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.

Category: Seasons

Journals and Journaling—For Enjoying Your Holiday Season

Journal writing can provide a unique channel of creativity for all of us, whether or not we are artist by profession. It invites the free play of imagination, intuition, and desire, demanding only—and nothing less than—authentic expression. ~ Marlene A. Schiwy ~ Journals are the place to weave the dreams

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Holidays–A Time for Receiving, Not Just Giving

While the Giver archetype is well-known and celebrated in our culture, its opposite, the Receiver, is almost wholly unfamiliar…Busyness is a virtue, and countless people multitask themselves into exhaustion, overextend their energy reserves and take care of other people’s needs at the expense of their own health and emotional well-being.

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The Fine Art of Grieving & Letting Go

All the fine art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on. ~ Havelock Ellis ~ Last week, a much-loved friend of mine who was a major influence on my writing died. While I was still integrating that, the shooting at the synagogue in Pittsburgh,

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Are You Ready to Harvest?

At the beginning of this month is the holiday of Lammas, or Lughnasadh (named after the Celtic god of skilled workers and craftsmen, Lugh), a holiday that celebrates the growth and harvest of the grain, especially in the form of bread and grain. This holiday is the first of several

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3 Reasons to Celebrate Creative Work

People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation…Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel ~ For

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Writing Lessons from Shoveling Snow

Recently, our area was hit by a snowstorm that dumped two feet of snow on us. A typical later winter storm, the snow was heavy with moisture. It’s great for packing and building snowmen but not so great for clearing off sidewalks and driveways. I’d planned to attend a writer’s

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Word Spells for the New Year

Characters are not people or things, but arcs of transformation. They do, get, make, and change things to earn that Happily Ever After. Their plots arise from those actions. ~ Damon Suede, author ~ I was checking my Twitter feed the other day and came upon a post by a

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Let Your Leo Creativity Free

Monday was a solar eclipse in the sign of Leo, the sign of the Sun, the sign of creativity, passion, generosity, confidence and leadership. The sign, that in Shakespeare’s words, says, “All the world’s a stage.” In the tarot, two Major Arcana cards embody the energy of the sign of

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Your Muse & You Ready for the New School Year?

A new school year is beginning. You walk into an office supply store and see all the specials on tablets, notebooks, backpacks, pens, pencils and other miscellaneous supplies for school. If you have children, then you’ve been shopping for all those aforementioned supplies, and new clothes and shoes, etc. If

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5 Great Escape Artists…Authors

When I only begin to read, I forget I’m on this world. It lifts me on wings with high thoughts. Anzia Yezierska Summer is a time to kick back, stretch out in the hammock or on the beach, and escape. Escape through the pages of a good book. An ability

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Prepare Your Creative Soil

The process of weeding can be as beneficial to the gardener as to the garden. It gives scope to the aggressive instinct—what a satisfaction to pull an enemy by the roots and throw him into a heap! And yet, paradoxically, weeding is the most peaceful of any outdoor task. Bertha

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Don’t Know What to Write? Look Out…

Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact. -Robert McKee Now that we are formally into spring, I’ve enjoyed a full week of watching birds at the feeder just outside the window where I work

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Emerging from the Dark at Spring Equinox

You can’t study the darkness by flooding it with light. ~ Edward Abbey Are you afraid of the dark? I don’t mean the physical dark… I mean are you afraid of the creative dark? That place of the unknown, the unseen, and the unacknowledged? People, including writers and creatives, seem

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Ask for Help with Your Creative Work

MONDAY’S TAROT MESSAGE FROM THE MUSE, 3/14/2016 Theme, 5 of Coins. Coins is the element of Earth in the realm of home, health, wealth. Anything physical. Five is a number of challenge and change. This week, look for when you are tempted to go it alone instead of asking for

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Traveling on Rough Road?

