Ouija Witch Poster by Sagittarian Moon at Zazzle.com
Ouija Witch Poster from Zazzle.com.
Ouija Witch Design
Hello all! This is my latest creation for all you Ouija enthusists. This poster is currently available in the following sizes:
11″ x 11″
15″ x 15″
23″ x 23″
35″ x 35″
52″ x 52″
So just scoot over to my site at Zazzle and take a look!
Peace,
Anthony
My Designs available for Purchase on Zazzle
Peace,
Anthony
Love
- Three of Swords
I believe that one of the most asked about subjects when doing readings is Love. Typically regarding the romantic kind, love between two people with the hopes of having found a soul mate, someone that we will spend the rest of our days with at least in this lifetime.
Love.
Such a hugh thing for such as tiny little four letter word. Yes a four letter word! Well, I am not the type of person or reader who likes to sugar coat things, nor do I subscribe to the Disney version of life. It may not be pleasant and heavens knows I tremendously dislike being the one to occasionally have to point out that the “happy ever after” ending that we hope for, is anything but happy. Such is life. Love of course plays a huge rule in our pursuit of happiness. People love all kinds of things. They love money, they love careers, they love things, they love their mates, they love their families, they love themselves. Love, desire, attainment, owning, sometimes they are all part of the same thing. But what is love, or more so – what is love supposed to do for us? Is love really only about that happy ever ever ending, where we’ve attained our island of delight filled with contentment and security? Or is it is something more?
Love.
I’ve often said in readings to those who have been suffering at the hands of Love that to understand Love, we need to understand part of its purpose. Love in essence does two things and does them quite well. It teaches us sorrow and it teaches us compassion.
Sorrow through Loss.
The biggest dilemma is how we in Western society view happiness and suffering. One is to be strived for while the other is to be eradicated. One is perfection the other is anything but that. However, if one were to think closely upon all those times in which they can truly say they made their deepest levels of growth they would realize that it had its roots in times of pain and suffering. In our concern for understanding Love and its role in our lives we would have to rethink our fluffed up one sided version of why Love exists. We would need to acknowledge and accept Love’s dark side. It is very important to accept that Love and Happiness are not mutually exclusive! We can be in Love, but terribly unhappy or happy but not in Love. Fancy that!
If we want to truly accept that we are all in a process of spiritual growth and evolution or simply a period psychological growth then we have to consider that the pain that Love can cause is an aspect of Love from which we gain the most. That is not to say that Love is always a horrible, terrible, no good, thing and should be avoided at all costs! No quite the contrary! The essence of Love is like all things in the world – we must learn to accept all things that come to us, not simply the nice pleasant things – but all things. Life is hard despite all our efforts to deny it. We would be wasting our energy by putting all our efforts into creating artificial means to make it less so. We will never eradicate pain and suffering from life. To do so (if possible) would make Love and happiness quite meaningless. We love because on some fundamental level we know that we are imperfect and incomplete. We seek to rectify that and it is in this search that seek out things that fulfill our meaning of Love for us. A person, a thing, a place, it can be any aspect of living by which we do this. We may say that we “deserve” to have Love in our lives – and perhaps we do. However, we need also to acknowledge that if we deserve to have Love in our lives, than we must accept that we deserve the pain that may come from it when it eludes or leaves us. The gift at the depths of the abyss of pain that Love can leave us in, is where we will find our strengths, wisdom and evolution. It isn’t automatic. It isn’t guaranteed. It depends on our attitudes and approaches to how we work through unfortunately situations that this happen. It can be a mine field. That is why we have each other. To help each other through these mine fields. This is one aspect of reading for others.
In essence when we speak of Love we are also simultaneously speaking of Life. Life is about cycles and so is Love. Love has its spark, it’s growth and its all flaming consumption. Then it wanes, diminishes, withers and dies. Love is the cycle of Life and Life is the cycle of Love. Love, like Life is always reborn in some manner, and always manifests in ways that are unexpected and vastly different from what we knew it before. We often chase after Love, based on preconceived notions of what we believe it needs to be, rather than allowing Love to manifest in the way it needs to be. Doing so creates unnecessary pain. It also prevents us from recognizing true opportunities of Love, because we fail to recognize or accept a manifestation in any other way than one we are willing to accept.
Compassion through empathy.
