June Weddings

We traditionally associate June with weddings and while now it seems tied to college graduations or good vacation weather, there is of course some history behind getting married in June.

A cousin’s son is set to marry next weekend and the family is all in a dither about the joyous occasion. The groom is handsome; the bride, beautiful. We have found the perfect gift within their wedding registry, a handy way to make sure the happy couple does not begin their new life together with seven toasters and no sheets. Lately, I think the trend is to buy the youngsters gasoline credits or contribute towards the perfect honeymoon. No matter. It takes away the sleepless nights wondering if the green salad set you found for them would be donated immediately to Goodwill.

In Tarot, several cards can point to love and marriage. The Hierophant can signal a traditional wedding ceremony performed by the officiator who understands the spiritual bonding special to marriage. The 2 of Cups can mean the shared intimacy between the bride and groom, the bond they have with each other and no one else, the honeymoon. The 4 of Wands can signal marriage and the marriage ceremony, but my sense of it usually is the wedding reception and not the ceremony itself; peace between two houses who come together to create something more, with friends! And, of course, in this year of The Lovers, the joining of two separate individuals, the selection of what completes and complements.

I found a fun collection of wedding “tips” in one of the old books in my collection, Madame Fabia’s The Book of Fortune Telling to share with brides, brides-to-be and brides-averse. These are meant in fun and curiosity and are traditions from a time gone by.

The Luck of Weddings.

We have heard this one most often:

“Something old, something new,

Something borrowed, and something blue.”

 

But of course there is more. For instance, of particular interest to cousin Patti and all those who sew:  “The little sempstress, working on the wonderful wedding dress, takes care to sew a little cutting of her hair into the hem of the dazzling white gown, so that she, too, may soon wear her bridal toilette.” I love the term sempstress. It somehow sounds like the dress is less likely to fall apart; there’s no proverb about avoiding wardrobe accidents on one’s Big Day but I know that was high on my own list of anxieties at the time.

Color, from the familiar saying, makes a difference and not just in celebrity fanzines:

“Married in white, you have chosen all right.

Married in green, ashamed to be seen.

Married in grey, you will go far away.

Married in red, you will wish yourself dead. [a bit extreme, ed.]

Married in blue, he will ever be true.

Married in yellow, ashamed of the fellow.

Married in black, comforts you’ll lack.

Married in pink, your spirits will sink.

Married in brown, you’ll live out of town.

Married in pearl, you’ll live in a whirl.”

 

I rather like the whirl one although it’s not for the faint of heart. You can see the clear preference for white here. You can make some of your own up for new traditions. Married in salmon, you’ll ne’er live in famine. That rather works, I think. Married in off-white, your in-laws will fight. Well, it isn’t always good news, the color thing. I note here that tradition avoided the inevitable issue with finding something to rhyme with orange, although what comes to mind is a prison jumpsuit so perhaps that’s best left alone.

And here’s some advice for family: “If a bride has elder sisters, they should wear something green at her wedding—preferably stockings—or they will never be married themselves.” I’m just waiting to see if older sisters start showing up in green stockings. The book doesn’t specify whether the stockings are lime green, or spider-web fishnet, so there is at least some room for creativity here.

The day of the wedding itself provides extra hazards to watch out for:

·         A bride should never break anything on her wedding day, as it foretells strife.

·         She should not try on her wedding dress or veil on her wedding morn [no consequences provided, however, ed.]

·         She should not forget to feed the cat, as it may spite her by bringing down rain [or perhaps puddling in the bed or throwing up in her shoes, ed.]

·         She must not lose the heel of her shoe, or she will be unable to get on with her husband’s relatives

·         She must not keep back her tears, as it is said she will have wept them all away, and she must not touch rags

·         It is a bad omen if a bride encounters a hare, a dog, a cat, a lizard, a pig or a funeral when going to church, but spiders or frogs foretell happiness and prosperity, and a lamb or a dove are good omens also. A bird singing on the window on the wedding morn is most luck.

·         On driving to church, the bride must sit with her back to the driver. [This would seem to require special transport or violate safety standards, ed.] If she sits on the back seat, she will always occupy second place in her husband’s affections.

·         A bride should not stumble or fall on the threshold [wow! This actually happened to me at my first wedding! Well, I have to say from personal experience, this might actually be good advice, ed.], and she should enter the church with the right foot foremost. She should come out of the church by the same door as she entered by.

·         A bride should not see a pin on the ground as she leaves the church.

·         It is very bad luck to lose the wedding ring. [Nice they include a bit of advice for the groom, who would never hear the end of this one, ed.]

