Daily Draw - Ace of Pentacles

For Saturday, I have drawn the Ace of Pentacles from my Pictorial Key tarot. What a bright, happy card for a girl seriously contemplating leaving her fairly lucrative job! In this card, I see a large, magnanimous hand extended from Heaven, offering a large golden coin. The gorgeous garden below shows luxury and beauty.

I can't imagine for me that this card heralds a financial windfall, but I suppose it is called a windfall because it is unexpected *grin*. I would take one, if it came my way, but I think this card is showing me how I would best spend my time off from work. I work in a fairly busy breakfast restaurant, which is not what I envisioned when I took all those lit classes in college, but truthfully, I cannot figure out how to make the same amount of money in the same amount of time, in hours that basically allow me to be home with my kids when they are home. Unless I were to be a writer, at home all the time, which is what my true dream in life is. I write stories, specifically urban fairy tale types and high fantasy, and some modern fiction that I try to weave with the magical thread I see in my own life and I would like everyone to be able to embrace as well. The biggest problem with being a working writer, for me at least, is the discipline needed, and also that creativity can't be called just because the light bill is due.

I plan to take my time off from work to get my home organized and beautiful, and to instill the routine needed to be a productive writer, as well as a mom and a full time student, on top of doing what I have to do to keep the bills paid in the meantime. I am going far out on a limb here to make the assumption that if I do the work, I will be financially blessed to be able to follow that dream. Julia Cameron admonishes in The Artist's Way that we are to worry about the quantity of our art and to let God worry about the quality.

I don't want a lot of material things, just to know that the rent is paid, and my kids are going to eat, and that they can get new shoes when they need them, and a new tarot deck here and there would not go amiss. I don't long for designer shoes, or fancy cars, or even really a car at all, since I choose to ride the bus as often as not. I don't want a big house, just a cozy little one that holds me and the kiddos, and some lucky man, if he ever manifests, and our simple little things.

I am reminded of Sheryl Crow singing in Soak Up The Sun, "It's not having what you want; it's wanting what you got..."

Later on in the day, I was messing around with my Tea Leaf Fortune Cards, which is an adorable, but out of print, oracle deck of 200 hundred cards that brings the wisdom of tea leaf readings without the mess. I randomly drew two cards from the purple Crown Royal bag I keep them in (don't judge me...) and they were : Bridge - Successfully overcoming a problem. & Bowl - Plenty of material things. I love the synchronicity tarot and oracles offer sometimes! It looks like I am deep in a phase of making my life work for me, and I can expect to be comfortable, at least, while doing so. That is a just reward (an Ace of Pentacles keyword, by the way) for being authentic to one's self.

I spent the evening giving my gorgeous, evocative, surreal Archeon tarot a haircut (again don't judge me. I KNOW it was a Saturday night, but I am not feeling all that hot, in any sense of the word, except I am running a fever, and dating takes more time than I have), which for me has give the deck a new lease on life. Although I loved the images, I was not particularly fond of the large and overbearing borders, so I got brave and decided to take them off. This was my first experiment with deck trimming, although I am eyeballing a copy of the Thoth with scissors in hand now. I can see myself using this deck more often now, likely in writing exercises, as the images fit well with my slightly darker themes. I really feel this has opened the deck up and made it more readable. What do you all think?














These images are from the Pictorial Key Tarot, Tea Leaf Fortune Cards by Rae Hepburn, and the Archeon tarot by Timothy Lantz.