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For this Tarot Blog Hop our fearless Wrangler Arwen said, “Timing is a big thing in divination. There are many thoughts around how to do it as well as opinions on whether or not to do timing. So this solstice, I am challenging you to tackle timing. ” She gave us a couple of options for our blog and I chose Door Number 3 which was “Discuss what cards mean a particular time for you. Like ”Are Cups an autumnal suit or a spring suit?”

Ass I was contemplating this blog post, the lyrics to the Terry Jack song Seasons in the Sun kept running through my head so I knew that I was going to have to write about the Seasons of the Sun and which tarot cards corresponded to each season. My answer came when I chose to write about the Sibyl of Swords from the World Spirit Tarot and I realized that she personified winter. Once she had leaped out as winter, I shuffled through the deck to find the other Sibyls (Queens) and realized that each of them clearly personified a season for me.

Queen of Summer

The Sibyl of Wands has her face turned up toward the sun and her throne is decorated with sunflowers which means she is clearly the queen of summer.  According to the World Spirit Tarot Guidebook by Jessica Godino and Lauren O’Leary, the Sibyl of Wands is “Deeply loyal and protective of her loved ones, she radiates a warmth and consistency that can be relied upon.”  The Queen of Summer is generous and wants those she loves to have the best.  She speaks to me of summer because summer is a time when we shed our winter armor and let our guard down, we play at the beach, and we truly make time for fun.  This is a lesson I needed to hear today because I’m often the person who keeps her shields up all year long and it is tiring to constantly keep people at arm’s length.  I need to let my guard down and enjoy the warmth and playfulness of summer.

Queen of Fall

Surrounded by the fertility of the harvest, the Sibyl of Pentacles is the queen of the fall.  She is the
one that nurtures the earth and reminds us all to take care of the earth, ourselves, and one another.  Godino and O’Leary say, “The Sibyl of Pentacles loves her body, the earth, and life itself.  She moves in communion with the world around her, in harmony with nature’s rhythm.”  She takes pleasure in the ordinary and she understands the cycles of nature and that there is a time to be born and a time to die.  The lesson of the Sibyl of Pentacles is to listen to the music of our heart to find our own rhythm.  If we listen to our own rhythm and rest when we are tired and dance when we’re energized, we will move through life smoothly and easily.  We stumble and fall when we get caught up in trying to dance to tunes that don’t speak to our hearts.

Queen of Winter

The Sibyl of Swords surveys the icy landscape with her bird of prey by her side.  She has complete visibility and the raptors that fly with her are a reminder to get an eagle’s eye view of situations and not let ourselves be buried by minutia.  Godino and O’Leary say she “flies in on the winds of change, her sword ready to cut away untruths.”  She serves as a reminder that we grow through loss and pain and that we are stronger than we know.  Although she has chosen to isolate herself and user her sword to keep everyone at bay, the winter can be a cold and lonely place and if we choose to shut our hearts off to love and rely purely on logic, we might be cold and lonely as well.

Queen of Spring

The Sibyl of Cups is a warm and welcoming mermaid surrounded by the creatures of the sea.  She holds a shell in her lap and we are left to wonder what she sees as she scrys.  According to Godino and O’Leary, “She has unlimited nurturance to give and she offers her love unconditionally.”  She loves without judging and if we can let go of our judgement of ourselves and others and let the Sibyl of Cups into our lives, we will be able to listen to our intuition and receive messages through dreams, songs, and other mediums.  She reminds us to open our hearts and to love unconditionally.  She is also a reminder that there is enough love to go around.

Welcome to the Beltane Blog Hop.  The topic for this Hop as provided by our intrepid wrangler Joy Vernon is Continuing Education.  She invited us to talk about classes we’re taking or recommending or what we’re doing to further our Tarot Education.  Unlike some of the topics where it takes me a while to get inspired to write, this one is easy as I further my knowledge of tarot by buying and using multiple tarot decks.  What I’ve found is that every deck’s creator puts their own spin on the cards and working with multiple decks helps me to learn more about the nuances of meanings in each of the cards. 