When we feel compassion we are in co-passion or “passion with”. We are outside of ourselves and sharing in the depths of our humanity with others beyond our immediate social networks. Love of someone we know is a beautiful thing but self serving when limited to just those we know and hold dear. Compassion born of Love is a higher form of Love and is born from different circumstances. Empathy, the ability to feel and relate to an others pain by relating to their emotions and feelings is the first act in compassion. To have compassion we must be able to relate somehow to the circumstances of another and that is typically on an emotional level. It is through our emotions and the feelings that come with them that enable us to empathize with others. To empathize with others requires that we can feel love – love for our fellow human beings. This form of Love is sometimes more difficult for some to understand, especially for those who live life mostly for their own concerns. We are talking of feeling for a strangers pain.
To have empathy for a stranger’s pain is to relate to that pain. However, to have compassion for another’s pain is more complex then to feel that pain, it is also to suffer in time with them and also hopefully to move us to act in a way that is intended to ease their pain. To ease their pain, is to ease our pain. For we see ourselves in their pain. We understand that when someone else suffers, in some way so do we. Some would say that this is because we can see ourselves in a strangers predicament and are not truly empathizing with that strangers pain, but really the potential of our own pain. This might be true, but not in total. I see this as seeing ourselves in others in such a way that helps us recognize that we are all the same. That we all share in the harshness of Living and that as alone as we may actually be, we at least can share in that aloneness with one another, through our pain… and our joy!
Those Hollydaze R Upon Us Again and Where Is That Ol’ WPIX Yule Log When You Need It!
I had wanted to write about a Tarot card today but somehow the day got away from me. The holidays are upon us and with that comes a lot of preparation for family and friends and of course ourselves. It is easy to become overly stressed and panicky this time of year. So many of us have such high expectations of the holidays and what they are supposed to be and it is almost debilitating. The perfect house, must have the perfect tree and of course the perfect holiday gathering -what shall it be this year? Will we do a catered affair or will it be more of an open house with a buffet oh so much to do, so much to plan – oh my head!
Well, none of that is on my agenda thank the Gods! My partner and i are having our first holiday in our home after having been here for three years now. Prior to this we traveled back and forth to both our parent’s homes and by the end of it all we were exhausted! Please do not get me wrong – we so loved being with our families, but somehow it seemed we didn’t get to enjoy it as much as we would have liked because of tight schedules and all the traveling. So this year circumstances changed in such a way as to allow for our having the holidays home for a bit.
In many ways it will be traditional, but simple. I am of Italian descent and of course all I know is what my family has always done for Christmas Eve – fish and lots of it! I’ve never fried fish in my life and although I can follow a recipe, I somehow never mastered the fine art of frying things. Burnt offerings is much more like it. Well both my sister and my mother will be here and they know the ins and outs of frying things in oil. Well, this started out as a blog about keeping things simple and already I am realizing that it can be almost impossible to do that. There’s baking to be done, cleaning to be finished and a tree to be found and given prominence in the living room this weekend!
So what was I saying about keeping things simple – shall I get down from my soap box now?
I suppose what it all boils down too is trying to not let the unrealistic material based expectations of the holidays get the best of us. It is very easy to fall prey to the black magic of marketing and all the trappings that retail operations try to convince us are necessary to prove we are having a blessed and abundant holiday. Ahhh abundance – i’ve always had a problem with that concept. It is so much a western cultural concept. How about we concern ourselves with having what we need and leaving what we do not need for others who may need them as well.
Hmmmm. Exactly where am I going with this tonight? Ahhh yes the stress and anxiety of trying to create the perfect holiday. I had wanted to express how important it is to keep all of this glitz and pageantry in perspective and to always remember that having our loved ones near and a little fried fish to feed them is all that really matters.
Considering the Pages of the Tarot
Ahh the Pages of the Tarot! I will admit that over the years the court cards have been some of the most difficult cards to apply to readings. I have heard this is similar for many people interested in reading the cards and its understandable as there is an important difference between the other minor cards and the Court cards. Whereas with the minor cards we have images of events to offer more information about the nature of a circumstance or approach to that circumstance, with the Court cards, we have an image of an actual person. Unlike the minor cards, we also know that in someway the court cards are specific to a person rather than an event or circumstance. For myself I was always uncomfortable with this concept as I did not like the mine field of confusion this manner of interpretation seemed to lay out before me. The crux of the matter is it requires honesty and humility to admit that we are human and as far as are psychic or intuitive talents are concerned, we are as much afraid of making a mistake as anyone else. To declare that because of the appearance of a court card, you see a young man of dark complexion AND who is very concerned with earthy matters and study is to become important to a querents life, is a difficult leap of faith for many burgeoning readers. Again, I will say that intuition and experience does play an important part on how one determines to handle a Court card. The other dilemma that an inexperienced reader may be faced with, is that an individual court card suggests that is is describing in totality the essence of the individual by just that one Court card alone. This is a mistake and somewhat foolish thing to do as humans are complex in their simplicity and no one is as two-dimensional as any one Court card can exemplify. I do believe that the physical characteristics of the cards as ascribed traditionally or otherwise can be very valid, but they should be considered among many of the elements within a reading when interpreting them. The Tarot, as a tool of divination can and will serve as a mnemonic device to trigger certain interpretations that may have nothing to do with a cards traditional meaning. Knowing this, we should always remember that this applies to not just the Court cards but to all the cards.
