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Tarot-cast for Week of April 14, 2019

Britta Jaschinski

Above is a picture by Britta Jaschinski an amazing and award winning conservation artist. Her book Photographers against Wildlife Crimes is poignant and beautiful.   However,  when I started doing research for wildlife/nature/conservation photography, I ended up with a list of men and she was no where to be found.

Just google search wildlife photography. You will see 35 of the top googled photographers but the 12th and 26th are the only woman.  Wildlife/conservation photography like most arts are dominated by men, or are they? After deeper research I found some amazing published women out there.  Why aren’t they showing up in the top searches?

Of course, this happens in many searches.  With famous painters there are two women Frida Karol 8th and Georgia O’Keefe 15th.  With famous scientists searched there are five women represented in the top 35.  Now we could say that women weren’t allowed to be in those fields in the past, so the ratio reflects that.  Or is it possible that all our search engines, encyclopedias, and textbooks are filled and prioritizes with European men?

What can we do?  Start supporting young women to get in the field with programs like: Girls who Click, who is trying to pave the way for girls to get into the wildlife photography field.  And here are 25 programs that girls can get into for the sciences.  Then let’s start highlighting women in our searches.  Google analytics are partially based on hits per site, let’s up the ante.  Look deeper to find minorities when you are doing a general search.   To help I have attached websites to amazing woman wildlife photographers click on them to raise awareness on the web about them and conservation in general. Your clicks count!

P.S.  Remember signs with an * it a big week for you.

 

Aries

*Ace of Cups and Sun – Ace of Cups and the Sun are very appropriate for you b-day month.  All Aces are new beginnings, but the Ace of Cups is the most auspicious. This Ace brings favorable life and emotions into this coming year.  With the Sun card, growth, this is a year where you have the Universe behind you to expand anything you put your light to.  The only challenge with these two cards is not focusing down the light to a laser-like frequency.  Be aware when passion and attention is too focused you will burn your subjects and may create a desert in the aftermath.  In the simplest terms always carry around a bottle of water while working or out and about.  In its most complex version, spread your love and passion out evenly to many people or projects instead of all of it on one.   https://www.suzieszterhas.com/index

 

Taurus

Six of Swords – The Six of Swords advises you to gain perspective or distance from your thoughts and//or projects.  There is a need to simplify when this card comes up; however not too much. This is more about finding a natural rhythm.  As always with this card, water and/or short trips are vital this week to help cleanse your thoughts and gain perspective.  https://www.melissagroo.com/
Continue reading Tarot-cast for Week of April 14, 2019

Tarot-cast for Week of April 7, 2019

CU EEB - Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Drew Harvell Blaschka Glass 20141212GH

Another eco-artist for this month is Leopold Blaschka, a master glass artist.  In the spring of 1853 Leopold traveled from Germany to the United States. The trade winds died and stranded the boat off the coast of Azores for 2 weeks.  To fill the time, Leopold began studying, sketching and admiring the transparence and colorfulness of the local invertebrates.  Ten years later, back in Dresden, he created a moderate business of making lab equipment and specialty glass-work items; however, it would be his hobby of blowing glass flowers as accurately as a botanist’s drawing that drew the attention of Prince de Rohan and five years later to Professor Ludwig Reichenbrach.  With their support, he and later his son began a lucrative business for creating mail ordered ocean specimens that he drew in that fated trip.

Many of his works are exhibited at the Cornell Museum now.  A Cornell professor, Drew Harvell, is taking this collection of 700 invertebrates and searching for the actual animals to match the art to see if they have changed.  She has found that now some of them are endangered.  You can see this amazing story with the documentary Fragile Legacy or read her book Sea of Glass.  He and his son also did a collection of botanically accurate flowers, The Glass Flowers of Harvard, exclusively for Harvard University.  I highly recommend seeing any of these amazingly intricate studies in glass.   

P.S.  Remember signs with an * it a big week for you.

 

Aries

Leopold BlaschkaTwo of Wands – Last week, the Moon’s reflective light revealed the fact or fantasy of your fears, and helped you finesses navigating by your intuition and feelings without letting them overwhelm you.  This enlightenment on one’s fantasy and fears should have readied you for the action of the Two of Wands this week. For this week is the time to strike out on your own and discover some new places and people.  This week expand your world and don’t let last week’s fear stop you.

 

Taurus

Leopold BlaschkaEight of Coins – This is your second eight so let’s look at 8s for a sec. Eights are the cards of expansion and contraction.  The Eight of Cups last week had you contracting by doing some spring cleaning.  The Eight of Coins wants you to expand by growing your skills.  This week is all about work, but it isn’t all about how hard you work.  It is about using your skill-set to work smart.  This combination of cleaning and efficacy should give you a sense of accomplishment by the end of week.

