5/15/13—Claiming Your Power

TODAY'S DRAW BREAKING NEWS!!!! 
I will be interviewed on an internet radio program Wednesday night at 7pm Eastern US about spirituality, my deck, breaking the rules, manifestation and more. The show will be archived if you miss it live. I hope you'll tune in. Details can be found here.  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/psychicalx/2013/05/15/breakin-the-rules-alx-interviews-tierney-sadler


Today's Draw: Eight of Swords from the Victorian Romantic in the What to Avoid position from the Deck of 1000 Spreads. Where do feel stuck in your life? What are you hoping will happen to make you unstuck? Do you have a plan?

In all its many artistic interpretations, the Eight of Swords usually depicts someone "trapped" in a situation they can easily get out of. Look at the picture. Are those ropes holding her wrists together really that inescapable? Is she being poorly taken care of? Does she look like the victim of anything?

At first glance, the picture seems to portray a woman held against her will, but the more you study the details, the more comical her situation appears. Now what if I told you it's likely the same picture is present somewhere in your life?

I'm stuck in this job. 
I can't leave my husband. 
I don't have the time. 
That is too difficult for me. 
Quitting smoking is too hard. 
I can't meditate. 
I can't move forward.

Those are just a few of the things we tell ourselves to remain trapped in a less-than-satisfying life. They're all excuses. And people hate this word, but they're all the statements of a victim. Reality is....

I choose to stay in this job until the economy improves. 
I'm afraid of all the uncertainties involved with leaving my husband. 
I don't want to give anything up in order to make the time. 
I'm not willing to put in the effort to learn something new. 
I choose to continue to yield to my nicotine addiction. 
I tried meditating once and it didn't work, so I won't try again. 
I choose to remain tied to the past. 

The first set of statements identify you as powerless over your life or situation. They make you a victim. The second set of statements acknowledge your power, as well as your choice to continue the unfulfilling behavior. And until you acknowledge that it's a choice, nothing will ever change for you. 

There won't be any knights riding in on white horses. There is no secret force out there looking to save you from anything. The fairy tales we read as children are charming but they've also screwed us up. We believe in Cinderella and Prince Charming and happily ever after. And all throughout our lives, movies and books and other influences reinforce these things as truth. 

So when they don't happen to us, we wonder why....another victimized way of thinking. We choose to believe it because we want to believe it. So we look around us and think we see it in pictures or over the fence, but again, we're victimizing ourselves. It doesn't exist. Life doesn't happen to you. A fairy godmother doesn't come along and sprinkle you with dust and suddenly everything's ok. 

There are good people out there who will help you if you ask them, but the only hero—the only savior—you're going to come across in life is yourself. And the best way to start is to re-language the things in your life that seem insurmountable. The more you "save yourself", the more you see how magical and powerful you truly are. Claim your power to create positive change in your life and do it soon. Because the one thing worse than doing the hard work of creating change is continuing to live a powerless life subject to the whims of outside forces. 

5/3/13—Perching on the Front Stoop of Life

Today's Draw Classic*: Knight of Bows from a trimmed Wildwood Tarot in the What to Avoid position from the Deck of 1000 Spreads. Do you spend too much time one on aspect of your life to the detriment of other parts of your being? If you died tomorrow, would there be any regrets about it? What undiscovered gem of life might be standing right in front of you, waiting for you to shift your focus?

Today's draw is one of the reasons I don't like to reversals. For the uninitiated, reversals are cards that, when you turn them over, end up upside down. And many people read those as roughly the opposite of a card's meaning. But I don't read reversals, primarily because I believe the position the card lands in can create the same outcome. 

So, for example, today's card of the Fox is about stealth and cunning, playfulness and determination. None of those are things we would want to avoid. So reading the card in context of its spread position, you'd look at the shadow side of that card, like being opportunistic, manipulative, childish and ruthless. 

Shadow sides come from too much of a good thing. Leadership is a good thing. But when you go all leadership on people's arses, it's called megalomania. Not a good thing.

Another way of looking at it is how the book for this deck spelled out the downside of this card—"Determination leads to success, but often at a great personal cost." 

I'll cop to being one of those women who focus too much on career...to the detriment of my personal life. I even ended up turning one of my personal life hobbies into a second career so I could work even harder...haha. Mind you, I'm not complaining and I won't use the word "regret". I enjoy the things I do. And because I'm at home when I do all of them, my dogs never feel lonely or neglected, as far as getting their needs for attention and sustenance met. 

But there are so many things that fall by the wayside because I'm now attending to two different careers. I don't get out as often. I don't exercise often. I don't spend enough time with friends. And most of my friends are the same way, so they don't have time to spend with me. So while I don't regret it...my life is full...I could nonetheless find a healthier balance. 

I see a lot of this around me. Women who devote all of their time to their children and husband and spend no time developing their own personal relationship with self. People who dive so deeply into their relationships that they have no friends. Certainly we shouldn't neglect the things we need to attend to in our lives. But having friendships, personal interests and a personal life are also among those things we shouldn't neglect. 