The cards being a very personal experience, I believe it is important for a person to approach the Court cards as you would a character in a book. As humans, we all have preset notions of people and the visual representations that represent them. In other words – we do use stereo-types. As politically incorrect as this may sound we need to acknowledge our own humanity and one primary aspect of being human in the material world is our need for categorization of our environments. People are part of our environment undeniably and are not excluded from this categorization process. When do stereo types become a negative? Well when they serve to dismiss someone or alienate us from each other. These things obviously do nothing for fostering good will and harmony in the world, now do they? Yet in many ways they are a way we protect ourselves from the unknown. Perhaps this is a carry over from our more tribal days when we looked with suspicion on outsiders as potential threats and for valid reasons – to protect the tribe. However like all things, we must approach characterization with caution and wisdom. Fear often because of the unknown demands that we do our best to make that unknown – known! If the fear is justified than we take appropriate steps and if it is not, than we move forward. So with the Court cards, how does one approach interpreting them? I suggest taking the time to understand their basic natures as their suits dictate as well as to the nature of their actual stations while at the same time getting to know them for they types of people they remind us of in our own life experience. For ultimately the Tarot is speaking to our personal experiences and the symbols that represent them to provide us a language we can associate with the Tarot’s imagery.
The pages are young. They have only just begun to reach out from the confines of home and hearth. I do not see them as generally any younger than eight or ten years old and most often as an adolescent prior to actually leaving the nest to make their way for themselves in the world. This is also an attitude or an approach to circumstances as well and not limited to the physical age of a person. Someone can be sixty-two years old and yet retain the qualities of child-like wonder, or perhaps is approaching a new chapter in their life in much the same way we all do when it is new and full of possibilities. For instance taking the example of our sixty-two year old individual, consider that they maybe returning to school for what ever reason. Maybe they have always wanted to study art but it was only until this point in their lives that they actually were able to persue a program of study in that area. An appropriate representation of that circumstance would be the Page of Pentacles. In many agreed upon attributes to this Page, study and education is amongst them. Now the image of the page is of a youth and for many people who causally look at the card it appears to be that of a boy as well. What if our sixty-two year old querent is a woman? This is where flexibility, intuition and logic (yes logic does play it’s part in interpretation) come into importance. In this example our querent’s age and gender are not the important elements of the interpretation of this card, instead it is those qualities that are describing her situation and the way she is or should be approaching them. She is embarking on a new chapter in her life! She is returning to school and mostly doing it for her own enjoyment and interest, and she is obviously going to have an intense interest perhaps with the same playful wonder we all may have had when we were first in school or determined what it was that we truly wanted to educate ourselves about.
When I read for people, I find that I often become very aware of the expression on a Court Cards face and that in of itself serves to tell the whole story. I see very subtle yet distinct facial expressions in each of the Pages which definitely do correspond with my feelings and accepted meanings of their respected suits. I also notice particular manners of stance and they way they carry their bodies as well as what their environments seem to be. I have come to learn that there is a lot of correspondence to the traditional elements of their suits being shown in these very subtle areas. It is often sad to see how in more contemporary artistic interpretation of these cards that these elements are not regarded or worse yet – ignored.
The Page of Cups
Unlike what I had intended to do, which was to randomly pick a card from the deck for writing about today, instead I allowed my mind to roam a bit and I settled on the Page of Cups. This card has come up quite a bit recently and I felt it was time to give it some written attention.
Years ago I had been told by a woman who taught me quite a bit about the cards, that the Page of Cups can and will often refer to psychic, intuitive and creative abilities. She also mentioned that it will sometimes refer to homosexuality as well. In my years with this card, I have found those things to be true. I would also, liken the Page of Cups to be close in relationship to The Fool in some ways. By it’s nature as the youth and childlike representation of the the Page it is often implied that there is innocence, inexperience and even naiveté. I always keep in mind that when comparing the minor cards to the major, that the major are archetypical in nature and tend to represent higher ideals, energies, and influences – often spiritual or psychological. However it is important to keep in mind that the minor arcana more aptly represent the more mundane aspects of life. So in this case I would have to state that the Page of Cups is a more limited and mundane aspect of The Fool. There are many cards in the deck where I draw correlations between minor and major, but for now we will focus on our Page of Cups.
