I did my first three card spread today from The Akashic Tarot, I'm not going to go into what the question was, but I will say that I was pretty much blown away by the response received! The cards that I drew in order were card 12 "The Scribe", card 16 "Caught In The Ruins" and card 15 "The Muse".
I also followed up with pulling one card from the Messages From Your Animal Spirit Guides Oracle Cards and although it was one card The Boar (pig), not three, and an Oracle deck, not a Tarot deck - the meaning resonated true!
I also used the crystal Labradorite while I was drawing the cards, I really love this crystal! However, it's hard to take a decent photo of! It doesn't have one exact colour, depending on the surrounding light it can appear green, grey or even black - but then you'll see a flash of blue!
I think I purchased this crystal at a new age fair a few years ago, funnily enough, I purchased it because of its name and shape. We have two Labradors and the fact that it was in the shape of a heart was just a bonus!
Okay, I'm outta here until next time!
P.S After yesterdays post, I chose to read A Discovery Of Witches, so far, so good!
I'm one of those people who has to finish a book, yep, even if it's crap. I've finished my last book yesterday (thank god!) and now I have to decide on the next book! I do actually have a growing stack of "to-read" books, so I've narrowed it down to two titles:- A Discovery Of Witches by Deborah Harkness and The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.
You know when you pick up a book and you flick the pages either from front to back or back to front? Well, I did that with A Discovery Of Witches. I landed on a random page, as you do - I had a quick read. Then I put both the books beside my computer and opened Amazon to read the reviews. The very first review contained text that was either the exact text from the book or very closely paraphrased! I did flick through the book again to try and find the page but I had no such luck! Although when I find it, I plan on writing about it and linking the future post to this post!
I was thinking of reading The Night Circus, but now I don't know if I should read A Discovery Of Witches...... I have the version that's in a trilogy box set. Argh! How do you choose what to read next?
The reviews for A Night Circus are extremely good, with many readers stating they'd read the book than once. So what's the problem? Well, Erin Morgenstern wrote this book in 2011 and hasn't written a second book. So if I really like it, there's no follow up! I know, first world problems!
I guess I could read the first in the trilogy and then if I need a break I could read The Night Circus? Why is this becoming much harder than it needs to be lol
The Halloween Tarot is one of my newer Tarot decks, which I purchased fairly recently on our trip to Berry. I really like this deck, firstly because I love Halloween! The other reasons I think I'm drawn to the is deck is because of the colours - nothing's been toned down here! This deck celebrates Halloween and it is colours galore, not a pastel in sight! This deck is Rider-Waite inspired with a novelty, cartoon style going on. I also love that there's a black kitty cat on each card!
I've only given myself one reading with this deck, and I was very happy! So today I've decided to go for a simple one card draw. I didn't have a specific question in mind.
The card I drew was the Knight Of Imps, the first thing I notice is that it's that I've pulled another card with a horse on it. . . In my last blog post, I pulled the King Of Autumn card which featured the Gypsy Vanner Horse. Without referring to the guidebook, I immediately think of travel. So what does the guidebook say?
The first paragraph says "The Knight Of Imps gallops hastily on his way to something new, wherever it may be". I should also mention that in this Halloween Tarot, the Imp cards are a replacement of the suit of Wands, the Wands are connected to the element fire which is connected to creativity, artistic ability etc.
This card makes perfect sense to me, I'm travelling towards something creative. It also ties in with my last blog post perfectly! I've also circled that cheeky black kitty cat in the bottom right corner!
Seems like I'm still on the right path! See you next time!
What's that saying? "Ask and you shall receive?". Well, today, I asked the same question to both an oracle deck and tarot deck. The first deck I used was Messages From Your Animal Spirit Guides Oracle Cards by Steven D Farmer.
I really do like these cards, there are no hard and fast reading layouts to follow. With these cards, you can ask a question and pull one card for an answer, you can create your own reading layout like a standard tarot reading, or if you want you can pull a card at random and put it on display where it can be seen and use it all day like a talisman-type card.
So what's in the box? I should first mention that the box is nice and strong and the cards fit well, leaving very little excess space around the cards preventing them from getting damaged.
The deck consists of 44 cards with there being a broad range of animals such as ladybug, emu, cat (domestic), platypus, shark etc. Each of these animal-themed cards has the name of the animal at the top, then a picture of the animal in the centre and a small meaning at the bottom. The included bound guidebook then elaborates on the small definition. Honestly, I think that with regular use, the guidebook really wouldn't be needed as the meaning of the card is comprehensive enough.
The second deck I used was the Animal Tarot Cards by Doreen Virtue & Radleigh Valentine. In my entire collection of both books and divination tools, this is the only item I own created by Doreen Virtue.
