I took a deep breath and then deleted my facebook profile

Actu­ally, I didn’t even take a deep breath. I’m a lit­tle bit, well, impul­sive. So I just searched through the help sec­tion on face­book till I found the arti­cle I needed, and then pressed the “Yes I’m sure” but­ton. Face­book promptly sent me a very help­ful email say­ing that if I changed my mind in the next two weeks, they could restore my account. But I won’t change my mind. I almost never do. About anything.

Oh it isn’t like I didn’t think it through! I loved post­ing inane pho­tos of my adorable kids and dog. And face­book is a great tool for com­mu­ni­cat­ing with my audi­ence from this web­site. But last night found me sit­ting at open-mic night at my local pub, enjoy­ing the music and com­pany of my friends. I turned away from the music for an instant and saw three peo­ple at the table I was at check­ing face­book on their phones. I sud­denly decided that I didn’t want that in my life — and whether or not I choose to check my social net­works when I’m out “social­iz­ing” — by tak­ing part in it, I am still feed­ing the beast.

The other aspect of face­book that I did not love is that the for­mat never cul­ti­vated actual friend­ships for me. The word “friend request” seemed inau­then­tic, and more and more I find myself in a place where I need the self that is pro­jected into the ether, my cloud-me, to be closer to what I am in real-life. Face­book, for me, was more of a place where I engaged in petty pas­sive aggres­sion and indulged in my van­ity. In real life, I try to avoid both — so why did I get so caught up in it online? Finally, I felt like the face­book pro­file needed main­te­nance. Rather than my net­work serv­ing me, I felt as though I had to con­stantly update this stream of infor­ma­tion in order to be rel­e­vant and inter­est­ing and not get lost in the stream. And main­tain­ing this net­work was another energy drain­ing task I was adding on top of my blog, my stu­dents, my clients, my chil­dren and my hob­bies. Who needs that?

My solu­tion for the fan page was to cre­ate a new pro­file that only con­tained my name, city and a snap­shot of me. No friends. No wall. I don’t need a stream to read and I don’t want to receive mes­sages for this account. I just need a log in to the fan page. I trans­ferred the admin­is­tra­tion of my page to my new, empty account. Once that was fin­ished, I deleted my face­book pro­file. No “good­bye face­book”, no con­tact info posted. If some­one wants to get a hold of me, it’s easy enough to track me down.

I find myself curi­ous about what will hap­pen next. I wonder:

• Will no one talk to me now that they can’t just post on my wall?
• Will peo­ple send me invi­ta­tions to events, or call to let me know what’s going on?
• Will I find some other social net­work to fill the gap that face­book leaves?
• Will I freak out next week and log into face­book, restor­ing my account?
• Will I be more pro­duc­tive and not miss it at all?

I do have a g+ account, but I do not have inter­est in using it for any­thing other than mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tion, really, and shar­ing pho­tos from my phone (inane kids, dog) to mem­bers of my fam­ily. I like a lot of things about g+, though google is a lit­tle scary (I have the­o­ries that I could write about the future and google, but you’d prob­a­bly think I was nut­tier than you likely do already!).

I have a twit­ter account that I fall in and out of love with. Mostly I find twit­ter use­less and spammy.

So any of these net­works could, in the­ory, be a stop-gap or replace­ment for face­book, should I decide to use them for that. But will I? I’m not sure I can say right now! What I know for cer­tain is that I didn’t spend any time or brain power skim­ming over someone’s lev­el­ing up on some online game or mis­in­formed reposted sta­tus update. And as lit­tle as that may seem, in the grand scope of the uni­verse all those lit­tle energy leaks add up.

And look, I’m a sin­gle mama. I need to reserve every bit of energy I can!

Some ques­tions for dis­cus­sion (should you like to con­tinue this con­ver­sa­tion with me):

1. Does your social net­work serve you? Or do you find you serve it?
2. Social net­work­ing, for me, indulges my van­ity. What qual­i­ties do you find it cul­ti­vates in you? Are these qual­i­ties you want to cultivate?
3. What does an “ideal” social net­work look like? Have you found one? What is it?

