Promo Stuff

Here are the promo sheets that went out with the advance copies of my new book.

 

Emotional Baggage

Susanne Fritzsche, a German blogger who just joined my Tarot for Writers Workshop, has spotlighted a new trend: women are posting photos of everything in their purses. Since I’m an incurable snoop, I think it’s fascinating.

Here’s what I had in my purse this morning:

• MetTransit tickets from our trip to the Twins game on Saturday*
• Cash money: $34 in bills, and $1.36 in change (I can buy you lunch! Let’s go!)
• My watch
• Index cards in a plastic case, for recording sudden flashes of creative inspiration (and shopping lists)
• Handy-wipes from a gas station in outstate Minnesota
• My cell phone
• My credit cards (and bookstore discount cards)
• My wallet
• My makeup: eye shadow, cover stick, eyeliner, lipstick, mascara
• A ponytail holder (for any shaggy-looking child I have to take out in public) and a hairbrush
• A cheap-ass OfficeMax pen. (Who keeps taking all my good pens?)
• Receipts from last night’s excursion to the grocery store and the burrito shop

That might look like a lot of stuff, but only because I spread it all out. Normally, the money and credit cards are in the wallet, and the makeup is in the striped cosmetics bag. The receipts and train tickets are the only “extras” in today’s selection — because I cleaned out all of my purses over the weekend.

I actually have six or seven purses and tote bags that I keep in regular rotation. Most of them are piled in my closet. When one of them gets too heavy and full of junk, I pull out the core components (shown above) and switch. Then, about every three months, I clean them all out and start over.

*Speaking of the Twins, how do you like this picture of Dan and me at the game? Forget how fat my face looks; I’ve been retaining a little water or something. Instead, look at my sister Cari, who was sitting next to us. Doesn’t she look nice?

Bad Reviews

I see this morning that Bonnie Cehovet has written another lackluster review for one of my books.

I expected it. Bonnie is a prolific reviewer, and I think she writes about every tarot book on the market. Yet she’s never written anything kind or thoughtful about my work … because Bonnie Cehovet doesn’t really review books.

Instead, she reviews tables of contents.

A typical Bonnie Cehovet review opens with her first impression of the subject matter: when she reviewed my book Tarot Journaling, for example, she started by describing her first “horrible thought” about the premise of my work:

Noting the use of the Celtic Cross (a traditional Tarot spread), I had the horrible thought that each journal entry was meant to be a complete Celtic Cross reading (which would mean using a ten or eleven card base, depending upon whether the reader chose to read with a significator or not). Fortunately, this was not true.

At the time, I didn’t know how to respond to that. I still don’t. Is it really fair to criticize a book based on a your own bias and preconceptions?

For Bonnie, apparently it is — because she opened her review of my new book in the same way.

I do not like to hear the word “fortunetelling” used in conjunction with the Tarot. If someone came up to me and said: “I understand that you read the Tarot. Would you tell my fortune for me?”, they could be assured that I would not read for them. I am decidedly NOT a fortune teller!

Luckily, we don’t have to dwell too long on Bonnie’s assessment of the topic itself, because her review rolls right into her usual format: a complete and total rehash of the table of contents.

She presents her recitation as though she’s developing the material herself, with a chapter-by-chapter description of everything in the book. Despite the fact that she found the structure of my guide “annoying,” she managed to compile 10 paragraphs of her review simply by outlining the material in my work.

That’s 10 paragraphs out of 13, total, in her review.

I always feel a little used after I read Bonnie’s reviews. I keep hoping she’ll come up with her own material, rather than appropriating my table of contents as if she gave birth to it herself. I keep hoping she’ll critique my books based on their merits, rather than on her misconceptions. I keep hoping that she’ll offer a thoughtful assessment of the books I’ve actually written, rather than a description of the books she would have written in my place. And I keep hoping she’ll conclude her reviews with something more than a “meh” that I can practically hear from my living room in Minnesota.

But then again, that might take some work, and it’s a lot easier to criticize than it is to create.

What I did on my summer vacation

My kids are all on vacation at my mom’s house. They’ve been gone for two weeks, so I’ve been focusing on labor-intensive projects — the kind of jobs that are hard to finish when people keep pestering me for food, clean clothes, and affection.

Now that they’re scheduled to come home tomorrow, I’m scrambling to wrap things up. This post has two purposes. First, it’s a review of the work a did manage to finish — but it’s also a list of things I still need to do.

The Tarot for Writers Workshop

I’ve started an online version of my popular Tarot for Writers Workshop. I modeled the setup after the now-defunct Barnes and Noble University, which was pretty cool.

For now, the price is dirt cheap, because I want people to sign up and try it out … but I think it’s going to be great. Let me know what you think!

To register, click here.

О́чень прия́тно!

Another mysterious package arrived on my doorstep today, one I didn’t order or expect. But I was so happy when I saw what was inside: two copies of my book Crystals for Beginners, in Russian! What a fun surprise.

My name looks weird, though.

The Mars Hoax

My sister sent me this email. I’m a little sad it’s not true.

