Tag Archives: Gemini

Tarot-Cast for Week of June 10, 2018

This tarot-cast’s art work is done by Maryanne Pollock.  To me, her pieces  bring to light duality in myself and my environment.  For example, the piece above makes me smile and feel calm in the same moment.  It also reminds me of diatoms and algae looking through a microscope and stars and planets looking through a telescope.  Another example is her White Desert project from 2015 which was thoughtful and now even more eerily relevant piece about refugees.  I found this project touching on duality through the lens of age and small/global community (time and space).  Her art reminds us that in our seemingly polar differences there is similarity and a sense of connectivity.

Gemini is a sign of duality and connectivity.  Where we can feel seemingly opposing things within a moment and yet when we stand back can see the ribbon of commonality. Gemini is  the month in the northern hemisphere where we feel the last cool breezes of spring and the beginnings of summer’s hot days.  Where in the southern hemisphere we feel the last bit of warmth of fall’s sun and start to feel the cold wind of winter with in moments.  And  in both where weather can change in a blink,  sunny one moment and a downpour the next. The Gemini sign reminds us that life is not simple and that in many ways “one” does not truly exist.

P.S. Please share.

Aries – Three of Swords

The Three of Swords in the coming week there will be three events that trigger your insecurities.  The challenge is to make each event one of healing rather than anguish.

Taurus – Seven of Cups

The Seven of Cups is the card of dreams.  Pay attention to your dreams this week.  Not only the ones you have when you sleep, but also the ones you have when you are awake.  Let your mind wander in the realm of possibilities.  The only challenge is blocking your brainstorming with limitations.
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Tarot-cast for the Week of May 27, 2018

Night Rain on Oyama by Utagawa Toyokuni II
Night Rain on Oyama by Utagawa Toyokuni II

This tarotcast is an experiment with my casting for the week and art.  Usually I pull cards and then cast about for the art to go with the general energies of that week.  This week I am going in the opposite direction and letting the art take the lead.  I think the arts were born under the sign of Gemini.  Gemini is the first sign in which we work on how and why we communicate with the world.  Art is a place where we try to create, experiment and communicate with something outside ourselves to convey what is going on inside ourselves.

So this tarotcast I’m going to let the art solely express your goals, challenges, energies that surround you.  I will add a tidbit about the painting that I find relevant to the piece or energy of your cast.  This is exercise in mindfulness, of truly experiencing a piece of art. I challenge you to dive deep into each piece and ask how does this makes me feel and see what thoughts it brings to the surface.  Like the sign of the Gemini where the twins peer at each other, looking for similarities and differences, so does the exercise of experiencing art.  The artist is the twin to the piece and then the piece becomes the twin to the viewer.  Art challenges us to look in to it and truly see ourselves – our common humanity through time and space.

P.S. I have also put links for each piece if you want to dive deeper into the art or artist. Please share.

Aries- Ginervra de’ Benci by Leonardo da Vinci 1475

twin

On the back side of this portrait he painted VIRTVTEM FORMA DECORAT (“beauty adorns virtue”)

Taurus–  Portrait of Paolo Morgia by Fede Galizia, 1595

Fede was well-known as a portrait painter by the age of twelve. She was meticulous in her attention to detail look at the reflection of the glasses in his hand, they reflect a window not seen.

*GeminiPortrait d’une negresse by Marie-Guillemine Benoist 1800

Six years previously slavery was abolished in France, though short-lived, so this image became the symbol for woman’s emancipation and black people’s right.

Cancer – Early Moonrise, Florida by George Inness 1893

Inness was known for interpreting rather than recording natures views, moving away from the Hudson River School artists’ transcriptions of nature.   According to Inness “you can suggest reality…you cannot paint reality.”

Leo – Stay High 149 aka Wayne Roberts 197?

He was a superstar in the underground up and coming graffiti scene of the 1970’s.  This piece is a parody on the British television show The Saint.