·         For the green stocking set: A piece of wedding cake, drawn three times through a wedding ring, and laid under the pillow, and dreamt on for three nights is sure to induce one to dream prophetic things of one’s future husband or wife. Sometimes three names are written on three slips of paper, and one removed (without peeping) each day. The last is the future husband’s name. [I think the Tooth Fairy got bored with giving money to children and decided on a new business model, ed.]

·         The clergyman should be paid with an odd sum of money.

 

Finally, there is a rhyme for best days of the week to marry:

 

“Monday for wealth,

Tuesday for health,

Wednesday the best day of all.

Thursday for crosses,

Friday for losses,

Saturday no luck at all.”

 

Since most weddings these days occur on Saturdays for the convenience of the workaday world, it is no wonder we wish the happy couple good luck!

And for the parents of the groom this Saturday, we wish all love and good fortune as they shoo their youngest birdie from the nest onto his next Great Adventure! And perhaps we also may wish them something to calm their jangled nerves.

Best wishes to the bride and groom and all of the rest of you!

Home Is Where

The 4 of Wands says the party is at your house. The event is in your yard. You are the hostess. You welcome someone. The number 4 signifies stability; wands are associated with the alchemical element of fire. The stability of fire is the hearth, perhaps the perfect blend of things that seem opposite. When fire is allowed to burn within its useful boundaries, like a fireplace, furnace or oven, it warms and welcomes. The key is managing all of the circumstances to keep the fire stable but still burning.

That applies to a lot of things for me lately.

Just in case you aren’t in touch with the baseball world, there’s been this little annual event called the World Series going on. Now, as an aside, our World Series is just barely international. I’ve always felt just a teensy bit embarrassed at the American tendency to think that we’re the whole world. However, when my team, my San Francisco Giants win the whole thing, including a sweep of four consecutive games once they actually got to the World Series, I overcome my embarrassment quickly.

My guys are funny. They are amazing athletes. They are an ensemble, a constellation. Not to diminish MVP awards, but the thing that characterizes my team is that they worked with each other for a collective stellar performance. It’s a team sport, after all. It’s hard for me to choose a favorite. Posey has Galahad looks. Pence pumps them up with inspirational speeches. Pagan kept catching and hitting and stole a base that granted a lot of people a free taco between 4 and 6 pm last Tuesday. “Panda” Sandoval hit three home runs in one World Series Game. And there was pitching. And catching. And throwing. And hitting. It’s not like the teams they played were pushovers. My guys worked hard. I delighted in Sergio Romo’s jumping-jack happiness and enthusiasm. Did I leave anyone out? I didn’t mean to. They were all terrific.

My only disappointment is that I never saw the monogrammed handkerchief I mailed to “Mad Bum” Madison Bumgarner. May he use it in good health! GO GIANTS!!

We have been glued to Giants baseball television for some time but I did drag myself away last weekend to gather with my friends for our 20^th fall gathering. Our first night all those years ago was spent on our hostess’ living room floor the night Polly Klaas was taken from her bedroom. She is always on our minds when we gather, symbolizing the fragility of life.

This time we went back to the fantastic house in Ft. Bragg, California where we stayed last year. We’ve all had a lot going on, so instead of staying up talking all night, we gave it up around 10:30 pm Friday. I left my door open so I could hear the ocean waves. We went to our own little almost-Night Circus, Zoppe Circus, an old-fashioned Italian family circus. The acrobats! The trick ponies! The clowns. Well at least, they were not scary clowns. The trick chickens! It was magic or just close enough.

We laughed because there was a tsunami warning from earthquakes off British Columbia, trying to figure out if the seaweed line was a foot or so higher than the day before. We heard there was a big storm, Hurricane Sandy, about to make landfall. We checked the latest path. It didn’t look good.

I had talked to one of my co-workers the Friday before. He was concerned about his house in New Jersey near the beach. He had lost his house, his whole town he said, with the previous big hurricane.

Monday was eerily quiet at work. Half the people I needed to talk to were hunkered down, bracing against the storm. I reached out to a few of them. A house was creaking. Trees had fallen. People were told to work from home. Then silence.

The next day it was still quiet, but those of us who could work kept things going as well as we could. We stole glimpses of the photo evidence of damage coming in. Atlantic City’s boardwalk. The fire in Queens. The sand, the boats and cars in all the wrong places, houses gone. The Bounty sank. Water poured into the deep hole that is still part of the construction site at the Twin Towers site. Dogs and cats and people scooped out of danger. Manhattan was dark.