 

Gemini

Leopold Blaschka

Knight of Coins – The Knight of Coins is all about pace and persistence.  If you go to slow you will miss an opportunity but if you go too fast you will miss the details.  This week slow and steady wins the race.

 

Cancer

Leopold BlaschkaKing of Wands – The King of Wands is about spirituality, passion and creativity.  He wants you to understand and work with not only parts of yourself but your destiny that ignites it.  This life is to be lived with gusto, so do something every day this week to kindle your spirit, passion and creativity and it will lead you to a brighter destiny.

 

Leo

Leopold BlaschkaAce of Cups – Ace of Cups foretells new beginnings or insights in relationships.  This week spend some time with someone new or reignite an old relationship.  This can be with our love partners, but it also is just about spreading love to any living thing – earth, plants, animals and humans. Because ultimately –Love is all there is.

 

Virgo

Leopold Blaschka*Temperance – Double whammy weeks, last week the Hierophant advised you to work on structures and efficiency.  Then Temperance doubles down reminding you that structure is great but does not last without balance and moderation. So, with your work there must be play.  With your happiness there is also sadness.  With hatred is love.  The challenge is how to do the balancing. Not as reactive equilibrium act – falling to one side and rebalancing the other in a teeter-totter fashion – but as a proactive act of accepting the paradoxes and mixing a new cocktail.  Think if it like cooking without salt but getting the satisfaction of saltiness by using a mixture of spices and herbs.

 

Libra

Leopold BlaschkaFive of Coins – The Five of Coins is the card of loss, despair or loneliness.  No joke this can be a hard week with mishaps and misdirection; however, the lesson with this card is realizing you are not only resilient but also not alone.  Your challenge is asking for help.   No shame, this is not only beneficial to you but a way for the people around you helping someone who has helped them.

 

Scorpio

Leopold Blaschka*Chariot – The Chariot gives you energy to do some moving and shaking of your own this week.  Take this time to do activities that will move you closer to your goals.  The only challenge with the Chariot is all movement is up to you this week.  It’s not exactly that you must do this solo, but it is essential you do all the driving.

 

Sagittarius

Leopold BlaschkaPage of Swords – The Page of Swords is the card of the investigator and hidden information.  There are clues and messages you need, but you will be required digging for them this week.  Ask lots of questions, read between the lines, digger deeper, keep your ears, eyes and mind open.

 

Capricorn

Leopold BlaschkaNine of Swords – The Nine of Swords is the card of worry and over-thinking.  This card makes sense with the past two weeks of heavy lifting in your mind.  The challenge and work with this card are finding ways to turn off the mind by giving it a break or diverting it with playful thoughts.  You can do this with a bout of binge-watching TV (no commercials), escape into a good book, day dreaming, or meditating to quiet the monkey mind.

 

Aquarius

Leopold Blaschka*Judgement – Judgment is the card of evolution.  It is time to shed your skin, molt your feathers, or wrap up in a cocoon.  The shift of your paradigm has happened.  The question is: have you evolved to survive in it a healthier way than the previous phase of your life?  If not take this week to be tender with yourself, you are still in your soft-shell phase of your evolution.  Take this week to harden your shell/skin, grow in your feathers, grow your wings.  The only thing you should be doing this week is figure out what you need to grow/obtain in this new phase.

 

Pisces

Leopold Blaschka*High Priestess and Ten of Swords – The High Priestess is here to help with the Ten of Swords.  The Ten of Swords is the card that foretells that the World can be a triggering place.  One reason we get trigger is we let our reactive ego do the driving instead of more kind conscious mind.   The High Priestess steps in with her cool thoughts sitting on her lofty seat seeing the bigger pictures and cycles.  She challenges you to stand back from the World and not react – just watch.  You will find that observation and not confrontation will bring you more enlightenment in situations this week.

 

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

Nina

 

Tarot-cast for the Week of March 31, 2019

April is the month of change and a reminder of the amazing marble we live on.  It is Spring in the northern hemisphere and Fall in the southern.  The cycles of life are in Mother Earth’s headlines. Flowers are budding or plants and animals are getting ready for winter, and migration is happening all over the planet.  No wonder Earth Day is celebrated in April.  In honor of Mother Earth and her inhabitants I am picking artists that have a flora or fauna themes all month.