To be fair, I don't know a whole lot about the woman. I've simply never been drawn to any of her products. I did hear an interview with her once a couple of years ago, and it pretty much reinforced that she really wasn't the creator of stuff that interested me.
Now there's the issue of her turning her back on her New Age empire in favour of Christianity. Doreen has/had many followers who she has basically called Devil worshipers, all these people did was support her empire over many years in purchasing her books and cards etc, most of which were Angel centred? Go figure! Anyway, drifting off topic here!
How on earth did I end up with a Doreen Virtue tarot deck post ship jump? Well, I was watching/listening to youtube videos on TV of tarot deck reviews. I wasn't being altogether attentive as I was using my tablet at the same time. Anyway, a review of this deck came on and I was listening - not realising who the creator was, I was really liking the sound of the review. It was then I looked up and saw the name of the creator on the box lol So I bought a copy, no one was more surprised by this than I!
So, two animal-themed decks, one with 44 cards, the other with 78, one an oracle, one a tarot. What was the result?
Okay, the cards I drew were the Blue Heron (1st card in the Oracle deck) and then the King Of Autumn (Last card in the Tarot deck). Both cards in their own words both stated that I was on the right path, they also both stated that I would face judgement and disapproval from others but that I basically just needed to breathe in spite of the judgement I would be receiving.
Seriously, both of these cards said the same thing! It'll be interesting to see what comes next! Catch you next time!
They say cats choose their owners, is this saying true if the cat in question is being fed like a king? As a follow up to my last post, Spike still hadn't been home - that we're aware of. We have a sneaking suspicion, that he's been coming in at night to munch on some cat biscuits!
Anyway, this morning I decided to pay the neighbour another visit. I was stuck there for just over 2 hours! Again, in a nutshell - I requested that she not feed him. I told her that I didn't mind him visiting her for company, but he has a heart condition and he was too fat! She agreed not to feed him. We shall see how long this lasts! The reason I say this is that she told me she had stopped feeding him, then moments later told me he was hungry yesterday morning, so she gave him breakfast! UGH!
So at the moment, Spike's inside, as I brought him home with me. He's pacing from one room to another looking for a way out, with the occasional lie down where he can shoot death stares my way! Oh well! At least he's getting some exercise to burn off all that extra food!
I have a couple of newish decks of oracle cards that I hadn't as yet used, so yesterday I thought to myself "Self, why not use the cards and ask about Spike!"
So I opened (yes they were both still shrink wrapped lol) the Messenger Oracle by Ravynne Phelan first. The card that I drew was card 42 "show that you care". Two things caught my attention with this card, the first being that the day before, my wife and I watched The Neverending Story. Straightaway when I saw this card I thought of Falkor the Luckdragon, so there was an instant familiarity with the card. Secondly, given that we have two new mouths to feed, the card made me wonder if Spike was feeling unloved?
So I ripped the shrink wrap off The Akashic Tarot by Sharon Anne Klingler and Sandra Anne Taylor. I asked the same question and pulled the "1 of scrolls on track" card. Guess what this card is about? Travelling. If you look at the card, it shows a man with one foot on the train and one foot on the ground as he looks over his shoulder at the signposts. According to the guidebook, there are maps in his hands. Wow! I thought that both of these cards were fairly spot on considering what had been happening!
Given that I hadn't worked with either of these card decks previously, it's fair to say, that so far I'm quite impressed! I should also add that the illustrations on both decks of cards are just beautiful!! When you pull a card from a deck you're unfamiliar with and pretty much know the meaning without looking at the guidebook, that says an awful lot about the illustrations!
Okay, I'm outta here for now! I'll keep you updated on the Spike situation and whether the neighbour keeps feeding my cat!
The neighbour won't stop feeding our cat is my issue this week! Ok, so to get the whole story out, there will be some to and froing regarding timezones! The cat in question is Spike, he's 10 years old and we purchased him when he was an itty bitty kitty when we lived in The Blue Mountains.
For the record, he's desexed, microchipped and as much as we have always wanted him to be an inside cat, he has different ideas! If Spike's locked inside and a window's open, he'll shred the flyscreen to let himself out.
So how did we find out that Spike (above) was dining elsewhere? Okay, so, approx 12 months ago when little Lily came to live with us, Spike wasn't altogether pleased. However, he got over it, after all, we did get Lily so that he'd have company because he's quite a social cat! As you know, it turned out that Lily had Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP) and passed away.
During the early days of Lily moving in with us, Spike disappeared for one or two nights here and there. To be quite honest, I wasn't concerned. Spike can be moody and will vanish down the stormwater drains like a gutter rat, however, he always gets over whatever his problem is and comes home.