Halloween came and I bought my candy to give away. We had executed the perfect pumpkin on the garage door, my husband’s idea. One black plastic garbage bag, a pair of scissors and some blue painter’s tape, and our house had a jack-o’-lantern. We set up the tent, the chairs, the table and the lights. We handed out handfuls of candy and I read cards for the moms and big sisters. We cooed over the ladybugs and shivered at the zombies. The sprinkles became a downpour and suddenly the four posts of our tent became shelter from our little storm, all that and candy too.

Somewhere in the night, the neighborhood stray cat slipped into the garage. We call her “Walternette”, the feminine feline form of TV’s Fringe’s main character’s doppelganger in an alternate universe, “Walternate.” Our furry doppelganger looks a lot my Tony at first glance, a big brown tabby with a pleasant disposition. She stayed there all night, then called up the stairs to us. I padded downstairs to greet her.

“Yeow,” Walternette said with a swish and a purr.

“You’re welcome,” I answered as I let her out, my temporary hospitality having sheltered one more soul from the damp.

More east coast people checked in today. Some had been without power for as little as 36 hours. They think New Jersey will run out of gasoline next week between people needing their cars and running generators. I still haven’t heard from my co-worker. His part of New Jersey looks like some of the hardest hit.

I hope somewhere out there, those whose homes are washed away or burned or buried in sand or out of power or just out of reach can find a welcoming hearth to rest their unsettled lives for a moment.

Our homes seem like the most secure of places and we laugh about what could go wrong when trouble seems so far away. It only takes a wave, a wind, a melting hunk of ice to snatch away that fragile stability of fire. Cherish the hearth as it is too soon gone.

Best wishes.

Mouse on the Moon

“Can my friends and I eat our lunch in your yard?” Andrew asked. He had been helping them move and they were looking for a quiet spot. I was still in the midst of my workday and was happy to give them shelter.

“OK, but tell them nobody gets to smoke anything in my yard or my house, got it?” Hey, you guys put two and two together and come up with five, ok? Asthma plus liability equals house rules. “And don’t let the cat out. You know how she is.” Alice has been going on adventures lately. We talked her out of the street this weekend. Apparently she didn’t get the word that she’s a housecat. When you’re an 18.5 lb cat, you figure you have superpowers and your name is Adventure Kitty or something. I think she’s downstairs making her Halloween costume right now.

“Oh, and my friends are bringing their mouse.”

Aw, how cute, I thought. Maybe I can meet the mouse before the cats do. If it has eyes, a wiggly nose and a reasonable disposition, I probably like it. I’ve been a “Squee” person since I was a baby, before anyone realized I Can Has Cheezburger. Work was pretty intense that day so it seemed late when I walked downstairs for a break.

My guests were still resting at the table on the patio playing a game I didn’t recognize, something with large numbers lined up, something that didn’t appear to involve gambling, hard feelings or anything other than idle recreation. There on my paint-flaked bench was a cage. We introduced ourselves.

“Her name is Velvet,” my new friends indicated toward the cage. Velvet clambered up the cage side and sniffed at me hopefully.

“Velvet is a rat, Andrew, not a mouse.” I tickled her nose. She is a lovely rat too, rats being loveliest when they are tame and in their cages. I've encountered the wilder kind too.

I had had a pet rat as a child, uncreatively named Rat-a-Tat for machine gun fire, representing my brother’s love of guns and warfare. Rat-a-Tat was a fashionable black and white, front half black, back half white. Velvet is all dark with pink nose and toes. She’s a dainty thing with a taste for fashion as it turns out.

“Don’t sit close to the cage because she will chew your clothes,” her loving owners cautioned. Having had a few rodent-chewed textiles, notably one really nice afghan that John’s sister crocheted, I wasn’t surprised. I sat on the bench with a prudent space between myself and Velvet’s nibble range.

“Velvet want a leaf?” I offered a crunchy magnolia leaf to Miss Nibbles who happily took it to her ratnest and crunched with vigor. We talked for a few minutes. Velvet came back for further possibilities, obviously comfortable with human companionship. Alice pawed at the glass door from inside the house. I bent to pull a sprig of grass and gave it to Velvet. She was happy with the gift and snacked away. We talked a while, then break time was over for me and I had to get back to my own personal hamster wheel. “Money makes the world go ‘round…” played in my head.

Tea Tarot
(c) Copyright 2011 Marcia McCord



It was a small gesture, to play hostess to a well-mannered rat and her friends. It provided a moment of stability at a crazy time. Amparo, meaning shelter, comes to mind. It was the name of a waitress friend of mine in Southern California, her good service being a small refuge from the workaday world. I was able to provide the 4 of Wands hospitality in some small way, if only a little shade from the sun, a fence to shield from the wind, a quiet spot to sit and relax without interruption.