This week’s artist is Lisa Ericson.  Her detailed paintings are the perfect combination of fact, fantasy, and myths. For instance, the pelican paintings could be related to the evolutionary theorem of Island hopping – animal population arriving by flotsam or flight.  Her Rodentia flutterbys fulfill the childhood fantasy that all animals should have butterfly wings; it makes any animal cuter.   Her paintings of tortoises carrying small ecosystems evokes the myths of some indigenous tribes of the Americas and the Hindu cosmology of the World Turtle, who holds up the world.

Overall, her paintings convey the frailty of the web of interspecies dependence. What truly caught my eye with this artist’s work is the eyes of her subjects.  They look at the viewer with a sense of winsome and wisdom. Reminding us that we are interconnected to them; our stewardship of Earth and companionship with them can be an omen of good or ill for all.

P.S.  Remember signs with an * it a big week for you.

 

Aries

Lisa Ericson*Moon – The Moon card comes to light when you need to investigate the darker parts of your subconscious – lighting a fear.  This anxiety or fear can be grounded in truth, and the Moon’s reflective light reveals the fact or fantasy of it.  This can look as simple as if you are walking down the street and get a hint that someone is following you, don’t blow it off.  Walk with courage to a well lite area with people, say Hi to someone and then turn around.   Or a more complex situation of confronting an anxiety and dissecting it to see if it is based in reality.   In both scenario your intuition and feelings are something to listen to but not let them overwhelm you.

 

Taurus

Lisa EricsonEight of Cups – The Eight of Cups is the spring-cleaning card.  This card can literally mean you need to do some spring cleaning in your home or metaphorically any area of your life.  Open the windows air, out your linens, and vacuum the dust bunnies from under your bed.  There is a witchy ritual where you sweep out your front door sweep out the bad vibes.  If you don’t have a broom to do that then at least clean out the bag/canister in your vacuum cleaner.

 

Gemini

Lisa EricsonFive of Wands – Second five in a row, so let’s dive into the meaning of five.  Fives are the cards of chaos where the chaos brings out things that are hidden or things that can sweep us away.  Last week the chaos had you uncovering the positive and negatives in your life and asking you to choose the positive perspective.  This week the Five of Wands looks at the chaotic energy you allow in from others.  You have a choice whether to play in the chaos or simple turn around and walk away.  The challenge with either choice is not getting swept up into or trigger by the drama of others.

 

Cancer

Lisa EricsonTen of Cups – The Ten of Cups is the rainbow card.  It advises us to celebrate even after a storm.  The challenge is seeing that happiness is not the absence of pain.  Pain can co-exist with happiness without canceling it out.

 

Leo

Lisa EricsonPage of Cups – Time to pull out your rose-colored glasses.  The Page of Cups advises you that this week no matter what happens to find the silver lining and the rainbow.  You need an injection of naivety, play and an innocent perspective, even though that grumpy lion-ic side wants to roar.  This week it’s all about your inner cub.

 

Virgo

Lisa Ericson*Hierophant – This is card that Virgo feels comfortable in as long as you don’t get to self-critical.  The Hierophant advise you to work on structures and efficiency this week.  This can look as simple as oiling the door hinge that squeaks. Or as complex as fixing your money or schedule so that you are no longer broke at the end of the month or too tired at the end of the week.

 

Libra

Lisa EricsonThree of Wands – The Three of Wands advise you to do some planning before diving into projects this week.  The best use of this time is focusing on how to make the work run smoothly.  Think of yourself as the guy on the tarmac that guides the plane into the gate.  The challenge is having foresight and peripheral vision for things to line up.

 

Scorpio

Lisa EricsonTwo of Pentacles – Juggling is the name of the game this week with the Two of Pentacles.  The challenge with this card is getting too brash.  Make sure you start out simple and have two items/things/people on your plate and once you do that well then you can add another “ball” to the mix.  This week a misstep can be a mishap.

 

Sagittarius

Lisa EricsonSeven of Coins – The Seven of Coins is the worker bee card.  This week’s energy is best used working your butt off.  All the things you do and partake in this week fertilize and grow your productivity for the coming summer months.  This is a week to start projects/plant seeds, weed projects in progress, exchange seeds, direct people in helping to tend the garden, water relationships, etc…  Use this gardening metaphor to the fullest so you can harvest in the Fall.

 

Capricorn

Lisa EricsonQueen of Swords – Last week the Hierophant and Eight of Wands had some spiritual messages having you create a deeper meaning and structure to your life.  Lucky for you the Queen of Swords is helping you with another week of this esoteric challenge.  She is the card of critical thinking.  So, take this week to do some Socratic questioning on the concepts of meaning itself to help complete the blueprint of the structures that you need.

