I hope everyone is doing well.

I had yet another very productive day today. Things are looking up. I don't know if this is just a blip on the radar screen or if I'm going through some major transformation but two really great days in a row is a record for me. I'm talking about health and vigor here and feelings of well-being.

I have just done some major health rituals lately so maybe that has something to do with it. Today I made a spaghetti dinner! I know that may not sound so great. But I haven't made a spaghetti dinner in over a year. I just haven't felt up to cooking so I've been eating simple meals. Today I felt so good and I was so hungry that I decided to go for it, and it was great! I ate two full plates of spaghetti today and I didn't even feel over stuffed. And I'm talking major thick chunky homemade sauce with lots of stuff in it. Hamburger, mushrooms, onion, garlic, green pepper, and celery.

Yum yum!

I feel like a rocket!

Good work James! It is good to hear you are cooking again. Cooking is fun and it relaxes me all the time. When I had a hard day you will see me in the kitchen cooking or baking all the time.

I am happy today because I have finished a complete redesign of my own tarot deck. Today I bought some good white 110 pound card stock that can be printed on both sides and I will start printing some decks soon.

I also found a free tarot card reading program for my computer that is very similar to dealing spreads by hand called Orphalese. It allows you to put your own deck in it! How awesome is that! So I can now read my new deck via the program on my computer before I even print up the first actual deck. It is awesome.

That sounds great Jeannie!

When you say 'card stock' are you talking about pre-cut paper?

Paper that is already designed to be 'broken apart' into cards?

Or are you talking about just solid sheets of card stock.

I'm just curious of what you're actually using.

I've been thinking about printing up a special deck of cards myself. It's actually a deck of about 50 cards. Most will just contain symbols, although I might toss in some simple artwork too.

If things continue the way they've been going for me very recently I might actually be able to start getting into some of these projects that I've been dreaming about.

Glad to hear things are going so well for my friends here!

No, the card stock is not pre-cut paper we have to cut the cards ourselves and we are experimenting with a couple of different inexpensive paper cutters. One that just chops, and the other with a blade that you slide along a path.

You can get punch out paper for cards but it is expensive.

I will be writing a short E-book on how to make your own cards and offering it from my website along with some designs (a major arcana deck of 24 cards) to build a mailing list. I might charge a small amount for the book and the designs.

I like the card stock because it is thicker than the matte brochure paper I have been using, and it is cheaper. When I set my printer to more vivid printing, the result is about as good as the more expensive thinner paper I had been using.

After the cards are lined up and printed both on the front and back, I laminate the back with a self sealing sheet, then take a white utility candle and rub it over the front of the entire sheet of cards to protect them from water etc. Then I take a soft cloth and rub it and buff it. Then the sheet is trimmed (cut) on the edges and the cards are cut. The regular size prints 8 cards to a sheet. It takes ten sheets to create my 80 card deck in that size.

The cards are nice and thin, flexible and water resistant. They have a nice feel and spread and shuffle nicely.

I will be making decks myself by hand in four different sizes for sale by special order. Make no mistake, it is a labor of love and a lot of work. Each card will have rounded corners cut with a photo corner rounder. You can care for your cards by re-waxing them and buffing them.

Another method is to laminate both sides, but we like the finish on the waxed side and the thinner cards.

The sizes will be Large, regular, small, and mini.

The large ones will be printed on 4X6 but slightly smaller than 4 x 6, but I may make them smaller where I can get 4 to page. I have a tarot card making program that prints 4 to a page I might use that.

The 4 X 6 inch cards are only 3 to a page and the paper has to be cut first.

The regular deck is 2.5 inches by 4 inches.
The small deck will be about the size of a credit card. 2" X 3 3/8"
The mini deck more like the size of a business card. (1 3/4" X 3")

My niece Vanessa wants to make a tiny 'keychain' deck.

There is a program for setting up and printing your own cards called "quick cards." Registration is only 14.95. You can set up the entire deck and just print them. It prints four large tarot cards to a page.

It also will print regular playing cards. Its really cool. I will probably use it for my larger cards. My smaller cards are set up in Print shop Pro and converted to portable document format. With acrobat professional I can put the entire deck in one file and just print it.


To down load quick cards
http://www.plaincards.com/

James, if you feel like it, I'd like to hear more about your health rituals.

