In this video, I take you through a simple flip-through of the deck so you can experience them for yourself and decide whether they might be for you. This follows a tradition I had with my sisters. Every time we would get a new deck, we’d sit down together and one by one do a reveal. What a joy it was. I’m glad to share this tradition with you.
Category: Live
Tarot Revealed: The Haindl Tarot (my first deck)
In this video, I take you through a simple flip-through of the deck so you can experience them for yourself and decide whether they might be for you. This follows a tradition I had with my sisters. Every time we would get a new deck, we’d sit down together and one by one do a reveal. What a joy it was. I’m glad to share this tradition with you.
Cards for Creative Living: The Tarot ~ My Core Four
Maybe it’s simply that so many decks are wildly beautiful and speak to our imaginative souls. Maybe it’s because we creatives have a natural tendency to look for pattern, meaning and story, all of which tarot cards provide. The cards speak in an imaginative language of symbol, images and metaphor and the spreads provide a framework and underlying structure for exploration – familiar territory for the creative heart.
I’ve been fascinated by tarot cards since I was a teenager. I remember going with my sisters to The Omega Centre, the one and only store where you could buy tarot cards in Toronto. Bathed in the smell of incense, listening to the tinkling sound of chimes over gentle music playing, we gazed at the decks in the glass case behind lock and key. We pored over the binder that held pictures from each of the decks, trying to discern which of these beauties was for us.
Once we’d chosen, we’d take our treasures over to the Second Cup, a coffee shop just on the fringe of Yorkville, sit by the window and one by one reveal each card to one another. We learned their magic together.
One of my fondest tarot memories is the three of us lounging around my first apartment chatting through each of the cards. This was especially helpful with the court cards. We had a blast coming up with who we thought was the the Queen of Swords or the King of Pentacles. From that day forward I have always thought of the King of Cups as Ed Harris’s character Virgil in The Abyss.
Since those early days, the tarot has been a part of my life and my adventures! A few of my favourites are my sister Shannon and I flying to Cape Cod so that I could do tarot coaching at a creative event run by a blogging friend, working for a brief time at the National Psychic Hotline and years of sharing Osho Zen cards every day on Twitter. Today I’m sharing with you the four core decks that have been a part of that journey. Be sure to watch for my upcoming flip-throughs of each of these decks so you can see if any of them are meant for you.
What has your experience been like with the tarot?
Do you have favourite decks? I’d love to hear!
Showing Up & Falling In Love with Ourselves
I’m sharing a breakthrough that arrived this morning, a breakthrough that’s been on its way for a while. I’m tender about it. It’s new and vulnerable. Though really it is at least as old as I am.
I’m getting clear on my mission. It involves these beliefs:
- The arts belong to everybody
- The arts help us know ourselves and each other
- Falling in love with ourselves and each other is crucial to the survival and thrival of humanity and this planet
When watching this beautiful meditation, I was aware that as Virginia Fitton talks about the beauty of the world and our connectivity, there are no images of people. And I remembered when I asked the question over at Carrie and Danielle, “How do you fall in love with the world?” how mostly it never had anything to do with people, though sometimes children were involved. This breaks my heart.
I believe our lack of love for ourselves as humans is a bigger crisis than the economic one, a bigger crisis than the environmental one. More people are killed by each other every day than by environmental disasters. People are dying from neglect and lack of compassion. I am not saying we don’t make it hard to love one another. We surely do. So, how can we fall in love with one another? How do we fall in love with ourselves?
I think one of the answers is through art.
When I first studied Nia, I had no intention of teaching. I simply wanted to deepen my learning of the practice. One day, I volunteered to hand out flyers at a Nia demonstration. When the demo started, I walked amidst the women watching, and I could see the yearning. I literally saw women stop in their tracks, eyes glued to the stage. All these women wanted to dance. And in that moment I knew there had to be more teachers, and I could be one of them. So I started.
Years ago I read a novel where a young and inexperienced heroine was about to throw herself into a dangerous situation. Her friend said to her, “Why you? Why not get someone else? Someone stronger, more experienced?” And she replied, “Because I am the one who sees the need.”
And so, I may not be the strongest or the most experienced or the most talented (or I might be!), but I’ve got my share of each of those things and I see the need. I bring a toolkit full of love, creativity and courage, a heartfelt desire to make a difference and a belief that it can be done.
And just in case you need a little help falling in love with us, as people, perhaps something in here will touch your heart.