Writing or creativity of any kind is a mysterious process, a journey into deep and unchartered waters. What you need is a compass… the Tarot.
MONDAY TAROT MESSAGE FROM THE MUSE, 5/5/2025 Theme, 6 of Coins. Coins is the element of Earth in the realm of home, health, wealth, anything physical. Six is a number of balance and generosity. This week, be alert to creative partnerships, ones where goals and visions are in balance and
MONDAY TAROT MESSAGE FROM THE MUSE, 4/28/2025 Theme, 4 of Cups Cups is the element of Water in the realm of heart, emotions, dreams, intuition, and creativity. Four is a number of stability and structure, of stable foundations, but stability can engender stagnation. This week, consider if it’s time to
My theory is you shouldn’t apologize for believing in an idea-channeling muse. You should just be sure to feed her. ~ Laurie Seidler~ Whenever I teach dream work to writers or others, I remind them to practice gratefulness for their dreams and dream messengers by taking some kind of immediate
Bob and I celebrated 43 years of marriage last week. Add an additional year of being engaged and a year of dating before that, and we have been sharing our lives for 45 years. That’s a long time to spend with one person…in close quarters…come hell or high water. A
A journy is best measured in friends rather than miles. Tim Cahill Events like the writers conference this past weekend remind me how important it is to get out of the office/studio and connect with people. Writers and other creatives spend a lot of time working in isolation in a
MONDAY’S TAROT MESSAGE FROM THE MUSE, JULY 6, 2015 Theme, 5 of Wands. Wands is the element of Fire in the realm of spirit, creativity, career, work. Five is a challenging number. Here, the challenge this week is that of too many ideas, projects or roles fighting within you for
MONDAY’S TAROT MESSAGE FROM THE MUSE, JUNE 15, 2015 Theme, The Lovers. This Major Arcana card as it relates to creativity is often about bringing the intuitive and active, inner and outer aspects of the creative act together. It is in listening to your intuition and allowing that creative spark
Monday’s Tarot Message from the Muse, 11/24/2014 Theme, Judgement. A Major Arcana card, here the Muse calls you to a bigger creative vision or project, one that may challenge you but also serve you and others. Listen for the call this week. Focus, 5 of Cups. Cups is the element
Because of the two weddings Bob and I recently attended, the idea of commitment has been on my mind. I love weddings and witnessing couples affirm their love for each other and then dare to commit to journey together into the future—for better or for worse. As with the marriage
For the next 24 weeks, you are invited to join Beth Barany and I as we share with you about the magic of travel and writing. Whether you write fiction or nonfiction, novels, short stories, personal essays or keep journals, we will offer information, tips, techniques and tools for using
God is in the detail. ~ Anonymous The Devil is in the detail. ~ A derivation of the previous quote In a recent weekly video for Monday’s Tarot Message from the Muse, the theme for the week was the 10 of Coins. Coins is the element of Earth and represents
Happy New Year! Have you made your New Year’s resolutions yet? No? Me either. Making resolutions just doesn’t excite me. Why not try a new approach to the New Year? One that is marked by a New Moon in Capricorn, with the Sun, Pluto and Mercury also in Capricorn, especially
I’ve been writing articles for my newsletter for more than five years now, so you’ll understand if I tell you that some weeks, my inner child throws a tantrum. “No! I don’t want to write another newsletter. You can’t make me. No!” And yet, the deadline draws near. I can’t
I’ve been writing articles for my weekly newsletter for a long time, almost 250 articles. So it should come as no surprise that inspiration—and my Muse—occasionally go missing. After I’ve searched in the usual places for her like my dreams and journals, I call in Sherlock Holmes because only that
Hey there, Little Red Riding Hood, you sure are lookin’ good. You’re everything a big bad wolf could want. ~ Rolling Stones Did you grow up hearing the fairytale of Little Red Riding Hood? And were you clear about what happens to good girls when they stray from the path
Recently, we had a Taurus Full Moon while the Sun was in the sign of Scorpio. Scorpio challenges us to face what we fear, to let go of attachments, and to surrender to a spiritual transformation. Taurus, on the other hand, is about the physical realm. What do we value?