Contemplative vs. Predictive Divination

I want to make a con­fes­sion. Until recently, I almost never used spreads¹ in my tarot readings.

I would throw spreads, such as the Celtic Cross, when a client would request one. In all other cir­cum­stances, I would either line up seven cards to read as a line, put nine cards in three rows of three, or sim­ply draw card after card as I was speak­ing (in which case my expe­ri­ence was more akin to chan­nel­ing than read­ing cards). I could never get com­fort­able read­ing the Celtic Cross because, as a spread, it sends out mixed messages.

My clients either want a spir­i­tual tarot expe­ri­ence, or they want answers to whether or not they’ll get the busi­ness loan. Rarely do the two mix. But the Celtic Cross, and many other tarot spreads out there, mix con­tem­pla­tive tarot with pre­dic­tive tarot. Does my client who wants to know about her busi­ness loan care about sub­con­scious influ­ences; how she views her­self in the world? Does my client who wants a gen­eral read­ing, inter­ested in the spir­i­tual insights that they might gar­ner from the cards, care about the problem/outcome cards dan­gling at the top?  My prob­lem with tarot spreads is that I often felt like my pre­dic­tive read­ings were get­ting clut­tered up and unnec­es­sar­ily com­pli­cated and long-winded because of all the insight­ful self-reflective stuff. And my con­tem­pla­tive read­ings were being con­vo­luted and over­shad­owed by that tiny bit of pre­dic­tion, often out of con­text, at the end.

I’ve come to accept two pre­cepts about divination:

1. Pre­dic­tive div­ina­tion is best accom­plished by read­ing in lines or blocks.
2. Con­tem­pla­tive div­ina­tion is best accom­plished by set­ting aside the expec­ta­tion of future prediction.

Pre­dic­tive div­ina­tion is best accom­plished by read­ing in lines or blocks.

Ok, I admit. I read tarot like a Lenor­mand reader. Or I read Lenor­mand like a tarot reader… I’ve been told both by dif­fer­ent peo­ple . I guess I read cards the way I read cards and this is what works best for me.

Expla­na­tion: My son, who is four, has started to tell sto­ries. He tells his sis­ter sto­ries now. His sto­ries begin, “Once upon a time, this hap­pened. Then this hap­pened. Then this hap­pened. The end.” Try to recall every­thing that hap­pened to you this morn­ing. You prob­a­bly recall it like, “This hap­pened. Then this hap­pened. Then this hap­pened. The end.”

Now I want you to make pre­dic­tions about what will hap­pen to you tomor­row morn­ing. Think about it a minute, then come back… I’ll wait right here.

Ok, so it prob­a­bly went some­thing like, “I will wake up. I will drink cof­fee. I will eat an omelet. The end.”

Clear nar­ra­tive is the key to pow­er­ful pre­dic­tive div­ina­tion. I could write a whole book on this topic, but for now I’ll just promise to touch upon it in a later blog post.

Con­tem­pla­tive div­ina­tion is best accom­plished by set­ting aside the expec­ta­tion of future prediction.

This didn’t occur to me until I was writ­ing in my jour­nal one morn­ing. See, I’m a com­pul­sive jour­naler. Jour­nal­ing, for me, is a totally indul­gent expe­ri­ence. I write all about ME ME ME. I write about my deep­est, dark­est, inner desires, dreams, impulses, fan­tasies… In my jour­nal, I’m really a 14-year old girl — because that’s about how much aware­ness of any world/connection beyond my self makes it to the pages.

And then one day, I thought it would be fun to mix that up a bit — and com­bine one of my Goddess-care rou­tines with some­thing a lit­tle more “Godly” — that is to say, I yearned for an exer­cise that would prompt me to dig deeper in my jour­nal­ing. So I picked up my cards and sat around try­ing to fathom a way to use them. It occurred to me to try a tarot spread! Ah, finally, a use for that pesky Celtic Cross! But then, when I was work­ing through it, I got to that pesky problem/outcome at the end and it sud­denly made no sense in con­text of my reading.