I think I might relate personally more so to this Page more so than any of the others, because he/she reminds me of myself when I was a child. From here on in I will refer to the Page as “child”, but please keep in mind that in reality, it can also refer to child like. This child is an introverted one. This does not mean that this child is unhappy or insecure as would most often be assumed with those who are introverted. No, quite the opposite. This is the child that easily immerses themselves in their own fantasies and allows them to take them where ever they take them. They are perfectly content with amusing themselves and have little need for others. This does not mean they are aloof or solitary, it only means that they have an inner world that may be as real and fulfilling to them as their outer world. Yes, they may have friends, and be quite social with them, but they are not longing for companionship – especially as a means of validating their own self worth. This child sits and reads, draws, builds castles in the sand, constructs fantasy plays and can and will do all this without any outside prompting. However, they are has happy doing it with others as well as doing it alone! This is perhaps where the idea of this child card being one of the more predisposed to intuitive and psychic talents comes about. It would seem natural that a person who can immerse themselves naturally into their own inner worlds to a point where the boundaries between that world and others begins to thin to a point where “visions” that are more than a fantasy begin to emerge. It would appear to be a result of this child’s natural temperament.
Of course, emotion is of major import here as well. With creativity and psychism there is often a strong correlation to being more in tune to ones emotions or being more overtly emotionally oriented. You might hear this person use the words “I feel” when they speak, as they approach most everything in their world from a more emotionally oriented viewpoint.
I seldom rely on the court cards actual physical appearance to describe the person it may be referring to, but it does happen. The reason being is that sometimes the qualities of this card are not limited to those of light hair and eyes as some of the more traditional definitions of years past have attributed. Yet, there are times, when intuition dictates otherwise and then the card has little to do with the traits I’ve spoken of prior, and the card ONLY refers to those very physical characteristics! AND to cause further confusion their are times when both inner and outer qualities are as described! This is the part where intuition is important.
There is often a reference to the Pages as cards of messages or new events being initiated and to some extent I believe this to be true. However, I let my intuition guide me on this. In this case the new situation will be concerning those attributed to the Cups suit. I seldom see references to children too young to speak as this is often symbolized by other cards for me.
Another aspect of this card is the act of withdrawing from the emotional turbulence that can either be of our own or others making. It takes a singular mind to do this and in many ways this card may be referring to meditative work or again, introspective habits that enable us to push out those things that may cause distraction and instead focus on those things that help us move forward. The obvious image of the child gazing at the fish starting back him from his cup suits this meaning perfectly. The fish from the depths of our inner world, subconscious – call it what you will, has much to tell us if only we are able to find the means to listen. Meditation and stillness are very effective means to do this. Dreams and creative processes are another. However it is that we find the mechanism to turn off the analytical part of ourselves and allow the world of symbolism to flow through is the way we interact with it.
When this card is ill dignified then we need to take different considerations. All of the above may still hold true as the basic Cup nature. However, instead of these traits being healthy, or positively reinforced they become weak or conflicted. The child may be introverted, but not for the right reasons. They may feel insecure and unable to reach out to others and use their inner world as a means of escape rather than to create or grow. Perhaps the more psychic elements of this card become difficult to handle and burdensome or worse delusional? There are hints of emotional distress or instability when ever any of the Court cards are ill dignified, but in this case it takes on more meaning because the type of person this card refers to is especially emotional by nature. It is often said that the ill dignified Court cards refer to some form of treachery, deceit, self absorption, or selfishness and this may well be true. In the case of the Cup Courts and particularly with the Page of Cups, the deceit in particular is not always intentional or malicious in the expected sense. In this case there is considerable self deceit and perhaps self-delusion as well going on, and as a result any lies one is telling oneself (and believing), they are also telling those around them. How can you tell the truth if you are believing the lie yourself? One other consideration is that not all lies we tell ourselves, are of our own making either. Their are institutional lies, marketing lies, family and friend lies etc., that we buy into wittingly or not.
Back from Thanksgiving! I Think Our Ghosts Missed Us?
Ahhh Thanksgiving has come and gone rather quickly. No snow as of yet here in the western part of New York State so the holiday season has not yet descended upon my thinking. My partner and I have just returned from spending time with our families this past weekend and what a whirlwind weekend it was! First dinner with my sister and brother in law in the North Country and then less then 24 hours later dinner with my in laws in the Southern Tier! Roughly 800 or so miles logged and traffic was very very interesting!I had thought of pulling a card before writing today but since I have only just had my first cup of coffee, I thought it best to settle into my routine and do it a bit later.
