Encouraging Words

Don't bother trying to understand this. It will sound convoluted. It's from the Karma Cards divination system. If I were doing it for anyone else, I'd explain it.

Planet: North Node

Sign: Aries

House: 4

Have faith in your willpower as you did in the past

Do not worry about what you think you know about your home base or your family

Now is the time to do it your own way and do what makes you feel secure

There will be energies to meet the challenge of what makes you feel secure

Success from your desires regarding support

Benefit resulting from the strength of your home base or family

I don't see it right now, but it must be around the corner.

Got Lazy

Your Anti Climactic Fortune

Deep into your future, I forsee: A bath

The Anti Climactic Fortune Teller

May Reading

I used the Wisdom of Avalon oracle and a Celtic Cross spread. This reading is for myself.

The card of the present position is the Raven. The raven's attributes are magic, synchronistic events, and coincidence. I have been feeling much doubt about magic of late and this card is a reminder to seek it and to work on my own mystical development, which I often allow to slide in favor of earthly concerns. It is a reminder that magic effects the earthly.
This card is crossed by Love. It is a reminder to be more connected to other beings. I often feel quite alone. I need to open my heart. Not to romantic love, but to the love of all things. The romantic love situation in my case is closed by choice and without regret. It is difficult to explain and the reasons are personal but they include preferring to develop spiritually and psychically, and romantic entanglement is a distraction and has never been a good one. As well, my mental illness makes it a different proposition from what it would be for most people. There are other reasons but they would be difficult to describe.
The crowd in the Goal or Destiny position is the Novice. I am going back to school in the fall for nursing. It isn't my favorite idea and if something else I am doing comes to fruition, I'll drop it like it's hot. Some people want to be nurses. I do not. For me, it's the fact that I'm already in the medical profession and nurses make more money and have more opportunities than technicians. The people who want to be nurses make good nurses. I'll make an ok nurse.
Also I am a novice in the promotion game. Trying to promote my book has been a real headache and I intend to pass on whatever knowledge I get to others.
The card in the distant past position is letting go. I need to let go of my old dream of being adulated. As a not very popular young girl, I daydreamed of being a beautiful and famous actress. I loved watching the show Three's Company, and wanted to be like Suzanne Sommers. I have encountered the late John Ritter, and he is a wonderful person who gave me some very useful advice that I would do well to recall right now. If you would like to read about this visitation, please click here.
My desire to work in the creative arts is not what needs to die for if it did, my soul would die. This is my true calling. Not nursing, not anything else. But the need to be adulated, to be seen as stunningly beautiful, to be POPULAR (which I was anything but) needs to be laid to rest. The desire to be accepted by people from 30 years in the past needs to be laid to rest. The need for acceptance needs to be laid to rest. I need to now do things my way.
The card in the recent past position is restriction. I'll tell you what's causing the restriction: lack of M-O-N-E-Y! I haven't been able to send out books for review on schedule because purchasing author's copies costs $65 per 5 books! That may not sound like a lot, but when you consider that I make $700 every 2 weeks, well...
The only thing to be do is to be patient and ask the Powers that Be to show me the way. And to trust them. My parents always laid "God" on me pretty thick. But they never trusted God or anything else and are very unhappy. So it always rung false.
Another thing I need to let go of is the idea that the church-god is the "true" god and those of us who don't buy in to the church doctrine are going to burn in hell. I've let go of it logically but let me tell y'all that a little fire and brimstone goes a long way to cauterizing your ability to be unafraid! I still have nightmares.
The card of future influence is Death. Like the Death card in the Tarot deck, this card rarely portends physical death. It is the end of something very important. What is coming to an end four days from now is my son's childhood. He will be 18. What is coming to an end an month and two days from now is his schooling. He will be graduating. I will no longer be driving him to school and picking him up 5 days a week. I will be driving him 350 miles away at the end of August, leaving him at his college, and picking him up at the airport on December 19. I will be taking him back to the airport early in January to return him to school. As a whole, this change is good. My son is celebrating. I am secretly grieving. There is so much I wish I could do better for my little boy who is now a man. Fuck me--I'm glad anyone reading this can't see me cry. The stress of this grief I hate and want to tear from myself is making me a very sick woman lately. My dear friend, the wonderful friend who wrote the book with me comes to my side and tries to comfort me and his efforts mean a lot. But he can't take the sorrow from the core of me. Still he does soothe it as I helped him ease the pain of the action he took 17 years ago but cannot take the remorse from the core of him. We can only support each other.
The card of current influence is birth and rebirth. This is the phoenix rising from the ashes of Death. Things are not dead, they are transforming. It is a matter of coming to peace with it and to allow the good things to continue growing.
The current environment indicates Wealth. Well, how about a big neon sign pointing me to mine??? But the wealth is not only money it is also personal achievement.
I have a problem with money. In a past life I was a wealthy person who lost that which was most precious to her, and that was not money. This life had a miserable and horrific end. As a Christian I was taught that money is evil. In this life as a Christian I was taught the same thing. My parents told me the Robert Bloch story "The Monkey's Paw" in order to illustrate that wishing for money would bring disaster and that God would punish those who wish for money. Since then I have been terrified of wishing for money, even when I desperately need it. I have begun praying to Lord Ganesha instead for blessed abundance. Lord Ganesha is benevolent and would not pull a dirty trick on someone such as giving them money through the loss of a loved one. If he feels a person is being greedy, he will simply not grant their wish. If he feels they are being reprehensible enough to warrant a punishment, it will be a punishment in kind, i.e. loss of money, but never punishment by granting money at too high a price. He is not a trickster and not malevolent. This is the only way I feel comfortable asking for increase.
The hopes and fears position is represented by the Wasp. The wasp is a harbinger of jealousy and mean-spirited thoughts. There is a part of me that fears that if I succeed I will lose others, that they will become resentful towards me. Yes, those who really love you would never do that, yada yada. But the fear is there nonetheless and needs to be worked on.
The card of final outcome is the Bee. The bee is a fortunate card. It indicates that hard work will bring benefit. This isn't only work as in for a paycheck work. The advice is to be persistent in those things that have real meaning and your efforts will bring fruition. So I will continue to pursue that which has meaning to me and it will pay off in many ways.

