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It's been a long time since I was really excited and intrigued by a new 'how-to' book on reading the Tarot. Dr. Yoav Ben-Dov's Tarot—The Open Reading is a book I just have to share with you. Ben-Dov describes the Tarot as a work of art, through whose details a full range of human experiences can be revealed. First, the book features the Marseilles Tarot deck—a deck that's gaining greater interest and appreciation among English-speaking Tarotists. This deck is pre-occultized, as the images are not modified to conform with esoteric systems. While not identical to early 15th century decks, it expresses a folk tradition that dominated for at least three hundred years (out of the nearly 600 year history of Tarot) and is still the major style found in much of Europe. Additionally, Ben-Dov has created what I believe to be the most elegant restoration of the classic Conver Marseille deck available (see below). This process aided him in his close attention to detail in the cards.
What has been notably missing in English Tarot literature are good, non-Waite-based meanings for the four suits. You need look no further. The focus here is on reading the cards through the scenarios one perceives when looking at the images. For the Majors, Ben-Dov says the possibilities are open. Nevertheless, he points out valuable interpretive perspectives derived from symbolic, historical and mythological associations, many of which I found both original and obvious (once-stated)—in other words, extremely helpful as kick-starter phrases for the cards. Through comparison and contrast of visual details he demonstrates how the cards relate to one another. Emphasis is on a therapeutic approach, rather than being predictive or proscriptive. Providing an excellent introduction to practical reading skills, he stresses developing familiarity with psychological practices, for which he specifically recommends Irvin D. Yalom's outstanding guide to interacting effectively with clients, The Gift of Therapy.
Previous authors stressed one of three approaches to the Minor pip cards: 1) a straightforward transfer of the Waite-Smith Minor Arcana meanings to the Marseille deck, 2) a memorized meanings often derived from Etteilla, or 3) a personal synthesis of number-plus-suit meanings for each card. Ben-Dov bases his Minor Arcana explications on the work of Alejandro Jodorowsky, emphasizing visual cues in the cards along with number, which make their arrangements 'sensible,' and therefore easy to learn and build on. His descriptions of the thematic progression within the Major and Minor suits provide an immediate handle on each. In keeping with his therapeutic approach, the Court Cards represent attitudes and characteristics of the querent rather than other people, although there's nothing to stop you from applying them to others. I only wish that Ben-Dov had included sample readings utilizing the Minors like he did for the Majors, as his examples were so insightful.
Spreads are kept simple, with some innovative approaches to working with both Major and Minor suit cards that are well-worth trying out. His instructions for creating your own spreads gives you an infinite palette of deeply meaningful options to choose from.
I have two pet peeves: Ben-Dov completely ignores the first two hundred years of Tarot's history when he describes the Marseille Tarot as the 'genuine model', with the 'true order' for the cards, saying it offers, "the most faithful and accurate representation of the ancient Tarot symbols." The oldest decks (15th century Italian) are quite different in style, and there were several different orders for the cards in its first century. It would be better to describe the Marseille-style decks as the most long-lasting, consistent design (which is not to be scoffed at). My second pet peeve involves misunderstandings of the Golden Dawn system of Tarot reading, resulting in minor errors that are not centrally relevant to this work. Personally, I think he should have left out his few Golden Dawn references or listed the differences in an appendix.
Overall, this book offers fresh, practical instructions for reading the Marseille Tarot that will give you a great appreciation for the details and special characteristics of the deck that first inspired tarot divination. Additionally you will gain lots of valuable insights into the reading process itself.
Works Mentioned:
Tarot—The Open Reading by Dr. Yoav Ben-Dov.
The CBD Tarot de Marseille deck, created by Dr. Yoav Ben-Dov.
The CBD Tarot de Marseille app for Android.
The Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients by Irvin D. Yalom, M.D.
The Way of Tarot by Alejandro Jodorowsky.
