Seven Parts of a Whole Person: Maiden

Take time out of your busy day and embrace your inner child.  Feel the Maiden energy.  Take a walk and skip when no one is looking.  Find time to play, to laugh, to just be.  To be a well Whole Person you have to embrace your Maiden, the innocent child within you.  She is one for the seven parts of the whole you!

Paganism 101

10 sessions of basic information with no push toward one path over another.

1. Seekers Bill of Rights and What is truth and what is myth.
2. Earth Element and Grounding
3. Air Element and Meditation
4. Fire Element and Candle Magick
5. Water Element and Cleansings
6. Spirit and the basics of working with Dieties
7. Lord & Lady, Great Rite and Symbel
8. Moon Magick and Divination
9. Wheel of the Year and how we celebrate
10. Finding your place in the Pagan Community

Spread Design Class

Expand your Tarot skills by adding Spread Design to your tool box of skills. This class is 4 sessions.

• Look at the Celtic Cross Spread in detail
• Reading without a spread
• Creating a core spread library for yourself
• Designing on the fly for the exceptional reading

Opening of the Tarot Keys Class

This is a 4 session series that covers the basics of doing a 78 card reading based on the Opening of the Tarot Keys spread from the Golden Dawn. Force is on the core ways the cards are read.

• Laying out the cards
• An in depth look at Elemental Dignities
• Card Pairings and Reversals
• Golden Dawn method for card counting

Intentional Home

What does that phrase mean?  Intentional Home.  We have been slumbering under the strange idea that homes just happen.  That marriage then child equals home.  It doesn't! Homes are crafted with intention.  Each day as we live our life, we make a hunderd little choices about who we will live.  It is these choices that determine the quality of our life. 

The idea of the Intentional Home is the idea of making those choices with the intent of a goal in mind.  Its all about deciding what you want in a home and then making choices to actively create that.  It is from this that the idea of Hearthcrafting is born. 

My challenge to you is to decide what you want in a home and then begin making the small choices to craft your hearth to your vision with intent.  That's the magick of it all.

Intermediate Tarot

Now that you know the basics meanings of the cards, lets look deeper into their mysteries. Topics include:

• Journaling Tarot Cards
• Card Families
• Elemental Dignitaries – the basics
• An introduction to Kbbl and Tarot
• Tarot Magick
• Shadow Work

Tarot Beginnings

Not interested in a class that just teaches you to memories 78 cards? This may be the class for you. Learn to see your past stories in the cards and in doing so learn to see the stories of the present as well. At the end of these eight sessions, you will have a working knowledge of the 78 cards, a base understanding of the elements and number theory, using spreads and the basic ethics of reading for the public.

just another day at the library

I was in the public library yesterday and began to wonder as I saw the different people go by what the titles of the books and DVDs they check out says about them. And then conversely what does my list say about me? So here is my list with brief explanations.

1. Factotum – book 3 in the Lamplighter Sci Fi series. Great series!
2. Chaldean numerology: an ancient map for modern times
3. Dancing at Lughnasa (a play that caught my eye)
4. Fallen angels (a Noel Coward play)
5. Contemporary scenes for actors, women
6. The key to it all: an encyclopedic guide to the Eastern Mysteries (what is this? I was curious)
7. Taking Tarot to Heart (a Mark McElroy book I somehow missed when it came out)
8. The influence of Indian thought on Ralph Waldo Emerson (this has got to be interesting!)
9. The essential writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson (I will be giving an oratorical speech from his Divinity School speech to Toastmasters)
10. Simple numerology
11. The Chinese emperor's new clothes (for a reading I will be doing soon)
12. the little match girl (another reading)

Sweet words in my ears

My daughter, who until this spring wouldn't speak unless begged as become a constant chatter box. It is amazing to listen to. Her new favorite phases include “Open eyes” when she wants you to wake up. Another is “Swimming pool open now”. That's one can be said any time day or night. It would be nice if she could make it so just by speaking. (at least in her world). She is seven and about to start 1^st grade in a regular classroom. This is a big deal because Little Boo is diagnosed as having sever autism. It has been a long road, but it makes each little success taste so very sweet.

It's that time again !

Check out some of the finest female talent in the Dallas / Ft. Worth area!

July 23rd in Deep Ellum in downtown Dallas.  Buy your tickets on pre-sale for just $10 each!

Painting, music, photography, jewelry and so much more.  Don't miss the fun.

Want the details?  Check out artist interviews on the girlShow Blog

A web of oaths

In an age when relationships are no longer based on geography, what binds us together?  One thing is the commitments we make to each other.  The committment to our children to raise them as best we can.  The commitment to our chosen life partner.  The commitments we make to the organizations we join.  And the commitments we make to those we call friend or family of choice.  All together they form a web of oaths of which we are the center.  Each persons web is as unique as they are. 

In addition to those we have oathed to, those who we share the strongest ties also share the ties of our oaths.  When my partner takes on a new commitment, to a lessor extent so do I.  It is in all of this that we are bound together. 

There was a popular movie years back talked about each person being connected to any other by just six steps or degrees.  These steps are taken across our web of oaths.

Online Tarot Class coming this fall.

There is a poll running on this blog through July 31st.  It is asking which of four Tarot class you would be most interested in seeing available online in an interactive format. 

