Tag Archives: Poetry

Tarotcast

Tarot and Art Forecast for Week of Oct. 24, 2021

Dorothea Tanning Self Portrait

The artist this week is Dorothea Tanning.  When you play the game Having a Dinner Party, where you pick 10 people alive or dead that you would have over, I would pick Dorothea Tanning as one of them.  She is a creative.  Tanning is well known for her surreal paintings, but her endeavors include drawing, painting, sculpting, installations, costume design, set design, writing poetry….

She published a book of poetry the year before her death in 2012 at 101 years old.  The span of her work in her words is “her enigmatic versions of life on the inside, looking out.” Tanning draws us into her mind as well as her physicality.  She also often paired her work with poems from other poets, to give even more depth into her painterly ponderings.  As we view her work one feels not only acquainted with her investigations of self but also, we identify ourselves in her.  For me, I would learn more about me by my conversations with her.

Your pondering, as the veil thins this week, who would you invite to your party, dining with the dead? And I have attached a line, bolded, of Tanning’s poem All Hallow’s Eve to each of your casts.  Start with the first 2 lines here and read down.

 

Be perfect, make it otherwise.
Yesterday is torn in shreds.

Solar System highlights:  On Monday the Moon starts in Cancer– get cuddly with a partner or pet and self-care should be on the agenda. Then it moves into Leo on Oct 28th – a time to shine.  The Moon then finishes in Virgo – so you can categorize your candy haul. Mercury is in Libra– great for communication, creating networks and getting in touch with friends.  Venus is in Sagittarius asking are we feeding and nurturing our relationships enough to keep them growing?    Mars is in Libra until Oct. 30th  – the last week investigating relationships around the question are your actions following your words?  Then it moves into Scorpio – passion is in the air and a great time to finish up projects.  And lastly, Jupiter and Saturn are in Aquarius – so innovating and upping your game is their focus until end of December.

P.S. Signs with an * it is a big week for you. Scorpio this is a perfect time to get an Astrological Tarot Reading for your coming year.  And Taurus it is your halfway mark for your birth year, so if you need a Planetary Reading for a check-in, now is the time.

 

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

Nina

Aries
Dorothea Tanning
Dorothea Tanning

Page of Wands – The Muse of Inspiration has come this week.  You will find that she has hidden at least one “Easter egg” of insight in each day.  These small gifts are here to help you motivate or bring your work/life up a notch.    Lightning’s thousand sulfur eyes

 

Taurus
Dorothea Tanning
Dorothea Tanning

*Hierophant – The Muse of Structures has arrived with rulers and T-squares.  This energy comes around when you need to check the structures that support you in life.  Something is off kilter.  Whether it is your schedule, eating habits, your rules/morals, or your boundaries one of these is not aligned with your way of life.  The challenge with this energy is making sure when you do this re-structuring that it remains flexible enough that you can still grow.  Rip apart the breathing beds.   

 

Gemini
Dorothea Tanning
Dorothea Tanning

Five of Cups – The Muse of Clumsiness is here to spill liquids and disrupt emotions.  So, on a practical side, don’t put your fluids by electrical devices.  And on a heart side, be careful how you interpret emotional outburst- yours and others.  This week can also be full of fret.  Your challenge is to clean up your mess and leave others to clean up their own.  Hear bones crack and pulverize.

 

Cancerian
Dorothea Tanning Set design for Ballet Witches

*Tower – The Muse of Destruction has come with a sledgehammer to  dismantle some aspect of your life. You don’t really have any power in this deconstruction; except to lessen the chaos by finding what needs to be fix before this energy does it for you.  This can be as simple as your desk has been a mess for weeks – clean it up.  Or as challenging as leaving a job or relationship that is no longer working for you.  Look around and find out what you have pushed off for ages and know well and good that it needs to be done so do it.  Doom creeps in on rubber treads.

 

Leo
Dorothea Tanning
Dorothea Tanning

*High Priestess – The third high energy week for you.  The last two weeks advised you to pause and evaluate, then the Muses suggested remixing to balance your fabrication.  Now the Muse of Higher Purpose ask you to tap into your intuition and ask what’s next? Now this Muse is asking what the purpose is behind your next steps?  Are they leading you to where you want to go, who you want to be?  If not, time to take a hard look at your plan and re-do.  If so, you still have a few insights to round out the picture.  Intuition and asking your spirit guides are keys to unlock the secrets to the next steps.    Countless overwrought housewives,

 

Virgo
Dorothea Tanning
Dorothea Tanning

*Moon – The Muse of Unconscious is here to help with your fears.  This energy wants you to investigate the darker hidden aspects of what you fear.  This Muse reminds you that interacting with your worries as if they are friends, allows you to see that they are like helicopter Moms.  Trying to keep you from harm, but also keeping you locked up.   So, this week converse with your fears, and coax them to see that they really don’t have to save you.  You are doing just fine.   Minds unraveling like threads,