Note: Yoav Ben-Dov has generously made his deck and basic interpretations freely available for use for non-commercial purposes via the Creative Commons concept – http://www.cbdtarot.com/download/
Want a good, medieval mystery to read? The Song of the Nightingale by Alys Clare, sent this blogger, C. LaVielle, on a journey into the real life mystery of the origins of Tarot. As she notes, a Cathar origin is not really feasible, but its origins among "progressive Catholics who used existing Christian Apocalyptic art" is. This is an excellent summary of that perspective. The photo above is a 15th century fresco on the side of a Confraternity Chapel in Clusone, Italy. It depicts both a Dance of Death and a Triumph of Death and includes several figures that appear in the Tarot. Read the article at C. LaVielle's Book Jacket Blog.
(Thanks to Mel Parsons for turning me on to the book and blog post.)
I went to see the play, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" last night. As I like to do, I drew cards before going so I could contemplate them during the performance. It enhances the experience for me to be more aware of the dynamics, character conflict and themes as they are occuring.
For those who don't remember the movie with Liz Taylor and Richard Burton, or who never saw the play: A middle-aged couple, George and Martha, have invited a young couple, Nick and Honey, over for late night drinks after a dinner party. What follows is a series of drunken mind games getting more and more deadly as they all head straight for nuclear armageddon. It was played as a very black comedy. Luckily, it was done by a local troupe of fine actors who gave the play their own unique twist. I focused on George and Martha.
I hadn't remembered many details of the drama, so I was thrilled by how perfect the cards turned out to be. I did two spreads. The first one was with the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot. What was I to think when three out of five cards were reversed Court Cards? As it turned out, the play provided excellent examples of how these Court Card types can "go wrong."
• What is Martha's core need or issue? King of Pentacles reversed.
Martha definitely has father issues. Her father is president of the college where her husband teaches in the history department, a sorry disappointment in that George never fulfilled the potential for which Martha had picked him—to become head of his department and eventually take her father's place. Really, she is the one who should have done so; she, we are told, "wears the pants in the family." But, her father has never really "seen" her. George sees that she's the one who should have been king and he keeps her from falling into total despair.
• What is George's core need or issue? Knight of Swords reversed.
George wields words like a sword, slashing and burning with derision, scorn and disgust all who come within his reach. A word-smith, he's comfortable with attack and is always looking for a worthy opponent, only most of them fall far too easily beneath his sword. Martha does not.
He's also her Knight in Shining Armor, tarnished beyond repair and, if we are to believe him, the agent of the deaths of both his mother and his father.
• What is the main theme? Queen of Cups reversed.
While many other themes can be found, this card clearly points to this one: how we hurt those we love and how little love there can be when one doesn't love oneself. It suggests the lengths they will go in order to not feel sorry for themselves, despite being emotional wrecks.
Among other things, this theme is played out through the failure of both couples to have given birth, to have had a child—the empty, deflated womb (poof!). The card could also be a nod to the alcoholic haze they are all in.
• What is the central conflict?
The Chariot reversed, crossed by Death.
This is war; a horrible end is always just around the corner, the death of every supposed victory cuts off one-after-another means of escape or reconciliation. The play culminates with a fresh story, concocted by George, the botched novelist, in which he tells Martha that a telegram has been delivered informing them of the death of their son on the day before his 21st birthday. The Chariot is often seen as the son of the Empress and Emperor (3+4 = 7). That the existence of a son is just another game they play with each other doesn't diminish the agony of a mortal wound—the seeming death of another piece of themselves and their relationship—that ultimately strips them down to the bare bones of who they are.
I also drew five cards from the Petit Lenormand Deck asking for a description of the plot, and I got:
Heart – Mountain – Letter – Book – Man
24-Heart: love and relationships
21-Mountain: blocks, obstacles, barriers
27-Letter: written communications, documents
26-Book: secrets, knowledge, books
28-Man: a man, the querent or significant other
This is the story of love (Heart) that has insurmountable blocks (Mountain) keeping it hidden (Book) and from being communicated (Letter). George (Man) wrote (Letter) his biggest secrets (Book) in a book that never got published (Mountain – blocked by Martha's father). The characters are continually sending messages to each other, uncovering secrets in an attempt to touch on their true hearts that are unreachable behind the barriers they've erected in their disfunctional lives. As I mentioned, George (Man) is the wordsmith who is essentially composing (Letter+Book) all the scenarios (the scripts-within-the-script) to get at what is most deeply barricaded (Mountain) in each person's heart (Heart). The Letter is also central when George claims that a telegram has arrived reporting the death of their supposed-to-be-secret son (Book+Man).