Popping in to drop off some love, hugs & blessings

My dear wonderful lady....

A little bird has just shared with me that today we celebrate the day of your birth...

I say Chi'meegwetch GitchiManito for the gift that is You....

May your day be filled with much love, laughter and light....

It is great to see you both pop in LightVoice and EarthSprite. May we share much happiness and love together.

Well, they're rather complicated because I'm doing a lot of stuff simultaneously from various teachers.

From the Penczak Inner Temple of Witchcraft Series, I've been working with Exercise 15 (page 144) Vibrational Statements Meditation. I used his guided meditation on the CD to get started with this, It's on Disk 1, track 4, the first meditation.

Although on the disk (and in the book) this vibrational exercise can bring you into any vibrational mode you choose. He doens't specify health per say, but it's certainly one of the options, and since this is what I feel I need the most at this time I've been focusing on orchestrating the synchronization of this particular vibrational energy.

I've also built upon this exercise by tailoring it specifically to health vibrations and using the circle meditation CD of the Outer Temple of Witchcraft as meditation background music to perform my own Vibrational Statments Meditations. Usually when I do those I will also visit either my Labyrinth Garden, or my Inner Temple via a shamanic journey and do the vibrational statements meditations imbedded within those particular shamanic experiences.

As I say, I'm doing a lot of things so it's difficult to narrow it down to any one thing.

In addition to the above (and sometimes simultaneously embedded within the above meditations) I'm also doing Chakra work. I have a "Chakra Balancing Kit" by Anodea Judith. That "kit" include a workbook that graphically shows how to do yoga exercises associated with each of the Chakras. It also contains two CD's One CD is a combination of guided chakra meditations along with a visual arts activity of physically drawing the visualizations after the meditation. After you've done that, then you meditate on what you've drawn for each chakra (yes you have to go through this seperately for each chakra!)

This is a never-ending process as so as you heal and bring your chakras into harmony you also become a better artist.

I've actually only been working with my root chakra at this time. I mean, I've done all of the meditations for all of the chakras, but I'm focusing on the root right now. Just meditating on them once is really nothing. It needs to be a complete and constant journey.

You might say that I'm just now getting to actually "know" my chakras. I'm looking at them in an entirely different way that I have ever thought of them before. In a very real sense I see them now as portals into the various realms of consciousness. This is why I have found the connection between the chakras and the Qabalah consciousnesses so enlightening.

I feel like climbing up on a mountain that looks out over all of humanity and shouting out, "Hey everybody,...

Root Chakra - Consciousness of Malkuth
Belly Chakra - Consciousness of Yesod
Sacral Chakra - Consciousness of Hod and Netzach
Heart Chakra - Consciousness of Tiphereth
Throat Chakra - Consciousness of Geburah and Chesed
Brow Chakra - Consciousness of Binah and Chokmah
Crown Chakra - Consciousness of Kether"

Very few people would have a clue what I'm talking about I'm sure, but to me this information is like gold. This is like finding the Holy Grail, or the long lost ark of the convenent. It's like the 1-800 number to the gods. It answers 24/7 toll free!

Anyway, so in addition to all the meditations and exercise activities, I'm also emmersing myself in the consciousness of Malkuth.

I've had a very busy and productive day again today! That makes three days in row!

PLUS I've been making contact with Netzach through Malkuth. Today, I interacted with actual PEOPLE! That's very long story, but I can only say that I had quite an active social life today and it all went very well.

In fact, it's almost spooky how this became manifest just at a time when I was thinking about it.

Anyway, getting back to the health thing, I'm also doing a few affirmation meditations with a video lesson by Deepak Chopra. These lessons came from the ancient Vedic Sutras.

So it's a combination of a bunch of things. It seems like a lot when I type it in here, but it doesn't seem like all that much when I'm actually doing it.

I'm focusing on Malkuth and bringing my Root chakra into alignment and into harmony with the Earth, thus and opening up a communications channel Malkuth and company.

This also means that I'm physically doing a lot of constructive work around the house, because the realm of Malkuth is indeed the phsyical real. How we create and maintain our immediate environment is indeed how we interact with Malkuth. It's an important interface (or emersion).