 

Libra
Dorothea Tanning

Seven of Coins – The energy this week is all about work.  Time to get things done and off your to-do lists.  The challenge is you will not see the benefits from your labors for a couple of  weeks.  Try lipstick shades to tranquilize

 

Scorpio
Dorothea Tanning

Page of Coins – Last week you started off your birth month with the Muse of Deconstruction and The Muse of Potential.  They wanted you to strip away what is not working so you can re-divine a new you and your surroundings.  Now the Page of Coins joins this duo declaring that  one of your roles this coming year is being the student.  This is a year to learning new skills on the material plane.  This can look like going back to school, learning new skills for work, or trying on different hats in the workplace.  Fears of age and general dreads.

 

Sagittarius
Dorothea Tanning

Two of Coins – The Muse of Juggling comes when you need to adjust at how you get things done.  This week is not made for multi-tasking.  This muse advises to take on one thing and do it well before adding a new something to your attention.  Sit tight, be perfect, swat the spies, 

 

Capricorn
Dorothea Tanning

Four of Cups – The Muse of Introspection has come to help you remove the metaphorical lint from your belly button. She advises that you spend ¾ of your time navel gazing, but you must spend the other fourth doing and being in the world.    Don’t take faucets for fountainheads.

 

Aquarius
Dorothea Tanning

Three of Cups – The Muse of Friendship comes when your emotional glass is empty.  She reminds you that friends can uplift your spirts the best.  Find time this week to just hang and talk shit with loved ones.  Drink tasty antidotes. Otherwise

 

Pisces
Dorothea Tanning

Queen of Coins – The Muse of Keep Calm and Carry On is here to remind you to do just that.  She advises that practicality, down-to earthiness, and compassion are the elements to work with this week.  Also, a great week to invest in your future.  You and the werewolf: newlyweds.

Tarotcast

Tarot and Art Forecast for Week of Feb 16, 2020

Gwendolyn BennettPoetry has its own way of inspiring visuals.  This week I am adding to your sign’s forecast a line from the poem To a Dark Girl (1927) by Gwendolyn Bennett.  To read the whole poem just read the first line in bold for each sign.

Bennett was an influential person and contributor in the Harlem Renaissance Movement.  She was a painter, poet, and writer in a variety of journals and anthologies such as NAACP’s The Crisis and Caroling Dusk, and she published a monthly column called The Ebony Flute. For more on her history and work read Heroine of the Harlem Renaissance and Beyond

The Harlem Renaissance was centered in Harlem New York during the decade of the 1920s. It was an intellectual, social, and artistic eruption. This era was a turning point in American black cultural history. This congregation and congruence of African American writers and artists created the momentum to gain control over their representation of black culture and experience and was the beginning of these artists and thinkers to be recognized in Western Art world.

P.S. Remember signs with an * it a big week for you.  Aquarius this is a perfect time to get an Astrological Tarot Reading for your coming year.  And Leo it is your halfway mark for your birth year, so if you need a Planetary Reading for a check in now is the time.

 

Aries

I love you for your brownness,

*Hierophant – What structures in your life are holding you back?  The energy this week helps you destroy the edifices that bind you, and it strengthens your resolve to create new structures (time, space and how use your energy) that will sustain the work that needs to be done.  This can look as simple as waking up earlier to eat breakfast, or as complex as getting your job to let you work from home once a week.

 

Taurus

And the rounded darkness of your breast,

Nine of Cups – Last week’s energy wanted you to bring the divine down into the world. Tapping into your spirit and calling it into action. The energy this week continues this theme of the divine, but it asks you is your work ethic getting in the way of your spirit and joy?  Your contentment? Don’t forget the divine has you here to work your purpose, but following your joy sustains you.

 

Gemini

I love you for the breaking sadness in your voice

Seven of Wands – Last week’s energy was best used in building on what already is existing.  This week you will have to defend your boundaries to get anything done.  Work still needs to happen, so put up you do not disturb sign and get back into your groove.

 

Cancer

And shadows where your wayward eyelids rest.

Six of Coins – Karma is the key energy this week.  Take heed in your actions and reactions.  For all the positive you give, positive will return; however, this energy flow happens with negative forces too.  The trick with this card is that the return energy does not always come back directly from the intended source.  So watch for curve balls, lower expectations and be nice.

 

Leo

Something of old forgotten queens

Six of Swords – You need a bit of distance to gain some perspective this week.  So, when meeting a challenge, step back, dissect the issue, simplify and go back in.  The main take away to handling this week is physical space even if its just an extra 5 minutes in the bathroom.