To that end, I started col­lect­ing and cre­at­ing tarot spreads to use in my jour­nal­ing. And start­ing later this week, I’m going to be shar­ing some spreads I’ve cre­ated for con­tem­pla­tive div­ina­tion with you. Wait, it gets bet­ter! The spreads I’m going to be shar­ing with you are Hal­loween themed! And wait, wait it gets even bet­ter!!! I’m illus­trat­ing it with an adorable lit­tle Hal­loween tarot I’ve whipped up for just the occa­sion (pre­view at the left)!!!! Just because I love Hal­loween that much! Aaaaaah­h­h­h­h­h­h­hhh!!!!! (*dies*)

I’ve already writ­ten six entries for the series, so there will at least be that many posted before the end of Octo­ber, but per­haps more, since I have a grand total of 28 Halloween-themed spreads in my note­book at last count…

You can treat this series as a free e-course, because that’s really how I’m writ­ing it. And you won’t want to miss it. So if you aren’t sub­scribed via RSS in some reader already, do that now. I’ve also set it up with my new mail­ing list provider to send out blog updates once a week via email. If you want to sub­scribe to the blog by email, fill out the form below. NOTE: this is a dif­fer­ent list than my email list — this form is for blog sub­scrip­tion only, and you will ONLY get blog updates via this email. If you’re not on my reg­u­lar mail­ing list, you’re also miss­ing out — and you’ll want to sub­scribe in the side­bar of my blog.

What I’m working on

2nd Ed. Melissa Lenormand

As you may have guessed from the few cards I threw up on face­book, I am con­sid­er­ing a sec­ond edi­tion of the Melissa Lenor­mand. I can get the cards printed eas­ily enough — just try­ing to wrap my head around what­ever I’ll be wrap­ping the cards in. Of course I have a few options, some eas­ier than oth­ers. Full color tuck­boxes are out unless I can raise the funds for print­ing *before* — and do a very large card order. I’ve found some indie crafts­peo­ple who spe­cial­ize in cus­tom pack­ag­ing for arti­sans who may be able to help with unique and func­tional boxes. The other (quickie) option is to put them in satin bags. I haven’t thought through the logis­tics of deck dis­tri­b­u­tion — but in the past two weeks I’ve got­ten no less than two dozen requests for the deck… and I’m fig­ur­ing that it’s a sign from The Uni­verse that this is some­thing I should at least think about.

The sec­ond edi­tion will have cream bor­ders, a dif­fer­ent title font, will include the card num­ber and have a dif­fer­ent jewel-toned blue back. I think they’re more beau­ti­ful than the first edi­tion. The proof prints I’ve got­ten — the col­ors are more vibrant. I’ve only tin­kered with the art min­i­mally. I’ll also design two new alter­na­tive Man & Woman cards to go with the deck. Maybe a Happy Squir­rel or a Cat card…

The Post­mark Lenor­mand is sold out!

I’ll order new cards as soon as I am able to. I don’t see any changes to the art­work in the future, but if you have any ideas or sug­ges­tions of what you’d like to see in a sec­ond print-run, now is the time to man­i­fest those desires!

Lenor­mand 101

Since I had to record all of the lec­ture mate­r­ial for the webi­nar sep­a­rate from the webi­nar any­way (there was some funky tech­ni­cal issues)… I’m think­ing I may make Lenor­mand 101 a stand-alone dig­i­tal down­load. This way you can watch the videos and go through the work­books at your own pace. Since this is fresh in my mind and I’ve thought of almost noth­ing else all week, this is the pri­or­ity project for me.