Once I realized that every deck spoke to me in different ways, I started to look for different ways to incorporate different decks into my practice.  I typically work with one deck for spreads and another for my daily draws.  I also work with different decks in different locations as I’ve found that some decks respond better in different geographical locations.  For instance, The Gaian Tarot  by Joanna Powell Colbert always talks to me when I visit California so I always take it along and make it a practice to pull a few cards at the beach or in the redwood forest. I didn’t realize when I first started taking the deck to California that Joanna had lived in the Santa Cruz area and many of the images are drawn from that area….but I digress and will need to write a separate blog post on that topic.

I’d like to share with you a couple of my experiences with a couple of different cards and how working with various decks helped me to gain a deeper understanding of the meaning of the cards.  I’ve also found that as I broaden my understanding of those cards, that deeper understanding applies no matter which deck I am working with.

Six of Pentacles

DruidCraft Tarot

The very first tarot deck I worked with was the DruidCraft Tarot by Phillip Carr-Grom and I hated the six of pentacles.  At the time, I was going through a messy divorce and this card made me feel as if the poor druid sitting in the tree was being asked to give more than he could truly afford.  The meaning of the card in the guidebook is similar to that of cards from other decks as Carr-Grom wrote the card was about receiving and giving.  It could mean being the benefactor of someone else’s generosity or sharing what was had with others.  He said that there was a sense of balance and fairness in this card.  However, the image did not portray fairness to me at all and I learned to dread what was next every time the six of pentacles came up as it felt I would be asked to give more than I could afford either physically or emotionally.

RWS

The next deck I started working with was a more traditional RWS Clone and the person doing the giving was depicted as a wealthy merchant who was carefully balancing who he gave the coins to.  He did not have to enough to give to everyone, so he had to carefully mete them out to make sure that only people who were worthy received his largess.  Although I liked this image better than the image of the poor druid on the mountain, this one still made me uncomfortable as it felt like I was either judging people or being judged.  The traditional meaning of this card, according to the RWS guidebook is all about charity with justice, fair distribution of wealth, and generosity.

Gaian Tarot

It wasn’t until I started working with the Gaian Tarot that I began to see this card as being part of a cycle of giving and receiving.  In this card, there is an abundance of produce and some people are selling it and some people are receiving it, but this image tells me that everyone is equal and no one is being made to feel as if they have to convince someone of their worthiness to receive assistance.  The guidebook says, “You are part of the cycle of giving and receiving.”  She adds, “Your generosity and support of others circles back to you and increases your own prosperity and health.”  This was a meaning that resonated with me and made me look forward to having a “Six of Pentacles Day” instead of dreading it.

Four of Pentacles

While I disliked the Six of Pentacles from the DruidCraft on site, I didn’t have a strong reaction one way or another to the Four of Pentacles.  To me the image and the meaning spoke of building wealth and being responsible.  I saw the person in the image taking care to safeguard what he had.  The guidebook said the card could refer to building wealth and using money wisely.  There was a caution about not becoming preoccupied with wealth and using hoarding to protect yourself from inner loss, but the image did not give me a visceral reaction of hoarding.  Interestingly enough, I equated this card with hoarding my emotional resources and not physical resources.  When I pulled this card, it felt as if I was being reminded to guard my emotional resources closely.

The visceral reaction to hoarding came when I saw the Four of Pentacles from the Everyday Witch Tarot where a man is sitting on a trunk and looking around suspiciously as if someone is going to come in and take his wealth from him at any moment.  The guidebook said, “Fear of not having enough may be more harmful than the lack itself.”  This meaning resonated with me as I have seen in my own life how fear is so much more destructive than negative situations.  What was interesting to me was that both the image from the DruidCraft and the Everyday Witch show a man with a trunk, the way they are portrayed conveys vastly different messages.

Dark Goddess Tarot

Interesting enough when I went looking for a third deck to round out my trio of meanings for the Four of Pentacles, I chose the Dark Goddess Tarot and the Spinx adorns Ellen Lorenzi-Prince’s version of the Four of Earth and the guidebook said, “Definitions work two ways, helping you understand reality and separating your perception from reality.”  It went on to say, “Find your own reality, the only position you must defend, and find the center of your power.”  In typical tarot fashion, the cards basically told me to look within my heart for the meaning of the cards.

