Fear Not The Devil

This is one of three cards in the tarot deck that have a tendency to strike fear in the hearts of those who's reading it turns up in...The Devil. This card, despite the depiction, is really not all that scary if you know a little bit more about it.

The Devil in the tarot deck has little or nothing to do with the frightening winged skeletal creature, in fact, this card is all about bondage...bondage to outmoded ideas that are no longer useful...bondage as in addictions....bondage to our weaknesses and bondage that comes from letting our boundaries be crossed without respect.

When I look at the two little figures that are chained to the pillar, one can only notice that if these little animals really wanted to, they could quite easily slip from the chains that hold them. Why do they stay...is it out of duty...is it out of fear....? Change is a life altering event but if we continue to sit in fear and remain chained to the old ways, what a sad lonely life lies ahead of us.

It takes greater courage to shed our fears and take bold new steps to improving our situation and our outlook on the world because if we can change our own world, what's to stop us from enacting that change in the world around us? Try something positive and new today and see how it affects the world around you.

Why Yes, My Number Really Is 666.

I bet that number got your attention...it happens all the time... audible gasps, people visibly twitch... some even find that suddenly they have somewhere else to be and quickly shuffle off murmuring to themselves. Even the very thought of that number brings controversy so allow me to fuel the fire. Being in the craft can sometimes be interesting, I get a lot of blank stares after being asked what my religious affiliation is and I answer witchcraft... no one is really sure if I'm actually confessing that I am a witch or just yanking their chain and when I'm asked for my phone number it just goes downhill from there. 666 is a number with such a vivid and powerful stigma attached to it that sometimes you just gotta laugh because otherwise all the Prozac in the world could not solve the issues that this number has been known to cause. Just the other day, my friend Peggy wrote her 666th blog posting on Laila and Minchie (there is a link to her blog on the right side of my page) and everyone held their breath....she emailed me just a bit ago so I was able to draw the conclusion that she did not explode and there was no appearance of the anti-christ materializing in a cloud of fire and brimstone. A few comments on her post mentioned the humor in it, ( most did not) but I'm guessing the younger crowd is not as knowledgable about this topic as we older folks are and that's ok with me. For argument's sake allow me to slip in a bit of history on the origin of "The number of the beast"... While reading the information in Wikipedia, I was suprised to see that historians and theologians are now starting to come to the conclusion that more than likely the translation was erroneously understood to be 666 but in fact is probably 616 instead and had more to do with numerology and Nero or Caligula than a christian concept associated with the devil . (In my spiritual beliefs, the devil does not exist and did not in any way, shape or form appear in any activities practiced by the early pagan cultures.) Hmm, interesting.... I suppose you can start sending that email now... I have even given it thought as to maybe including my phone number ...(my actual telephone number is area code (360) and the prefix is 666-**** ) but I won't put the last four digits in because my nerves could not handle it's constant ringing from unsettled readers calling to chew me out but here in Battle Ground, Washington the telephone prefix really is 666!

To read the Wikipedia article:

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_the_Beast)