Echoing the rodent theme, a news story popped up into my consciousness that there’s an unusual population explosion of non-native mice out at the Farallones. A two-and-a-half hour boat trip from San Francisco, this bit of rocky outcropping is for the birds—literally—and in the 1800’s was the target of egg snatchers trying to feed the hungry mob that was the booming of the Northern California coast. John and I took a fall whale-watching tour there one fabulous afternoon and saw the birds: storm-petrels, puffins and murres. How the mice got there, I have to wonder. I like to imagine they drive their tiny boats in the night past the border patrol but I have a feeling that they hitched a ride one way or another. This year’s population of mousies on the Farallones has exploded to something like 50 times the standard rate for an official rating of “a lot of mice.” Where there are mice, there are owls and a few owls have whooshed out to what must be like owl heaven. Of course, owls like to eat pretty much anything that’s the right size and flavor, so when the mice population drops, the owls stay for the endangered other birds, like storm-petrels. Owl heaven turns into Paradise Lost because mouse is apparently the perfect food and storm-petrels, well, aren’t. So, the owls, thinking they must still be onto a good thing, stay too long and they start starving. People blame the mice.

So now they are trying to figure out how to get rid of the mice without getting rid of everything else. Why would we spend money on this? Because little stuff turns into big stuff, important stuff, stuff that affects humans and their way of life and at that point the people who don’t care about mice and birds and some rocks out in the Pacific will start to notice and wonder why someone didn’t DO something. 

Fav Squee Mouse Photo



In order to understand things more easily, we separate them in our minds and analyze them a piece at a time. But we constantly forget that we are all part of one gi-normous system called probably inappropriately with the latest findings and theories of astrophysicians The Universe, not separate little universes. We’re like bad children, all of us, taking apart the alarm clock to see how it works then leaving it there on the bed for the cat to bat parts under the dresser, never putting it back together again so it will function. Then someone doesn’t wake up in time for something important and everyone’s in trouble, especially the cat. What do we do about this cat problem, we wonder?

It’s pretty clear to everyone lately that the mice rebel every once in a while, too. The current Occupy movement, which has put together a diverse set of characters no doubt, is working to show that Big Predators may be able to ignore one squeaker here and there but in chorus, the mice put up a pretty big racket. Listen closely. They might actually be saying something.

Tiring of the role of mice-as-pests which feed relentlessly on the hard-earned stores of grain, the Other Percenters are putting a human face on economic issues. It’s hard for me to think of my life and existence as being a drain on the harried wealthy. After all, I’ve done what they told me I had to do, pulled myself up by my bootstraps, succeeded despite the fatal flaws of being female and nowhere near Ivy League material. I took advantage of the opportunities for education around me, opportunities which for the most part don’t exist now due to the relative cost of education. I used my dull-razor brain with no advice from any mentor or sponsor and figured out how to educate, then re-educate myself so that I was employable at a level that allowed me to purchase a house on my own salary, in spite of the misgivings of the misogynist bankers in that town long ago and far away.

“Just because you made all A’s in all your classes,” the banker explained to me patiently while reviewing my loan request, “what makes you think you’ll be successful in your work?” Wow, maybe because bone-headed guys like you make me so mad I could spit and I have a happy talent for turning that anger into something productive for myself and others. The jerk finally accepted my loan application after calling my father and securing Daddy’s unwritten promise to help me out if I slipped on my payments.

Mouse hater, I say. The guy hates mice and yet insists that they stay mice. Pretty soon, like the Farallones, will the entire infrastructure be threatened? Will they say, what do we do about the mouse problem? Have they leaned too close to the cage so that we’ve nibbled on the cashmere sweater? Will even the wise old owls be threatened, those who fly silently whose perfect food is mouse?

This is no new story. I thought of Frank Herbert’s Dune and his hero Paul Atreides a/k/a Muad’Dib, the Mouse on the Moon. We are just as prone now as ever to need “…Frank Herbert's warning about society's tendencies to ‘give over every decision-making capacity’ to a charismatic leader. He said in 1979, ‘The bottom line of the Dune trilogy is: beware of heroes. Much better rely on your own judgment, and your own mistakes.’” And what fun! Here’s an Occupy poster, typo included, with that very allusion circulating on Facebook today.

The Occupy’s detractors say the message is diffused so it is bound to fail. Today’s mice read though. Will a hero arise among us? Or are we truly stronger being the diverse individuals we are with the illusion of separateness always before us. After all, if we can send a mouse to the moon, why not Wall Street? And will they blame the mice again?

