Occult Garden Parties

PreviousBlog / TBH-MasterList / NextBlog Welcome to the Tarot Blog Hop--the exciting game show where crazy Tarot bloggers compete to write entertaining essays connecting Tarot with some randomly selected topic pulled from a hat. Everything you see here is improvised--written mere moments before the Hop went live. Yes, that is right--Everything is made up and the points don't matter. I am not saying that Drew Carey is the Spirit Animal of TBH wranglers . . . but I am not saying that he is not either. Jay, our wrangler for this Tarot Blog Hop gave us the following prompt: Whether you have a ritual for working with your deck(s) Are you superstitious when it comes to letting others touch your deck If you work with clients do you have a routine/ritual prior to a reading Do you read for yourself / the world, if not would you ever seek guidance from them And my response was something along the line of a scream that sounded a little like this--"I have no ritual, no r...

PreviousBlog / MasterList / NextBlog Welcome to this round of the Tarot Blog Hop. The theme for this TBH is Fables, Fortunes and "Once upon a time." And now for our feature presentation . . . Because my cards have been abused. Submitted for review by Artemis Mackenzie, Headmistress of Hairyboils School of Witchcraft and Roguery—Chancellor Sister Soice (that is pronounced Zoice, not Seuss) observation notes of Professor Rowan Whiteadder’s Illuminated History 101 class on Sol Day, Haregg Maatis, cycle of the Zombie Pox, in the third regnal year of the First Pharaoh. . . . after three hours of lecture on the fables and myths of Tarot, Varcus Wilvelivaenythyng the Infinite, son of Kantvork “Vully” Wilvelivaenythyng the Square Root—Dukemage of Zharkdom, and Queen Beslie Thornincide the Negative One, better known by one and all as Wibble, was still not convinced that all he knew and believed about the origins of Tarot was completely forged and falsified. Flanked by his ...

Back in December, I missed the Yule Tarot Blog Hop because I was still dealing with the mental turmoil and drama that I received from "Cos-Neo"* after one of its "Council" members read the first edition of my Public Wiccan Ritual and Pagan Community Building book and told the rest of the Council, her opinion of my book which caused the Council to dog-pile me with a whole bunch of stuff that I was guilty of doing--essentially a nuclear melt-down with people screaming Disrespect, Conflict of Interest, and that I was trying to take over the entire occult community of Denver, Colorado--causing the Council to come up with a trumped-up charge that they had ignored for fifteen months--I performed a public Wiccan ritual while under the influence of medical marijuana, endangering one and all who attended--to force me to resign from an organization and event that I have been involved with for two decades plus. [* Not the real name of the organization which must be kept secr...

Welcome to the Summer (Lammas) edition of the Tarot Blog Hop. Navigation links for the Hop: Previous blog / MasterList / Next blog The subject for this Tarot Blog Hop is whether or not changing one's name, changes one's vibration enough to change one's destiny. Let's just say that I have been a guinea pig for this theme--given that I am now known more by one of my pen-names (professionally and socially).  Why I had to use a pen-name as a writer When I first become interested in becoming a writer, I studied the careers of the writers who inspired me. Many of them used pen-names--my favorite being Robert Heinlein, who used three besides his own name (Anson MacDonald, Caleb Saunders, and Lyle Monroe). Heinlein used his pseudonyms for branding purposes, to sell stories of lesser merit (at a discount, of course), and to allow himself to sell more material without seemingly flooding the market. Therefore, in my universe, a writer is allowed to use as many pen-names as...

Previous / MasterList / Next Welcome to the Summer Solistice (Lithna) edition of the Tarot Blog Hop. Part of our prompt for this Tarot Blog Hop was the following question: Does anyone really know what time it is? To which I have to say--of course, Golden Dawn has very specific instructions on how to tell time in Tarot readings. Each and every card has a time period assigned to it, and there are positions in the official Order spreads for those pesky time cards to show up and tell us exactly when things are going to happen. Of course, you have to know how to fill out the chart. . .  I mean--how hard could it be to fill out a chart? Each one of those blank sections in the chart is a Tarot card, arranged around the calendar year. The thirty-six decans cards go in the outer ring (each one assigned to ten degrees of the zodiac--about a ten day period), then the four aces, the court cards, the trumps--all of it goes into the chart. And you know what you get when you fil...

Welcome to the latest edition of the Tarot Blog Hop. Today's topic is "continuing education for Tarot and Oracle readers." Helpful links to navigate the Tarot Blog Hop (repeated at end of post also): Previous Blogger / Master List / Next Blogger Let's talk about continuing education, shall we? Our wrangler for this Tarot Blog Hop, Denver resident Joy Vernon, awhile back had an idea for a Tarot Blog Hop--what us Tarot readers and teachers were doing to further our education. When time came for her turn as wrangler, I reminded her of the topic. . . . . .because I knew that I could get a decent blog post out of the idea. Selfish bastard me, right? Lately, I have been thinking a lot about my past experience as a lodge chief (or is that Order chief?) and occult teacher. Mostly because I am working on expanding my previously published Three Officer Version of the Golden Dawn Neophyte Initiation Ritual by writing fifty thousand words of commentary. "Fifty th...

Welcome to the Spring Equinox Tarot Blog Hop. Or as I like call it--"Reading Tarot with the help of a cat." For those who are reading more than just my blog, here are the links that you need to navigate the rest of the Tarot Blog Hop. Previous Blog   Master List Next blog  Without further ado. . . For this Tarot Blog Hop, we were given two topics—for those who have two blogs—or as I am going to call the topics, “The bread that surrounds whatever my muse wanted to write about.” And while I have another blog—I am no longer supporting it with new posts because my writing style has changed—so both topics are going to be done right here. It is not ambition—I just like to talk. The first topic was "Out of the whole deck, what card or cards would you say represent you either professionally or personally? As always these are just guides, if your muse wants to play about and take you on a journey that is perfect, as long as its within the refrain of the topic, be ...