Metaphorically, I can teach people how to fly but the flight plan is theirs and theirs alone to create. I simply am not that powerful and giving choice puts the responsibility for change sqaurely back where it belongs: with the one doing the changing. The "magic" of shadow work is in the personal power of choice, not in foolish me telling people what to do. 

When I think of dogma, I think of the Hierophant. Nothing is either/or.  Dogma has its place: it can be the source of a firm foundation and understanding where we come from, our cultural heritage. It's learning from books and schools and institutions of higher learning: we involuntarily learn dogma as children. Later, we must sort through all the rules and regulations and make sense of it ourselves for it to have any meaning. When we do, the dogma we are left with is by conscious choice, clear understanding and gives a thread of continuity to our lives. As adults, dogma needs to be studied, understood and incorporated into our lives by our choice, not with the blind faith of a child. When we accept dogma as adults with blind faith, we end up being rigid and controlled by forces outside of ourselves.

The problem is when people don't take the time to really think about the rules they have been taught. Why do I do this? What does this mean? In its worst form, dogma terrorizes us with rules and regulations. It leads to fanaticism, blind faith, prejudices of all kinds, rigidity and loss of the authentic self. The German soldiers who killed millions of Jews in the name of Hitler's beliefs is an example of dogma gone mad. We need to always question authority, take what makes sense and leave the rest behind.

I was encouraged by my supervisors to give sedatives for sleep, instead of backrubs, because it took less time. Nursing stripped itself of its healing heart in the name of technology. As treatments and communications became more complicated, less time was spent at the bedside. I had a hard time fitting love, spirituality and mystery into my skilled, hectic practice.

I was taught that curing, or absence of symptoms, was my goal and anything less was failure. My job was to save lives, or at least, postpone death. With this definition of healing, I was doomed to fail because eventually we all die of something. The hospitals where I worked were filled with profoundly ill people. They were poked, prodded and chemically treated. The war against death raged.

Writing Tarot for the Healing Heart was a labor of love born out of my frustration with modern health care, my own experience with chronic illness and the mystery of healing.

It explores the messages of dis-ease, (being out of ease), and looks at ways to use the messages for growth.

The universal pictures of tarot awaken an inner knowing and we begin to 
recognize the profound meaning of the seasons. When we embrace the never- ending cycle of life, death and rebirth, we are free to celebrate the joy of being alive in the moment of the present season.

Here's an example: I have a Samhain layout in the shape of an apple called "Fruit of Wisdom." It gets us in touch with releasing what is no longer useful in our lives and explores our attitudes about aging and death. If unresolved grief is at work, that will surface, too. So, I use the seasonal layouts for insight and growth, as in all my work.

I have sample readings so readers can bounce interpretations off mine and find their own voice in reading. There is a section on using the cards in a group during ritual for group wisdom. I also have some three card spreads for depth readings, to get more information out of any particular card that appears in a spread.

The book offers basic ritual design with heavy emphasis on deciding what 
the reader values. I keep saying no ritual we do is sacred unless it is sacred to us. The ritual design covers seasonal tarot cards, scents to represent the ethereal presence of the Goddess, magical brews (holding magic and mystery in a cup), and candles as the seasonal focal point of pure intention with the flame representing Spirit. Each season ends with affirmations I call, "Awakening to the Experience." 

It is different from the first two because it is more artistic in form and more playful, but it is the same because it empowers rather than dictates. And all the spreads have a healing element to them.

Why did I write it?   Well, I hesitate to admit this because someone will come with a cart in little white coats, but I was TOLD to write it. I had a dream about it and I wrote it in two months. I had created a lot of seasonal layouts for myself to get more out of each holiday because I am a solitary.  They were sitting around, collecting dust.  I dreamed one night about the book and it was born. 

See, I told you you'd be sending men in little white coats to haul me away.... 

Because of my nursing background, I'll use anything I can as a tool for healing. It just seemed like a natural to combine the energetics of hands-on healing with tarot. I have been a healer my entire life and am sensitive to its energy. I combine a chakra-based tarot reading (much like the one found in Greer's Tarot for Yourself) and then give a healing treatment in combination with the reading.

My clients tell me it has a cathartic effect: clogged energy centers are able to flow again, making incorporation of any other medical treatment much more effective. For instance, I work with a woman who has migraines. She tells me she takes much less pain medicine and has fewer headaches because of the treatments. Also, the tarot reading allows her to keep in touch with deep feelings and do something constructive before stress builds up and explodes. This decreases the headache frequency. 

Truthfully, I am in the "writing phase" of my life right now. I have written three full-length tarot books in two years (all to be published by Llewellyn) and I am working on a fourth. I also teach noncredit writing for enrichment at the University of Cincinnati, so I don't have much time for clients at this phase of my life. The ones I have are from the past.

I am not actively recruiting business while I write at this frenzied pace. I have the 
feeling that I am running out of time and I must write more before I do anything else. I write full time- three books, two writing classes, a calendar entry and big inroads into book four (all within three years).