That inner voice has both gentleness and clarity. So to get to authenticity, you really keep going down to the bone, to the honesty, and the inevitability of something. Meredith Monk During a recent Akashic records reading from colleague, Tomar Levine, I was advised to pull back and roll up
Masquerade!/ Run and hide–/but a face will/ still pursue you! from Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber Masks are not just for Halloween. Over the centuries, they have served a variety of purposes. Entertainment. Since the time of ancient Greece, mask have been used for theater performances (noh
After almost four years of writing articles for this newsletter, sometimes I’m not sure what to write that won’t seem redundant or unimportant. So this time, I consulted the oracles in the form of Ciro Marchetti’s Legacy of the Divine Tarot. I pulled the first card to represent the subject
I know I’ve emphasized many times here how important making time to get away is for your life and especially for your creativity. But sometimes time, money, family and health prevent traveling to idyllic locales such as the one here in the Catskills where I am holding my retreat. So,
This past Sunday was Father’s Day here in the US. But I called my dad on Saturday because I didn’t want to deal with busy phone lines or trying to catch Dad when he was home and not at church or on the phone with one of my other three
“Oh dear, oh dear, I shall be too late!” When I work with clients or lead workshops on creativity or writing, I often here the complaint of not having time. So early in the coaching process, I have clients explore establishing a regular time to work on their creative projects,
Creative friends and clients often complain that getting connected to their Muses and staying connected is an ongoing challenge, especially when in the middle of a book or project. But once in a while, a client has a Muse who is a Chatty Cathy. Chatty Cathy, a doll that was
This week is a magical week for me. And I don’t even have to wave a magical wand. Instead, I am waving my purple pen, the color of ink I use when I am writing my book. See, I am on a writer’s retreat in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts
One of the games that my 10-month old grandson loves to play is when I hold him in front of the mirror, pointing first to me and saying, “Grandma” and then to him, saying, “Andrew.” Then I wave at him. “Hi, Andrew!” Big grin. Looks at me, looks at the
This week I watched one of those videos that gets passed around on FaceBook because of its emotional impact. It’s about a young man with autism who loved basketball and attended a high school in upstate New York. He joined his high school basketball team, not as a player, but
Creating a business plan for the 2013 is important and necessary if you want to be successful whether you are a professional writer, artist, performer, coach, or healer. But, planning for your business and/or your creative work has to start from within. Clarity about your Inner Vision gives you clarity
Many people pray and receive the answer to their prayers, but ignore them—or deny them, because the answers didn’t come in the expected form. ~ Sophy Burnham Answers that don’t come in the expected form are something I warn people about all the time when I am teaching them how
Many people are inventive, sometimes cleverly so. But real creativity begins with the drive to work on and on and on. ~ Margueritte Harmon Bro, author “I love this story, and I love when it the writing surprises me, but sitting down to write is such hard work!” I complained
In the 2007 movie, “You Kill Me.” Ben Kingsley stars as a Polish alcoholic hitman from Buffalo whose drinking causes his mob boss to send him to San Francisco to dry out, with interesting consequences for everyone. In the opening scene, it is winter in Buffalo (i.e. snow up to
If you write only about the things that are safe, about the emotions that are happy and easy, then your story will lack the authenticity and power that readers hunger for. Thursday, I had the privilege and fun of being interviewed by coach, author, colleague and friend, Adela Rubio. I
I am so pleased and excited to welcome you to my newly redesigned website and blog. For many reasons, this has been a year-long process, but as the site developed so did my clarity around what I do well, how I do it and whom I do it for… So
Friday night, Bob and I watched the movie, “The King’s Speech.” In spite of several important historical misrepresentations, the movie is a powerful story about King George VI’s struggle to conquer his stammer at a time when the popularity of radio was changing how governments communicated with their populace. One
So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it. ~Krishnamurti Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. When we
When I started talking about the branding and name for my business, Divining the Muse, some people argued against it, suggesting that most people would not recognize what a Muse is. While I agreed that some might not, I also insisted that most people who work in the creative arts