Announcing PsychKicks©, a New Feature Starting June 21, 2017

Psych yourself up with like-minded sidekicks, exploring the symbols all around us—together.

We are all psychic whether we realize it or not. How much more fun would it be to explore the symbols all around us with each other as sidekicks?  Or psychkicks?

My Cosmic Tractor Beam has sent me some new coordinates! I’m starting a new feature, a weekly kick-start for mind and spirit featuring an eclectic use of metaphysical tools. While I’m now retired from one-on-one consultations, for many years my Inner Growth Work practice included astrology, tarot, dreamwork and flower essences and any other tools that waved hello and said, “Use me.” Combined with the Radical Virgo characteristic of reducing cosmic downloads to their most helpful nuggets for growth and healing, I’m hoping to start your week in a way that fires up your mind and psyche to help kick off a good week from the get-go. Often the kick will the kind that brings laughter. And you’re invited to comment or contribute. That’s what psychkicks on the journey do.

Format

The usual post day will be Mondays except for the launch post on June 21. Psych-Kicks^© may ultimately move to more frequent posts and its own domain.

What to Expect

Here’s a live demo! While writing this on June 2, I was inspired draw an Angel Card for this sample message. I got Efficiency.

After telling you my source, which could be anything from astrology to other oracles or a recent synchronicity, I’ll go inward to consult my intuition about what the universe wants to convey to us. Sometimes I’ll share quotes or bits of others’ wisdom on the topic, too.

So here goes:

“Efficiency”

We all need a certain amount of efficiency to make our lives work. Otherwise, we get distracted with side-trips that delay getting to our goals—or even fall into time traps that use up minutes, hours, days or more by “looking busy” even if only to ourselves. Those time traps are blocks of living that you might want to put to better use: thinking things through, laughing, playing or relaxing. Worse, time traps don’t help you get to where you’re going.

True efficiency requires that you set aside time at least every month to look at the big picture of your life. This living portrait of your existence is dynamic, not set in stone. New data or new insights may shift your focus, even your goal.

We are so easily fooled by short-term goals. We’re like politicians only seeing an issue in the timeframe between now until the next election. Think of the short-term goals as building blocks to the Big Picture. But what if you haven’t sufficiently seen the structure and the possibilities of the longer view? You might have an inkling of what you want somewhere inside you, but if you haven’t sufficiently rolled around all the possible paths and identified your true desires, you might just be building the wrong structure. Instead of a seaside condo, you might wake up in the middle of a steel office building. Or God backwards forbid, a dog house.

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.  ~ Peter Drucker

Recently I struggled with hating to postpone a big project. My whole body and being were telling me it wasn’t the right time. On reflection I realized I was worrying more about others’ thinking I was crazy to take so long to get to it—and that I was only seeing the advantages of doing the project sooner than later. Several stumbling blocks to doing it more immediately appeared to expose the faster track as foolhardy. Confirmation by the universe helped me surrender to divine timing, and once I did, I could see huge advantages in waiting.

My friend Janet said something really cool about my struggle. She said a choice between good and bad is easy, but choices between two good options are much harder. Thanks to learning over the years to read cosmic signals, I had the eyes to see. I know for sure which of the two good choices to pursue …

… unless or until my Big Picture Review shows me otherwise.

What does pondering efficiency do for you?

(Such a Virgo word.)

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Photo Credit: keigo1027yasuda – fotolia.com

 

August: Oracles Month on The Radical Virgo

© 2013 by Joyce Mason

All Rights Reserved

As I continue to move all astrology and astrology-plus articles from joycemason.com to The Radical Virgo, I’m posting by related themes. We did Dreams in July. In August, we’ll be doing Oracles including Tarot and other symbol systems, most of which are based on the “luck of the draw.” (Of course, there’s little luck or chance involved and mostly a lot of magical, magnetic energy that sends the right images, words or experiences to us.) Here’s a little preview of what’s to come.

Q: What do tarot cards, fortune cookies, astrology, dreams and meaningful coincidences all have in common?

A: They all can be used as oracles.

Oracle has many meanings from hokey to holy. I am most interested in #5 in the Dictionary.com definitions, namely a divine communication or revelation.

Oracles are symbol systems that bridge your intuition and the creative, manifesting forces of the universe. Oracles strictly follow the orientation of the seeker.

When you open yourself up to divine inspiration, the Holy Spirit, your Higher Self--however you see good guidance according to your personal beliefs--those are the forces that will shine through when using these symbols. If you are fearful, or if you want your “fortune told,” where you have no power or spiritual backbone to co-create your own dreams in divine partnership, don’t be surprised to find negative energy in a tarot reading or other symbol system consultation.

During August, we’ll talk about different kinds of oracles, how to use them and how to make the most of them. Life itself offers us oracles, things we hear repeated or that reappear to bring us guidance.

