Mary sums up my thoughts completely! Readings often reaffirm a subject’s own inclinations and validate a person’s instincts. This is a great read on how to approach tarot readngs.
Many people come to Tarot readings in hopes of “fixing” their lives—obtaining information and guidance that will help them make the “right” decisions and no mistakes—guaranteeing perfection.
I subscribe to the BrainPickings blog featuring contemplative posts on creativity, literature and non-fiction. This week’s post has some applicable thoughts by George Saunders and Parker Palmer that show the narrowness of perfection.
George Saunders: “Although we’re animated by conflicting impulses and irrepressible moral imperfection, we can still live rich and beautiful lives.”
Parker Palmer, “Wholeness does not mean perfection: it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life.”
I ask you, as a Tarot reader, how can we help the querent “embrace brokenness”?
On the other hand, I sometimes hear from clients that a reading primarily showed them something they knew already. I ask them if they knew that what was shown was the most important thing to take into account in their situation—the…
Summer Solstice. The high point of Light for the whole year! Longest day and shortest night. Leave a little saucer of milk and honey outside for the fairies under the light of the Full Moon.
It’s a VERY witchy night tonight. April 30th is a huge traditional celebration in many cultures throughout the world. It occurs six months from Halloween, and has the same flavor – but with a view of celebrating Spring.
Halloween is when the veil between our world and the spirit world is at it’s thinnest and it’s easy to see the returning spirits of the Mighty Dead. On Walpurgis Night the world’s are farthest apart.
Most cultures mark these ancient farming celebrations with fire, sex and odes to nature. Spring is about fertility – for ourselves, our animals and our fields. I view Walpurgis Night and Halloween as times to mark the ecstatic energy of life. That we are all here on this planet as part of it, and in tune with it. Celebrate. Face your fears and jump a fire.
The wildest, witchiest celebrations are in Germany (from what I’ve been told) and I would LOVE to see it someday. If you have any further information or images please share them in the comments below! Happy May Eve!
“Check out Art Nouveau illustrator Alphonse Mucha’s beautiful occult-inspired art from the turn of the century, which drew on themes from Kabbalah and magick
“Here’s what Century Guild has to say about Mucha:
By December 20, 1899, Alphonse Mucha had experienced four years as the most recognizable proponent of Art Nouveau graphics and the most celebrated illustrator in Paris. The massive output of the artist in his first four years in the advertising and decorative world earned much for Mucha’s publisher but very little for the artist himself.
As the end of the century grew near, Alphonse Mucha insisted upon the release of a deeply personal work, and printed 510 copies of what he for the remainder of his life considered his works-on-paper masterpiece, Le Pater.
Decidedly non-denominational, Mucha’s exploration features a female deity protecting humankind and a number of sophisticated occult themes across a series of images of mystical illustrations.
Unlike the advertising art that had dominated Mucha’s output since his “discovery” by Sarah Bernhardt in late 1894, Mucha described this series of images to a New York reporter as “the thing I have put my soul into.” (The Sun newspaper, 5 January, 1900)
Mucha’s previous artworks were lithographed on numerous mediums ranging from paper to silk, in multiple formats; Mucha’s publisher Champenois saw that Mucha was the most printed artist in Paris in the late 1890s. Mucha’s concern, understandably, was likely that the imagery of his spiritual work would be capitalized upon. By 1899, he had earned the right to demand that the Le Pater images would be produced in an edition of only 510 copies, and subsequently saw the plates destroyed- ensuring the work would never be reprinted for mass-market purposes.
The images from Le Pater are mentioned in numerous Mucha books as his masterpieces and are universally acknowledged alongside his massive Slav Epic paintings as his finest work. However, as a result of Mucha’s forced limitation of the publication of this masterwork, the rarity of the lithographs means that most books are limited to mentioning the images in the text and leaving the reader to wonder what these “lost masterpieces” might look like.
The original promotional materials for the Le Pater series name these artworks as of “rare interest and considerable importance”. Over 115 years later, the description continues to ring true.
If you’d like to see all these artworks in one book, captured in high resolution from the originals, please support our project and pre-order the book!
I don’t know how deeply David Bowie was in to Magick, but it’s clear in the 70’s he was immersed in it. I’ve read he was having drug and alcohol issues at the time, but I find this period of his life in Los Angeles very interesting nonetheless.
Like many people, Bowie had an enormous impact on my life and he’s one of my favorite artists. I was born in 1964 and I grew up listening to him. He has always been there in my life. I can’t remember any point in my life where I wasn’t listening to his music.
As a teenager I studied movement and I wanted to be a ballerina. When “Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars” came out in the early 80’s I was there at the Lumiere theater off Polk Street, watching the movie 50 times over. In my late 20’s I studied theater, movement, and world religions in San Francisco. Inspired by Bowie’s example, I became a guitarist and singer for my own rock persona – Bettie Black. I wrote and released my own music – always inspired by him. I find his exploration of magick personal and meaningful. I also study gnosticism and the Tree of Life from Jewish mystical traditions.