 

Aquarius

Lisa EricsonSix of Swords – Last week, the Justice card said all things are just and fair, but it may take a while to see it play out.  Justice challenged you to see the truth in situations and yourself without the lens of emotion. Reminding you that you can’t control every aspect of this life and by letting go of some of the control you let Justice takes its course justly.  This concept still rings true this week.  The only added advice that the Six of Swords is giving is to “let go” you need to simplify your life.  Also, this card reminds you if you are stuck in how to do that, water either its rhythm or water itself can help you realize where and what to pare down.

 

Pisces

Lisa EricsonEight of Coins –The Eight of Coins is the card of mastery.  You challenge is to use this energy to up your game at how you make money.  Whether that is learning a new skill, honing an old skill, networking, refreshing your website/LinkedIn page, etc.., it is all business this week.

 

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

Nina

 

Tarotcast for Week of March 24, 2019

Happy Spring.  This week I’m taking a break from art and tapping into music.  With each sign’s forecast is the link to the song that was on my music shuffle at the time of me pulling your card.  I always find it amazing that something in the song seems to fit. I hope you enjoy my “spring break” from art.

P.S.  Remember signs with an * it a big week for you.

 

Aries

*Knight of Coins – Last week, the Lovers showed up to remind you that the most important pieces of being human are connections.  The Knight of Coins continues this mission with two other concepts to consider.  One is that your pace needs to be slow and steady, which will hopefully re-balance your work life. And two, it is vital in your journey to stop and talk to your friends. This knight challenges you being present in both activities.  Railroad track by Willy Moon

 

Taurus

Seven of Wands – The Seven of Wands increases encounters with challenging relationships.  This card advises you to see where ego is involved.  Seeing conflict not as a competition but more like a game. Also, remember that you also have the choice of not playing then putting down the Wand and bowing out.   Nothing left to Say/Rocks– Imagining Dragons
Continue reading Tarotcast for Week of March 24, 2019

Tarot-cast for Week of March 10, 2019

Laura Knight was a ceiling smashing artist at the beginning of the 1900’s.  She became the first woman elected to a full membership of the Royal Academy in 1936 and the first to get her own retrospective exhibition there though it took 30 more years to obtain that.  One of her first controversially pieces, above, was Self portrait with a nude (see Aries) .  This portrait shows herself painting a nude. This was to retaliate the rule that women were only allowed to paint nude forms by casts or copying existing drawings.   The painting composition is not only the finest but also intriguing.

She continued her rebellious nature by the choice of her subjects of portraits.  Many of her portrait studies were from marginalized people of the time doing either the highly unusual or the mundane, like having a woman with cropped hair holding a gun, gypsies, people of color, circus people, or more famously woman working in military.   Why is it still shocking seeing these portrays today – is it because these population are still marginalized and stereotyped so when we see them, we are still “amazed?”

P.S.  Remember signs with an * it a big week for you.

Aries

Four of Cups – The Four of Cups, another week where your emotions take the forefront.  This week the Four of Cups advises taking time pondering yourself, and here is the challenge also pondering your place in the world.  You hold many of the keys this week, but one is beyond your everyday personal space.  So, take a moment not only to look in but also to look out.

Taurus

Laura KnightSix of Coins – The Six of Coins is the mini karma card.  Be aware that especially this week that your interactions with others and your environment will ripple out and come back to you three-fold.  So, the nicer and more caring you are for the environment and people around you, the more positive the world will be towards you.  The challenge -this of course also works with negative energy.

Gemini

Laura Knight

Queen of Cups – Kindness and compassion is the key to this card.  Not only to those around you but also to yourself.  The challenge with this card is you can’t do either with goals or expectations.  This card is just a challenge to exercise your heart muscle.

Cancer

Laura KnightEight of Coins – This is your second eight in a row so let’s just check into the meaning of eights.  Eights are the cards that challenge improving and releasing.  Last week the cups ask you to release; this week the Coins ask you to improve.  The Eight of Coins advises honing the skill of getting into the zone, whether that is at work or play – trying for mastery is the key.  The challenge perfection is unobtainable.

Leo

Laura Knight

Page of Coins – The Page of Coins advises that you need to keep an open mind this week.  Learning is the key that will help you with work.  The challenge – open mind, open ears, open heart.

Virgo

Laura Knight

Knight of Cups – Oh this one is challenging for you all.  The Knight of Cups is inspiring you all to be vulnerable this week. What makes you vulnerable makes you beautiful.  Brene Brown

Libra

Laura KnightAce of Swords –It is a great week to be the philosopher and ponder on the bigger questions in life.  Your challenge is for your mind to think in ways it hasn’t thought before.  Also, if you have been holding off on a decision, this is the time to make it.