Tarot for Beginners - learning the key images, symbolism and numerlogy behind all 78 Tarot cards and how to use that knowlege to do Tarot readings.

Intermediate Tarot - Journaling Tarot / Card Families / Elemental Dignitaries / A Brief introduction to KBBL / Tarot Magick / Shadow Work

Open the Key Spread  I - a look at the methods used to walk through this 78 card reading that holds its legacy in the teachings of the Golden Dawn.

Custom Spread Design - Learning the principles behind creating custom spreads for clients on the fly to add depth to their readings.

The only opinions that count are those that are given.  Please let me know what you think.

Heidi

Toastmasters is just for old men - NOT!

When I thought about Toastmasters (TM) a couple of years ago, I thought about a group of old men getting together to have dinner and give boring speeches to each other.

Wow, was I wrong!  Today, Toastmasters in an exciting organization with members of all ages and backgrounds coming together to create a culture of lifelong learning and leadership.  Members are both men and women of every race, ethnicity, educational background and income level imaginable.  Some are truly amazing speakers.  Others are great organizers and leaders, some are just hard workers willing to keep trying and giving their all.  Some can talk for ever on any topic you choose but others are just learning the English language.  I have sat in more than one club's meetings with people ranging in age from 70's to 20's laughing together.

As for the speeches, I have heard talks on learning to swim, swimsuit malfunctions, promoting vegetarian, getting a traffic ticket, and the history of how America gets involved in wars - and that is all in the last two weeks!  You never know what awaits you, but there is always a warm greeting, praise for all who try and a positive attitude. 

Come discover it for youself

Toastmasters Leadership Institute (TLI)

Here in District 50 of Toastmasters International, we kicked of a new officers year with a bang!  I attended the VP Public Relations training and three sessions on Club Sponsor / Mentor / Coach training.  It was great to see old friends and meet new ones.  We have some amazing women in our key District 50 leadership this year.  They are already off to a great start. 

One of the personal high points for me was getting to hear Jack Balko, DTM (a past District Governor many times over) speak.  The topic, Demo Team Training, is near and dear to my heart as it is all about starting new clubs; but more than that it was a true pleasure to hear such a gifted speaker.  I also had the pleasure of meeting our Division Governor Ed Meissner, ACS, ALB. 

I left the conference inspired to not only continue my involvement in the leadership of our local club, but also to reach out and be more active in District 50.  These are a great bunch of people to work with.

Open relationship Primer

Alright, I get this is a complicated topic.  People are complicated.  When you live in the black and write world of monogamy, it is one thing but when you open up the rainbow of possibilities things can be confusing.

First, lets talk about what is not true.

• When someone says they are in an Open Relationship (OP) this is NOT the same thing as single
• NOT everyone in an OP is Bi, promiscuous or even sexually active outside of their primary relationship
• Just because you understand one kind of OP does NOT mean that you understand the dynamics of the next one you incounter.
• OP is NOT the same thing as Polyamory,  That's a whole different conversation.

 Now on to the truths of the matter

OP's are like treaties between countries.  They are negotiated and each one is unique. They do come in three basic types.

• So open that it is hard to tell there is a relationship at all as an outsider.  Each party does what they wish when they wish.  
• Open with half the possiblities.  This is a Bi thing and comes from the strange (IMO) believe that relationships with one gender of persons has a basic value greater than relationships with the other gender therefore those don't but the OP at risk.
• A Limited OP - these are the most common among long term OPs and each is very different.  How do you find out what the ground rules are when you are interested in someone who is in one of these?  You ask one of the partners.

An open letter to Mothers of Little Girls

OK, my friends (also good mothers) and I have been talking and just because apparently it isn't obvious here is a list of things that you should NOT be doing to your daughter under the age of 10 (or 21 in my opinion - but for the sake of argument 10!!)

Again, this is a SHOULD NOT BE DONE list

• putting Red Bull into a sippy cup for your child
• spraying tan onto your child
• buying dental flippers for your child to cover her missing teeth and especially not to MAKE THEM BIGGER
• teaching (for paying someone else to teach) your daughter dance moves originally used by Madonna, the early years, or Brittany Spears. 
• giving your four year old a pacifier while talking to a camera about how you hope some one (anyone) else will give your daughter discipline
• yelling at your six year old because after 3 hours of hairspray and makeup she is unhappy that you have tried to push a bobby pin into her scalp.

 And in case you are unclear on this, NO she is not having fun.

Thanks to Toddlers and Tiaras for sharing and informing people just how stupid this is.

Hearth Crafting: what is it?

We live in a busy world where words like Family, and Honor are fading into a background.  Hearth Crafting is about working to create a family banded together with honor.  Its about creating or crafting this home with intention and purpose instead of just hoping to find that it have arrived around us.  It is a daily choice about a way to live moment to moment not a religion practiced a couple of days a week.


In keeping with that idea, this will be a life blog of my journey to craft that Hearth for those I love.  It will be about Tarot, Motherhood, Toastmasters and other public speaking engagements, Bitfrost Kindred and heathenism, Walden Pond Unitarianism as they journey to become a new church, Wise Woman's Gifts event schedule, Mimir's Well and other things happening this fall.