If you are interested in obtaining a reading, please click here.

Blessed be.

A Memorial and a Reading

As part of the ceremony to honor my co-author on the anniversary of his passing from life, we do a reading to help us realize what we must do on both of our own parts to make the project we have taken on together successful.

The reading begins with an 8 of swords. A card of great frustration, this represents bondage. I am tied to my current station in life and place of residence by lack of funds. He is earthbound by need to heal and impart certain important messages. Of late we have both felt as though we are going nowhere and going there very fast.

One might ask exactly where a ghost can "go." "Physically" speaking, they can go just about anywhere they want. This refers to progress in spiritual healing and growth.

This card is crossed by the six of swords, which represents movement countering the stagnation. For my own part there is a great deal of "movement" in my life at this time although it seems to be taking me along in a swift current rather than my controlling where I'm going. It is very unsettling. I am trying to learn techniques to become more in tune with the energies, thereby bypassing this unsettled feeling.

The card in the goal or destiny position is strength. We have both been weakened at given times in our existences by mental illness, but strength of character and perseverance can conquer even the devastating effects of mental illness. Much can be achieved. Perserverance can even conquer death. Our strength is believing in our mission and perservering in spite of external appearances.

The card of the distant past foundation is the nine of cups. This is a card of prosperity and contentment. I have often had a feeling that in another life I was wealthy and possibly a bit of an ass about it. A horrific tragedy made me see the hollowness of monetary wealth. In this life I fear wealth.

As for him, I know that in this life he died with nothing. He was never wealthy at any stage in his life, yet in spite of his disturbed mental state he always had a noble air about him that I could never quite explain. I'm still not fully able to interpret anything about a past life of nobility on his part although he has said that he was on friendly terms with William Shakespeare in another life. This seems to have been as an actor but he may have been a bit of a dilletante. Either way, both of us seem to disdain wealth and status to a certain degree in our most recent lives. It is a fear that we both need to overcome.

The card of recent past events is the Tower. The disastrous events of the past always echo through on ths day. For a more complete essay on this, please follow this link.

The card in the position of future influence is the Hermit. This represents solitude and study. For my own part, mine is a lonely path. My son is leaving for college this fall and I've never been very good at making friends. But it will also be a time of learning and spiritual study. Befriending a ghost to the degree that I have means that for me the door to the other side is always open for me. This is sometimes good, sometimes it can be detrimental. Sometimes the things that he has to tell me (and others) come through in the form of a fictionalized story. I interpret this as meaning that the best thing we can do is keep writing together!

The four of wands falls into the category of home and self. It is a card of completion and success. We did successfully complete and publish the last book. Now we're just waiting for some lucky souls to discover and read it and spread the word!

I'm using the Necronomicon deck and in this particuar deck there is a woman and a Deep One depicted on the card. Since I'm a woman, guess who must be the Deep One?

Only joking! He actually looks nothing at all like a Deep One. I usually embarrass him by saying he looks like an elf. The Tolkein kind, not the Christmas special kind.

If you'd like to see a Deep One, follow the link.

