true self. His grounding cord plunges deep into the crystal core of Gaia herself (see above), grounding and centering him. His recommended spiritual practice amounts to performing the Qabalistic Middle Pillar ritual on a regular, daily basis, to receive the white light in at the crown of the head, the lavendar at his throat, the yellow at his heart, purple around his loins, and to see the black earth as a small sphere beneath his feet... ADONAI HA ARETZ! LORD OF THE EARTH! (his true mantra). He should take refuge in visualizing pyramid power around him daily, and know that the kundalini fire cannot burn you, if you properly "earth" yourself ;-))
	The card in the center right represents what stands between you and your partner. Sword Queen: Athena, water of air. Half goddess, with short curly hair and executive glasses, half owl, she stalks the astral in this preferred shape when shifted. She gathers together the 144,000 members of your soul-group as a gathering of the clans, and innumerable spirit-friends and familiars. As her, native Greeks find it especially easy to spot me on the internet! I now wear her reading glasses, as a mature woman suffering from mild presbyopeia. Glasses also suit my daytime persona of a mild-mannered Ms Clark Kent, when it rarely seems necessary to dive into a phone box and emerge as a full-blown Superwoman! By daytime, I can also appear to have a classical statue's cold, unseeing eyes, but by night beware the large orbs of the "Little Night Eagle"! Death to Arachne and any other spider upstarts; long live Queen Athena!
	The card in the lower left represents how your partner sees you. Ten of Pentacles/disk ten: leprechaun's gold, fool's gold, that pot of money you've saved for a rainy day, and/or your old age: when you really do get old, you can't enjoy it any more, life seems so boring then, and you certainly can't take it with you when you die! So "eat, drink, and be merry", carpe diem, for tomorrow we may die; indeed, the apocalypse might lurk just around the corner! Save it all up till later, and eventually you find yourself with a big, fat zero: no time left to enjoy it, and time seems all we truly have. So look well to the present, enjoy it as much as you can, within your means, of course, for "sufficient unto the day is the evil (and good) thereof". You can find Kether in Malkuth, and Malkuth in Kether: in emptiness you find fullness, and in fullness you find emptiness, such seems the essential nature of samsara, which can also equate to nirvana.
	The card in the lower right represents what your partner feels about you. King of Swords: fire of air. Sometimes he seems just a silly little white chess piece, my masculine other half, sometimes he makes no sense at all, to the rational mind of consensual reality. He can say the most irrational things with a great and solemn air of rationality. Yet there seems method in his madness, he speaks with a tongue of forked lightning from the Tree of Knowledge. His phallic sword seems a withered vestige of its former stiff and splendidly erect self, his little feet (hardly bigger than mine) pigeon-toed in their scuffed and worn comfy slippers. He does not speak as from the heart, sometimes he does not even look at you; sometimes he seems to speak at, or through, you; cognitive psychology would call this poor communication. And yet he channels in order to reflect, as a mirror, this love of mine who lives like the fool of the greater arcana on the hill, inspiring me to get my life in order for the great departures from this common realm of sense and sensibility/accountability; he seals the matrix of endlessness with the resonant tone of attunement as he lays down the levitical law, also a divine right of kings. The power of his mind continues to guide me, inspiring me to lay down my life like a slave at his feet, in the hopes of one fine and fateful day, when he will turn and pat me on the head, saying, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant; enter into my kingdom."
	The card in the center represents the present status or challenge of the relationship. Death: the Morrigan. I do not understand this title, although the Celtic death goddesses must have meant something to me once. I do not know what "death" means, although according to my galactic signature, its power guides me! The gold of the chalice represents the light of the sun, and they have adorned this one richly with the snakes of life-force, survival, (re)generation, healing, enlightenment, cosmic consciousness in the bardo where No Thing exists. Have no fear. All that dies seems what the now empty skull contained. The soul, the stuff of psychology, also dies, and the blank darkness reveals nothing of the final mystery. Mysticism indeed, Harpocrates! Only energy continues, if anything. "Awake, awake, you who have drunk from the Lord's hand the cup of his wrath. The chalice of stupor you have drained to the dregs. She has no one to guide her, of all the sons she has borne. Listen then to this, prostrated one, drunk though not with wine. See, I take out of your hand the cup of stupor, the chalice of my wrath; you shall drink it no longer. I will put it into the hands of your tormentors" (Isaiah 51). "If you aren't staring Death square in the eyes, you aren't doing it right." (from Vius' Tarot journal in webring below)...also reminds me of B.E. saying he had managed to stare directly at the sun, and death! ;-P