Best wishes.

***

Quote from Wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Atreides

A Simple Wedding

A friend of ours is getting married this weekend. Her Facebook profile picture looks like a case of high blood pressure and she’s young, too. She wants a simple wedding.


Tea Tarot
(c) Copyright 2011 Marcia McCord

I really like the guy she plans to marry. He seems a hardy sort, the kind of guy who could tough it out with an enthusiastic, talented, opinionated, close-knit crowd like her family. When she started bringing him around, I thought, OK, that’s the one. It wasn’t immediately a sure thing and to be fair, I didn’t read any cards about it. I just looked at him and felt he had staying power. It helps that he’s cute as a bug, too. OK, cute as a big bug. Wait, that doesn’t sound right either. Anyway, the guy is nice looking, real looking, real sounding. He hung in there. Yup, staying power.

The bride and her sister aren’t quite like Night and Day opposites. They are more like Twilight and Dawn. They both have a little Show Biz in their blood although the bride is said to be “a little shy.” Shy is an interesting term. She certainly has her own opinions and her own likes and dislikes. She dances flamenco. She’s no doormat. She just isn’t loud. She’s like Twilight when the heat of the day cools a bit and the night birds call.

I’m something of a shirt-tail relative. The bride’s family, especially the bride’s grandmother just adores my husband for all the right reasons. They have been sweet to me since I met him and I really enjoy their company. So we get to be half-family of the bride. It’s really an honor.

Naturally when the Aunt of the Bride asked us if we would help make the wedding decorations, we said yes. If there’s something I can do to make the simple wedding happen, I’m thrilled to. I had a simple wedding. At least, I think so. That day happened so fast and I was so grateful for my friends and family. But I also know what it’s like to have your wedding start out simple. Then stuff happens.

My husband and I decided to get married one evening about 2 am one June 2. Sounds romantic, doesn’t it? I was on midnight production problem call. My team was working to fix it and preferred to suffer through it with them rather than leave them feeling alone. Computer problems can be like that. Since we were up anyway and since John was hearing only my half of the conversation, our own mumbles drifted and we agreed we would marry.

The next morning, I made sure I hadn’t been dreaming and excitedly starting The Planning Phase. Simple. Simple was what we wanted.

“Wouldn’t it be cool,” I suggested, “if we had the ceremony on the ferry in October?” We had met on the ferry and it sounded like such fun.

John hesitated.

“Seriously,” he squinted, “how long to you want to be nervous? I was thinking something like the end of this month.” So that’s what we did. We put a wedding together in 24 days. I made lists. Date, determined by the first opening at the Court House. Rings, special order Celtic knots from Jewelry by Da’oud whose work I had seen at the Renaissance Faire a while back. Dress. Rats. Gotta get a dress.

“C’mon, sweetie, we’re going to buy a dress!” John really likes to participate in the whole process and I wasn’t about to leave him out of the dress thing. We went to Nordstrom because, well, because John wanted to. They had sale racks.

“Our goal here today,” I announced, “is to find a dress that will do. Not the Barbie’s Dream Wedding dress. Not the perfect dress. Not even a dress that could be worn to something else. Just a dress that will do.” John grumbled in agreement, not convinced of my speed-shopping concept. There it was, on the sale rack, $67, the will-do dress.

“This means,” I giggled, “that the bride’s colors are salmon and, Honey, what color purple would that be? Well, anyway, salmon and cream for the background.” One pair of cream color pumps from the Nordy’s sale rack completed the ensemble. Dress, check!

Cake. Well, our friend Barbara wanted to be in charge of the cake. Fine, I thought, as long as she doesn’t put pornography on it. She had a vision of Irish shamrocks cascading down a couple of tiers and had a heck of a time with her limited knowledge of Spanish explaining that to the Mexican bakery nearby. Flores verdes? They thought she had lost her mind.

Flowers. OK, I went small on the flowers too, a wrist corsage for me. Our friend Rosie wanted to do the flowers for the reception. She used to be a florist until she got an extreme allergy to being a florist. I knew she’d do a nice job for the tables.

Reception! Eeek! John wanted to do the reception. We liked our friend’s little restaurant in a less traveled section of town and so we went with an afternoon dinner and some cases of wine.

The guest list grew. And grew. As it turns out, we had scheduled our wedding the day before John’s cousin’s lovely daughter was to be married. So most of his relatives were in town. It was too short notice for my best friend in Missouri to fly out or most of my relatives, but my father and step-mom were coming. Daddy wanted to know what I wanted for a wedding present.