Anytime we pour so much of ourselves into one thing or another, we put ourselves at risk. If we lose that one thing that identifies us, then who are we? But beyond that, we're cheating ourselves out of part of life we came here to experience. Having just one or two aspects of ourselves supporting the entirety of a life is a precarious foundation to build on. It's simple principle of engineering. 

That said, I enjoy my life. Especially now, because a lot of things are coming to a successful conclusion. But I think we all have to ask ourselves, if we died tomorrow or a year from now, is there something we'd wish we'd had more of in our lives? I wouldn't have any MAJOR regrets, but I can see where I'd be a little wistful about things I could have done more often or had more of in my life. 

Even just tonight, I was sitting on my front stoop watching the sunset and seeing the neighborhood happen. I'd only done that once before and that was just last week. All these years and I never experienced life from a perch on the front stoop! It made me sad that something so in-my-face had been overlooked for so many years. What might you not be seeing for all your determination in life?

*From 2/19/13

5/1/13—Putting Tradition In Its Proper Place

SPECIAL EDITION!!!!

Today we're doing something different at the Daily Draw. I joined a group called TarotBlogHop and the idea is this: 

People in the group all post at THE EXACT SAME TIME, no matter where they are in the world. And we create a circle. To do that, at the beginning of this post, I provide a link to the blog that comes before me in the "hop". So if you came to me from Johnny Two Brows' site, you're in the right place. John is a tarot reader right here in VA, where I live. And though I've never met him person, we have actual three-dimensional people in common. 

When you're done reading my post, I'll link you to Chloe's Celtic Lenormand site. Chloe has always been a big supporter of the Daily Draw, so you'll want to be sure to visit her page. 

So the idea is that all the bloggers create a big circle that you can go around and read each person's views about the chosen topic, which is "What traditions are important to you in how you read Tarot?" Fun huh? I get new readers here, you get new blogs to visit there and everyone wins! Hooray!

Now, on with the show...


Today's Draw: The Hierophant from the Pen Tarot in the What to Avoid position from the Deck of 1000 Spreads. Would you call yourself a tarot traditionalist? What kinds of things do you do to buck tradition? And what traditions are important to you in how you read the tarot?

Usually, I randomly draw a card from a tarot deck and randomly choose from the Deck of 1000 Spreads. But today I intentionally chose two cards to communicate how I feel about tradition (represented by the Hierophant). 

I don't REALLY think you should avoid it in tarot—or in life, as a matter of fact. In fact, I think we should all know the traditional ways. I think we should know what all the cards mean. I think we should at least be familiar with traditional spreads. And I think we should all know how to give a traditional, face-to-face reading. But that's where I draw the line.

One of the classes I teach as a tarot teacher is called Taboo Tarot, Breaking All the Tarot Rules. In that class I'll make you to shuffle your cards a different way. I'll have you to read a querent a different way. I'll compel you to learn something different in the area of spreads. And all of that will not only force you to have fun...haha, but to also learn the most important "rule" of tarot there is—that it works no matter what you do. I can tell you that rule all day, but you won't get the hang of it until you start breaking the rules yourself.

And why should you break the rules? Because tarot has so much more to offer than tradition "allows". If you're not familiar with my Deck of 1000 Spreads, it's the perfect example. Traditionally you would use a Celtic Cross as a spread. Or you would find a spread in a book. If you were really adventurous, you might try to create a spread on your own. But the Deck of 1000 Spreads opens even more avenues beyond that. You can "divine" a spread, meaning you can draw spread positions the same way you'd draw tarot cards from a deck, then lay them out in spread form. You can easily re-tool any spread you might find online or in a book. Plus, the colors on the spread cards pull out colors in your tarot cards, adding a whole new dimension to your readings. And that's just a few of the things people are doing for the first time because of this deck.  

I know that sounded like an ad for my cards. And it was. Kinda...haha. But I write ads for a living, so it can't be avoided. The point is that when you start thinking outside of traditional realms, you can create something that totally changes the game for your readings. Tradition forms the basis, but breaking tradition is what keeps the practice alive in your heart and soul. At least for me it is. And when you bear the excitement of a practice that's always evolving, you light a spark that keeps that keeps the energy going from generation to generation.

Look, if we never veered from tradition, we'd all be reading in stuffy parlors with Tarot de Marseilles decks. And some LOVE the idea of that. And that's cool. But I'll bet few people actually still read in the same manner people did in the 15th and 16th centuries. Heck, it was a card game back then. SOMEONE had to buck tradition to even make it a divination system!

And that's exactly my point. Everything derives from breaking tradition. When man moved out of caves and into small farming communities, they were breaking tradition. In fact, when primates start to walk upright, THEY were breaking tradition. It's in our DNA, ferchrissakes!

So when I teach tarot, I tell my students to memorize their card meanings, but to also read "intuitively". I tell them to learn their Celtic Cross, but also create their own spreads. They learn to read traditional ways, but also with multiple decks, or different kinds of shuffles or ways of drawing the cards. Because that's how you get from a TdM to a Sola Busca to a RWS to a Greenwood, Thoth or non-traditional deck...by knowing what you're talking about and what you're supposed to do—but not being limited by it.

