Publisher's Description:

The images on the Marseille Tarot cards started out as illustrations of Sumero-Bablyonian myths, preserved through the centuries on cylinder seals. They were copied by people who didn't understand them but who also had access to some form, whether written or oral, of the wisdom encoded in those myths and in Bible stories. 

That wisdom is identical with Sufi teachings as espoused by teachers like Ibn al Arabi, Rumi, and others, including Gurdjieff and his teachings about the enneagram. The myths and stories are decoded in this book using the multiple meanings conveyed by Arabic consonantal word roots and by reference to those doctrines and to modern discoveries about conditioning and the hemispheric specialization of the brain. Arabic is the closest existing descendant of the ancient Protosemitic language. 

Yesterday for my meditation class we continued to use the practice of Maitri. The  basic idea of Maitri is that we are able to see ourselves in a loving non-judgmental way. We then extend this idea to a person who is very dear to us, then a stranger or person who you may see from time to time but have not developed a relationship with, and then finally to a person who may have hurt or disappointed you in some way. 

The idea is really to understand your own unique qualities and human traits and learn to have compassion for yourself. When you begin to accept yourself as human with twists and turns you can live more comfortably in your own skin so to speak. As you become more relaxed you are able to let go of things that once had an impact within you. You develop a more real and authentic self. One which is defined by you and only you.

Lover's Card: On one level, this card is about love and romance, but there is much more to it than that...On a deeper level, this card stresses the importance of choosing love itself.

Publisher’s Description: "The sky was our original calendar, our original storybook, the first illustrated edition, the prototype GPS. Beyond its pragmatic usefulness, the sky was the domain of spirit, traversed by deities and a place to which human souls departed. Let's re-enchant it, shall we?"

Shamanic practitioner, Wicca priestess, and author of Math for Mystics Renna Shesso invites readers along as she takes a pagan's look at the night sky -- as messenger, guide, storyteller, and mother. She weaves together facts and folklore about the heavens that can't help but fill readers with awe and guide them to personal and sacred discoveries.

Using a planet-by-planet, star-by-star chapter format, A Magical Tour of the Night Sky draws on astronomy, Tarot, shamanism, astrology, Wicca, lore, legend, and history to interpret the patterns and movement of the night sky and re-awaken our spirits.

David LIntner -

Altruism is nothing more than a measure of how broadly one defines oneself.  As long as there are those who exist outside that definition, my journey is not finished. It is, sometimes, a perplexing trip. 

One the one hand, an individual’s life exists for that one alone.  The body is designed to propagate itself, to learn, and to survive as long as it can.  I have seen many people who do not have that sense of self, not because they have reached a high level of spiritual development, but because they do not believe they have personal value. 

Christianity is a root cause of that lack of self worth, because it teaches, as its central doctrine, that the individual is flawed, and unworthy. The reasoning goes something like this:  God causes himself to be born, so he can sacrifice himself, to himself, to make up for his original design flaw. And we are made to believe its our fault!

If you do not honor yourself, how can you honor another?  If you do not respect yourself, how can you respect another?

As social animals, however, we are enmeshed with others who exist for the same reason.  And the more of us there are, the more we have to compete for the stuff of survival.  It is the way of the natural order, from galaxies devouring one another in cosmic gravity dances, to the battle between the creosote bush and other desert plants for scarce water resources.

One yogi (I don’t remember who) said something like, “Everything is food.”

The other side of the coin, during this perplexing trip, is the possibility of recognizing that its purpose is to grow up and out, so that I do not perceive the trip as being about me alone, but about us.  “Us” is just a big word for “me.”