Prior to having left for the holiday, I had laid all 22 of the Major Arcana on my table in their order to begin realigning myself with them. You see, it is a bit of an interesting thing those cards and I. I’ve come to think of them as part of me over the years. Every once an a while it seems necessary to reacquaint myself with them as a whole. Most, if not all of the time I see them in bits and pieces as they fall for a particular reading. So they are waiting for me and I will be spending some time with them this afternoon over a mug of tea perhaps. Hello old friends!
Not too long after we returned home from my partner’s family, we had only settled in on the sofa when our resident ghost began to make himself known. I was a bit tired so I was only peripherally aware of the sound of a bell tinkling in the room when my partner pointed it out to me. We have an iron Pentacle hanging with a glass globe in our front window with small cowbells hanging from it – it serves to protect and bless as you might expect. Well there was one single bell at the bottom of the pentacle still swaying which had been the source of the tinkling. There we sat as that single bell amongst all the others swung singly and alone. None of the other bells had moved a hair. I looked about the room to see if perhaps the chains from the ceiling fan were moving, or a cord from our hanging star lamp in the corner had moved, but no – only that one single bell. I had thought maybe a draft? WE HAVE NO DRAFTS LOL! Our windows are completely sealed and air tight! I even thought perhaps, there might have been an earth tremor as even on the east coast they do happen. But, nothing else should any sign of movement. No large vehicles had gone by, actually no vehicles at all had gone by. So we chalked it up to the resident ghost letting us know it was around.
However, the next morning! We were preparing to leave for my partner’s families home when I went for a backpack that I had only unpacked the night before too find that I couldn’t get into it for some reason. In my frustration I hadn’t noticed something rather interesting that had happened in the night. Our otherworldly resident had playfully tied the two zippers together with one of the tags on the bag! It is a bit difficult to explain this without seeing it, but somehow that tag had been twisted and wrapped, interlocked with the zippers. It was done in such away that is unexplainable. I won’t even mention that now our microwave egg poacher cannot be found anywhere at all! Oh well I imagine they must be trying to tell us something so I will have to be a bit more proactive to determine specifics.
Well enough for now, must go take a shower and wake up a bit more!
Busy Busy Busy
Well I’ve officially entered the world of online Tarot Readings and I have to admit it is a bit of a different way of going about things – the world of technology, the web and metaphysical guidance!
I’ve estimated that I’ve done about a thousand or more readings over the course of six years – all face to face and in person (except for phone readings by established clients who later moved away). It used to be that I felt that it was absolutely necessary to have that person directly in front of me. Not any longer. I’ve come to understand and “feel” the transparent nature of time/space relationships. As I’ve had a hard time in the past years actually keeping track of the two I can understand why I feel how mercurial it really is!
So I made a promise to myself that I would at least try to update this blog on a weekly basis regardless if I have anything of importance to say at the time or not. You might wish to chalk this particular entry in as “obligatory – but not important”. But I’ve kept my promise!
Peace,
Anthony
Sound and Binaural Beat Meditation Aids
Aside from reading the Tarot, I am also an artist. Originally my work was primarily visual and photographic. Now, I spend a good amount of time working with electronic music and ambient production. I will include some links to some sites where you might read a bit more in depth on my work and listen in if you wish.
I’ve been investigating the technique of using sound (sine waves in particular) to create a phenomenon known as binaural beating as a means of training the brain to reach the type of brain wave levels conducive to meditation, trance and lucid dreaming. Most of us have heard of Alpha waves and it is this frequency of waves produced by the brain to signify we are in a state conducive to meditating and relaxation. We do this most naturally when we are not even thinking about it – usually while day dreaming, or becoming very relaxed or while we watch television – so I’ve heard. Yet there are deeper levels such as the Theta level and the even deeper Delta levels. Theta being the state of deep mediation, trance work and dreaming while Delta being complete unconscious, dreamless sleep and no body awareness.
To make a long story short I am attempting my hand at creating my own brainwave entrainment tracks (as they are called) while at the same time imparting a little creative composing as well. This will prove to be a tricky and perhaps complicated endeavor. As I wish to introduce additional sound to a brain wave entrainment track, it needs to not interfere with the actual binaural beating, yet also be creative and camouflaging enough so as to make the beating more pleasant to the listener. I can do this.
As for some references to some of me other work, you might wish to visit my other blog at http://gemini62167.blogspot.com/
I dedicate that blog entirely to my music and creative process.
Peace,
Anthony
The First Post