 

Virgo

Lurks in the lithe abandon of your walk

Three of Wands – Last week the energy was about organic change.  Asking you to start on your spring cleaning, getting rid of things that are dead weight in your life.  And, it asked you to plant some seeds by tasking you to write down 50 things you wish for, big or small.  Lucky you, you get another week to do this prep work.  The only challenge this energy is thinking bigger and broader horizons in your wishing.

 

Libra

And something of the shackled slave

Ace of Swords – With all that heart work last week the energy has done a 180 degree turn from your heart to your mind and ways of thought.   Hopefully, now that you have reconnected with your emotions you can clearly see the direction you need to take this week with problems and their solutions.  

 

Scorpio

Sobs in the rhythm of your talk.

Queen of Cups – Last week’s energy was rough and hopefully you got to dodge most of it.  But you might find yourself a bit tender and vulnerable.   However, this is not to week to hide in the shadows.  Go out find solace in your friends and people who love you.  Refill your cup.

 

Sagittarius

Oh, little brown girl, born for sorrow’s mate,

*Judgment – Last week the energy circled around freedom and newness.  Reminding you that exploring the world is part of what drives your soul.  Discovery is key to bringing new ideas and stimulating your sensualities.  If you did well with that task last week, you are ready to deal with this week’s energy of metamorphosis.  If you didn’t investigate new avenues you might find this week has growing pains with your evolution.  This can be as simple as you found a new route to work which gives you 10 more minutes in the morning to eat breakfast.  Or it can be as complex as not finding that new avenue which stops you dead in your tracks, and you hang upside down spinning a large cocoon around yourself until you solve your challenges and changes.

 

Capricorn

Keep all you have of queenliness,

*World – The energy this week is about expanding your horizons by integrating your inner and outer worlds.  Dive into the energy and concept of interconnectedness.  You have just completed a major work and/or turned a significant corner in your life and now you need time integrating this accomplishment into your consciousness.  You are building on the old world and creating a new paradigm.   So, to move to this new music you must let the composition enter into you, let your body and soul find the new rhythm, and then dance.

 

Aquarius

Forgetting that you once were slave,

*Magician – Ok this is your last birth month card and the Magician has shown up to add to the energy of the Aces, new beginnings.  So, let’s review, 2020 ignites new passions and new ways of being on the physical plane.  Then the Magician steps in adding its big energy of bringing the divine down into reality.  This energy begs for you to start new projects/jobs, create, imagine, and experiment in the coming year. The big challenge is that these creations must have an aspect of the divine.  The definition of divine is of, from or like God, excellent or delightful.  So, 2020 will be a year where new not only grows, prospers but lifts others with delight.

 

Pisces

And let your full lips laugh at Fate!

Ten of Coins – The energy this Ten brings is satisfaction from the work you have completed. This week is a transition of completion and new beginnings. This week spend time just enjoying the gifts that you have worked so hard to get.  Set your gratefulness into your bones to strengthen positive reverberations for the next cycle to ride.

 

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

Nina

 

Tarotcast

Tarotcast for week of May 14, 2017

Happy Birthday Taurus! Taurus is generally represented as the most stable and the most stubborn of the astrological signs. However, I am friends with them because they enjoy being silly. A prime example of a silly Taurus is Edward Lear, born May 12, 1812. Edward, was an English artist, illustrator, musician, author, and poet. He is best remembered for his nonsense poem Owl and The Pussycat. He also popularized limericks, was the first major bird artist to draw from living birds instead of just their preserved skins, and he was a prolific landscape artist. Also, he was known to introduce himself as “Mr Abebika kratoponoko Prizzikalo Kattefello Ablegorabalus Ableborinto phashyph” or “Chakonoton the Cozovex Dossi Fossi Sini Tomentilla Coronilla Polentilla Battledore & Shuttlecock Derry down Derry Dumps” which he based on a game from Aldiborontiphoskyphorniostikos.

The nonsense world has no comprehensive system of logic, although it implies that there is a mysterious one just beyond our grasp. Even though the nonsense world has strange creatures and fantasy destinations, it does not follow the fantasy moral norms of good versus evil or happily ever after. And even though it makes us think the way riddles do, it has no answers, or like jokes it can make us laugh but there is no punch line. This genre is most easily recognizable by using various techniques like misuse of grammar or faulty cause and effect to balance meaning and lack of meaning. So, I have begun reading the news and tweets coming out of the White House as nonsense literature. It has improved my mood, though not my sense of reality.