Mercury retrograde info, for those that need it

http://www.astrologycom.com/mercret.html

As you can see from the above link, Mercury does not find itself retrograde at the moment! ;-))

Tarot reflection on the meaning of Two of Cups for me today:

The Hagall spread is a tool for revealing the path of spiritual growth in difficult situations. The Cat People Tarot, a perfect tool for dreamers and idealists.
	The card in the middle of the circle represents the core or central issue of the situation. King of Swords: fire of air. Sometimes he seems just a silly little white chess piece, my masculine other half, sometimes he makes no sense at all, to the rational mind of consensual reality. He can say the most irrational things with a great and solemn air of rationality. Yet there seems method in his madness, he speaks with a tongue of forked lightning from the Tree of Knowledge. His phallic sword seems a withered vestige of its former stiff and splendidly erect self, his little feet (hardly bigger than mine) pigeon-toed in their scuffed and worn comfy slippers. He does not speak as from the heart, sometimes he does not even look at you; sometimes he seems to speak at, or through, you; cognitive psychology would call this poor communication. And yet he channels in order to reflect, as a mirror, this love of mine who lives like the fool of the greater arcana on the hill, inspiring me to get my life in order for the great departures from this common realm of sense and sensibility/accountability; he seals the matrix of endlessness with the resonant tone of attunement as he lays down the levitical law, also a divine right of kings. The power of his mind continues to guide me, inspiring me to lay down my life like a slave at his feet, in the hopes of one fine and fateful day, when he will turn and pat me on the head, saying, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant; enter into my kingdom." B.E. ...also a sidereal Libran, like Sebi above!
	The card at the bottom of the circle represents something you did to bring the situation about. Ace of Wands: grandmother tigress. "Tiger, tiger, burning bright / in the forests of the night / What immortal hand or eye /Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?" + "The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction" (William Blake). I dared to speak out with the prophetically inspired voice of wrath, drunk on Blake and the love that led me to Norway. My Dragon-breath shattered the complacency of those who thought I had everything here, when really I felt I had as good as nothing. Let them hear the word of the Kether of fire, even if they have ears, but do not hear. I spoke out, and stepped out, and roared into the skies. Wisdom of the heart, as opposed to mere indoctrinated orthodoxy, seemed on my side! And as I channelled this energy, I felt a power-surge of energy in return, and the "new life" really did begin in Norway, with my beloved (Mike Scott song) ;-))
	The card at the bottom left of the circle represents your beliefs, impressions, or expectations. King of Pentacles: "Grounded shaman", fire of earth, a royal person as my true self (androgynous silhouette in my Tarot, so it can represent a male or female). My grounding cord plunges deep into the crystal core of Gaia herself (see above), grounding and centering me. My recommended spiritual practice amounts to performing the Qabalistic Middle Pillar ritual on a regular, daily basis, to receive the white light in at the crown of the head, the lavendar at my throat, the yellow at my heart, purple around my loins, and to see the black earth as a small sphere beneath my feet... ADONAI HA ARETZ! LORD OF THE EARTH! (my true mantra). I should take refuge in visualizing pyramid power around me daily, and I do know, with perfect gnosis, that the kundalini fire cannot burn me, if I properly "earth" myself ;-))
	The card at the bottom right of the circle represents the most likely outcome of the situation given present circumstances. Ace of Cups: Holy Grail, Kether of water - when my angel cup and his star (Leunig) cup meet in the form of one beautiful spider goblet/chalice (given me by my son one Christmas, and truly my most treasured possession) of interconnected, synchronistic, fated relationship, then truly both our cups, our one and only cup, run over; the 2 have become 1, without which you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven, according to the gospel of Thomas. Such a completeness of emotional satisfaction and joy, knowing you have found the missing puzzle-piece that makes sense of it all! It helped that I supplied his cup, and he mine! The beautiful music you then make together equals the music of the spheres, in harmony for once! Note: this leaves very little room for physical sex, one way or the other: the pearl of great price comes at a price!
	The card at the upper left of the circle represents the spiritual history of the situation the things you've learned. Three of Wands (Virtue): beginning of gnosis, or spiritual insight, like a growing spark in the dark night! And it continues to grow and expand, from the tiny solar-charged seed that you planted in the darkness. And it continues to sprout and expand, my beloved, and it does not help to continually drag the plant up by the roots to see how it grows! Send a letter, email or card to someone who may need the upliftment, and inspiration.
