Charming Artistry, Plus Tarot

Want to read a blog that infuses the ordinary and the everyday with a tangible sense of magic and spirit? Then check out Laura and her favorite things . . .! Laura can always be counted on for her beautiful and intriguing photography . . . 

. . . and for her creative and imaginative artworks . . . 

. . . along with her musings and observations about baking, gardening, crafting and daily magical life!

And speaking of magical life, Laura also recently started a wordpress blog called Messages From The Ancestors which features a daily tarot card selection along with a few words of wisdom about it.

Laura very generously offers -- at no cost -- tarot readings and other spiritual services to those seeking such guidance. As she writes:

Please understand that ALL of my offerings are at no cost. I feel that I was brought into this lifetime to help the dead and the living communicate when needed and to assist the living with my gifts as best I can. This is not a job, a side hustle or a hobby. This is my calling, and it is my pleasure to provide support and guidance when I can, to whomever I can.

Laura is a woman after my own heart in this regard. She shares her spiritual gifts freely to benefit those who may be helped by them.

You can check out her Offerings page here.

Time For A Tarot Reading!

Oddly Specific Tarot: The Moose

art and interpretation by

T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon)

Meaning: Unconquerable wrath. Natural disaster.

Rage that can be neither contained nor reasoned with,

only escaped. Large hostile ungulates.

Reversed: Canada.

My Wheel of Fortune Year

[L to R -- Legacy of the Divine Tarot, Light and Shadow Tarot, Gaian Tarot]

Depending on our individual birth month and day, a specific Major Arcana tarot card is assigned to every calendar year and governs it with its archetypal energy. For me, 2023 is a Wheel of Fortune year. Therefore, the Wheel will turn for good or bad and bring major life changes and new directions. Usually a Wheel of Fortune year is quite unmistakable in its rotational upendings and turning points. And so has mine been to date!

[L to R -- Cat Tarot, Runic Tarot, The Pulp Tarot]

Early in 2023, my lengthy connection with My Rare One came to an end. Our rather turbulent 20 year relationship had many ups and downs already, moving over the years through romance, cohabitation, separate abodes but continued partnership, and a final BFF phase which now has also terminated. We are not in each other's lives anymore.

This is, of course, a major life change but one which I am prepared to meet. Every ending is a new beginning, after all, and who knows what the future holds? Good things, I hope.

[L to R -- Morgan-Greer Tarot, Tarot of the Cat People, Triumph of Life Tarot]

A Wheel of Fortune year can and does bring good things too. By way of an example, I recently won a $250 gift card from our Canadian grocery chain, Save-On-Foods, in its Hockey "Score and Win" contest!

Woo hoo! Free eats! "Thanks, Dave!"

World of Noir -- The Occult

The Occult is a favourite trope in the Noir genre. Plots will often feature mystical objects, superstitions, grifters pulling cons like card/shell games, mind reading, hypnosis or seances, and fortune tellers reading palms, crystal balls, or tarot. Nightmare Alley, both the original movie and the recent remake, is a good example of this -- its plot includes mind reading, hypnosis, communicating with the dead AND tarot!

Which brings me to my most recent tarot deck purchase . . . .

This delightful deck mimics the art-and-design style of classic pulp fiction covers once common in action/adventure, horror, romance and crime/detective novels. It's a fun deck to use or even just to look through. (Martha of Mystical Empowerment blog has posted video reviews of this deck if you want to see all the cards -- click here for a full length review or here for a quick flip through).

Nine of The Pulp Tarot cards in particular scream NOIR to me. Here they are in all their shadowy, decadent, demi-monde glory --

Incidentally, I highly recommend both versions of Nightmare Alley, if you haven't seen them. The 1947 original is shown from time to time on TCM (Turner Classic Movies) channel. Guillermo del Toro's 2021 remake is currently streaming on Disney+ in Canada or Hulu in the States. Nightmare Alley is heavy on its use of the occult trope because it is a classic of the sub-genre known as "carny noir" -- films/novels set in shabby/shady carnivals, circuses, amusement parks or other such seamy entertainment venues.

Longest Night, Shortest Day

The Winter Solstice is always a time of contemplation and reflection. The Wheel turns, the Seasons change, the Light returns. So what better time to consult the tarot or an oracle deck for a little wisdom and guidance? 

For that purpose, here's a special Winter Solstice Spread by wise woman and tarot artist Joanna Powell Colbert --

Pull a tarot or oracle card to spark a response, then finish the following sentences:

1. The gift of the nurturing darkness is ...
2. The promise of the returning sun is ...
3. I find potential or hope for my personal life through ...
4. One action I can take to offer hope and renewal to the larger community is ...
5. Today, my Holy Helpers most want me to know ...

If you make use of this Spread, I hope it enhances the beauty and wonder of this special day for you!

Cat Tarot Cattitude

You may recall that my sister gave me a Cat Tarot Deck for Christmas, so I decided to familiarize myself with it by using a technique called "interviewing a new tarot deck" which I learned from Martha's Mystical Empowerment blog and videos. After thoroughly shuffling the deck, seven cards are pulled, representing the deck's answers to seven questions about itself. Here are the results!

1. What are you here to teach me?

10 of Swords, upright [cat hanging precariously on screen door]

This card means "know when to quit," human. Who told you that you are capable of reading tarot? You are in way over your head. Get lost before I bite you!