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

Aries – Nine of Swords – More mind “fullness” this week with the Nine of Swords. This card is about worries. With all the thinking you have been doing during the past three weeks, it’s no wonder your brain is over-worked! Your challenge from the Nine of Swords is to get Zen with your thoughts. Your brain needs the rest. Find solutions for the things you can and let the rest go.

*Taurus – Six of Pentacles and The Lovers – Finally, the big card for your birthday month and the coming year – The Lovers, and with it the Six of Pentacles. The Lovers’ lessons are around collaboration and the give and take of relationships. And to reiterate that you got the Six of Pentacles, whose lesson is that what you give out, you receive back in threefold. The advice for this coming year is to really look at the relationships you want in your life and enhance the positive you are giving to them, because you will get it back threefold. The only challenge is that negative energy works that way too. So, be aware that negative in is three times negative out.
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Tarotcast week Of October 23, 2016

     

 

 

Happy Birthday Month Scorpios.

It is Sylvia Plath’s birthday this week, October 27.   She was part of the confessional poetry genre of the 1940-1960s. Also, she is a good representation of what Scorpios can be. Scorpios, in general, are very passionate people who push the boundaries of themselves and conventions of society. In their evolution, they help us to evolve. So to honor all Scorpios and Ms. Plath I am going to challenge you to stretch your comfort zone with an exercise.

A friend of mine is a brilliant and imaginative person, poet and teacher of poetry at university. (If you want to look her up- Marci Nelligan – Infinite Variations.) She gave out a fun, intriguing, and enlightening assignment in her poetry class. She sent her students a series of emojis to translate into their own poems. So in honor of Sylvia Plath and fun loving – boundary pushing Scorpios, I am challenge you to write your own poem from the emojis above. There are of course no rules – though everyone should have a “safe word” ;).

P.S. S. I have added some of Sylvia Plath’s poetry for each sign. Remember, when signs have * it’s a big week for you.

Aries – Eight of Wands – This is the second wand card in a row. So, let’s just step back and talk about wands as a suit. Wands are cards of spiritual growth. Last week, your growth was learning where the birthplace of chaos lies in your life. If you did your soul-work, you have gained the skill of untangling this chaos. This week will bring another onslaught of information but now you have the skill to discern what information is actually yours. Your challenge will now be prioritizing what to do with all this information. This can literally and metaphorically mean, it’s a great week to clean out and organize your inbox.  Purdah

Taurus – Two of Wands – Last week, your goal was to enjoy being in your skin. Now the Two of Wands has shown up at the beginning of the second half of your birth year. Yep, it has been six months for you all, and the Two of Wands is asking you – Are you where you want to be and doing what you wanted to do this year? Spend this week reflecting and evaluating your life and work. This is a week to make sure you are still on your desired path . If you are, then you just need to check your supplies. If it has changed, then you need to ask – Am I going in a new direction, is this a detour, or am I lost? Blackberrying
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Tarotcast for week of June 5, 2016

 

Bust_Sappho_Musei_Capitolini_MC1164

Poetry has resurfaced in my life because a friend of mine has been posting some of her favorite poets. I find the art of poetry fascinating because historians think it originally started as a way to memorize history. That the repetition, use of visualizing words, rhyming, the sing-songness of poetry helps us remember it. They believe the oldest written poem are The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor and the Gilgamesh Epic. They both have travels to and find wisdom. This theme continues in later epic poems like Odyssey, Iliad, Ramayana and Mahabharata.

Poetry has now evolved to surpass just a way to memorize epic stories. Poetry is unique in that it can an art form bound by rules and when done well in that tight binding show infinity- like haiku. Or formed to crash intellect into naughtiness- the limerick. Or boundlessness like free verse or rap. Poetry has grown now to encompass the diversity of the personal story. Yes, it still tells our history but it also has given us a window into the individual perspectives of our hearts and souls.

P.S. I have attached a few poems that I think go with your reading. Remember, when signs have * it’s a big week for you. I have attached some poetry

Aries – Knight of Wands – The Knight of Wands is here to remind you to have an adventure this week. The challenge is not to get lost in all the options – pick one and just do it. The great thing with the Knight of Wands is that there are no expectations to whatever you pick to do. Hmmm then again that might be another challenge for you Aries – can you “do” without expecting an outcome? Blank Letter – S. Sen

Taurus – Ace of Pentacles – Second week of Aces or new beginnings for you all. The Ace of Wands asked you to pay attention to what you sowed the last week. This week the Ace of Pentacles wants you to continue the path of planting for the future and to plan some short-term goals. The challenge will be can you balance both Aces (short and longer term goals) at the same time without feeling stressed? Hint: if you are feeling stressed, your short and long-term goals maybe at odds with each other. Life is fine!- L Hughes
Continue reading Tarotcast for week of June 5, 2016 →