Hi everyone,
On a personal level, I’m still enjoying the grandchildren and keeping a watchful eye on them. They keep me on my toes. It is a real balancing act living in close proximity to several close relatives. However, in spite of their outside influences, we have been able to keep the harmony within the family situation pretty well. We have continual contact with clear respectful communications and occasionally gathering for a meal….a Ten of Cups type moment in time.
Garden and flower beds are planted and sprouting. Our weather system is cooperating with sun and rain. It is a lovely to see all the greenery and the air is so clean and fresh…especially in the morning. I love the fog drifting over the green fields. Nature is so perfect it seems surreal sometimes.
Lewis and I put in an outside gardening station with running water and a new bench that he made to my specs. We put an old rusty tin roof overhang on our garden shed to shield some things from the weather. Our neighbor, master potter, Glenn Burris had a pile of tin in his yard that was the perfect amount of rustiness. Another neighbor, Francis a plumber, gave us a nice deep utility sink, plus another neighbor, Phil, traded a cement slab (the floor) for some wood. A Ten of Pentacles situation for our project….
Now, if we could figure out a way to let the chickens run free without getting into the garden and the flower beds. Open for ideas….
Book Project
My great-grandparents on both sides of my family pioneered in the Oregon/Washington territories. Currently, I’m working on a coffee table book of my maternal grandmother’s photos. My grandmother was a professional photographer and a teacher before she married at 27. After which she stayed home…but had her camera. She left a treasure trove of photographs from homestead life.
Because I feel a strong responsibility to tell their story, I took a Photoshop class from the local college to understand how to repair olden photos. As I work on the photos, I get to know them at a deep level, which is quite an experience. I slated this year to search out more photos and information from my cousins who reside all over Oregon. My Aunt Charity, who is 94 years old, wrote a ten page memoir that will add to the text quite nicely. Next year, I will write the entire text and the following year get feedback on the writing and make changes. And then publish. The Knight of Pentacles, Queen of Swords and the Queen of Cups archetypes combining their skills here.
Archetypal Tarot Counseling Phase I
The workshop at Breitenbush was a small intimate group, which was quite magical. It was an intelligent group of several nurses and a legal secretary. The archetype of camaraderie was present and we learned as we taught each other. You can see our group’s continuing conversations on the Facebook page “Archetypal Tarot Counseling”.
For next year, I’m changing things a bit and having the classes at my office-temple that I call The Temple of Claire. (Claire is a French name that means “light” and is also the name of my computer). That would make it much easier for me and I would enjoy it too. Breitenbush is a magical place to be sure. However, my slice of the world is pretty special too. Anyway, change in the works there. Keep an eye on the workshop section of my personal site.
San Francisco
Many of you may be interested in this year’s Bay Area Tarot Symposium (BATS) hosted by Thalassa Terese. More information http://www.dodivination.com/2012_sf_bats . I will be a featured speaker; my topic is “The Archetypes and Developmental Psychology”.
Book Reviews
Messages from the Archetypes and Gaining Archetypal Vision sales are going well. You may read reviews here. Of course you can write a review too. If you write to your blog, newsletter, or magazine let me know so that I can add it to the list. You may also go to Amazon and Barnes and Noble to write reviews. I appreciate the thoughtful ones very much.
Arizona Trip
I was in Phoenix, Arizona for a few days, primarily to see my son Ryan and his family. I also tried to tie the trip into a Richard and Roberta Sutphen workshop on advanced past life therapy. Ryan chaffered me through the big city to the workshop address. Interestingly, the room was empty. Ryan talked to the woman at the reception desk. The receptionist was very helpful and made a call to Richard and Roberta’s apartment to see what was up. Roberta was very apologetic and came down to talk to me right away. I thought it was an interesting development and wasn’t too concerned. Apparently, they decided to cancel the workshop and called everyone but me. (Interestingly, they had never canceled a workshop before and so had not had this type of situation.) At the time, Jupiter was in Taurus and I felt the energies were working for me that day…despite the initial circumstances. Ryan and I didn’t get too excited about what “should” happen; we just watched the moments unfold in their perfection.
To make a long story short, they ended up giving me a private session. After we were done with their teaching, I gave them a short Tarot Counseling session. Lovely people, I enjoyed the time very much.
Richard Sutphen is an alternative practitioner, an author of several books and who has taught metaphysics for years. He has a great voice. I recommend his past life regression tapes/CDs. Roberta, was very sweet and interesting. She is also an alternative practitioner, a medium with an interesting formal education. More information: http://www.richardsutphen.com/
Facebook
I joined Facebook a couple of years ago and since then I have decided that it is a worthy enterprise. I love the contacts that I have made and will see some of them this summer at the Bay Area Tarot Symposium. Not only is FB good for me, it’s good for business. The other night, I had the following dream:
I was in Mark Zuckerberg’s office and he kissed me on the lips and gave me a check for $880.00. There were thoughts like this was the founder of Facebook and he was a wealthy man. (I interpreted this to be the money I have made off my Facebook contacts: students and clients as well as other authors, teachers, mediums, pychics, Tarotists, astrologers….lovely and interesting people. I’m not sure about the dollar amount because I don’t know how many books have been sold.) When he kissed me, I pulled back and wondered about his motive. It felt like a working relationship and then he asked me what I was going to do. I told him I would write creatively.
I left his office and I got into a small car, a convertible, placing the check in a folder and carefully locating it in the car where it would be safe (my sense of this is that dreams can be so bizarre that you never know what is going to happen to the things you want to keep. LOL)
At first I drove into a dead end, and then I drove down a hill in a neighborhood with lots of Victorian houses. I was staying with a woman who was in the middle of a remodel. She was busy putting up wall paper and was in no mood for talking. (This is Thalassa Terese who is the hostess for the Bay Area Tarot Symposium (BATS). I will be a speaker there in August). I went back to Mark and then back to my car thinking of the check and trusting myself that I put it in a safe place (This time concern about the check is about trusting myself.). It was a nice dream with a feeling of luck and confidence.
When I e-mailed the dream my dream work partner, Robert Volkmann, he expanded upon it with this: “The number $880 seems to be as much the point of the dream as Mark Zuckerberg, both being symbols of Power. The 88 is the higher octave of 8, the Capricorn Number of Mastery of the Physical plane. Mark Zuckerberg would add the element of Social Media and connectedness to the nature of this Power and Mastery.”
And so, dear friends, live life to the fullest. May the wind always be at your back and remember not to spit into it.
Don’t be shy, I continue to do on-line sessions and love getting your e-mails. Loving kindness to you, Toni