So we adopted two 5-month-old sibling cats recently (which I've not written a post about yet!) and again he disappeared - which we expected until he got used to them. However, there was a difference this time, even when Spike goes walkabout, he'll still be spotted in the front/backyard, or under one of our cars, or he'll come in overnight and eat the food that we leave for him.
So we've had the two new kitties for about a month now, which has been plenty of time for Spike to get annoyed, disappear and come back home. Except for this week, we hadn't seen him for two solid days and he hadn't been home to eat for three nights.
There's one house diagonally behind us, we've never met the owner but about 3 weeks ago I did see Spike on the fence on his way in that direction. I also knew that yard didn't have any dogs. So we decided to go around and introduce ourselves to the owner and ask if they'd seen our cat.
The owner of the house is an 82-year-old woman, she invited us into her house as she said she did have a "stray" in her yard. She told us the cat wasn't there at the moment but described him as a grey cat. She told us that she owned a male tabby cat named Albert, that she had from a kitten and another grey "stray" female that she'd named "Visy" - short for Visiting Cat. (Spike below).
I'll cut a very long story short as we were at her house for at least an hour! "Visy" showed *her* face at the back door. My wife was first to see our Spike looking back at us through this woman's door! My wife said, "Um, there's my cat!". I turned around to see Spike! The woman, who had been quite demure to this point sternly said "No. That's My Visy". I stepped out into her yard and picked up Spike and stated that Spike was, in fact, our cat. One thing the woman stated before Spike appeared was, that she had never been able to get close enough to pat this cat, except on the head. The fact that I just picked him up spoke volumes!
Again, long story short - It turns out that she has been feeding Spike for approx 6.5 years! She's also feeding someone else's cat as well! She made a point of saying that she was feeding them because they were in her yard although it was clear to her that neither were underfed and did belong to other people! WTF! She also bought a bed for him, which is located right next to the food bowl!
It has now been five days since Spike has been home. I believe she has put him inside her house. I should also mention that it was pointed out to her that Spike has health conditions that need to be monitored. I don't think she realises just how wrong what she's doing is! My wife and I are now in a situation where we have to try and figure out how do we get our cat back?!?!? Is it no wonder I've got one ripper of a headache!
I've just finished reading Smoke Gets In Your Eyes: and other lessons from the crematory by Caitlin Doughty. What do I do now? Do I start reading another book or do I wait until my book club book arrives?
I thought the timing was perfect this morning! I knew I'd finish my current book today, and while I sat and had breakfast, I heard the postman and then I heard the scan beep! Sadly, the beep must have been for a neighbour as there were no parcels waiting for me outside.
I'd like to start reading 199 Cemeteries To See Before You Die by Loren Rhoads, however, should I start reading it today what are the chances that Ghostland will arrive tomorrow? I guess I could make a start on 199 Cemeteries, as it's not a novel. I'd absolutely love to show you some of the images within the covers! But I won't, as that simply isn't fair on the author. Although, if you check the book out on Amazon, you can preview some of the pages there.
I can give you an idea of what kind of architecture you can expect to see. Loren visits the USA Northeast, USA South, USA Midwest, USA West, USA West Coast, Canada, Central and South America and the Caribbean, Europe, Eastern Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia and finally Australia!
I've been to two of the Australian cemeteries in this book, one of them being Rookwood Necropolis. I was looking online for a photo of the Lidcombe entrance of Rookwood, I used to know the meaning behind the sculpture, but for the life of me I can't remember what it means now, perhaps there'll be something in the book about it. Anyway, when I found the photo above I couldn't help but have a bit of a giggle! I noticed there's a road sign smack bang in the middle of the entrance - the black sign with the white arrow... It says "One Way". So, Yeah.... Only in Australia!
Anyway, apart from the road sign which I don't recall seeing before (lol) I'm intrigued to see what a visitor from overseas will make of our largest cemetery! I know my thoughts, but I've not travelled the world, so I don't have anything of a similar scale to compare it to.
It's been such a long time since I've visited Rookwood as I no longer live in the Sydney area. I used to love spending weekends there with my wife, we'd buy lunch then drive on over there. Despite having been there so many times, we even managed to get lost once lol
A book was written in 1989 called The Sleeping City The Story Of Rookwood Necropolis by David A Weston. I own a copy of this book, and it's one of my favourite books. There are some brilliant historical photos and information contained within these pages.
I've just looked on Goodreads for some further info about the book and discovered that I was the one that added it initially! What's funnier is that I was hoping to find if the book was still in print and discovered there's one review (2017) and it's written is by Loren Rhoads! Loren gave the book 3/5 stars and stated that the book has been sold on Amazon for $200 USD, so I'm guessing at that price, it's out of print! If you would like to read Loren's review, click here.
Okay! I'll catch you all next time!!