For example, you hear an old friend’s name come up three times over a couple of days, then you bump into her. This is a “preview” oracle. Or, if someone you haven’t seen in a long time is on your mind or in your dream persistently, it may be a nudge to break the silence and make contact. That’s a “guidance” oracle. In either case, the synchronicity of repetition is a signal that Spirit is trying to get your attention.

I hope you’ll enjoy this month of delving into oracles other than astrology. They often enhance  our understanding of astrology and give us an additional perspective that we might not see in our horoscopes. Over the years, I have worked with these various symbolic tools in a complementary way, a holistic merger that has been personally very satisfying.

I love “playing the symbols.” I hope you will, too.

~~~

Photo Credit: © kytalpa - Fotolia.com

Astrology and Tarot: The “Astro-Tarot” Reading

© 2010 by Joyce Mason


#2 of 3 of the Astrology-Plus Trilogy

My post on Astrology and Dreams got a lot of nods from readers who like the interface between the stars and their night movies. As an eclectic practitioner over the years with a lot of different tools in her trick bag, I admit that my all-time favorite kind of consultation is the “astro-tarot” reading. (This photo reminds me of myself when I’m in full regalia with my mixed bag, because I often use a pendulum to dowse for flower essences—but that’s another post!)

Astrology in and of itself is a fabulous GPS on the Road of Life. In order to keep a client empowered with the full possibilities of the symbols, it’s often helpful to tap the unconscious of both the reader and seeker. Astrology can put you in the ballpark of the symbols, but tarot can sometimes pin down the exact seat of meaning. Astrology starts in a more left-brained linear way, as we have learned the various generic meanings of the planets, signs, and houses. I’ve found that by inviting Tarot to the party, a right-brained intuitive energy helps me hit a home run on accuracy. The best part is that my clients and I have so much fun with the process!

If you haven’t already read the article Oracular Spectacular or How I Read Tarot Cards on my Writer Joyce Mason website, check out these links! I love involving my clients in sorting out the symbols where we merge our intuition and often come up with guidance gold. I’m telling you, we tingle and laugh with delight over the surprises we discover together.

I find tarot to be especially helpful in giving a deeper understanding to transits. Let’s face it, with any symbol system:

We have to be careful we aren’t just being control freaks trying to predict the future to make life less risky and growy.

When we bring in tarot, dreams, or any other system that mines the subconscious, we are often getting at the stuff a client isn’t even aware is an issue, much less “the” issue. Tarot helps dig out hidden challenges, feelings, and relationships among events that’s tougher to do with astrology alone. So, the person is having a Neptune/Venus transit. What about that helps us find out the actual growth mission lurking beneath the surface of Neptune’s trip to our client’s Planet of Relationship? We have possibilities, but what if we had a way of discovering, together, the most probable lesson? The core information that will make a difference on how s/he acts?

It isn’t our job to impress the client with our psychic skills. It’s much more empowering—and powerful—to show her methods to discover the answers for herself.

The results of this composite way of reading are sometimes highly amusing. I love watching the expression on someone’s face when they “get it” and the insight is surprising. It’s even greater then they’ve helped pull out the hidden thread of meaning. I’ve seen things “pop out” in the cards that have nothing to do with traditional meaning but everything to do with the client’s undiscovered core issue around a transit or natal configuration.

I’ll repeat my all-time favorite. Once I was reading the Death card, which in the Motherpeace deck has a detail of notches in a tree with a snake and skeleton nearby.(My gag reflex has improved since watching Bones and the CSI’s.) My eyes went straight to those notches, and pretty soon, I heard a song in my punny mind, an old train tune, but with a slightly modified title: “The Notches and Topeka and the Santa Fe.” Of course, the actual title is the Atchinson, Topeka, etc. But the tune would not stop, so I asked my client if there was something going on that involved training or trains. After running it back and forth, I got intuitively that someone was trying to “railroad” her, make her do something she didn’t want to do. This actually turned out to be the final death knell of the relationship involved. The key to her ability to act on it was to grasp, completely, the battle of wills. Of course, there were both Pluto and Saturn transits involved, but how much more colorful and close to what she needed to know we got, thanks to the tarot card and the information it evoked.

Maybe I fell in love with the Motherpeace because the cards are round like horoscopes, but it’s very important, if you choose to experiment with this dual reading, to find your deck. (See discussion on A Tarot Blog of round decks.) My Oracles page on joycemason.com has a list of some of my favorites and places you can discover yours.

I would love to hear from readers regarding your experience either giving or receiving mixed media readings. How do you think they enhance astrological information? Are there other combos that work for you, too?

Until you comment, I think I’ll pull a tarot card to figure out why I’m asking you this question, just out of curiosity …


~~~

Photo Credit: Photosani @Fotolia.com