Tag: tarot

Tarot for Teddy: A Bridging Spread

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Posted: May 15, 2017

In life coaching, the goal is to help you work through your shit. This isn't always fun, and sometimes problems prove to be so intractable that no matter how much we go at them, we don't seem to get anywhere. 

This is when working with metaphor can really help. Metaphors are something that stand in for something else, that represent it in an often fantastical, creative way. Then we can play with the problem (note the word "play") in a way that's much less serious than before. We can either try to solve the problem in the land of metaphor

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Category: Tarot Spread

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The Lovers

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Posted: May 4, 2017

The Lovers is the sixth card of the Major Arcana. Again, if you're using the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, it's two nudes under an angel in the Garden of Eden. Snakes. Phallic symbols. Meh.

The Lovers card from the Animal Totem Tarot, that we saw in a previous post, gets the point across a lot better.​

 Maybe your lover is the opposite of you, in whatever respect matters. Maybe the other swan is you, and you're finally meeting yourself with an open heart. Maybe you look the same, like the lizards, and you could both use some skin cream in your personal

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Category: Tarot

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Loving Ourselves, Loving Others

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Posted: May 1, 2017

The theme of this month is Love which, in true tribute to its complexity, isn't really what you think it is. Or, more precisely, "The Lovers," whereby the focus is put on the people rather than the act, because this is not that kind of self-help blog. And by "lovers," this is not going to be like a Cosmo "15 Orgasmo-tronic Sex tips from Hyper-erotic Penguins" type of thing--more like the totally unhot Jesus kind of love.

But what is that? And why are we talking about that now?

The Fool's Journey of the Tarot, and life in general, is

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Category: Theme of the Month

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Tarot for Teddy: Finding a Mentor

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Posted: April 17, 2017

Teddy was a bit busy and overwhelmed this month, but at the same time he was feeling kind of antsy with the onset of spring and warmer weather. Starting a new business with his duck friend reminded him of how good it was to take risks and learn new things, and he was wondering where in the rest of his life he might be overlooking the need to shine in some light and learn some new tricks.

I suggested we do a simple reading this time to give him some food for thought. We used the Wild Unknown deck with

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Category: Tarot Spread

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The Hierophant

The Hierophant

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Posted: April 6, 2017

The Hierophant is one of the more difficult cards to approach in the tarot. In many decks, it's a straight-laced, old, religious figure -- pretty much the uncoolest-looking pope you can imagine, or an old uncle who comes to Thanksgiving who smells 

like ancient aftershave and the crypts of the undead. In the Rider Waite Smith deck (a standard deck that a lot of people use) he's an aged religious figure in formal vestments raising some religious items over the head of two bald men. Personally, I have a little trouble relating to this. In more modern decks the cards

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Category: Tarot

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Tarot for Teddy: Uniting the Masculine and Feminine

Be the Balloon Tarot Spread

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Posted: March 16, 2017

Last month Teddy came to me because he was starting a business with his duck friend Anatra and needed some help navigating that transition. When I checked in with him this month, he was unusually silent, even for a stuffed bear. I hoped things weren't going badly for him. 

"Everything's going just great," he said, ​and started to choke on his coffee.

Once he settled down, I asked him what he wanted to talk about. If everything was going well, what was bothering him?

"Well, that's the issue," he said. "Everything's changing, everything's better. But I don't know what to

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Category: Tarot Spread

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Structure vs. Abundance

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Posted: March 9, 2017

It's been interesting this past month thinking about pure generativity versus form, creating versus forming, yang vs. yin. I was originally just going to write about the male and female aspects of parenting, but went down the rabbit hole and started thinking 

​about expansion and contraction, equal and opposing forces, and the whole idea of boundaries. I'm on a few parenting boards where there's a whole lot of discussion about freedom versus structure, and what people need in order to grow properly.

I'm led to think about how some people, when writing poetry, prefer to write in strict forms like

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Category: Personal Post

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Faces of Parenthood: The Empress and the Emperor

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Posted: March 6, 2017

After he meets the High Priestess and the Magician, the Fool moves on to the Empress and Emperor, the more earthly, material faces of the feminine and masculine in the tarot. These are the parents, the queen and the king, the one who creates life and the one who makes sure the kingdom operates precisely.

This is a hard topic to discuss when, in our society, we are trying so hard to figure out gender and sexuality and power in a way that does not marginalize, pigeonhole, or colonize anyone. It's hard to figure out what these roles have to

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Category: Tarot

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Parenting Ourselves: Growth and Self-discipline

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Posted: March 2, 2017

March is about the stirrings of Spring, and things emerging into existence. Last month we learned a little bit about power and how we see it in ourselves, and now we start to learn how to use that power to make things happen in the world. This month also brings us to introducing the Emperor and Empress, the traditional parental figures of the Tarot. 

This raises the question again about the validity of referring to energies as "masculine" and "feminine," and how to discuss and apply those terms meaningfully if at all. Throw in any issues we have regarding our parents,

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Category: Theme of the Month

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