In fact, when I put it that way (the emersion part) I realize that this comes from the teachings of Pisces which is what I was reading just last night in "The God Book" (Living Temple vol. 2)

So that's all part of it I guess. I'm just sucking up all this stuff like a huge psychic vacuum cleaner.

I'm also doing an exercise in the chapter on Capricorn from that same book. Although that has more to do with defining life-goals. Yet at the same time it's related to health in a very real way.

It's kind of like you need to have somewhere to go before you can even take a true interest in tuning up your car. Why bother tuning up the car if there's nowhere you really want to go? So by the very simple act of not having well-defined long-term goals you psychically allower your car (your body) to fall apart. After all, if you're not planning on hitting the highway, why bother with the car?

So having a goal for the future is actually an important consciousness to embrace before you can take any serious interest in having a need for a good running car (a healthy body)

Previously I was looking at things bass ackwards. I was thinking that if I get healthy first, then I might feel like doing something. But in a way, it's actually better to do it the other way around. Find something you really want to do, and then you'll become healthy as you strive to reach that goal.

So now, I'm hitting it from both ends I guess.

Ok, that was quite a ramble. But you asked for it, so there you have it.

I didn't even mention the Faery Work that I'm also incorporating in with this. This is along the lines of the 'Sun and Moon' Exercise #18 page 154 in Penczak's Inner Temple book.

Anodea Judith speaks of this as well in her own way. She talks about the living forces that flow through the spine and the chakras. One life force flowing up from the Earth, through the body and out the crown chakra to the sky. The other life force flowing down from the sky, through the body and out of the root chakra into the Earth.

What I'm speaking about here in particular is the is what the Faery Teachings call the flow of the Toradh (toe-rath) through the Bilé (Bee-lay). The Bilé is the 'Tree of Life" in the Faery Teachings. This compares with all the teachings of the life forces that flow through the chakras in the opposite directions in a serpentine flow.

I like the way that Faery Teaching teach this. They speak of the "Blue light" of the Faery well as being the Toradh of the UnderWorld. This blue light flows up into the feet (and root chakra) of the body. Serpentines through all the chakras and then leaves the body though the crown.

They compare this with a tree that takes in water and nutrients in its roots and then gives off that water and carbon dioxide as well as oxygen through evaporation and respiration of it's leaves into the atmosphere or "sky" above.

The Leaves, on the other hand, soak up rain and sunlight from above and pass that energy down to grow more roots. This is the 'silver" light of the Toradh that flows down through the Bilé.

They have several meditations that cover this theme. In two of them they bring together the three bodies of the soul. The DreamWalker, (which is the body of the UnderWorld), the SurfaceWalker, (which is the physical body of everyday life), and the SkyWalker (which is the higher self, or cosmic consciousness).

So they have several meditations and exercises to bring these three bodies into harmony and communication with each other. Comparing this with the Qabalah this could be seen in the central pillar where both Malkuth and Yesod are the "DreamWalkers", Tiphereth is the "SurfaceWalker" and Kether is the "SkyWalker".

All of these different traditions are saying the same things using different archetypal imagery.

So I guess you could say that I'm learning how to "get my act together".

I'm pulling together my fragmented soul and making it whole. And that's a very healing thing to do.

How is the drawing coming along James? Did you have a chance to draw or is too much going on at the moment?

Good point.

Thank you very much for posting all that. You have helped me once again.

I've done a little. Not painting yet. Yes, a lot going on at the moment. I've been preparing for winter. I've learned my lesson the hard way to never go into a winter unprepared.

So I've been working on my water storage system. My back-up electric generator (I need that to run water pumps for my heating system should the power fail in the winter). And getting firewood to hold me through the winter. So far, I have about half of the firewood I need, so I need to get more.

I'm also working on a back-up car for the winter. So I have lots to do right now. But I've been reading through those painting books I bought and I'm looking forward to getting into that pretty heavy this winter once I'm set for the cozy dark era of darkness.

I have forgotten what cold is for awhile now living in Miami. It was 91 degress here today with a little less humidity for a change.

It is always the Era of Luminescence here.

aaaaaaaaawwww {{{{{Earth}}}}}} Thank you so very much! Actually, my birthday is tomorrow, the 10th... so you are one of the very first to send birthday blessings my way.

{{{{{Smiless}}}}} Hugs & Hello my dear one~!

Whether together, or apart, we do indeed always share a celebration of our friendship in our hearts