	The card at the top of the circle represents the spiritual tasks and challenges of the present situation. Nine of Pentacles (Gain): I can't believe how well I feel, in the pink of peak physical condition. Not an ache, not a twinge in any of my bones. Could I have become pregnant, I wonder? I feel as blooming and radiant as I did when pregnant. I feel fully reconciled with my physical body. I am a material girl, living in a material world, and it feels like heaven on earth! Or shall I give birth to a new me, a new goddess, I wonder? If I felt any better, I could represent a danger! If I equated to B.E, I would think the "sex operation" successful at last. Could this represent a foretaste of my afterlife in the "material heaven" he speaks of? How good it seems to walk lightly on Changing Mother, with a spring in my step, a twinkle in my eye and a dimple in my cheek. Smile - it makes them wonder where you come from! If I ate any healthier, I would live longer than a tortoise, perhaps as long as Gaia herself.
	The card at the upper right of the circle represents the metamorphosis of the spiritual situation, and how your knowledge will evolve. Four of Wands (Completion): the new you - reborn as a new child from the cremated mummy of the old, Osiris slain and risen. Mummified child as womb of the emerging new one, womb as mummy. What immortal mirror-eye dare reflect thy fearful symmetry?
	The card at the left of the lower line represents the person or qualities that will sustain your spiritual journey. Queen of Cups: mermaid - water of water - I look quite youthful for a mature woman, or so they tell me. Here I find myself in my native element, and everything goes just swimmingly! I haven't had to give up my fish tail to walk, and dance, as on daggers on dry ground, in the foreign elements of air and earth. I feel untouched by pain and tragedy when I dive deep. My best friends seem the dolphins (earth's 2nd most intelligent species, after us), who also hold the secret of ch'i, breath, and how to hold it for up to 1/2 an hour at a time; they have also saved my life in a moment of shamanistic spiritual emergency, by reminding me to breathe! They also laugh and play and communicate with each other all the time, and perhaps the mermaid telepathically with them? You can establish some sort of telepathic link with such species through guided visualization/meditation. And remember not only to breathe, through your pain and crises, but also, like those angels called dolphins, to see life as a game!
	The card in the middle of the lower line represents the qualities that you express in this circumstance. The Star: epiphany. Journeying Magi, why do you gaze up at the heavens? The planets trace hexagrams and pentagrams, the earth seems no desert, but a lush, lovely oasis/garden/paradise. And yet we keep following this one star, to learn one-pointedness, the pearl of great price? We feel so disillusioned with this life that has torn us apart that we must expect better things, and our reunion, in an afterlife, or next life. Did we come all this way for a birth or a death? (T. S. Eliot). The jewelled treasure-caskets we carry contain all the precious wisdom of the heavens, making each and every one of us a king (gold), a god/dess (frankincense) and a murdered prophet (myrrh). Hint: I wonder if this star we see in the east equates to the archangel Raphael himself, and Mercury in Sagittarius?
	The card at the right of the lower line represents the person or qualities that will reveal spiritual knowledge. Five of Swords (Defeat): A man rests upon his sword. His conquest, symbolized by the metal discs on his sleeves, have not been easy. His massive helmet is a burden as well as a protection and the cat head on his collar registers more fierceness than he feels. He does not exalt his conquests or celebrate them. He knows that his subjects or victims, represented by the two panthers, can rise up against him at anytime. The panthers seem tame for now. The frieze of swords in the background suggest the bars of a prison... ...which very much reflects B.E.' s feeling of imprisonment. The panthers = his parents? ;-P Sword five - Bloodshot eyes, weary, drunk, tired, hungover, wrathful? What has angered this warrior so? All your chainmail, armour and defences have not protected you from wounds and scars, but only proved burdensome. Ah, what "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" we suffer; we have every right to go around permanently pissed-off; the whole world has become our enemy, so all we want to do seems to stalk off in a huff of wounded pride, as the bloodied dust settles on the gore... Thunderous explosions, lightning-flashes, convulsions, seizures in the brain... even murderous headaches. Seeing red through bloodshot eyes. What a bastard! Woe to those who let the sun go down on their wrath, and a pox on the whole poxy shebang! ;-P

Dream of the 'magical' night

Dear Claire,

From midnight
Wednesday, September 14, 2005 onwards,
you will know a tide of good fortune.

This river of luck will stay with you
over the next three months…

At midnight exactly, a "magical" event will take place in your life…

Difficult relationship situations will find resolution!

