Happy Midsummer weekend! Even though the Summer Solstice isn’t until Sunday, Scandinavians celebrate the return of the lovely summer weather this weekend. The picture to the left is, in fact, the Midsummer Maypole, covered in leaves and flowers, and where children and adults alike take great pleasure in dancing around. I wrote an article years back in School of the Seasons about midsummer traditions that you might enjoy.
I hope you have a fabulous weekend! Remember, Monday Blog Design Bootcamp starts with its week-long virtual training for all you blog-curious friends
Hello! I’m going a bit off-topic to discuss something near and dear to my heart: the creation of WordPress dot org blogs. Of course, you’re looking at one now if you’re reading this — when I attended Blog Design Bootcamp 1.0 back in September, the Wavelength Tarot blog was my first project. (I make the distinction that this is about dot org and not dot com because I’m about to discuss self-hosted WP blog creation.)
One Web-savvy tool I just rave about (and I do mean rave) is how a WordPress blog for your business is just such an endlessly good and cool thing. I’m not going into the reasons now because the main thing I want to announce is that I’ll be at the Blog Design Bootcamp LIVE program as a student from June 22 to 26 from 5 to 7 p.m. EST — and I’d love for you to join me too!
This is a virtual event so you can attend from home anywhere, wearing your proverbial bunny slippers. The instructor, in fact, is in Canada and I took the course before right in NY. She works with video demonstrations and audio.
I took the first Blog Design Bootcamp back in September when I was a complete blog design newbie and after Erin (the lovely instructor) was through with us, I’ve since created probably about five blogs for various ventures. It’s so easy now! Right now, I’m even working on a blog site that looks exactly like a Web site for a friend that you can look at right here.
If I can do this, you can too. Erin will teach you how to: customize blogs and blog sites; install the blog using a FTP client to upload files; customize themes; create a custom header for your blog; work with sidebar widgets; and the basics of blog posting. The final class is how to deliver blog design to clients because after four sessions you may find yourself creating blogs for other people, too.
Sign up is here (and the price is, btw, half of what I paid in September.) See you in class?
I actually have a little bit of news. One is that I’ve put down the tarot cards for now. Life can get busy and there are times when you need to pare down your activities.
There are also times when you need to pare down your belongings. Even when they are in your storage locker. Seeing that it’s still spring and all, spring cleaning beckons and with that, it is my pleasure to announce that the Moon Mandrake vintage Esty shop is reopening! Why, the shop even has its own blog which I urge you to check out right here.
And since I like to get all Web 2.0 about things, there is also a short video featuring the new listings at the Moon Mandrake shop below. Remember, new/old items as they are uncovered will be listed every other day or so…
Hello! I have a guest post for you today from the one and only Urban Shaman, Mama Donna Henes. She’ll be discussing what it means when Mercury goes retrograde.
Blessings for a Smooth Mercury in Retrograde
By Mama Donna Henes, Urban Shaman
Mercury, the planet of communication enters its three times a year retrograde stage today and will remain in a backward momentum, as it were, until May 30.
Mercury in retrograde has a very bad rap. I should know. As a Virgo (which is ruled by Mercury) I am usually affected quite profoundly. But over the years I have learned a thing or two about how to survive in one piece, and how to use this potentially frustrating phase in a fruitful manner.
When Mercury is moving direct, our minds tend to work on a functional/forward level. Our actions match our intentions. Our energy is invested in more assertive decision-making and action with less emphasis on retrospection and reflection.
However, we are constantly picking up on unconscious intuitive information, which will surface — if we let it — during the retrograde cycle. And this is a very good thing. We need time to rest and assimilation all the information that we are bombarded with in our techno, multitasking world. A time for our inner wisdom to manifest and guide us to reorganize, rethink, reevaluate, redo, and reboot. This is a crucial and healthy part of the organic, natural flow of life.
The clock and dollar orientation that our culture calls *the real world* is comprised of schedules, deadlines, and to do lists, which don’t often accommodate a cycle of introspective reflection and reevaluation. This is why this period can be so brutal for some of us — especially those of us with determined steely goals and agendas.
Mercury, as most of us know, tends to play havoc with the smooth functioning of the technology upon which we depend for our achievements and communication. It also tends to mix up face to face communications and the best laid plans of wo/men. The results are interruptions, snafus, misunderstandings, and mix-ups which interfere with the simplest of projects.