If you’d like to get some more continuing tarot education, hop back to Arwen’s Blog, hop ahead to visit Katalin’s Blog, or click on Master to visit the Master List.

Growing up we were a meat and potatoes kind of family with little experimentation in the kitchen. Once I got out on my own, started traveling the World, and watching the Food Network, I realized there was more to life than meat and potatoes and started exploring with the tastes of many nations. I’m still fairly conservative around food, but I am getting more adventuresome and will go for sushi on my own and absolutely love ceviche.

One of the dishes I’ve discovered is Jambalaya. The mixture of meats, spices, and vegetables is tantalizing. I’d never eaten jambalaya in a restaurant, but I’d heard about it and wanted to try it so when I found a Rachael Ray 3o minute or less recipe, I ventured onto the wild side and gave it a whirl.

My son and I fell in love with Jambalaya over that very first pot (Cam loves the taste, but as a vegetarian, I have to make her veggie only jambalaya). Over time, my recipe has evolved a little from Rachael’s into it’s own dish.  Here is Cam’s Own  pescetarian jambalaya

Cam’s Pescetarian Jambalaya

2 cups cooked white rice
2 tbs butter
2 tbs olive oil
10 oz of vegetarian Chicken (We use Gardein Teriyaki Chicken and don’t add the sauce)
4 links of vegetarian Chorizo or Andoullie cut into chunks (Andoullie is better, but it is hard to find)
1 small onion diced
2 stalks celery diced
1 green pepper diced
1 small yellow squash
1 zucchini
14 oz diced tomatoes in sauce
14 oz chicken or vegetable stock
2 to 3 tbs of flour (if needed)
6 oz (1/2 bag) of frozen okra (fresh works too, but frozen is easier to find)
1 lb shrimp (I use frozen cooked and take the tail off)
Salt to taste

Melt the butter along with the olive oil in a large pan (frying pan with a lid works best) on medium heat. Once the butter is melted, cook the onion, celery, and green pepper until they are soft.  Add the chicken, sausage, chunks, and squash.   Cook together for five to 10 minutes or so.

Stir in tomatoes, broth, and spices and cook about 4 more minutes. Add the shrimp and okra and cover. Let cook until the shrimp and okra is cooked (5 to 10 minutes).  Add the flour if it is too soupy.

Serve the jambalaya over white rice and enjoy a little bit of Louisiana bliss.

All right, get your dirty little minds out of the gutter. This is not about being wild and sexy, but it is about finding myself in the bedroom and learning to be true to myself.

When I got separated (2010) and divorced (2011), I was really desperate to find someone and to have love in my life. I’ve since realized that it wasn’t love I was after so much as validation that I was a worthy and worthwhile human being. I also decided that I was going to use every trick in the book to find love and that included feng shui. The feng shui rules include not having pictures of single people, making sure there is room for someone else’s stuff, and having pairs of things instead of singles.

I immediately set out to make sure I made my bedroom the perfect feng shui sanctuary. I found a gorgeous painting of a couple and put it facing my bed so it was the first thing I saw every morning, I made sure there was extra room in my closet and dresser, and I purchased the perfect pair of matching nightstands. And I thought constantly about how someone else would view my bedroom. Would they think it was too weird? Too funky?

And I was miserable! Seeing that gorgeous painting every day reminded me that I was alone. Seeing the empty space reminded me I was a lone. All of it reminded me I was alone and I started to get angry and depressed as I was constantly reminded that I was alone. It also is no fun to constantly think about what other people will think of you and how you decorate your bedroom.

However, my goddesses always take care of me and I found some beautiful art work of strong, amazing, and happy goddesses and women and I took down the couple painting and hung those instead. I hung hearts above my head and created a cool headboard affect with the doors from my grandmother’s pie safe. I started making my bedroom my own safe haven and I started feeling happier and happier. It’s awesome to wake up and be reminded that you are strong and independent.

Do I still want that special someone in my life? yes, but I’m not willing to sacrifice me to get there.

Her eyes watched me, never blinking, soulfully, sadly
I turned away, but when I turned back, she still watched
There was an intelligence there, a wonder, an oldness
I stepped toward her and in that instant
She reached out, she stole my heart
And now, she steals my covers, my food, and my heart over and over and over