I’ve read many observations from various people, and I’ve come across some interesting insights! I thought I’d put them all here to share with interested folks.
“My overriding interest was in Kabbalah and Crowleyism. That whole dark and rather fearsome never-world of the wrong side of the brain.”
From “Bowie on Bowie” by Sean Egan
from Secret Sun Blog: “Apparently David Bowie, despite being heavily interested in the Occult and even referencing Crowley lyrically in the 1971 song Quicksand, was actually of the mind that AC was a fraud (from a 1997 interview in NME):
Q: “So were you involved in actual devil worship?”
A: “Not devil worship, no, it was pure, straightforward, old-fashioned magic.”
Q: “The Aleister Crowley variety?”
A: “No, I always thought Crowley was a charlatan. But there was a guy called [Arthur] Edward Waite who was terribly important to me at the time. And another called Dion Fortune who wrote a book called ‘Psychic Self-Defense‘. You had to run around the room getting bits of string and old crayons and draw funny things on the wall, and I took it all most seriously, ha ha ha ! I drew gateways into different dimensions, and I’m quite sure that, for myself, I really walked into other worlds. I drew things on walls and just walked through them, and saw what was on the other side!”
I really don’t know much about Waite, but in a bit of research (Wikipedia, so you know, take that as you may) came upon the info that Crowley apparently hated Waite and mocked him publically in his writing. Checked, and in Bowie’s list of favorite books, there are none by Crowley. The only Occult book listed is Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual by Elphias Levi.”
How a 1974 image reappeared in Bowie’s final music video.
BOOK COVER
Imagine getting the opportunity to hold a private photo session with David Bowie at the height of his stardom. We’re talking post “Ziggy Stardust” and “Aladdin Sane,” with “Pin Ups” and “Diamond Dogs” still on the horizon. Imagine you had an entire evening to play dress up with the iconic shapeshifter and capture the manifold personas he embodied so swiftly yet completely.
And suppose, over 40 years later, after the iconic artist’s death, you return to those photos you took so long ago and notice what seems to be a message. A message that reappears throughout his later works, culminating with the “Lazarus” video off his final album “Blackstar,” that perhaps illuminates the artist’s feelings about death and immortality.
This is what happened to photographer Steve Schapiro, who spent one fateful night in 1974 photographing Bowie in his Los Angeles studio. “From the moment Bowie arrived, we seemed to hit it off. Incredibly intelligent, calm, and filled with ideas,” Schapiro recalled in a statement. “He talked a lot about Aleister Crowley, whose esoteric writings he was heavily into at the time. When David heard that I had photographed Buster Keaton, one of his greatest heroes, we instantly became friends.”
DAVID SEATED DRAWING CIRCLES ON THE BACKGROUND PAPER AND THEN THE KABBALAH TREE OF LIFE DIAGRAM ON THE FLOOR. LOS ANGELES, 1974.
The two collaborated on many striking images, each transforming Bowie into a distinct character, as unique and otherworldly as a mythical creature. Yet a particular ensemble, the one pictured above and featured on Bowie’s 1976 album “Station to Station,” holds special significance.
In the image, Bowie dons a navy blue striped body suit and, crouched on the floor, doodles diagrams of Kabbalah’s Tree of Life, a series of 10 spiritual emanations. Lyrics from the title track “Station to Station” echo the language of Kabbalist symbols and beliefs. “Here are we, one magical movement from Keter to Malkuth,” Bowie sings, with Keter (the Crown) and Malkuth (the Kingdom) being the first and last virtues on the Tree of Life.
In his last music video, “Lazarus,” from album “Blackstar” — regarded by many as a cryptic goodbye letter to his fans — Bowie whips out the exact jumpsuit worn in the 1974 image, visible around the two-minute mark. Just as Bowie doodled obsessively in the ‘70s photo shoot, in 2016 Bowie scribbles feverishly in a notebook, heightening in intensity until finally he appears to come to a conclusion, finishing his notes and talking away. (In Bowie style: backward.)
As Albin Wantier interprets in his introduction to Schapiro’s photography book: “He appears to have found the meaning he has been searching for. The connection between both images, 40 years apart, is stunning … He has resolved his enigma, and the curtain can fall at last.”
A close-up of the writing in Bowie’s notebook reveals a trail of symbols. Wantier analyzed these symbols in conjunction with some appearing on a vinyl edition of “Blackstar,” all of which resembled the doodles from the 1974 shoot. The “Blackstar” images, Wantier determined after checking with a friend, were part of a chemical formula depicting the various stages of the nuclear fusion, which leads to the formation of a sun. Or perhaps, a blackstar.