The first manifestations of this period of intense luck have just started.

I am struck by one thing. You are among the people I consider sensitive to "invisible forces". Your unconscious is as if on the same "wavelength" as the energies around you!

It is my opinion that you, Claire, are a medium, and quite a powerful one, but that you are unaware of this.

I am not quite sure how to put this, but I sense that you have an inner suffering. Your sensitive nature did not cope well with the pain that some people made you suffer.

You are a person with a pure heart and I know how difficult it must be for you to bear the incomprehension of others and their mocking attitude at your goodness. (Apparently, I also amount to a "Supra-Celestial", not under the control of natal-astrological destiny or karma; therefore, why should I need her scam-bag of tricks? lol)

I know that your characteristic modesty, Claire prevents you from saying so. You will go to bed as usual and will not need to stay awake until midnight. However, on that special night, you will have wonderful and marvellous dreams…

...I did go to bed as usual, and in my dream, it seemed I had a teaching job again, and Josh had to commute with me, as still a boy; we had to commute every day, a very long way, by train to Werribee. He desperately wanted to go to some school camp in August, and I told him, that, even though we could afford it, he would not get any pocket money until then, as he needed to learn the lesson that you cannot have everything in this life... He looked crestfallen but had to accept. I and another teacher also seemed 'soiled' starting out on this my first day... I woke this morning feeling that I had come back indeed from a very long journey... ;-))

By the way, according to breaking news from the so-called "family" front, I have apparently become great-aunt to a little Krishna (henceforth known as Kris with a K), but why should I care, when last time my beloved niece and fairy god-daughter Cassandra found herself in Melbourne with her Balinese husband, she did not even bother to return my calls, let alone make arrangements to meet up? And why does my so-called "mommie dearest" insist on sending me an olivewood cross from Bethlehem? That made me more angry than anything. I do not insist on sending her pentacles... I ended up giving the cross to John, saying that even if it amounted to a curse for me, it might represent a blessing to him ;-P

Stand up for your rights, Australia!

From "The Weekend Australian", September 10, 2005

BACK in the early '90s, the federal government asked me to chair one of its
smallest agencies - the National Australia Day Council. Our brief was much
bigger than our budget - to encourage Australians to explore and celebrate
national identity. At the time, Australia Day was a bit daggy - lots of
re-enactments of Arthur Phillip setting foot on shore. To blackfellas, it was
not a day to celebrate. To most, it was just the last weekend before the end of
the summer holidays.

We decided to make the day about the future rather than the past - to talk about
core values and the sort of country we could become. Reconciliation was high on
the agenda - supported by both sides of parliament. With Mandawuy Yunupingu my
board's first Australian of the Year, we had hundreds of public meetings across
the country.

And at every meeting there was a clear consensus: Australia was about "a fair
go". The fair go was the article of faith. Sadly, it's becoming a mythical
creature, hiding in a billabong somewhere with the bunyips.

The "fair go" issue came alive at the time of the Tampa when 10,000 readers
backed me in establishing A Just Australia. And we've just gone through a
five-year struggle to get kids out of detention, to stop housing thousands in
detention camps in Nauru, Woomera, Manus Island, Christmas Island, Curtin and
Port Hedland. Our government is still "processing" the people who fled terror
regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan as their "temporary" refugee status is reviewed,
four years after the last of them arrived by boat.

Finally, A Just Australia has got some promises of solutions for long-term
detainees. We've seen children moved out of the detention centres and have built
up a coalition of forces to break the bipartisanship of support for bad policy.
We've seen the campaign broaden from just the left and the churches, creating
divisions in the government to achieve change. But there's no guarantee that if
another group of asylum-seekers headed our way, we wouldn't do it all again.

Where was the "fair go" in all of this? What practical difference did it make
that Australia was a signatory to all the major human rights treaties? That it
even chaired the UN Commission on Human Rights during this time? Where was the
protection of the courts for the most vulnerable people in Australia?

The fair go, it turned out, wasn't guaranteed by the High Court. As Justice
McHugh said, "It's not for courts, exercising federal jurisdiction, to determine
whether the course taken by Parliament is unjust or contrary to basic human
rights."

Our kids get the idea of rights from watching American TV. It takes a while for
them to realise that they don't have constitutional rights in Australia. The
Bill of Rights is there for Americans - and for Canadians there's a Charter of
Rights and Freedoms. Britain joins with the rest of Europe in the European
Convention on Human Rights.