“Just wear your Colonel’s uniform for me,” I said. I had had a long, long history with my family never showing up for any of my rites of passage. Just having him there and showing off his Air Force colors was going to be the biggest treat for me. I could hear him blush all the way from Missouri.

The rings didn’t show up until just after 10 AM the day of the wedding; Plan B had been the gumball machine at the 7-11. I was a wreck but they fit perfectly. We drove to Fairfield. My friends came. The wind blew. People took pictures. We drove to the restaurant. We ate. The wedding guests helped because the extra wait staff never showed up. Cousin Margaret kept hitting her glass with a spoon. We ran out of wine. I think. The cake had pigs on it, a bride and groom pig and a little flying cupid pig overhead because Barbara thought John would get married, “When pigs fly.”

“I never said that,” John muttered. We got a lot of flying pig presents.

Everyone went back to our backyard for the party after the party. We took my Dad and step-mom to their hotel. It was 7 PM and I was completely exhausted. I announced my retreat. This pig had flown.

John followed immediately thereafter. We slept like logs, like tourists, like the dead. We lost the gift certificate to Chez Panisse. We realized we had not invited some key people to the event and forever regret that. We got up at 5 AM to take my father and step-mom back to the airport. We went to David’s daughter’s wedding the next day, then flew to Montana for John’s family reunion for our honeymoon, something we had planned to attend anyway.

As I was folding, tying and fluffing paper flowers for the wedding this weekend, I thought about the 4 of Wands. No wedding is simple, no matter what we where-do-I-sign brides wish for. At some point, though, it becomes a point of stability and it all comes together somehow.

“I think I’ll wear purple,” I mused, tying yet another paper flower to the white ribbon, laughing at my own “simple” wedding years ago and happy being the zany half-aunt of the bride.

Best wishes, Erin. I hope you dance.

The Sign of Four

No, this isn’t Sherlock Holmes speaking. It’s just me again. Four has been on my mind today. The Emperor is IV and often is said to represent Aries. We just had that Super Moon, meaning a super-close full moon. My thanks to all those people who posted their photos on Facebook.  Here we had rain and clouds, so I had to use my imagination. But along with that Super Moon we had the vernal equinox, that day when night and day are even heralding the first day of spring and the first degree of Aries. I’m an Aries fan. It’s my sun sign. I like beginnings of things, along with the middles and ends.


Victorian Trade Card Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord


As one of my fours, The Emperor is the guy who makes decisions for the overall good of the empire. Not all of those decisions are popular but the Emperor is the one who makes them. Very recently I made a couple of decisions of my own. Two were to end a couple of affiliations that no longer worked for me. They were very personal decisions. They weren’t entirely popular with the people affected by them. But looking at my own long term stability, growth and happiness, they were right for me.

When I know a decision is not going to be easy, I really like the “Dear Abby” method of arriving at an answer. Dear Abby’s advice usually applies to people stuck in between the decision to leave or stay with a commitment, usually in discussing an abusive, once-romantic relationship. The question is, Are you better off with them or without them?

In both cases, I considered that question carefully. I wanted to make sure I was comfortable with the decision, like the Emperor taking care of the good of his empire first. But I also wanted to treat the topic with dignity as much as possible, including making sure in the process of the discussion that along with being clear and careful of others’ dignity I also preserved my own. I tend to sacrifice that. Maybe that’s part of The Hanged Man being part of my birth cards.

Since part of the lesson of the Emperor is that, when you implement something, like making a decision, you can’t always control everything about it, the “four” part of the Emperor talks about stability and that while a temporary ruckus might ensue from your decision, eventually stability and order and safety and balance are the goals. Sometimes the most important thing to remember is that your own personal empire has boundaries.

Boundaries are a funny thing. Some people view the stretch of territory beyond that boundary to be wilderness ready for annexation. They risk or ignore or perhaps just don’t care that on the other side of their empire is likely someone else’s empire or at least their patch of grass. Boundary issues, we call it.


Victorian Trade Card Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord


Sticking to your own boundaries can be seen in another four in the tarot, the 4 of Pentacles. Sometimes this is called the “miser” card but a little more broadly this can be thought of as the prudent use of resources. Not only does it talk about curbing that wild spending streak (Inner Child: Well, THAT’S no fun. Outer Me: We haven’t heard from YOU in a while), but it also talks about maintaining stability with what you truly control and not trying to go beyond those boundaries. So, while I might wish to assuage any hurt feelings caused by misunderstanding my decisions, ultimately the only person’s feelings I really control are my own.