I recently taught a spreadcrafting class and told the students that, at some point, I had to give myself permission to stop looking in books for spreads and create my own. Giving myself permission, and assuming the power to off-road based on all those who broke the rules before me, was so freeing! It set my creative juices flowing and gave me new excitement for tarot. And it's what eventually led to creating a new way to approach spreadcrafting with my deck.  

Tarot needs more of that. Tarot needs legions of free thinkers with the permission to break the rules and thank god there are many out there. But this need is not just tarot's. It's needed in politics, business, religion and society in general. Man and the times are continually evolving and our leaders and iconoclasts need to keep pace. It's vital to know where we came from and why. But when tradition is no longer relevant or "big enough" for the people who follow it, it's time for a change.

So now that you know how I feel about tradition, I'm going to tell you that traditionally, you'd visit Chloe's Celtic Lenormand page after mine. In fact, I strongly recommend that, because Chloe rocks. But maybe you want to buck tradition and hop backwards to Johnny Two Brows' site. Or maybe you want to do something entirely different and choose someone from the master list of participating blogs. Whatever you choose, you've got my permission. ;) Have fun!

3/23/13-3/24/13—Running Like Hell from Girl Scouts

Weekend Reading: Page of Pentacles in the What to Avoid position from Legacy of the Divine and the Deck of 1000 Spreads. Because I'm in charge here, I'm going to ignore what the Page of Pentacles really stands for and go with my first gut instinct about this pair. What to Avoid? Girl Scouts. Girl Scouts and their cheery, little, sugar-pushing faces. Their little green skirts. And their badge encrusted sashes. And their high fat, high carb, high calorie Thin Mints and Samoas. And Do Si Dos. Don't forget the Do Si Dos! When you see them moving your way, cross the street. No....release the hounds! Show them who's the boss of YOU!

Whatever temptation crosses your path this weekend, do yourself a favor and avoid it. It might come shamelessly enrobed in coconut and caramel. Or it might be more subtle, like an attitude or behavior you promised yourself you'd stop, but is nonetheless tempting you back into the cycle. Whatever it is for you, think before you act. Is that a trap you really want to fall into after all your hard work?

2/19/12—Perching on the Front Stoop of Life

Today's Draw: Knight of Bows from a trimmed Wildwood Tarot in the What to Avoid position from the Deck of 1000 Spreads. Do you spend too much time one on aspect of your life to the detriment of other parts of your being? If you died tomorrow, would there be any regrets about it? What undiscovered gem of life might be standing right in front of you, waiting for you to shift your focus?

Today's draw is one of the reasons I don't like to reversals. For the uninitiated, reversals are cards that, when you turn them over, end up upside down. And many people read those as roughly the opposite of a card's meaning. But I don't read reversals, primarily because I believe the position the card lands in can create the same outcome. 

So, for example, today's card of the Fox is about stealth and cunning, playfulness and determination. None of those are things we would want to avoid. So reading the card in context of its spread position, you'd look at the shadow side of that card, like being opportunistic, manipulative, childish and ruthless. 

Shadow sides come from too much of a good thing. Leadership is a good thing. But when you go all leadership on people's arses, it's called megalomania. Not a good thing.

Another way of looking at it is how the book for this deck spelled out the downside of this card—"Determination leads to success, but often at a great personal cost." 

I'll cop to being one of those women who focus too much on career...to the detriment of my personal life. I even ended up turning one of my personal life hobbies into a second career so I could work even harder...haha. Mind you, I'm not complaining and I won't use the word "regret". I enjoy the things I do. And because I'm at home when I do all of them, my dogs never feel lonely or neglected, as far as getting their needs for attention and sustenance met. 

But there are so many things that fall by the wayside because I'm now attending to two different careers. I don't get out as often. I don't exercise often. I don't spend enough time with friends. And most of my friends are the same way, so they don't have time to spend with me. So while I don't regret it...my life is full...I could nonetheless find a healthier balance. 

I see a lot of this around me. Women who devote all of their time to their children and husband and spend no time developing their own personal relationship with self. People who dive so deeply into their relationships that they have no friends. Certainly we shouldn't neglect the things we need to attend to in our lives. But having friendships, personal interests and a personal life are also among those things we shouldn't neglect. 

Anytime we pour so much of ourselves into one thing or another, we put ourselves at risk. If we lose that one thing that identifies us, then who are we? But beyond that, we're cheating ourselves out of part of life we came here to experience. Having just one or two aspects of ourselves supporting the entirety of a life is a precarious foundation to build on. It's simple principle of engineering. 

That said, I enjoy my life. Especially now, because a lot of things are coming to a successful conclusion. But I think we all have to ask ourselves, if we died tomorrow or a year from now, is there something we'd wish we'd had more of in our lives? I wouldn't have any MAJOR regrets, but I can see where I'd be a little wistful about things I could have done more often or had more of in my life. 

Even just tonight, I was sitting on my front stoop watching the sunset and seeing the neighborhood happen. I'd only done that once before and that was just last week. All these years and I never experienced life from a perch on the front stoop! It made me sad that something so in-my-face had been overlooked for so many years. What might you not be seeing for all your determination in life?