All these countries have healthy parliamentary democracies and courts, but
they've decided there will still be a set of standards that their governments
must maintain - and a process of complaint and review when the governments
breach those standards.

We don't have these protections. And we've seen the results. Attempts to bring
even a limited bill of rights through a referendum were defeated, with the main
argument being "the courts will protect". There are a few Australians, such as
Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez, who would dispute this - and thousands of new
Australians who've had grim experiences of our human rights protections when
they've arrived.

Yes, we've got a Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. It was a body
born of compromise and is now neglected and ignored. Our government still goes
through the motions in reporting to UN treaty bodies on our observance of key
international instruments, but dismisses any criticism.

And we've got new challenges - a government that can't even tell the truth about
the connection between our involvement in Iraq and the prospect of terror
attacks is asking us to trust them with new "anti-terror" laws. And the
industrial relations "reform" may well leave millions of Australians unprotected
and vulnerable.

We need a stronger voice for human rights now - and I'm asking for your help
again. Building on the experience of A Just Australia, under the leadership of
my friend Howard Glenn, who led AJA, we've created a new organisation: Rights
Australia.

We've established an office in Sydney and a website, and around 1500 people have
already expressed their interest and support. I'd like you to sign up, and to
help. Visit www.rightsaustralia.org.au for information or to make credit card
donations. Or write to me at Elmswood, Gundy, NSW 2337.

Phillip Adams AO

http://www.rightsaustralia.org.au

Newton, Dark Heretic 

I wish I could post a transcript (I have requested one, and still await it, to share with you), of the fascinating documentary on Newton: the Dark Heretic (ABC TV, Compass, tonight).

It seems the whole Western tradition, including William Blake and, yes, even the What the Bleep Study Guide (p.17), has done him a grave disservice in presenting him as an arch-representative of the "world as machine" paradigm. He did have every respect for this, having learnt it early from the more truly Rationalist Rene Descartes, but recoiled, as a devout and even fundamentalist Protestant Puritan, from its implications that God had abandoned the world after the creation, leaving it to run on its own, like "clockwork". His whole life and work seems a quest for "God's secrets", i.e. how an omnipresent Creator in fact continues to sustain everything, and has made it possible for our best minds to search "Him" out in a highly elaborate game of "hide and seek".

Besides his more wellknown scientific findings, this led him into the then highly illegal and dangerous practice of alchemy (they hung alchemists from golden gallows, or covered them in tinsel as they hung, as "fake gold"). A contemporary scientist has replicated some of his alchemical experiments,with the astonishing result of coming up with "the net", a purple alloy, supposed precursor to the Philosopher's Stone, so-called because of the net-like striations on its surface.

Unfortunately, like all of us, Newton also seems "human, all too human" (with apologies to Nietzsche). "Sir Isaac Newton (1643 – 1727) was the great English mathematician and physicist. This program pieces together the true Isaac Newton – father of modern science, heretic, mystic, obsessive, and emotionally stunted megalomaniac – it is a fascinating journey into the dark borderline between genius and madness.

"Newton: The Dark Heretic

"Sunday 10.20pm
Delve into a frighteningly brilliant but deeply troubled mind...This documentary reveals a very different Isaac Newton from that of popular myth - a much more fascinating and complex man than the powder-wigged puritan of the history books."

He finally revealed his alchemical passion to friends on his deathbed, and refused to take the Christian sacrament. Here it seems we find the "world as lover" paradigm (with which the Study Guide associated Blake and the Kabbalah, among others) deeply disguised, for most of his years, as "world as machine". Actually he sought to DISPROVE the mechanistic world-view of Descartes, whom we can see as more truly representing the "world as machine" paradigm, along with Locke, whom Newton also despised, especially in the darkest hours of his breakdown from sheer overwork and obsessive reclusiveness.

With his unflagging fundamentalist/literalist mind, he also delved deeply into the supposed "Bible codes" he believed to underlie the Bible, and came up with his own date for the end of our "world of corruption", in our century, 2060. Makes you think, doesn't it? Or does it? ;-))

And just for fun, discover your inner scientist http://www.abc.net.au/science/explore/einstein/quiz2/ (Mine seems Einstein, yes, he of the odd socks, etc!) lol

21st century Tardis

St Enoch Square, Glasgow (courtesy Scottish Snippets, and Ken)

In the absence of Craig from the blogsophere...