This would also solve the dilemma I’ve had about adding new class mate­r­ial — I can just serve up the addi­tional mate­r­ial as addi­tional mod­ules. This way you can pick the learn­ing bun­dle you’re most inter­ested in. Mod­ules I’m work­ing on right now include:

• The lan­guage of Lenormand
• Cre­at­ing strong nar­ra­tive in your Grand Tableau
• Lenor­mand for fic­tion writers
• Writ­ing Car­to­scopes with the Grand Tableau
• Tim­ing the­ory in Lenormand
• Lenor­mand sym­bol­ism in pop­u­lar culture
• And a few oth­ers that are still baby ideas in my brain…

With the class, you would get the core infor­ma­tion — the 2 hours of lec­tures on videos and the 2 PDF guides. And then you could add the addi­tional mod­ules as you like — to cus­tomize your learn­ing expe­ri­ence. Alter­nately, if you decide after tak­ing the 101 class that you’d like to deepen your Lenor­mand stud­ies, you could pur­chase the mod­ules separately.

The only hes­i­ta­tion I have for this model is — I hon­estly can­not pro­vide good email sup­port for Q&A. I am already totally over­whelmed by email as it is. But I feel like if I’m teach­ing I need to be avail­able to answer ques­tions. So my ques­tion to you is: Would you be inter­ested in monthly tele-jam Think Tanks? Where we have a con­fer­ence call sched­uled for Q&A with me on any Lenor­mand 101 top­ics? My cur­sory thoughts:

• This would require some kind of RSVP because if no one wants to chat, I won’t hire a babysitter
• This would require some kind of small mon­e­tary invest­ment (because you won’t show up when you say you will if it doesn’t)
• We can cover Lenor­mand basics, card com­bi­na­tions and read­ings — even a Tableau if you’re stuck
• We can work together using Orphalese or my GT Wid­get. I have my “tech team” work­ing on a web-based Lenor­mand app… but for now, those two pro­grams will have to work.

If you’re inter­ested, take a moment to fill out this form:

The Wicked Sibyl

Shelved. Again. We’ll see… A pumpkin-spiced cof­fee might just get me in the mood…

Look­ing for­ward to your thoughts! Tell me what you want to see me work­ing on!

Lenormand 101 is here! Finally!

I’m happy to announce that I’m finally able to offer my intro­duc­tory Lenor­mand work­shop in an online format!

I’m hav­ing a webi­nar on Sep­tem­ber 8, at 7p.m. EST.

What is a webi­nar, you ask? Well, it’s kind of like a con­fer­ence call + a slide show + maybe my smil­ing face look­ing right back at you. It’s all the great inter­ac­tive learn­ing of a sem­i­nar, but you know, on the web.

The course will cover the infor­ma­tion I pre­sented at The Read­ers Stu­dio in New York this past spring — basic card mean­ings, some ideas on read­ing in com­bi­na­tions and lines, quick spreads and the intro­duc­tion to the Grand Tableau. I’ve come up with some amaz­ing visu­als to use with the webi­nar, includ­ing a PDF work­book that is fully illus­trated with my own two card decks and a his­tor­i­cal Lenor­mand for com­par­a­tive study. We’ll also be using my web-based Grand Tableau gen­er­a­tor. This will let us do a col­lab­o­ra­tive and spon­ta­neous read­ing dur­ing the webi­nar, that every­one can see and par­tic­i­pate in.

In addi­tion to the pre­sen­ta­tion and the Com­par­a­tive Lenor­mand Work­book, par­tic­i­pants will also get a PDF of the Lit­tle Book of the Grand Tableau — the book­let I gave away dur­ing my Read­ers Stu­dio work­shop. It’s been updated since I’ve been work­ing on a more thor­ough man­ual, and includes direc­tions on how to use my Grand Tableau wid­get as well. In case you can’t make the webi­nar, I’m send­ing every­one a record­ing of it after­ward. So you can review the mate­r­ial over and over, as you like.

I announced the class on Face­book and the Tarot Forum on Fri­day, and seats are already start­ing to fill. There is a limit to how many peo­ple may be on the call, so if you’re inter­ested, sign up now. Reg­is­tra­tion is $35. Full course infor­ma­tion and reg­is­tra­tion link can be found here.