“In the ‘Lazarus’ video, Bowie resolves the enigma of life, which he had been endeavoring to do since 1976,” Wantier summarizes. “His life, which was indistinguishable from his work, led him to enact various characters of his own devising; his life was in itself a work of art. Now that he has finished, Bowie can close the book. However, the last chapter does not end with the artist’s passing — that would be too simple.”
FROM THE PHOTO SHOOT FOR PEOPLE MAGAZINE. WE TOOK PORTRAITS AGAINST A PUTRID GREEN BACKGROUND WHICH WE BOTH FELT WAS THE WORST POSSIBLE COLOR TO USE AS A BACKGROUND FOR A MAGAZINE COVER. LOS ANGELES, 1974
While Bowie’s physical body is no longer with us, his creative energy has catalyzed to create a cosmic eruption, felt around the world, that can never be undone. “David Bowie is not the kind to just disappear just like that from our world,” Wantier writes. “The chemical symbols that accompany the ‘Blackstar’ release point where he’s going: an artistic nuclear fusion of two elements that creates enough energy to make a sun.”
While many acknowledged the poetry in Bowie’s final album, his requiem, and its tremendous impact as his final work of art on this earth, few pieced together the fact that the roots of “Blackstar” trace back to 1974, when a photographer and the world’s biggest rock star became fast friends and spent a single evening creating, contorting and doodling away. As Bowie’s producer Tony Visconti put it: “His death was not different from his life — a work of Art.”
See the image that started it all, as well as the many other never before published images captured that night, in Bowie. A preview of the book is featured below, with all photographs by Steve Schapiro and published by powerHouse Books.
David out of character. One of my favorite photos of David. I particularly like his hands in this shot. Los Angeles 1975. Photographs by Steve Schapiro, from Bowie, published by powerHouse Books
David with cigarette on a break from filming MFE in New Mexico 1975. This became a Rolling Stone cover and a popular image.
David relaxed at his house in Los Angeles, 1975. I particularly liked his hands in this photo.
David with goggles and bike. Los Angeles, 1974
Bowie holding a Buster Keaton book near his face, in his dressing room trailer on âThe Man Who Fell to Earth: set, New Mexico 1975. Buster Keaton was one of David Bowie’s heroes.
David took me by surprise when he came out in the red and white striped outfit during the 1974 photo shoot. It was different from what we expected he would be wearing, Los Angeles 1974.
David with Cher on TV show, Los Angeles, 1975.
In the makeup trailer for “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” Bowie puts in his cat eyes for a scene, New Mexico 1975.
“An infinitely dark and enigmatic vortex of existential dread has had enough of being watched and accosted by prominent sages and thinkers.
“They all give me this deer-in-the-headlights look when they see me, expecting me to stare back,” it said. “It’s so creepy and inappropriate. I tried but I just kept blinking. And you know what I saw when I managed to stare back? Creeps.”
The swirling singularity of meaninglessness explained that it “wasn’t just a walking revelation” and deserved to be treated with “the same dignity and respect” as any other ontological construct.
The abyss has even tried to raise awareness about the harassing, leering, and sometimes hateful behaviour that philosophic literary devices face everyday with a twitter campaign: #yesallphilosophicalmetaphors, but has stirred up resentment among some academics who have responded with a #notallphilosophers campaign of their own.
“I’m just a guy who appreciates wisdom,” said University of Toronto adjunct philosophy professor William Carrington-Smith. “These uptight epiphanies just can’t take a compliment.”
However, for its part, the abyss was not backing down.
“I swear to God, if I get one more tweed-jacketed pervert glaring at me while licking his lips and asking if I’ve read Kierkegaard, they’re going to know first-hand what I mean when I say that I let Heidegger off easy,” said the swirling anomaly of nothingness as it settled down for a cup of tea in its modest suburban bungalow.”
“Here, in this moment of balance, I honor and recognize the sacred mystery of existence. I am a part of a cosmic dance. A holy and blessed music fills the world. The light and the darkness shift from this moment onward. As it is on the land, so it is in my being. I follow the movement of the Mother, and She works a transformation in me. Be it new beginnings or resolution, the Equinox is a point of transition; of change. I embrace the change.”
– Teo Bishop: “The Solitary Druid Fellowship’s Equinox Devotional”
For the people of the ancient world, especially those living in Northern Europe, the changing of the seasons was of particularly great significance. The lengthening of the days that began after the winter solstice gave the anticipation of the beginning of the end of what were at times long and perilous winters- which for some…
Wizards Tarot by Corinne Kenner and John Blumen (Llewellyn)
I’m a firm believer in learning by doing, and getting to know the components of your deck is no exception. This can also be a great daily spread for anyone.