...someone has to keep up the weird music trivia. Turn up your speakers and enjoy! ;-))

http://www.beecy.net/frank/

And now that footy season seems over for some of us, you've got to laugh (or it hurts!) lol

Mick Malthouse goes to a reunion at Richmond and starts chatting with Terry Wallace.Terry says to Mick, "Well Mick, I don't know what you think of your players at Collingwood, but mine here are all bright and brilliant." "How do you know?" asks Mick. "Oh well, its simple", says Terry. "We now put them through a special intelligence test before they can play here. Just pick any of my players and we will see how well he does."

Mick thinks for a while and then nominates Matthew Richardson. Terry calls him over and asks him, "Tell me Matty, who is the child of your father and of your mother who is not your brother and is not your sister?" "Ah, that's simple Terry", says Matthew. "Its me." "Well done Matty" says Terry.

Mick is very impressed. Mick returns to Collingwood and wonders about the intelligence of his own team.

He calls in Buckley and asks, "Nathan tell me, who is the child of your father and of your mother who is not your brother and is not your sister?"

Nathan thinks and thinks and doesn't know the answer. "Can I think about it a bit more Mick, and I'll give you an answer tomorrow?" "Of course" says Mick.

"You've got 24 hours. But it is very important that you come up with the answer."

Nathan goes away, thinks as hard as he can, and then he calls in his team mates. Rocca thought it might be his grandpa, but wasn't sure. Tarrant was certain that it couldn't be any one. McKee admitted he was sacked from Richmond for not knowing. Cloke also owned up to failing the test while trying to get a position at Punt Rd. Prestigiacomo thought it would be an uncle in Italy who had been adopted as a child. Licuria went into the foetal position.

The rest of the team wouldn't even hazard a guess. 20 hours later, Nathan is very worried that he still has no answer with only 4 hours to go.

Eventually Nathan says, "I know, I'll ring James Hird. He's bloody smart, he will know the answer."

He calls James. "James" he says, "Tell me who is the child of your father and of your mother who is not your brother and is not your sister?"

"Very simple" says James, "it's me!"

"Of course!" says Nathan, and rings Mick. "Mick" says Nathan, "I've got the answer - it's James Hird."

"No it's not you idiot" says Mick. "It's Matthew Richardson.

Tarot reading for Sebi and Tony

In the absence of my cyber-Tarot today (*grr!*), I have decided to carry out this promise to Sebi and Tony instead, using my beloved Voodoo Tarot of New Orleans! The card at the top left represents how you see yourself. La Baleine (Four of Cups): Being surrounded by love and devotion but taking it for granted. Ignoring the real and longing for the indefinable. Apathy and emotional disengagement from the world. Dissatisfaction with the condition and direction of affairs, but the inability to accept new opportunities. Inexplicable spleen, or dissatisfaction.
	The card at the top right represents how you see your partner. Ancestors (Judgment): A swift and conclusive decision. The resolution of a matter long unanswered. A change in point of view, most frequently towards greater enlightenment. Final balancing of karma.
	The card in the center left represents how you feel about your partner. Ogoun Ferraille (Five of Swords): A success earned through personal degradation. Separation from friends brought about by an unfeeling and coldly calculated act. Temporary victory tainted by dishonor and providing fuel for eventual defeat.... the original "what a bastard!" card. ;-P
	The card in the center right represents what stands between you and your partner. Marassa (The Lovers): A caring and trusting relationship. Beauty and inner harmony. A decision calling for emotional control and faithfulness to spiritual values.... What could seem better, in a relationship spread? (more in accord with Sebi's own reading) ;-))
	The card in the lower left represents how your partner sees you. Yemaya (Nine of Discs): Good luck attending material affairs. Attaining refinement and embracing elegance. Discipline and nobility applied to the maintenance of security and stability. The wise use of resources and foresight. The fulfillment that comes with accomplishment, and the turning of attention to higher things, but there does seem a seriously materialistic side to this relationship; good for physical health and well-being, but ;-))
	The card in the lower right represents what your partner feels about you. Secret Societies (Justice): The achievement of balance and inner harmony after a great trial. Agreements, contracts, or treaties concluded justly. Things set to rights. Karma restored. A turn for the better in legal matters. Legal matters satisfactorily resolved (Hank?).
	The card in the center represents the present status or challenge of the relationship. Guedeh (Three of Swords): Unsettling news leading to heartbreak or loneliness. Tactless or hurtful words. Acting without consideration for the emotions of others. Betrayal of trust or confidence. The revelation of a painful truth. Sebi, call your mum....She could have some worries about you!