Virgo – Dulle Griet by Pieter Bruegal the Elder, 1565

Dulle Griet also known as Mad Meg, in Flemish folklore who leads an army of woman to pillage Hell.  Her mission refers to the proverb “She could plunder in front of hell and return unscathed.”

LibraLe Pont del Europe by Gustave Caillebotte, 1881

The three prominent characters in this portrait are theorized as a  representation of the three classes of Parisians who normally not met in society but do on this bridge.

*Scorpio – Carousel in Santa Monica by David Michael Hinnebusch 2006

In 2006, a friend of the artist, who didn’t like Hinnebusch’s art on found materials, took him shopping at the art store. He bought $2,000 US worth of Golden Acrylics, brushes and 10 large canvases and this is one of the painting that came out of that excursion.

Sagittarius – Personnages aux Chevaux, Characters with Horses, by Marcelle Cahn  1935

Was one of the few female artist in 1930’s associated with the movement Abstraction-Creation, which was a counteract to the Surrealist movement.

Capricorn – Closed Gallery by Robert Barry 1969

Closed Gallery consisted of three invitations to gallery shows in Amsterdam, Turin, and Los Angeles printed on simple white cards. They informed the recipients that during the exhibition, the gallery would be closed. “It’s the purest form of this notion of what the physicality of art is and what art is really all about. One doesn’t need to even have the gallery space”, said David Platzker, who sent out numerous announcement cards worldwide, each saying simply “During the exhibition the gallery will be closed”.

 

Aquarius La Rue du Soleil,  Port Vendres by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, 1926

Charles started his career as an architect and was influential in the Art Nouveau and Secessionism.  He abandoned it later and focused solely on painting watercolors later in life.  Though like the reflection of the buildings in the water you can still see buildings are still in his mind.

Pisces – Summon Up by Frederick Hammersley, 1958

He wrote that “hard-edge is often very hard to take, coming to the cold or even to the practiced eyed.”

May light be on you, around you, and within you,

Nina

 

Tarotcast for Week of May 29, 2016

aziz-elmo-atesi

Happy Birthday month Gemini! Gemini is associated with the Twins, Castor and Pollux. Born from an egg due to their mother’s seduction by Zeus in the form of a swan. They are the patrons of sailors, boxers, and horseman. This association is mostly due to their adventures with Jason on the ship Argo.

There is an interesting connection with sailors, the twins, and St. Elmo’s Fire. Lightening is attracted to boats on the water, so lightning strikes have always been a concern for sailors. St. Elmo’s Fire mostly occurs during storms and around the masts of ships, so these phenomena were believed by Greek and Roman sailors to be Castor and Pollux protecting them from lightning and storms. As science has found, this plasma forms when the electrical field around a pointy object causes the ionization of nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere which creates a blue or violet glow. The pointy object attracts this plasma formation because electric fields are more concentrated in areas of high curvature like the tip of a mast of a ship or a lightning rod. Around 850AD Erasmus the Bishop of Formium, Italy (he lived in the third century) was canonized and became the patron saint of sailors because he supposedly preached in the middle of a lightning storm without being hit. The glow was then named St Elmo’s Fire by sailors and prayed to just as the twins were centuries before. To this day engineers have not figured out a good way to ground wooden boats from lightening strikes, so I’ll pray to all three.

P.S. Remember, when signs have * it’s a big week for you.

Aries – Seven of Cups – The creative spirit continues this week with the Seven of Cups. This is a week where your imagination and dreams need to be tended to. The challenge is to find time to let your mind wander so you can make some cool connections.

Taurus – Ace of Wands – This week is a great time to plant seeds for the future. The Ace of Rods heralds new beginnings. The challenge with the Ace of Wands is you will need to plan what seeds you want to plant because this will be where your energy is spent in the coming year. A simple metaphor – a lot of newbie gardeners plant radishes because they are easy to grow; however they end up not eating them all or say they really don’t like them. So pay attention to what you sow this week.
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