1. Divide your deck into four stacks:
• The 4 Aces • The 16 Court Cards • The 36 Minor Arcana Cards numbered 2-10 • The 22 Major Arcana
2. Shuffle the Aces stack thoroughly while asking, “What do I most need to be aware of today?” Draw one card. if a card is reversed, turn it upright for all steps. The Ace indicates an area of focus, general atmosphere or the overall energy at play. (Note: if your suit characteristics differ from those below, then use whatever works.)
• Wands signifies innovative or intuitive energy. It indicates desires, enthusiasm, activity, initiating projects, enterprise. • Cups signifies emotional energy. It indicates love, relationships, nurturing, imagination. •
Spring Equinox: Saturday, March 19, 2016 at 9:30pm Pacific
Sun into Aries
The beginning of a new astrological year.
Equal day, equal night.
Plant the seeds (metaphorically and literally) of what you’d like to see grow this year.
Brigid, meaning “exalted one”, is the daughter of the Dagda and a true survivor goddess. Throughout the many twists and turns of religion in the British Isles, Brigid has managed to stay within the heads and minds of the people. Whether in the form of a saint, a goddess, or the embodiment of the land, she is the keeper of tradition that stretches into antiquity. Witches and pagans who maintain a religious devotional practice often honor Brigid only on Imbolc. But as this next Imbolc approaches, I ask you to take that a step further and maintain a regular practice with her, if she calls to you.
Brigid is a poet, a smith, a healer, an artist, and the kindler of flames. For those familiar with the Norse runes, you might think of her power best described by Kenaz, the torch rune. She ignites the inner flame within us, allowing us to seek our own healing, our own power. She asks “What tools do you bring to this work? What do you need?” The following is a simple devotional you may perform on Imbolc or any time at all. If you wish to form a close bond with the Exalted One, regular devotionals, prayer, and deep listening will go a long way.
Early in the morning, just as the sun is rising, approach your altar space or some other space in the home where you can see the sun if possible. Begin by breathing slowly and deeply, until you enter a state of meditation suited for deep communion with the gods. With each breath, feel the first rays of the sun flowing into your body, as if on a stream of flowing water or the crisp sweetness of wine. Have three fresh candles before you. You may wish to dress them with oils and plants associated with Brigid such as angelica, myrrh, wisteria, heather, and basil.
Light the first candle and say: Lady of the forge, I call to you. The fierce strike of the anvil resounds the call for transformation. I honor you.
Light the second candle and say: Lady of the healing cloth, I call to you. Sunlit rays upon the dawn awaken the weary travelers. I honor you.
Light the third candle and say: Lady of the sacred flame, I call to you. You who are eternal and forever unending. The holy spark. I honor you.
Take your time observing the light of the three candles and meditate for a bit on these powers that you have honored. Contemplate how transformation, the renewal of a new day, and the warmth of a flame in the winter make you feel. Brigid is the embodiment of these powers on their own and the feelings that stir as a result of them.
Before you is placed a bottle of wine or some other special drinking brew. There is also a bowl that will hold the offering. Breathing deeply, hold the vessel of the brew before you and say: Lady of the deep well Exalted one Shepherd and keeper of humanity Cosmic queen of the dawn Keeper of the healing waters I honor you!
Pour the brew into the bowl and raise it high before you. At this point I try to notice if I can actually feel her presence. I may also whisper personal words of honor, or even poetry. As a bardic goddess, I find that Brigid is often impressed when someone takes the time to speak original poetry in her name. Writing and releasing this devotional is one such offering.
When you’re done, you can leave the offering bowl on your altar for a bit or immediately take it outside and pour it (with reverence) onto the ground.
It is done.
Brigid: Meeting the Celtic Goddess of Poetry, Forge, and Healing Well by Morgan Daimler Brigid: History, Mystery, and Magick of the Celtic Goddess by Courtney Weber Tending Brigid’s Flame: Awaken to the Celtic Goddess of Hearth, Temple, and Forge by Lunaea Weatherstone Imbolc: Rituals, Recipes & Lore for Brigid’s Day by Carl F. Neal
“Happy Imbolc! We’re in the part of the zodiacal calendar when the Sun is halfway between the season. Here in the northern hemisphere we’re in mid-winter, the time when the Sun hits around 15 Aquarius.
The ancients celebrated these “cross quarter days” with different rituals and festivals. Halloween is another one of the four festivals along with Beltane/May Day (5/1) and Lammas Day (8/1). Here in the US, we celebrate Groundhog Day and predict the arrival of spring.
In other news the Moon is in Sagittarius today, turning our sights toward foreign lands, long distance travel, exploration, faith, and philosophy. Wherever the Moon is day-by-day reveals how we’re nourishing ourselves and the emotional tone of the day.”
Wizards Tarot by Corinne Kenner and John Blumen (Llewellyn) 
“Pagan Goddess Brigid” by 
elizabeth rose psychic and tarot 