One evening, Bob and I were on our way into town for a rare dinner out on a major two-lane state road. Spring driving here in the Northeast often means the asphalt version of corduroy, or a deteriorated and crumbled version of sinkholes. Bob, ever the skilled driver, approached these

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How to Thaw the Creative Deep Freeze

It is so bitterly cold that the wine as well as the water freezes in the glasses at the King’s table. ~ Charlotte-Elisabeth, Duchesse D’Orleans (1695) If you live in the northern regions of the US, you’ve watched the effects of extreme cold on lakes and ponds and rivers this

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Love Needs More than Scraps

Love cannot survive if you just give it scraps of yourself, scraps of your time, scraps of your thoughts. ~ Mary O’Hara, author ~ Do you remember when you were a child making your own Valentine out of scraps of doilies, construction paper, glitter, and ribbons? Usually, those were for

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Brigid and the Steam of Creativity

One of my favorite goddesses is Brigid, from Celtic mythology. She is a three-fold goddess (meaning she embodies Maiden, Mother, Crone) and is often represented as Goddess of the Forge (fire) and Goddess of the Well (water). As Goddess of the Well, she is healer and poet and the part

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Break the Chains of 2015

O darkest Year! O brightest Year! / O changeful Year of joy and woe, Today we stand beside thy bier, / Still loth to let thee go! ~ Julia C. R. Dorr, poet ~ Happy New Year! A brand new year and all that implies. New beginnings, new opportunities, new

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To Love a Tree

Years ago, when I was writing the first draft of my book Weaving a Woman’s Life: Spiritual Lessons from the Loom, I went on retreat in the Poconos. Because it was after ski season and before the busy summer season, I had the place almost to myself. In the afternoon,

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Are You a Smashed Pumpkin?

It’s that time of year. Beautiful, flame-orange pumpkins are everywhere—on lawns, on porch steps, in windows and even serving as heads for ghosts. While some are pristine in their pumpkin-ness, others have been carved with ghoulish glee to delight or frighten. They are a sign of the season, representing harvest

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Be as Different as a Daylily

This time of year in the Northeast, you drive through the countryside and suburbs where banners of bright orange tiger lilies wave at you as you pass. The tiger lily is a hemoracallis or daylily, meaning that each individual bloom only lasts for 24 hours. Yes, only 24 hours. The

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Ready to Turn Up the Heat?

Fire is a good companion for the mind. ~ May Sarton ~ Fire. Not the element you’d normally associate with spring. And yet, if it wasn’t for the heat, the fire of that ever-nearing sun warming the Northern Hemisphere, snow and ice wouldn’t melt and fill the rivers, and lakes.

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3 Tips to Prepare for the New Year You

Do you make New Year resolutions and set goals? If you do, and all you do is write them down—or even if you write out some of the steps and actions involved—then you are doomed to failure. Doomed. Why? Because new goals and changes require an environment to support them.

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Are You Dreaming of the Dead?

Halloween, Samhain, and Dia de Muertos, All Saint’s Day. These holidays mark the time of year when the veils between the worlds are thin and dreams of those who have died are common. So, not surprisingly, I dreamed a few nights ago of my mother who died in 1984. I

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What are You Harvesting this Season?

Autumn…makes a double demand. It asks that we prepare for the future—that we be wise in the ways of garnering and keeping. But it also asks that we learn to let go—to acknowledge the beauty of sparseness. ~ Bonaro W. Overstreet The autumn equinox, or Mabon as it is called

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Feeling Pressured? It Could Be Pluto…

In the last few weeks, I’ve had conversations with clients and friends who are experiencing a lot of stress and challenge in their lives and in their creative work. Sleepless nights, accidents, a restless sense of something not just right… And it’s no wonder because Pluto, the planet of depth

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Is it Time to Spring Clean Your Creativity?

Spring is finally here. And just like the birds preparing to build nests, first there is some cleaning out to do. If you live in the Northeast , you are probably throwing open the windows and doors to let in the fresh air. You may already be cleaning and putting

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A Ritual to Celebrate Brigit and Temper Your Creativity

Brigit is one of the oldest known Irish or Celtic goddesses, worshipped as a triple goddess, i.e. maiden/mother/crone. As goddess of the forge or smithy, Brigit is the patroness of metalworking and other crafts. Her element is fire, the fire of passion and inspiration, and her celebration, February 2nd, includes

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Are You Ready for a New Story?