A couple of months ago I was looking for a headstone design, not for myself lol but to paint on one of my ceramic pieces. I'd looked on Google images, but nothing was jumping out at me, so I decided that I might look on YouTube for some inspiration. It was there that I stumbled across Ask A Mortician! This channel is run by Caitlin Doughty who's an American funeral homeowner - with a twist!
She's pretty much against everything that your average funeral home owner or employee stands for. Given that I was once employed by a funeral home here in Australia, I "get" where she's coming from and I totally "get" the humour!
Caitlin has written two books which I own both. I'm 3/4 of the way through Smoke Gets In Your Eyes and it's well worth reading. I don't want to give anything away lol, However, if you would like to read more about her books, you can do so here.
There's a closed group on Facebook called The Deathling Den, which is basically a page for people to discuss Caitlin's books, youtube videos or any other death-related non-conforming topics. Yes, I'm a member lol The group is run by The Order Of The Good Death, this is a charity type group - also powered by Caitlin Doughty - goodness! She's everywhere!!
Anyway, The Deathling Den has started a book club, and yes I have joined the book club too lol The book about to be read and discussed is Ghostland An American History In Haunted Places by Colin Dickey. I'm very much looking forward to reading this book! Although the words "Ghostland" and "Haunted" appear in the title, this book isn't about spooky houses, is more an examination and debunking of these so-called "Haunted Places". My copy is yet to arrive as I had to purchase it from the UK, so I'll have some catching up to do as the club starts reading this week!
Okay, I'm outta here! If you're after more Caitlin info, she has a number of pages on Facebook, she's on Instagram, Twitter and has a website. Just Google her! See you next time!
I know it may have seemed that I abandoned my blog once again, however, I didn't. I just needed a bit of a break after losing Lily. We had her cremated and I had a photo of her printed. The days following her passing, there were a couple of weird events - we think she may have popped in to torment the dogs, something she loved to do! Today's blog post isn't meant to be a sad one. I just wanted to add the photo below to my blog.
Roughly a month ago, we went to Kiama for a 5-day mini-break, I mentioned that we were going back in February. As usual, breaks are never quite long enough! We were lucky as it was sunny for most of the time we were there, it only rained the last two days which really wasn't that big of a deal as we had done most of the outside stuff.
The first day that we arrived, there were markets on. We love markets! I did wear a hat, however, I was a bit slack in the sunscreen department and got quite sunburnt! Lesson learnt? Maybe lol
While we were there, we stayed at Kiama Shores Motel. Now, just for some background info lol. When we travel, we're not the kind of travellers that seek five-star accommodation. For us, accommodation is just somewhere to sleep and to have breakfast and/or dinner.
According to Google, this motel was 4.1/5 stars and was also well priced. As you can see from the photo, the motel was clean. So what was my issue? Weeell, there wasn't a kitchenette. We had a fridge and a kettle, but no kitchenette. There was also two BBQ's for patrons to use, but given the lack of kitchen amenities, we didn't have utensils or even plates to be able to use the BBQ's.
The lack of kitchen facilities also meant that the kettle had to be filled from the bathroom sink, the same place that the two mugs had to be washed. This was an issue for me, I don't have OCD, but I do like my kitchen stuff separated from my bathroom stuff.
There was a cafe downstairs called Speak N Easy and we had breakfast there every morning as not only was it convenient, but they had a decent menu, it was well priced and the staff were friendly.
Ok back to my kitchenette issue! Aside from the kettle refilling problem, towards the end of our stay when it was raining and we were getting tired, we couldn't grab some take away earlier in the day to have later on for dinner as we didn't have any cutlery, plates, or even a small microwave. This meant that we went out for dinner every night. Admittedly, the restaurants we went to were great. However, in this day and age, is a kitchenette too much to ask for?
One restaurant we went to was called Ritzy Gritz Mexican Stonegrill and the food was pretty amazing! They didn't scrimp on anything and the surroundings were very Tex Mex!
We had two-day trips to Berry which is the most gorgeous little township about twenty minutes from Kiama. If you ever go to Berry, you simply have to go to The Dairy Bar! OMG! We were only planning on going there once for a look, but after spending one day looking around, we had to go back for another!
On the second trip to Berry, I purchased a new tarot deck for myself. I had actually checked out some reviews on this deck a few years back on Amazon. I can't remember why I didn't get it, perhaps it was out of stock? Anyway, I saw this deck on the shelf and the book was right beside it. I'd already picked up a few other decks but put them back on the shelf as I didn't click with them, so when I saw this deck and guidebook, I knew it was coming home with me.
I purchased The Halloween Tarot from Shambalaa, they have two storefronts - so should you go looking for a new age shop and find a clothing store - keep looking!
Ok, well I think the length of this blog post has made up for my absence!