I can still wish no one had been upset by my decisions or hurt by misunderstandings. But like the 4 of Pentacles, there’s a point where going beyond my own scope is not productive to me or to others. Sometimes you just have to sit tight and wait for people to adjust to the change. I owe them that, at least. It’s a sign of respect.



Victorian Trade Card Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord



I could actually make things worse if I spoke out further than my original statement. There’s a certain wisdom to the advice, “Don’t apologize. Don’t explain” especially if you have the urge to do it “pro-actively” when someone didn’t actually come to you for the apology or explanation. Sometimes, well meant good will can serve to make the conflict worse. So, another four pops up, the 4 of Swords. Give it a rest. That’s advice to yourself, of course. Saying that to someone else is likely to get neither of you any rest!

One of the two decisions was first very clear. The other party wanted to end the association and left a voicemail with clear instructions. I happened to save it just in case I was listening with too much emotion at the time. But in contemplating the decision and listening again, I had to agree. I was truly better without the association. And then it got confusing. They wanted a face-to-face discussion. I wasn’t sure what that would accomplish other than to make me feel worse than I already did. I agreed with them. We’re done.  But I don't need a meeting.  We're just done and I wish them well.


Victorian Trade Card Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord



And surprise, that made things worse instead of better. Since I’m so much more comfortable with new beginnings than endings, drawing out the conflict can even desensitize you to others’ feelings and it certainly does little to help them understand your own. So yet another four, the 4 of Cups, says, I’ll pass on the drama too. No, I didn’t need to meet. ‘Nuff said.

Strangely, with the parting of the ways in both situations, I felt oddly liberated. Sometimes it’s hard to know when you have a burden until you set it down for a while. Gee, that’s better! Breathe in the good air! The conflict that had been there a while was resolved for me by just letting go. No more trying to figure out a way to make it better without any real hope of it getting better. I love that Russian proverb: When the horse is dead, get off. Simple.



Victorian Trade Card Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord



Nope, I’m not going to go into the details of either situation. They were professional associations and not dear personal ones. They weren’t my main source of income, just connections that I had hoped would be mutually beneficial. That little bit of distance helps to make the change easier for me and I hope for them too. Instead, I’d rather turn my energy to something more productive, something worth my time, something with a future, something like the 4 of Wands.

I love the 4 of Wands. It is stability without stagnation. It is energy expended without being dissipated and wasted. I’m Aries; I’m a fire sign. The 4 of Wands is the 4 of Fire and it can be seen as that cozy hearth-fire that serves, warms without burning and welcomes others to thaw beside it. My own hearthfire has taken the form of creating a new tarot deck, something cozy and warm, the Tea Tarot. It soothes. It refreshes. It takes the sting out of the day. It brightens the mind and warms inside and out. It can be the groundwork for a new beginning, a solid foundation and energetic.  And I hope you will enjoy it!

Best wishes and calm, warm thoughts to all!

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Pre-orders for the Tea Tarot are available now. Want a sneak peek? Click on the link Tarot Decks in the upper right side in the information bar. Shall I pour?

Fantasy Real Estate

Some people are into armchair traveling, but I go a step further. I’m into fantasy real estate. I don’t mean castles in the sky. Those create transportation issues at the very least. I mean real real estate. The fantasy is that I own it.

I come by this particular daydream naturally. My parents were always putting a down payment on a lot on a lake or a stunning house, always to lose their money for one reason or another. Since my brother and I participated in this particular pipe dream, our hopes were dashed each time the proposed marvelous new life did not pan out. But it didn’t keep any of us from the tendency to see a place and envision it as tangibly ours. “Home! Home! Home!” says E.T. looking to the skies. We looked a little closer, but it might as well have been a different planet.

Vacant lots, even on a lake, were not always so easy to imagine. There was a pie-shaped lot with a big tree on a lake in Florida. The ground was flat and the lake was medium sized by my reckoning. Since there was no structure in place, you had to draw quite a picture in your head. I was more interested in the wildlife and wildflowers growing there at the time, but kept a peripheral ear to my parents’ conversation. Dad was an architect and engineer; Mom had done house make-overs in her work as a journalist. They had a vision, a mental picnic.

I connected more closely to the Zachary House in Sanford a few years later. It was well after the pie-shaped lot faded away and my mother had opened her antique shop. The Zachary estate had hired her to organize the estate sale, so we all set about sorting, categorizing and pricing the contents of the enormous white Victorian house. It was full of memories so strong that I could touch them. The dust itself seemed full of life. Even the unused stationery seemed magical, letters yet to be written on airbrush decorated papers and envelopes from 1910-1920. We marveled at the aluminum business cards from the Zachary business, treated personal correspondence with respect and solemnity and delighted in each little find.