Finally, I added the numbers of these cards together and got 126, reducing it to 9-Bouquet (1+2+6=9). This stumped me at first. What could the plot have to do with a beautiful gift or invitation? Of course!—the play opens with Martha having invited the other couple over for drinks. But I was even more astounded when George mockingly presents Martha with a bouquet of flowers that he proceeds to throw at her, stem by stem.
Before the play, I also felt compelled to look at two other cards contained within that sum of 126: 12-Birds and 6-Clouds. These were perfect to describe a play that is all about conversations (Birds) or, more properly, dialogs between two couples (Birds can also mean two or a couple) that play on deliberate misunderstandings, fears, doubts, instability, sensibilities fogged with alcohol, and confusion as to what is true and what isn't (Clouds).
Decks: The 1910 (Pamela"A") Rider-Waite-Smith deck. The Königsfurt Lenormand Orakelspielkarten, based on the 19th century Dondorf Lenormand (borders cut off).
Also check out my post involving reading for the movie, Beasts of the Southern Wild.
I'm proud to announce that The Tarot of the Magicians by Oswald Wirth (RedWheel/Weiser), with an extensive introduction by me, won the Award for the Best Book of 2012 from TarotProfessionals. This is a classic work by one of the great French occultists of the late 19th and early 20th century that should be read and re-read by all serious Tarot students. The book also contains the first reproduction of Wirth's original 1889 Tarot (only 350 produced), on fine card stock—ready to be cut out and used. If you get only one tarot book in 2013, it should be this. Please share your impressions of this outstanding book.
Have you ever noticed that after seeing some films you are snappish or silent, yearning or ponderous, giggly or jumpy, and that the affects can last for minutes, hours or even days, abducting us from our normal means of perception?
I was reading one of my all-time favorite books Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology by David Abram and came to the part where he describes his own growing awareness that certain movies and books would "surreptitiously enter into my bloodstream, like a contagion . . . a curious spell that my organism was under." He further characterizes these effects as a "capacity for being drawn, physiologically, into the terrain of certain stories—abducted into another landscape that would only belatedly release me back into the palpable present." His description is reminiscent of being stolen away into the land of fairy.
I recently experienced such a state after going to see "Beasts of the Southern Wild": my friends noticed that I couldn't speak after the movie and that I refused their ride so I could walk home alone. I realized that Abram's insights provided a second part to my established practice of active reading and movie-viewing, in which I draw cards before partaking of the work so as to sharpen my perception and enrich my understanding and appreciation of the work. Based on Abram's commentary I've designed a spread that assists us in seeing how a work ensorcells us, temporarily coloring our perceptions and feelings and even influencing our actions.
Place the first six cards in a clockwise circle, beginning at the top, with the seventh card in the center.
1. What feeling tone colors my general outlook after seeing the film (or reading the book)?
2. How does this influence my immediate approach or response to things?
3. What fears does it stir?
4. What longings awaken?
5. What shifts do I perceive in my immediate surroundings? How do I see things differently?
6. What do I need from those around me? And, once I've answered that: How can I give this to myself?
7. What is the major lesson that this work offers me?
I went to see this movie because some friends had invited me, based on the recommendation of another friend. Before going I knew nothing about it and couldn't even remember the title. So, I thought I'd try out the Petit Lenormand cards as a prediction of plot. I got Lilies-Clouds-Snake-Scythe-Whip, all of them Court Cards. Turns out it was pretty darn accurate for "Beasts of the Southern Wild." It's a coming-of-age mythic fable about a little girl, Hushpuppy, and her father who live on a fragile island, the Bathtub, south of the Louisiana dikes in the Gulf. It also features other people who exist in these unbelievably harsh conditions (all the Court Cards). There's the dying father, a huge storm, a wise female teacher (as well as a dream-like encounter with a mother-figure), the poisoning of the creatures on the island, breaking through the dike, lots of arguments, and the inhabitants battle with the authorities. It's an emotionally wrenching film with incredible acting – especially by the young girl and her father.
