A Pagan Humanist

PantheaCon 2016 is almost upon us and once again The Woven Circle will be teaching two traditional wheat weaving classes at the convention. The Woven Circle is made up of talented artists who travel to San Jose each year to share their enjoyment of straw art with the Pagan community at PantheaCon.

Our beginning class “Introduction to Wheat Weaving” will be on Saturday at 3:30 in the San Juan/San Carlos rooms. Last year, we had had to turn away students because of the popularity of this workshop. This class focuses on beginning weaving techniques along with straw preparation and sources on books, materials, and local groups. In this class, each student will make at least two pieces of straw art: a Bridget’s Cross and Harvest Knot to bring home. All materials and supplies are provided.

We will be teaching an intermediate class “Intermediate Wheat Weaving” on Sunday at 1:30 in San Carlos for those of you who have taken wheat weaving classes or are advanced hand crafters. This class focuses on intermediate weaving techniques. In this class, each student will make a small Bridget’s Processional using locking and adding techniques. All materials and supplies are provided.

The Woven Circle is dedicated to teaching arts and crafts as part of our service to the community.

You can find wheat at Frank’s Cane & Rush Supply (7252 Heil Ave. Huntington Beach, CA 92647 – (714) 847-0707). We recommend two books (yes there are more books but this should start you out just fine):

• The Book of Wheat Weaving and Straw Craft: from simple plaits to exquisite designs. Morgyn Geoffry Owens-Celli. 1997
• The Straw Art Companion: Instructions, Projects, and History. Jeffery Paul Jones and Cora A. Hendershot. 2012

The American Museum of Straw Art hosts a spectacular collection of straw art from the US and around the world. Also, there is Wheat Goddesses, which is Cora’s web site with her show schedule. Her work is amazing and if you get a chance, please stop by one of her shows to see all the straw art.

It is August, the time of year when I get geared up and begin thinking about back to school. I am a teacher, and it occurs to me every year that we make our own rhythms in the Wheel of the Year. Each June, It feels like my year has ended. I get some time to unwind, reflect and ultimately look at what I will do with the 2 months ahead for myself. During that time, I am free to pursue art, study, visit museums, immerse myself in good books, travel, and indulge in guilty pleasures (like that silly video game to which I am now addicted). But as August approaches, I begin planning. It is a renewal for me. I plot out what I would like to accomplish in the upcoming year. I immerse myself in teaching books and materials and set goals for self improvement in my craft. I am proud of what I do, but I am not what I do. As much as I love teaching children, I always have to remind myself that I must take the time to work on myself. This is hard to do, especially when faced with the many responsibilities of caring for family and loved ones. This was an especially difficult Summer for me, and it was difficult to focus on my renewal needs. But this set of circumstances got me to thinking about the natural rhythms we have in our lives. When I think of the Wheel of the Year, the holidays and rites of passage, sometimes seem foreign to me. But the ending of the school year, the beginning of the next, and the investment which I must make to myself, all seem so clear. We need to look deeply into our own rhythms and seek out how they affect us. We need to pay attention to those everyday rites of passage and mark the days in ways that we might not think of as “spiritual”. Because this life we have, all of it, makes up who we are and needs to be integrated into our own Wheel.

I have been reading tarot for about 30 years, and I have not come close to understanding all the cards. In almost all of the lectures I have attended on reading tarot, I haven’t yet met a teacher that does not consider themselves “a student of the tarot”. I think that tarot is as much about learning who you are, as its techniques and meanings. This is a never ending, ever changing journey. I like tarot books that give me choices. I like the freedom to interpret the cards in a way that I am able to look at many aspects of a situation and apply those meanings to a circumstance. I like to use tarot to gain insight into my life by using different approaches and delving deeply into my psyche using self reflection, story and human behavior. I am a teacher, a poet and an artist, and I often use tarot as inspiration for my work. Here are a few reviews of books that meet that criteria for me and that I find myself going to again and again.

21 Ways To Read A Tarot Card by Mary K. Greer
Llewellyn, 2006.

This is, by far, my favorite book on the tarot. Mary Greer goes through 21 different techniques of reading a card. This opens up a whole new world of interpretation. She urges you at the beginning of the book to choose a card and take it through the different ways of reading.  Some of the techniques include: Looking at the emotion in the card, analyzing numbers, and even sketching. It puts you deep into each card to gain insight. This book can be followed step by step or just read through. Either way, when finished, you will never look at the cards just one way ever again. This book is also filled with useful charts, questions for reflection, and appendices including a 21 Ways Worksheet that recalls the steps using key phrases.

The Complete Book of Tarot Reversals by Mary K. Greer
Llewellyn 2002

In this book, Mary Greer again gives us choices. If you choose to read reversals, or not, this book is very helpful at working through the reading to understanding and interpreting what you see and feel in the cards. In the introduction she says, “ Reversals are certainly not evil, but they sometimes represent adversity; the kind that teaches us what really counts and what truly is important, the kind that tests our moral fiber and character. By struggling with reversals, we learn to respond with integrity and a determination not to turn away from the teachings of each circumstance.”  In the first chapters, she covers a bit of history and uses the hanged man as a metaphor for seeking the hidden components of a situation. She also outlines 12 ways of reading reversals. She then goes through the rest of the book giving card by card descriptions and meanings with various solutions through problems using the Rx as a possible remedy. I like her look-at-all-the-aspects-of-a-problem approach and then try to work through different perspectives for a solution. Here again, Mary Greer provides us with many helpful appendices using keywords for quick reference.

Heart of Tarot  An Intuitive Approach by Amber K & Azrael Arynn K
Llewellyn 2003

This book applies the Gestalt approach to Tarot. It begins with two brief chapters on the History of Tarot and the Gestalt method of reading. What follows is a workbook section on reading cards with a few different intuitive possibilities per card represented. It does not include every card, but I found it to be a good sampling throughout the deck so that the reader can get the feel of the method being used. There is a generous amount of room at the bottom of each page for notes. The authors have included sample spreads including an example of a step by step reading. There is also a section on working with  clients. My favorite part is a small section on teaching activities, where they include making your own deck. The Sample deck used was the Morgan-Greer and I was so taken with the illustrations, I had to go out and get my own deck!

The Tarot Art project I would like to share today is two pieces that are meant to be companions to each other. The first, I like to call, Tarot Theater(front). (Tarot really is a bit like theater, isn’t it?) This is a journal to record readings, reactions and notes. The Second piece is a hard bound folder with clear sleeves glued inside to hold cards for various types of readings(back). Mine has 7 sleeves allowing me to do a 3 card, 4 card, 7 card, or any variation thereof type of reading. I made this piece hard bound so that I could open it to stand on its own on my alter to contemplate. The idea is to use them together. Pull your reading, leave it up on your space as long as needed, then record in the journal for later study. I am actually using the journal to make my own notes on the meanings of cards. After reading Mary Greer’s “21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card”, I was taken by all the impressions that one could derive from a single card and/or reading, I plan to use it as a working text for readings.