The house itself had dazzling wood floors, a central staircase with curving banisters, a “secret” back stairway, a sleeping porch for hot summer nights and at least one of the upstairs bathrooms with square footage enough to play half-court basketball in, perfect for singing at the top of your lungs in the claw-footed tub. The house was a short walk from one of the city parks where squirrels would eat peanuts out of my hand. After spending time getting to know the Zachary family, posthumously of course, we began to love the old house and sought to purchase it. My brother and I excitedly picked out our bedrooms and wondered how long it would be before we could try sliding down the banister. But it was not to be.

After my parents put a down payment on the house, an unbearable accident occurred. The water in a smaller upstairs bathroom sink had been left on, by the realtor, Mom said, and the resulting damage was to shape the living room wooden floor into waves so extreme that it would have to be replaced. And with the charm and price of the house based on the fact that features like the marvelous floors were original, the damage was huge. Unable to come to an agreement as to how to resolve this, my parents lost their down payment and we lost our dream house. My last connection to it is one or two of those aluminum business cards which will surface from time to time, reminding me of how much I loved that place and never got to live there.

The disappointment of loss of what was never to be has not put me off from later fantasy homes. My husband participates. We had a momentary glimmer of buying the old hospital in Montana where he was born. He envisioned a small casino on the first floor. I envisioned room after room for cats and toys. The price was even almost reasonable. But then, the reality of winter arrived, something like 40 below and just the thought of keeping even part of the building warm enough for human, feline and canine habitation was mind-boggling. The repurposed hospital started to seem more and more like Stephen King’s Overlook with me drooling on a dusty floor muttering, “Redrum. Redrum.” Some fantasies exit abruptly and with good reason. Others linger.

Our trip to Ireland a couple of years ago was nothing short of magical. We drove like we knew where we were going. Just hours off the plane from a long flight, we found ourselves in the parlor of the woman who babysat one of John’s old friends, now deceased. We didn’t know our hostess. We had merely taken a sudden right-hand turn when we realized we were right on top of Father Sean’s home town. After striking up casual conversation with a lovely white haired gentleman and his grandson, we found ourselves welcomed as if we were not strangers. With tea and cookies and good company, we received directions and found Sean’s grave with its headstone sent by Californians who loved him.

I fell in love with Ireland. We followed St Patrick’s footsteps up Croagh Patrick, just far enough to realize we hadn’t the stamina to make it to the top but high enough to see Clew Bay. We were transported by the sight of Norman and Gothic structures, now buttressed by falls of blooming, bee-buzzing ivy. We spent a week in the ten foot tall fuchsia hedges in West Cork with a view of Bantry Bay at the summer home of a solicitor whose hobby is horticulture, the house aptly named A Bit of Heaven. And fantasy real estate kicked in.

Never mind the fact that we happened to be in Ireland during the only two weeks of the year when the sun shined and all the flowers were in bloom. The Irish Real Estate Tigers were counting on this luck being the lure for the real pot of gold under their rainbow. In matters of true love, money is no object. In our case, it was lucky our money was objectively hard to reach, for I had found The Property. An old church repurposed as a dance and yoga studio was for sale. “Open floor plan,” I reasoned. Plenty of parking, if you hacked out some of the fuchsia hedge a bit. Solid stone structure and it has a kitchen. And look at those windows! And the kicker? A prehistoric standing stone in the yard. I could live here. Why, I could work from here. After all, my Blackberry worked all over Ireland; I was never cut off from the Day Job workaday world, no matter how remote the lane or field. We let that dream fade into storytelling. But then, last week, My Ireland resurfaced. And I can blame the hubs.

Just last week, I found one and I don’t even know the floorplan. My husband sent me a link to the Irish Times home section and, saints be praised, The New Property appeared! It’s even a house this time, 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, modern kitchen, large loft, an outbuilding called a “milking parlour,” a bit of land, room for a pony, it says. Well, room for dogs, cats, flowers and foolishness, at the very least. It’s nearly affordable, now that the Irish Tiger has been caged by the falling Euro (only temporary, we hope). It’s within walking distance to the small West Cork village we visited, with water and mountain views and south facing windows. They want 25% down. The loan doesn’t have to be from an Irish Bank. It’s an easy drive to see cousins from there. It’s the very picture of the 4 of Wands, the home you celebrate with A Hundred Thousand Welcomes.

I’ve begun Fantasy Renovations already. It should be ready for Fantasy Move-In around the end of summer, just in time for the flowers to bloom.

Best wishes.