I drew five cards:
- Lilies -Family (also innocence and Father)
- Clouds – the Storm
- Snake – Poison/Wise Woman (at the center)
- Scythe – Decision to stay on the island; Death and Destruction
- Whip – Arguments, violent activity
An even better way to read Lenormand is in pairs:
- Lilies+Clouds – disfunctional family or problems with the father.
- Clouds+Snake – bad mojo, lack of clarity regarding a woman.
- Snake+Scythe - cut off from a woman; a treacherous decision; a poisonous death.
- Scythe+Whip – violent cutting, a decisive battle.
I was prepared for what could be a very dark, tragic film. It almost was, but something else broke through. My strongest thought during the intermission (they have to change the reels at our local art theatre) was, I couldn't live like that! Several people left.
I later did a reading with the Mary-El Tarot to help me explore my conscious and unconscious reactions, responding directly to her images. I'll only mention a few brief highlights of what I saw.
1. What colors my general outlook? 5 of Wands. First thought on looking at the growling red lion: "red-in-tooth-and-claw". I had a very visceral reaction that touched on my most primitive fight-flight-freeze physiology.
2. How does this influence my immediate approach or response to things? 10 of Wands. This shows a warrior with bow and arrows on a horse. Flight. But I also wanted to be a defender of the movie to those who were repelled by it.
3. What fears does it stir? Page of Disks. This image of a sleeping baby with marks like nails surrounding it arouses my protectiveness. I fear that something primally innocent – the exquisite nature of the sentiment in the film – might be harmed. I also fear that I might slumber when I should awaken.
4. What longings awaken? Knight of Disks. The next stage of maturity: Knight as protector of the Page/Baby of Disks. This immediately reminded me of the scene shown in the lead photo above. I long to stand up for and to what might otherwise overwhelm us.
5. What shifts do I perceive in my immediate surroundings? How do I see things differently? 7 of Disks. I see a split, like two separate meteors. I am aware of the lack of words when I feel drawn out of myself.
6. What do I need from those around me? How can I give this to myself? The Tower. Strong words and opinions. Instead, both I and my friends retreated into silence. I can give myself the words, the surpressed fury, the burning to act on this film in some way.
7. What is the major lesson that this work offers me? Ace of Wands. That some creative spark can be birthed out of this fiery angelic torment. The reading is all Fire and Earth.
Words still fail me. Please let me know what you thought of the film and/or your experience in reading cards for enhancing your experience of films and books.
Marcus Katz and Tali Goodwin are today delighted to announce that Abiding in the Sanctuary: The Waite-Trinick Tarot, a Christian Mystical Tarot (1917 – 1923) is published and available here.
They write:
The book is hardback, with dustcover, 186pp in colour, 8"x10". It is published in a limited edition of 250 copies. There is a preview on the site.
We are honoured to have a preface in the book by Mary K. Greer, who kindly supplied an introduction to Waite's lifetime work and also discovered a "prophecy" that Waite had made about the revelation of hidden symbols after a century! Whilst not wishing to make too much of that, it is somewhat uncanny, and accords with some of the visionary experiences that came with the production of the work, which we tell in our own introductions.
The book also includes a double-page spread of the Tree of Life and Waite's hidden system of correspondences, correspondence tables and a commentary against each image. With over 80 full page colour and b&w images, original biographical research and photographs and even rare Frieda Harris images of Masonic Tracing Boards, we trust this book will be a treasure for a long time to come. We gained permissions to use stained glass images, archive photographs and much more which we include in the book – at the last minute discovering and gaining permission to use a photograph of the Lanston Monotype Company shop floor, around the time of this story, where we suspect the plates were created for the b&w images of the Great Symbols. Whilst research is always incomplete, this book represents everything we know to date on the Great Symbols and it is a joy to share.
If you are seriously interested you should order a copy right away as they expect to sell out within the month.