Doesn’t starting a New Year feel like opening a new book? The pages are crisp and have that new book smell. There is the anticipation of the new story waiting to unfold before you as you turn page after page. On New Year’s Day, we had a New Moon in

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What Mask Do You Wear?

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

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Do You Dare to Look into the Shadows?

October 18th, we have a lunar eclipse in the signs of Aries (the Moon) and Libra (the Sun). Aries, expressed positively, is self-sufficient, straight-forward, and adventurous, but expressed negatively is self-centered, thrill-seeking and aggressive. Libra is very sociable, cooperative, and considerate or indecisive, pretentious and co-dependent, going along to get

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3 Steps to Finding Your Way through the Fog

Emergencies have always been necessary to progress. It was darkness which produced the lamp. It was fog that produced the compass. ~ Victor Hugo I woke the other morning, and saw that the rich gold of autumn leaves was dimmed by a thin layer of fog, a not unusual occurrence

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Autumn – the Opportunity to See

Autumn…makes a double demand. It asks that we prepare for the future—that we be wise in the ways of garnering and keeping. But it also asks we learn to let go… Bonaro W. Overstreet in Meditations for Women. I love autumn in the Northeast because of the intensity of color

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What Creative Seed Are You Planting?

Monday’s Tarot Message from the Muse for week of June 24, 2013. Theme, Ace of Coins. Coins is the element of earth and the Ace is all potential, all possibility. With the Summer Solstice just passed, think of this Ace as a seed waiting to be planted this week. What

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Persephone’s Quandary—Is it Yours?

You know the story of Persephone, daughter of Demeter, who is kidnapped by Hades, god of the Underworld. Mad with grief, Demeter, goddess of harvest and crops, causes a famine until her daughter is returned to her. However, since Persephone has eaten a pomegranate seed while in the Underworld she

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Isn’t it Time for You to Come Out of Your Cave?

I’m not that tough; I’m not that smart. I need life telling me who I am, showing me my mind constantly. I wouldn’t see it in a cave. Richard Gere Caves are a wonderful thing… If you are a bear…If it is winter… A cave provides solitude and silence, shelter

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Are You Plowing or Following?

Snow falls softly but steadily, piles up in drifts and deep carpets, changing the landscape. Our small pine tree that Bob draped with white bee lights before the holidays looks magical with the lights gleaming through the pine’s cloak of snow. Because we live in the country and have a

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What Are You Doing for the Pure Pleasure of It?

Over the holidays, I did something that Bob and I used to do before the time pressures of kids and careers. I made a number of Christmas gifts. This year, I reclaimed the craft of knitting. Before I became a professional weaver, I used to do a lot of knitting.

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‘Tis the Season for Creative Hibernating

Perhaps I am a bear, or some hibernating animal, underneath, for the instinct to be half asleep all winter is so strong in me. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh There is a wilder solitude in winter/When every sense is pricked alive and keen. ~May Sarton Can you feel it? Even in

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3 Creativity Lessons from the Pilgrims

While the United States’ Thanksgiving didn’t become an official holiday until Lincoln declared it such in 1863, the idea of being grateful and giving thanks as a community goes back to the early settlers of our country and that several days of feasting by the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag in

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Samhain Tricks and Treats for your Creativity

Before there was Halloween, there was Samhain (pronounced “sow-in”), a Celtic holiday celebrating the new year. Samhain is the second oldest unbroken holiday in the European World, approximately 6,000 years old. This ancient holiday marked the changing of the seasons and was a time to honor the ancestors and to

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Into the Woods: 5 Tips for Clarity in Your Creative Path

Autumn…makes a double demand. It asks that we prepare for the future—that we be wise in the ways of garnering and keeping. But it also asks that we learn to let go—to acknowledge the beauty of sparseness. ~Bonaro W. Overstreet It is deep autumn here in the Northeast. Most of

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How are You Creatively Entering the Dark of the Year?

I’ve never known anyone yet who doesn’t suffer a certain restlessness when autumn rolls around… We’re all eight years old again and anything is possible. ~ Sue Grafton Bob’s and I make a fall mecca to our local apple orchard this time of year. It is our way of honoring

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