2. How do you see yourself?

9 of Swords, upright [cat with claws out]

Miserable human, I am your worst nightmare! You'll be shredded meat when I'm done with you!

3. How do you see me?

4 of Pentacles, upright [cat sniffing disdainfully at 4 little cat treats]

Like all of your kind, you're a miserly skinflint and cheapskate. You won't feed me enough and you'll be ungrateful for all the wonderful tarot help and advice I'll give you.

4. How can we best work together?

8 of Swords, reversed [cat pulling all the toilet paper off a roll]

Accept that I'm going to turn your world upside down, human. I will bring you a new perspective on old and familiar things. You'd just better get used to that. And to cleaning up after me.

5. What are your strengths?

XVII The Star, reversed [cat deliberately tipping over a glass of water]

I will never give you a moment's peace or respite. I'll be biting your ass the whole way. Hahahahahaha!

6. What are your limitations?

2 of Wands, reversed [cat deciding whether to play with a couple of feathered cat toys]

Like all cats, I have a hard time choosing how best to annoy you. I want it all, baby, and by the Great Goddess Bast, I'll have my way in everything! At least, once I make up my mind.

7. What is the potential for us working together?

5 of Pentacles, upright [2 cats staring each other down over a few pieces of kibble]

Not good. Not good at all. It'll be a fight for survival and frankly, I don't like your chances. Cats always win. I'll be feasting on your eyeballs soon.

Since this was such a challenging and negative reading, I decided to pull one more card to try and clarify things. So taking the last card off the bottom of the deck, I asked the following question --

8. What is your secret characteristic of which I should be aware?

XX Judgement, upright [Egyptian cat-god with the feather of Maat used to judge the hearts of the dead]

Okay, okay, Cat Tarot Deck, no need to elaborate further. I get it. 

Jeez, if I didn't know better, I'd think this deck is Channeling a Certain Someone.

Let's Talk Tarot

I know several of you out there are fans of tarot, so I thought you might be interested in a wonderful tarot blog and YouTube channel that I've been enjoying very much lately.

The Mystical Empowerment blog (click here) and YouTube channel (click here) are the creations of Martha, whom many of you may know from her delightfully funny blog Plowing Through Life. But Martha is also an expert tarot reader! On her tarot blog and video channel, she regularly features posts on specific tarot cards, walk-throughs of various tarot/oracle card decks, videos about her extensive collection of decks, and fun tarot tips on short spreads for quick answers like this one --

I must confess that Martha is inadvertently being a bad influence on me because I now have a list as long as my arm of new tarot decks and oracle card decks which I want to buy! But seriously, thanks to Martha, I again have a rejuvenated enthusiasm for exploring all the ins and outs of this fascinating area of interest.

Please check out her online tarot sites -- you won't be disappointed!

The Literary Witches Oracle

I received a wonderful holiday gift from longtime blogging buddy Susan, who blogs from Upstate New York on her entertaining and often humorous blog called e-i-e-i-omg (subtitled "middle-aged homesteader meets reality"). She very kindly and generously sent me a copy of The Literary Witches Oracle. I had not heard of this deck before but it is a marvelous, recently created one. Thank you, Susan!

The oracle deck consists of 30 Witches cards and 40 Witches' Materials cards. Each Witches card features a past or present woman writer, literary icons all, many also feminist and/or lesbian icons too. Each Witch is associated with a particular quality or state of being. Some of my personal faves represented in this deck include Agatha Christie (Trickery), Emily Dickinson (The Soul), Charlotte Perkins Gilman (Freedom), Joy Harjo (Bravery), Audre Lorde (Justice), Sappho (Love), Gertrude Stein (Perspective) and Virginia Woolf (Vision).

The Witches' Materials cards are images of various animals and objects symbolizing themes often found in these witches' writings. 

A helpful Guidebook to interpret the cards is included in the box set.

Since it is the New Year, I did a three-card reading for myself using the Opportunity, Challenge, and Resolution Spread. 

My Opportunity card was Tree (wisdom, good roots, connection).

My Challenge card was Mary Shelley: Loss (the cycle of life, transitions, attachment).

My Resolution card was Toad (humour, the grotesque, joy).

While I can therefore expect to deal with some form of challenging loss this year, I should strive to find humour and positivity in the experience by treating it as an opportunity to cultivate wisdom and reliance on the support of others.

[Photos #1 and #2 from the internet;

Photo #3 © Debra She Who Seeks, January 2021]

Tarot Supermodel (You Better Work)

Ordinarily, as a card-carrying lesbo,

I don't give a rat's ass 

about Haute Couture, but 

I note with interest that 

Christian Dior's Spring 2021 Collection 

is inspired by tarot imagery 

and queer love, both of which 

are right up my alley.

Here's the photo spread of various

Dior Major Arcana outfits 

from the latest issue of Harper's Bazaar 

(a magazine which I can assure you

I have never otherwise read

nor purchased) --

In other tarot news,

Her Royal Highness the Cat's nose 

is seriously out of joint about this. 

She just published her own feline-inspired 

interpretations of the tarot and 

it's not getting anywhere near 

as much attention --

I think her Devil card is 

particularly inspired, don't you?