My current favorite deck

So I'll end the year exploring a new tarot deck,  which feels like a really good way to end things for me,  going to the familiar (tarot) but seeing it with new eyes (a new deck.)  As I've said before,  it's such a joy to read tarot today,  when there are so many fascinating new cards on line,  with people giving new interpretations and new images to engage and enlighten us. 

I put a copy of the World card in my last blog piece, and then realized I didn't know that deck,  so went exploring.  The card comes for the So Below Tarot deck,  a deck that explores the tarot with more mundane,  common experiences.  

I really loved their Death Card,  which shows something that can be positive or negative - selling a house, but either way is a huge change. Everything is different,  we have to find a new place for every single thing in our lives. Even a positive move can have overtones of loss.  But it also didn't have the chilling imagery of death,  which can often scare people so much that they can't read it properly. So I really liked that. 

Always happy to find a new deck to explore! 

Wishing you all a calm and happy New Year 

Go where the love is

In a reading today,  a client said that she took to heart the words of Maria Bamford,  who says of her life,  I try to go where the love is.  That's such a simple and clear directive.  We should all go towards where the love is for us.  

At the end of the reading I said something that is very true for me - my wish for her,  for all my clients, for myself and for my family,  is that we are comfortable in our skin.  For each of us,  that will be something different,  but my new year's blessing to everyone is that may you feel more comfortable in your own skin in 2026,  and may the world resonate with that comfort.  Amen. 

In Blackwater Woods, by Mary Oliver

I didn't feel I could jump into something chatty after the horror of the Bondi Shooting lingers in my heart.  So I did what I often do,  when feeling sad and vulnerable,  I looked for a poem.  I really do find solace in the right poems. Here's one I found that I am happy to share with you:

Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars   of light, are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment,   the long tapers of cattails are bursting and floating away over the blue shoulders   of the ponds, and every pond, no matter what its name is, is   nameless now. Every year everything I have ever learned   in my lifetime leads back to this: the fires and the black river of loss whose other side   is salvation, whose meaning none of us will ever know. To live in this world   you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it   against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.
Mary Oliver In Blackwater Woods I struggle with the letting go,  it's good to be reminded from time to time,   how essential it is...

Awful news from Bondi Beach

I grew up on Bondi Beach.  It was my local.  We went there most days after school,  we ate fish and chips on the grass,  we swam in the kiddies rock pool on the south end and as teens,  we found our friends on the steps and hung around. 

So I'm devastated about the events of yesterday for so many reasons,  but also because they desecrated such a special place to so many Sydneysiders. 

We had a display of brazen hate and amazing heroism yesterday;  when a father and son brought guns to a family event and shot randomly at people,  just because they were celebrating a Jewish festival.  And when a migrant from Syria rushed in and disarmed a gunman from behind,  because he was brave and wonderful. 

Wishing for the gentle lights of Chanukah,  to bring us some peace... 

This week's song

My son introduced me to Raye with this song - and I'm sure many of my tarot regulars will love it! 

Isn't that just wonderful!  Loved it from the very first time I heard it.  I've been listening to a lot of her this week and it's all really good.

Enjoy! 

Rider Waite Smith Deck

When you first learn about something, and they give you a name for it,  you just accept it. So when I came across the Rider Waite deck,  I didn't really wonder who was Rider and who was Waite and were they missing a name,  I just used the reference points given.

However

It turns out that Rider,  William Rider, is the publisher of the deck - the business person,  the money man.

And Waite,  Arthur Edward Waite,  was the psychic who described the deck.

But

The missing name Smith - is Pamela Colman Smith,  is the name of the actual artist who created those iconic images based on Waite's descriptions.  She definitely deserves to be named in the deck title. 

So now we are calling them the Rider Waite Smith Deck,  or sometimes the Smith Rider Waite Deck.  Either way her name is definitely included!   

So interesting to see who is remembered and honored in history,  and who is excised out. And if we don't look for them,  we'll never find them. 

Four of Cups

Cards often come in waves,  and in decks across the world,  in my readings, the same card is being drawn more often.  This is a four of cups season for my clients.

Four of cups is a sense of not enoughness.   I have 3 cups before me,  but they are not the cups I'm dreaming of.  That fourth one,  out of reach,  in my head, maybe never ever real,  that's the one that has my focus/energy.

And isn't that the world today! The world of instagram and our friends endless holidays (someone is always in Italy and it's not me!) fabulous meals,  marvelous nights out...  It's easy to get dissatisfied with the 3 cups before you,  and yearn for that one out of reach.

But the three of cups is an amazing card,  of strong friendship and connection.

So if you are drifting into the four of cups,  I would encourage you to let go of that one mysterious missing cup and focus on the three cups that are actually there.  Drink your fill from them,  value what you have that's real,  and let the chimeras go...