Time to scale back

I am ready to get rid of a lot of these decks I have. I am putting them on offer on my Facebook page, feel free to take a look. I am putting them up in lists a few at a time. There's some sought after stuff on offer.

What becomes of the broken-hearted?

I've been away. I finally had an actual Tower moment. Funny...when I'm in a Tower experience, the blogging gets forgotten.

I'll still be happy to do a reading for you. Order in the usual way.

Be well, friends.

Words and messages mean a lot

Child + Cross + Stars + Bouquet + Letter

(Stringing the cards together: A necessary new beginning is given hope through a message received.  A message of hope for a fresh start comes from renewed faith.)

Child = a beginning, Cross = a burden, a necessity, something that can't be avoided; also emblem for any religious faith or spirituality, Stars = hope, sometimes technology, Bouquet/Flowers = gift, something nice, pleasant, Letter = a written message

Looking at the cards again, I can see another possible message: A necessary fresh start is supported by online messages. 

Wisdom + Courage = Serenity

(Stringing the cards together: Talking about change is the solution to the woman's clarity.)

This line of 5 is Birds + Stork + Key + Woman + Star. The draw points me toward conversations, reading and other ways of communicating about the changes I want to see in my life, and that doing so will bring me clarity. Birds + Star suggests counselling to me. Stork + Woman reminds me that I am the only person I can have any influence over. That is the key to it all. 

God, grant me the serenity to accept that I cannot change people,
The courage to change the one person I can, 
And the wisdom to know it is me.

Pixie's Astounding Mlle Lenormand Cards (JM Designs 2010)

Don't you know, things can change, things can go your way

The cards from Titiania's Fortune won't quite fit on my scanner so they're overlapped a bit, but this is today's 5-card draw: Stork + Flowers + Heart + Ship + Sun.

(Stringing card meanings together: The gift of change leads our heart toward the sun. Changing as a gift of the heart moves us toward happiness. The heart yearns for fulfillment through the gift of change.)

Today is Day 18. Eighteen days of a profound change that we hope (heart + ship) leads to happiness (ship + sun). We go one day at a time. 

'I once asked a friend in recovery how long he had been sober. He reached into his pocket and took out a small diary and after fingering the pages looked up and said, "Nine thousand eight hundred and thirty-four days." 
'I asked, " What is that? Twenty-five or thirty years?"
'With complete sincerity he replied, " You know doctor. I don't really know. Maybe you can afford to think in terms of years. I have to think in terms of days." When his friend John McHugh died at age eighty-three after forty-three years of sobriety, on the night before his death he had entered in his diary the number 16,048.' 
~Abraham J Twerk, Addictive Thinking: Understanding Self-Deception

A 5-card daily draw

(Stringing together card meanings: The health and longevity of the relationship is affected by reflective learning/formality during work commute.)

Both of us have time during our work commutes for reflection on all the things we've been learning recently. It also turns out that we were talking about that this morning, how our commute time can be used for reflection and meditation on the set of formalised principles we've been learning lately. The Tower in the centre of the spread shows how important those principles and teachings are for our growth -- and 'growth'  is reinforced by the pairing of the first and last cards in the spread Tree + Moon = growth resulting from reflection/intuition.

French Cartomancy (LoScarabeo, no date on box)

Mnemonic for Lenormand House Placement

This week I'm going to be looking at Caitlin Matthews' phenomenal new book, The Complete Lenormand Oracle Handbook (Destiny, 2014). I've just finished reading Chapter 1 'Learning the Language of Lenormand'. In this chapter, Matthews suggests a practice of developing a verse to help you remember House order. This will come in handy when laying out a grand tableau. She offers her own verse, but I didn't like it, so I wrote my own, based on hers. My lines are in the form of the Piquet Tableau, in which cards are laid out in 4 rows of 8 and one row of 4. I must point out, when you read this mnemonic, it makes no sense at all. But when you go through the cards in order, laying them down as you chant the verse, you soon memorise it. Then you can say it without the cards. Then you can quiz yourself or get someone to quiz you. Have them name a card, like CHILD. Your challenge is to name all the cards in the same line as CHILD, in order. Then try a quiz where you just name the cards to the left and right of CHILD. And for super university challenge status, try a quiz where you name the cards above and below CHILD. 

He RIDES through CLOVER, a SHIP is his HOME, where the TREE SHADES the SNAKE in the BOX

The FLOWERS are CUT to SHAKE at the BIRDS, and the CHILD sees a FOX and a BEAR in the STARS

The STORK flies the DOG up the TOWER, over the GARDEN, past the MOUNTAIN, and down the PATH, where the MICE steal his HEART

The RING on the BOOK on the LETTER are the MAN's, while the WOMAN offers LILIES to the SUN and the MOON

The KEY in the FISH belly ANCHORS the CROSS. 

This technique has worked for me in memorising House placement. Why not try out making your own?