If you'd like to see my co-author, follow this one.

See, he doesn't look like a Deep One. Now, maybe he can take his hands off my neck!

Again, only joking. For those out there who think that all ghosts take their cues from the late night movie on the Chiller channel, most of them actually don't. A ghost is the same person that they were in life, only being without a body sometimes allows them to see certain things more clearly. They can, for instance, see energy fields that most of us living folk can't. They are not, however, omniscient. That's still an area to be left for the deities, and most of the time they either ain't talking or we can't hear them!

The environmental factors are represented by the 10 of cups. This is an energyof great achivement, joy, friendship, family fidelity, all kinds of great things.

I guess it's a good idea to keep this partnership going. In spite of adversity we really still can achieve a lot and help each other. But we do need reminding sometimes. For me it can be frustrating and painful that my best friends are ghosts and I am pretty well ostracized by living people. Not to belittle ghosts but sometimes its hard to believe in things that you can only sense but not see. (I've only seen one ghost.) For my friend, the pain of wondering if people will ever know who he truly was and wanted to be, of wanting to say he's sorry for the pain his death caused, and the fact that sometimes he still wishes he could take it back or be brought back to life is tough. I think doing this ceremony tonight helped us both and I think this reading has as well.

The five of swords is in the position of hopes and fears. This is a card of opposition and anxiety. Self-explanatory. We don't need any more of this shit and we can be our own worst enemies.

The final outcome is the three of wands. This is a wonderful and positive card. It represents good possibilities and possible help from persons already established in one's chosen field or other benevolent outsiders. Good enough for us! Let's keep working--we aren't failures. And if anyone wants to tell either of us we're insane? Why waste your key strokes? Tell us something we don't know!

Nice reading! Time to thank the Deities for helping us.

Blessed Be!

Lily and Spooky

Reading Choices

You now have choices as to whose voice you want interpreting your reading. You have, of course, Lily, who will give you straightforward advice in a compassionate manner. But you also now have Lily's alter-ego, Poison Ivy, who is much snarkier and far more brutally honest. While even Poison Ivy would never be so cruel as to tell someone that their loved one was going to die so just get over it, she will tell clients that their boyfriend is a cheating jerk or their job is doing nothing more than give them practice in posterior osculation.

Either way, you will get the truth, but if you are feeling like you are in need of the gloves-off approach to shake you into action rather than the comforting touch of a hand in a velvet glove, so to speak, choose your Poison and let Poison Ivy shake you into action.

For a more esoteric approach, Lily can also consult Shadow Lurker, the gentler aspect of her co-author. Like Lily, he will dispense advice with a compassionate tone, but can tend to be cryptic and tends to speak in terms of topics such as energy flow and aura disruption as this is the way he sees things. The Undead Asshole is Shadow Lurker's snarkier alter-ego and will not hold back on telling a client that, for instance, she is involved with a worthless ass or that if someone chooses to continue on their current path it isn't his fault if their life ends up being a miserable pile of shit. The Undead Asshole swears a lot, and his approach may be offensive to those lacking either a thick skin or a sense of humor.

The Mysterious Spectre is "like a box of choclits. You never know what spirit you're gonna get." I actually created this profile for a certain spirit friend to speak through on the Gnutty Gnostic blog if he chose to, but other spirits whom I've affiliated will utilize it as well. None of them will give their names--they find the anonymity aspect fun. If you're in the mood to roll the dice and see what you get, ask me to channel "the Mysterious Spectre."

If you'd like to have your reading published here, just leave a comment and let us know who you want to have do the reading. If you'd prefer a private reading via email, contact me at lily@mysticvision.org and we'll discuss your needs. All I ask in return for a private reading is a donation of whatever size you can afford, which will help me offset the cost of maintaining my domain and promoting our book.

Blessed be,

Lily and Friends

Land Ho!

The decision to buy land is a big one. The land is currently undeveloped and I would later add a (likely modular) home to it. Although for me any extra expenditure is harsh, the price seems too good to pass up. I will have to forego promoting my book and will have to forego some things that I was looking forward to, such as a new computer. It is also likely that I will have to take on a second job. But this is a longtime dream. I will not be able to utilize the land instantly. The soonest I can anticipate a move is 5 years. I am not telling anyone I know about this. They would only try to dissuade me. I have to rely on my own counsel.

The land I'm buying is in one of the few untamed areas. It is desert. What??? Yes. Desert. I grew up in the Southwest. I've always wanted to go back. I've never felt at home in the state where I was born and have lived the past 32 years of my life. Because of the somewhat wild nature of the land, I choose the Animal Cards for divination. May the Gods and Goddesses and the spirits guide me.