During Mercury in Retrograde, we will need more caution, more care, and a pinch more elbow grease to get things done. This is not a good time to launch or initiate new projects. In trying to do so, we will be pushing off, symbolically, just when the tide is going out, and it will be more of a struggle to make headway with our plans. It is far better to wait until the current is moving with us.
The degree to which we hold onto our need to keep to our schedules, agendas, and plans often equates to the degree in which we find ourselves going bonkers during this time. Read the rest of this entry »
Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of receiving a visit (actually, two visits!) from Gaian Tarot creator Joanna Powell Colbert. Joanna was on a whirlwind East Coast trip which included a journey to Maine to visit her adorable granddaughter Grace and, actually, is culminating right this second (as I type) in the well-known yearly tarot convention known as the Readers Studio. Joanna managed to squeeze in a visit to NYC, or Brooklyn more precisely, and stopped by to visit with fellow tarot deck creator Kris Waldherr as well. Kris and I felt no visit to Brooklyn was complete without a walk on the beautiful Promenade (where the gorgeous Manhattan skyline also makes a lovely backdrop — as seen above in this photo of Joanna and myself.)
Joanna’s Gaian Tarot won’t be available just yet but there will be a limited edition of the Major Arcana for collectors next Spring. And the Spring after that (2011), it will be published by Llewellyn. But while you’re waiting, there are two ways you can enjoy this luminous — and illuminating! – deck right now. First, you can receive a free Gaian tarot online reading by clicking here. And, if you visit Joanna’s blogsite, you can not only learn more about her, but if you sign up for Joanna’s newsletter, you have a chance to win one of her free 1/2 hour readings that are picked at random once a month. It’s a wonderful deck by an amazing woman, and I do hope you stop by her site!
(P.S. What many don’t know, and I’m adding as a postscript some days later, is that Joanna and I were absolutely hounded by the paparazzi while navigating the streets of Brooklyn, having to almost push them out of the the way. Don’t believe me? Well, I have the photo proof right here, below!
Spring has sprung! No — scratch that, summer is here. At least where I am. The weekend promises temperatures in the 80s. And it’s just April? I’m not complaining though — we’ve had a long, cold winter.
But I digress. Here’s a fun visual treat for those of you who like oracles (and who doesn’t?)
For your free Kris Waldherr Sacred Oracle reading, please visit here.
Readers of this blog may be wondering: Where did Diane go? Never fear, however, good pal Lucy D of Only Tarot has contributed a wonderful guest post. For more info about Lucy and her excellent tarot services, visit her blog here. And read on for a bit of Lucy’s philosophy on how often one should have a reading…
Over the years I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon. A skeptical person will come to me to get his cards read. I’ll give him a good reading. He’ll be astonished, and tell all his friends, and then WHAM! – he’s calling me ready to schedule again. And again. And again.
If you read cards, I know you’ve experienced this. If you’ve had a good reading as a client, you know that feeling, too. And there IS a temptation to get your cards read too often.
So, how often is too often?
I am a firm believer that the only one with power in our lives is US. We can’t blame our boss, our children, our spouse or the boogeyman; for the things we don’t like, we are tired of, we just plain can’t stomach anymore.
Hate your job? Only you can find a new one. Children driving you crazy? Only you can lay down the law – or get a sitter! Just because we are in the drivers’ seat in our own lives doesn’t mean it’s easy to get to the destination we’re aiming for. And it also doesn’t mean we know how to get there. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in a problem we think there’s no way out.
That is the moment that a reading can be invaluable.
So take the tools you received in the reading and go out there and make some changes. Here’s the problem: Sometimes what you learn in a reading is really astonishing! How could the reader have known about your private life? About that secret you never told anyone?
Ahhh, there’s the rub! It seems like a magic trick and we want to see it again. Or, it can have the same effect as an ad for the newest diet pill on someone trying to lose weight. It APPEARS that we can get to our destination without having to do the heavy lifting! Yay!
Did you ever notice that those new, super-duper diet pills come with these instructions: in addition to taking the pills, you must also follow a low fat, low carb diet and you must exercise regularly?
Well, my friends, if you want a good reading, you must do the actual work of your life yourself. Don’t be distracted by the fact that your situation can be read in the cards. You must take what you’ve learned, apply the tools you’ve been given, plant the seeds for change, and stay on that course.
It’s true that every time you make a choice, your possible future outcomes change, too. But unless you give yourself at least 30 days to see the fruits of your change-making behavior, you are doing yourself a disservice.
