Tag Archives: tarot

TAROT MEDITATION #CABALFANG #WOD

Posted on March 5, 2015 | Leave a comment
The Tower (courtesy of Wikipedia)

The Tower (courtesy of Wikipedia)

TAROT MEDITATION: “The Tower”
Dim lights and set a timer for 10 mins. Lean card against an object such as a stack of books so that it is at or near eye level when you are in your meditative pose of choice (sit or recline any way you wish, as long as spine is straight and neither arms nor legs are crossed).   If you do not own a Tarot deck, pull up the image on the right with your cell phone and stand it up instead (make sure you change the screensaver settings to prevent your phone from going to sleep).  Take several deep breaths and relax. Regulate breathing to a deep and slow rhythm and droop eyelids slightly with eyes focused on the card.  As you sink deeper into your meditation, sink also into the image. Allow yourself to be fully present, as if you are standing inside the actual scene which the card depicts. Allow yourself to experience the thoughts, feelings, and emotions that attend the experience of being in that imaginary place.  When the timer beeps, open your eyes and slowly exit your meditative pose and state.  Record your thoughts and impressions in our journal, diary, or workout log.

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Posted in Martial arts, Mysticism

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Stacking a Magic Deck for Success

Posted on May 31, 2013 | Leave a comment

imageMake a deck of cards and write on them things you want to do on a regular basis that you never seem to do enough.  Resolve to periodically pull one out and get it done that day. After you pull it out and do it, put it on the bottom of the deck.

Just make sure you put things on the cards that you can get done that very same day.  Include things that are personal, professional, or spiritual that are immediately achievable.  No projects, no long term goals, just mini-goals you can quickly and easily knock out of the park.  This is your deck, so you can pull one out on a certain day of each week, each month, or as often as you like.

Because my cards contain actions that will push me to be the person I want to be, I call this my Tarot of Success.  But you don’t have to call it that.  Call it your Paper Drill Sargent, Deck of Mindfulness, Pack of Propinquity, or Trumps of Timeliness.  Doesn’t matter.

I made 28 cards out of a cut up red file folder.  But you could just as easily take an old deck of playing cards and write on them with a permanent marker, or use the flip sides of old business cards.  They don’t have to be pretty.

But you could make them pretty if you wanted to.  You could decorate and embellish them with artwork.  You could turn down the lights and sit before a candle while you write them out, anoint them with oil and pray your God to make them holy, pass them through the smoke of incense, or wrap them in a scarf and sleep with them under your pillow to charge them with the power of your dreams.

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Posted in Martial arts

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The Tarot of Character Development

Posted on September 25, 2012 | Leave a comment

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Every writer has tricks and odd habits, idiosyncrasies and methods for starting a novel. Some outline like crazy, some not at all. Some like to base characters on figures from myth and fairytale. And so forth.

My favorite tool is the Tarot.

I start with an idea, a general plot, theme, and feeling that I want the reader to experience when the last page is turned.  I create a list of major characters and their relationships.  Then I get out the cards.  The deck in the picture is the one I bought with my allowance as a teenager in the ’70s, the only deck I’ve ever used.

I complete a reading for each major character using the Celtic Cross format. This process tells me where they’ve been, where they’re going, what’s vexing them, and so on.  I read as though I’m reading for a real person, and try to bring all my intuitive skills to bear.

Once that’s done, I revise the plot, theme, and message to incorporate all of the great detail gained from the Tarot process. At this point the characters take on a definite ‘life.’  The Tarot readings have a profound effect on the process, often taking the original story idea in a different direction than I had previously  envisioned.

I then clearly conceptualize the end of the book, the climax, the point at which everything comes to a head.  Starting at the end, I work backwards to create a detailed chapter-by-chapter outline, layering in the events, character interactions, and sub-climaxes so that they build toward the climax.

Next to each chapter in the outline I estimate how many pages it will take to relate the material.  I then add up the numbers and make sure I have enough to make a novel.

Once that’s done, I start writing at the beginning, at page 1.

Call me crazy, but I don’t think my methods are that unusual.  After all, the Tarot have been used for centuries to help unravel the personal stories of living people.  Why not fictional ones?

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Posted in Writing

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