Sloth represents the foundation of the matter. Sloth advises "consider the smallness of your needs and treasure what you possess." Perhaps I have in part gotten into the precarious financial position that I'm currently in because I've never felt like I had enough. As a child in New Mexico I loved our house and land although I utterly despised the huge cockroaches that would get into the house and I had trouble with the kids at school because my skin was the wrong color. (In this case being pasty white was not a good idea.)

Sloth says "squander neither love nor material things even if they are no longer new." I was discussing this earlier, about how some people ditch a relationship because it becomes comfortable. There are folks who have to have constant newness. It's a good warning to anybody. While I have long wanted to leave my current environment, I need to consider the positives of it while I need remain here.

Crocodile represents the immedate past. Crocodile advises that "the alchemy of energy teaches that death will always yield new life." I have long felt I was holding onto a situation I have outgrown due to fear. I can never escape my past while I remain in my present circumstance. In order to truly become myself I must allow the past (way back to my youth) to be left behind.

The present position is represented by Wild Horse. Wild Horse advises: "seek your passion aloud and defend those whom you love in word and deed."

Which is the purpose of the book I wrote. I wanted to defend someone who is in a position where it is difficult to defend himself, or to let others know the truth about him, and also to give voice to a group of people whose voice is often supressed--the mentally ill. To let the world know that our voice isn't just so much twaddle, that we are not stupid, that we are just as valuable as anyone else. And to educate about the many misconceptions regarding persons with mental illness. I still wish to do this. I still believe it is noble. But it has been a fuckload harder to find an audience than I first thought. So far I've preached to the choir. And the choir in this case is pretty damn small. It's frustrating. And I sometimes wonder why the Universe gives me these tasks and then leaves me to flounder.

Wild Boar represents the positive aspects I bring to the situation. He advises that "whatever tradition or others expect of you, only to yourself be true."

In other words, being pig-headed can actually be a positive thing and I should continue to do so.

The external factors working in my favor are represented by the Tortoise. The Tortoise advises that " when changes are made or the sake of change itself, resist."

Tortoise advises "be true to your way of living, your partner and your creativity lest you destroy something more wonderful than you know." She advises "constructing a mental carapice to protect yourself from the unjutified criticisms of others."

Just so--I'm dogged, determined, and loyal until someone takes a crap on me. In this case I need to be not only sensible but true to myself. Instead of quitting my job and flying off across the country, I'm purchasing something I won't be able to use till future times but something I've dreamed of for a long time. I'm actually doing something for myself rather than for the naysayers for a change.

My own negative input is represented by Panda. Panda advises me to "enjoy the sanctuary of solitude to regain self-esteem and tranquility." In other words, seeking the advice of others in this case is definitely wrong, wrong, wrong. I always question my own judgment. I depend too much on the approval of others. I need to be true to mine own self.

The external influences working against me are represented by Water Buffalo. Water Buffalo advises me to "face life head-on with courage and reclaim the brave spirit within you."

The fact that I seem totally unable to do this definitely works against me.

Further, Water Buffalo advises that "tragedy and failure are intrinsic to living but sometimes we are cowed by events, unable to move forward.

I am still crippled by the past. Mighty Buffalo advises that the brave spirit that drives me to unusual pursuits is waiting to be reclaimed and that I should "take your courage in both hands and dare to be."

In other words, stop hiding and being cowed by others. That is definitely working against me.

The immediate future is represented by the Red Squirrel, who advises me to "gather your resources now, for they will sustain you through the coming change."

This is a fortuitous card to receive in this position and for a question such as this. Instead of squandering my tax return on partying, I can go a long way to purchasing this parcel of land for my future. I am thinking of my future and I need to believe in what I want and do what I've gotta do. The perks can wait.

The ultimate future is represented by Bee. Bee advises that "hard work is rewarded with responsibility and a sweetness that is shared."

This too is a fortuitous card in the given position--I just love when a reading is this clear-cut! Seldom have I received signs that were more of a green light. I will have to work hard it is true but I am working for a future, to have a place not only for myself but for my family in the future. When my son has a family it will be a place they can come and even call home. Not the transient feeling of a trailer park, but a real home. It will be a modular home, but it will be on a foundation. I can get back to the land as I have long wanted to. Have some hens around to lay eggs which I can use and maybe even sell a few. Not that this is a way to get rich, but just a thought. I will have to work for it--the ultimate dream will not be realized for years. But this is a way to start. And I will do it immediately when my next paycheck comes in.

I thank the deities and spirits for their assistance and ask them to bless me in this venture.

Lily

The Crystal Ball Returns

I've decided to bring the Crystal Ball blog back from the grave. My one reader may now rejoice!