Subject: Fw: We’re going to get “mooned” twice…..!!
Mark your calendar!
There will be two moons on 27 August*

Planet Mars will be the brightest in the night sky starting August.It will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. This will cultivate on Aug. 27 when Mars comes within 34.65M miles of earth. Be sure to watch the sky on Aug. 27 12:30 am midnight. It will look like the earth has 2 moons. The next time Mars may come this much closer in 2287. Share this with your friends as NO ONE ALIVE TODAY will ever see it again.

Here’s the real story from NASA:

Just when you thought it was safe to read your email….

There’s a rumor about Mars going around the internet. Here are some snippets from a widely-circulated email message:

“The Red Planet is about to be spectacular.”

“Earth is catching up with Mars [for] the closest approach between the two planets in recorded history.”

“On August 27th … Mars will look as large as the full moon.”

And finally, “NO ONE ALIVE TODAY WILL EVER SEE THIS AGAIN.”

Only the first sentence is true. The Red Planet is about to be spectacular. The rest is a hoax.

The Goddess Inspiration Oracle

Kris Waldherr, the creator of the Goddess Tarot, is coming out with a new deck — the Goddess Inspiration Oracle, scheduled for release this September.

It’s specifically designed for people who don’t have the time or inclination to learn tarot, but I think it’s also the perfect complement to traditional tarot cards — especially in those cases when the cards stop short.

I don’t know about you, but every now and then I’ll do a reading that flows beautifully from one card to the next, gracefully unveiling a story that makes perfect sense … until I reach the final card. That’s when I slam head-first into a brick wall with an outcome card that brings the whole reading to a screeching halt.

In those cases, I realize that I really didn’t want an ordinary outcome card: What I really wanted was guidance and advice. So I throw clarification cards — sometimes, one after another, which only complicates the issue.

That’s what makes the Goddess Inspiration Oracle such a welcome addition to my collection. It’s a quick and easy way to clarify any card in a tarot reading, and answer one of our most pressing questions: What should I do?

I love the fact that the Goddess Oracle cards complement the Goddess Tarot deck so well. They’re a little smaller than the tarot cards — closer to the size of playing cards, as opposed to tarot cards — and they have a navy blue background with gold accents.

The 80 cards in the deck all feature watercolor images of goddesses from around the globe, from Abeona to Zhinu. Each card also includes a single line of advice.

In the reading pictured above, I pulled a card from the Goddess Tarot to learn what area of my life I need to focus on. I wasn’t surprised when the “Balance” or Temperance card popped up.

I pulled a card from the Goddess Oracle for advice on the matter — and found myself face to face with Erdu, Goddess of the Earth, along with her recommendation: “Look to the earth for answers.”

It makes perfect sense. I know I need to be more physical — more earthy — and move more, exercise more, and get outside more. I live on a lake, for God’s sake. I should start every day with a walk around that body of water. Now that I think about it, I should be out there right now! I should go to the beach!

And maybe I will, later this afternoon.

The 112-page guidebook to the cards offers additional inspiration. As with everything tarot-related, it gets a little spooky. Waldherr associates the goddess Erdu with wisdom, fate, and divination, for example — which just happen to be three of the factors that tie me to my computer and keep me indoors, rather than outside. Waldherr also writes:

The Norse earth goddess, Erda, lived in a cave within the earth’s deepest recesses, which was set next to the roots of Yggdrasil, the vast world tree. Yggdrasil was watered by Erda’s plentiful fountain of wisdom. Erda’s powers were as encompassing as Yggdrasil’s leafy span — the goddess and her magical fountain were often invoked by those in need of her far-reaching wisdom. Others believed Erda could bend the inexorable powers of fate over which she ruled.

Because of Erda’s association with fate, the Norse thought there was a clear correlation between the goddess and the art of divination. They often turned to the earth itself for guidance, using many aspects of it as oracles — animals, birds, the sky, even the ocean. They believed observation of these phenomena could offer divine answers.

I love it. I can totally relate to Erda, living in her cave, casting fortunes for the outside world. I also can relate to her advice. In fact, I think I’ve found myself a new role model!

The Goddess Inspiration Oracle will be released next month. You can order your copy here.

Early Warning

What should we do when the Pioneer Press warns us of “large hair?” Hide in our basements?

Now I’m going to be on edge all day. I wish I had a battery-powered blow dryer.

Stormy Weather

A storm woke me last night at 2 a.m. There was non-stop thunder and lightning, with wind and rain so loud I could hear it in our house — which is normally quiet, since it’s been soundproofed against airport noise.

I went straight to my laptop, thinking I could check the weather online. There was no Internet, though — and then I realized that our alarm system was beeping, because the power was out. With all the thunder and lightning, I probably buzzed around for five or ten minutes before I realized we’d lost our electricity.

That’s not the worst part, though. I woke Dan up, and we both fussed with every battery-powered radio in our house. We couldn’t get any of them to work. I pawed through our junk drawer for extra batteries, but the problem wasn’t the batteries: it was the technology, and the middle-aged fuddy duddies who were trying to operate it. Our big stereo wouldn’t work with the batteries we had, and we couldn’t figure out how to turn on the radio function with our kids’ CD players.

Finally the storm passed and we went back to bed. The power came on at 8 a.m.

Now we’re going out in search of a simple, old-fashioned radio we can use in an emergency … and even more extra batteries.