You wouldn’t tug on a new shoot in the garden in hopes of making it grow faster.
If you step on the scale every day, it seems like you’re not losing weight—even when you’re doing all the right things.
And if you get frequent tarot card readings you have stopped working on your life, and given up your power to the reader. Very likely the exact reason you came to her in the first place.
Make a commitment to yourself. When you get a good, solid, professional Tarot Card Reading, you will not schedule another for 30 days. See? You’re in charge already!
Wavelength Tarot blog readers know that I enjoy sharing the occasional article when it conveys great advice. I came across this today, and seeing that Work / Life balance was a touchstone that came up for me in planning 2009, wanted to share it.
The Importance of Good Work / Life Balance
by Erin Blaskie
When is the last time that you took some time out for yourself? I don’t mean the kind of time where you pretend you’re taking it but your mind is still heavily focused on work, the stress over what your clients will be thinking or saying in your absence and the overwhelm you are already feeling at the sort of work overload you’ll return to. I mean pure, enjoyable time to yourself.
If you’re like most entrepreneurs, the answer to that is probably either awhile ago or never. We get into really bad cycles as entrepreneurs where we’re spinning the wheels constantly… Not stopping to rejuvenate and refresh. Instead, we spend our days, weeks and months in running mode trying to keep all the balls in the air and trying to please everyone around us. The only downside to that is oftentimes, we are the ones who end up unhappy.
We need to maintain good work / life balance in order to be successful. Working 24/7 consistently is NOT a recipe for success. In fact, that’s a recipe for failure. Burning on all cylinders will lead to burn out which will put you into a place that is much harder to crawl out of and takes you much longer to overcome. If you break instead and plan out time for yourself, you won’t hit burnout because you are honoring your mind and your body with what it needs.
If you are struggling with work / life balance, here are a few things that you can do to infuse some balance into your life:
Take 30 minutes each day to go for a walk. Take your dog if you have one or your significant other. The key here is to get out and enjoy the air and get some exercise. Look around at your surroundings, take in the beautiful architecture, nature and the sound of yourself breathing. Don’t let your mind wander to what might be happening elsewhere… Instead, just focus on what is around you and on yourself.
Plan a short vacation. You don’t need to have a huge budget and loads of free time to do this. Plan something easy and quiet but get away for a few days… If you can, leave behind the laptop but if you must bring it, check in once a day for an emergency check only. Deal with what you might need to but then close the laptop and walk away. Make yourself the priority for those few days. Believe me when I say that it’ll all be waiting for you when you return.
Honor your hobbies. Do you have non-work related things that you like to do? Honor them at least once or twice a week. Set aside some time to scrapbook, work on that old car restoration project, create a website that is more for fun, play video games, whatever YOU are into… Honor that and you’ll find that not only are you happier but you’ll actually have something non-work related to talk to people about!
Whatever you decide to do for yourself, do it and be consistent. There are going to be people around you who are frustrated, impatient, rude and uncaring about your desire to take some time off and to not give your attention to them in that moment. Know that it’s okay and that if they truly respect you as a human being and as a person, they’ll understand your desire and need for some time off and they’ll know you’ve worked hard and deserved it. Anyone who doesn’t know that is more than likely struggling with their own work / life balance or they are just out of sync a little with what’s important.
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Would you like to use this article in your publication, on your blog or in some other fashion? You can so long as you include this bio with it:
Erin Blaskie is the owner of Business Services, ETC - A Global Internet Marketing & Implementation Firm. Her company helps businesses from around the world take their practice online and create huge success using various internet marketing tactics. Erin herself has been featured in three print books (”Becoming an Online Business Manager” by Tina Forsyth, “My So-Called Freelance Life” by Michelle Goodman, and “The Official AWE Emerging Trends Guide 2009” compiled by the Association of Web Entrepreneurs), honored as Office Arrow’s 2008 Runner-Up Business Woman of the Year, interviewed by countless gurus and media personalities (John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing, Sheri McConnell, Stacy Karacostas, Gina McNew) and featured in major news publications (ABCNews.com, Ottawa Citizen and Employment Journal).
Happy Midsummer weekend! Even though the Summer Solstice isn’t until Sunday, Scandinavians celebrate the return of the lovely summer weather this weekend. The picture to the left is, in fact, the Midsummer Maypole, covered in leaves and flowers, and where children and adults alike take great pleasure in dancing around. I wrote an article years back in School of the Seasons about midsummer traditions that you might enjoy. 
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