Scorpio

Laura Knight*Empress – The Empress is the card of growth and mothering.  This card wants for you all to reconnect with the person that was the most motherly to you – even in spirit if they no longer reside on this plane.  The challenge, however, is finding and cultivating those “motherly” qualities in yourself. Not only for providing support and compassion for others but also giving you an internal source to dip into when you need it.

Sagittarius

Laura Knight

Queen of Wands – The Queen of Wands advises that nature and magic are key to you this week.  This card challenges you to conjure up some magic to ignite your imagination.  Whether that is a walk in the woods to find fairies, pondering a starry night for UFOS, or putting socks under your bed for monsters.   The more magical your thinking the freer your mind becomes from the mundane.

Capricorn

Laura KnightThree of Swords – The Three of Swords ask you to be honest with your emotional thinking.  This card asks you to let go of some thought patterns that are not working.  The challenge is sitting with that emptiness – not fill it back up with another thought or emotion- so your mind and heart can heal.

Aquarius

Laura Knight*Tower – The Tower is the card of destruction from an outside force that make you start anew.  This card comes up when something needs to be fixed that you have been putting off.  The best way to head off a possible catastrophe is to fix the problem.  This can be as simple as fixing that door handle that keeps falling off, scheduling in some “me time” so you don’t burn out, or as complex as have that hard talk with a love one before frustration burns down the house.

Pisces

Laura KnightNine of Swords – The Nine of Swords is the card of excess thinking and worry.  The challenge with this card is to figure out which worries you can fix and put them on a to-do list (out of your head-space) and the rest to put on a list and flush them (you can literally flush then if you put them on TP).  Another exercise is when a worry comes up replace it with a song or image that makes you smile or even better laugh.  The point being making more room for quiet contemplation instead of yammering worries.

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

Nina

Tarot-cast for March 3, 2019

The artist this week is Mandy Barker.  She combines art and science to raise awareness about plastic pollution in the world’s oceans.  “The aim of my work is to engage with and stimulate an emotional response in the viewer by combining a contradiction between initial aesthetic attraction along with the subsequent message of awareness. The research process is a vital part of my development as the images I make are based on scientific fact… I hope it will ultimately lead to positive action in tackling this increasing environmental problem, which is currently of global concern”.

Not all plastics are easily recyclable PVC, Polystyrene (which include plastic toys) and the category “other” (which include nylon fabric, compact disks, storage containers and water cooler bottles) are not.  Throughout the world most plastic items don’t get recycled, many of them end up in our oceans and at times in unusual ways, which Barker shows in her ink cartridge piece below. The cartridges fell off a ship 5 years ago and are now washing up on shore all along the European coast.  Another example is her piece (Cancer) that follows the plastic trash from the 2012 Tsunami that hit Japan and is floating towards Hawaii. These larger plastics items through time become microplastics and are now being found in microscopic ocean animals, shellfish and fish.  Which are also seen below taken out of a turtle’ stomach( Aquarius) and a bird’s nest(Aries).

Plastic is important and useful for medical and industrial use, and globally we are getting better at recycling plastics. But a better way of reducing plastics now is to stop using them in our everyday life.  Use cloth bags for everything, ask restaurants or grocery markets you visit not to use Styrofoam, and try to buy clothes that are made of 100% natural fibers.  Even doing just one of these things will help lower your plastic consumption and disposal. Just think of it this way – That plastic you don’t buy- you literally won’t be ingesting it in your food source later.

P.S.  Remember signs with an * it a big week for you.

Aries

Ace of Cups – The Ace of Cups calls for you to create and spread love and joy.   This card reminds you that positive emotions need to be your “go to” this week even if someone pokes you to get a rise.  Your mottos:  You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, and Love conquers all.

Taurus

Mandy Barker

Two of Cups – This week relationships are in the forefront with the Two of Cups.  Take time to put energy in and share intimacies with your closest relationships.  Your cup becomes fuller the more you fill other’s cups.
Continue reading Tarot-cast for March 3, 2019

Tarotcast for Week of Feb. 24, 2019

Happy Birthday Pisces!

Things have been a bit intense in my life, consequently I did not have time to research an artist this week.  So just a cool pic of the stars in Pisces’ constellation.

P.S.  Remember signs with an * it a big week for you.

 

Aries

Three of Pentacles – Working with others is your goal and challenge.  Collaboration is key this week for progress to happen.

 

Taurus

Seven of Swords – The Seven of Swords ask you to set your intentions.  Things done is haste or without forethought lead to isolation and possible a moral misstep.  Planning, scheduling, prioritizing, and possibly asking for help is need this week.
Continue reading Tarotcast for Week of Feb. 24, 2019