¶ I will be interviewed this Wednesday, Nov. 9th on Blogtalk Radio – Pagan Perspectives by Rev Sylvanus Treewalker – 6pm CST or 4pm PST. We'll be talking about my latest book, Who Are You in the Tarot? Follow the link to chat and listen to the radio interview live or after the show. Read the latest review of my book here.
¶ Artist Hugo Baur recently painted this watercolor portrait of Waite and Smith that he calls "The High Priestess and the Magician."
As the Waite-Smith tarot was the result of a collaboration I only thought it natural to make a double portrait. Nevertheless I don't hold much sympathy for Waite as he didn't pay Pamela the money and respect she deserved. Still, without him this deck would never have existed, and his influence on the major arcana was considerable. But no explanation is needed for the fact that I placed Pamela in the centre and on the foreground, as it is her artwork and unbelievable spiritual insight that made the Waite Smith deck so special. I hope that fellow admirers of Pamela will consider this painting to be a truthfull homage to an artist that never got the respect she deserved.
¶ Just read a novel from 1987 with a good sprinkling of tarot in it: Second Sight by Mary Tannen. It recounts the intertwined lives of at least four families in a small, New Jersey industrial town. The plot revolves around a single working mother (a tarot and palm reader) finding "The One" she is destined to be with, and a young historian uncovering the complex interrelationships that lie at the base of the continually evolving town. While an essentially light and easy read, this book explores deeper themes and more complex literary symbolism than one would expect from the simple story line:—mysticism versus greed, old families versus new immigrants, nature versus industry. It deserves a good read and is readily available second-hand.
¶ I have a limited number of DVDs available from the two webinars I did for Global Spiritual Studies (include PowerPt presentations):
- "An Analysis of the Role of Cartomancers through Western Art" – 2 DVDs – $32 (includes mailing in the US)
- "Who Are You in the Tarot?" – 1 DVD – $20 (includes mailing in the US)
Payable through PayPal – contact me here if you are interested.
I'm working on an overview of the Italy Tarot Tour, but with nearly 2,000 photos and an unbelievable number of wonderful experiences, it's hard to know what to select. I want to mention a few things that have come up in the meantime and I'm trying out the BlogPress app on my iPad (all mistakes are due to this).
Check out Destined: A Novel of the Tarot, a book-in-progress by Gail Cleare at authonomy.com. The story is built around the 22 Major Arcana of the Payen Tarot (an early Marseilles-style deck) and her encounter with an esoteric scholar who owns an old curio shop. It can be read directly online for free, and you can offer suggestions to the author, so get in your helpful criticisms before the book is finished.
I've come across several novels recently that include some tarot in them.
First is the 4th and 5th books of Sara Donati's Wilderness series:
Fire Along the Sky and Queen of Swords. These books are epic, romantic melodramas that may or may not be to your taste. The use of tarot is a little anachronistic, even given that it is post-de Gébelin, but I'm not really complaining – it's lite fiction.
Mystery writer Martha Grimes includes a little tarot in two books in her Emma Graham series:
Belle Ruin and its follow-up Fadeaway Girl. Both contain a fortune-teller who reads tarot cards. In the second book, the 5 of Pentacles is described as "Orphans in the Snow" and the Hanged Man shows up as a 'good' card, reflecting the twists and turns of the plot and the main character's indirect way of questioning people, or, perhaps, one of the book's themes – about the difference between fiction and reality. I enjoyed the "fadeaway" motif.
I understand that the new book, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, has a little tarot in it.
In an earlier post I talked about the Daily Tarot Journal, pointing out Quirkeries – a Personal Tarot Book of Days as one model for using a blog to record your readings. While you can set a blog to private, you may not feel comfortable with an internet format. A much more private option is available FREE for the iPhone, iPad and Android. It is Moment Diary, also known simply as MD. Simplicity is its theme. It provides a handy format for keeping daily records and allows you to include a photo or video of your cards. The video is really great if you'd rather speak instead of typing your card observations. I recommend starting out with a consistent system for naming your daily tarot card(s) so you can search on all appearances of any card. I believe you can use hashtags as a quick way of listing them. The only real failings are limited design/font options and not being able to send the entries to your social media – but Moment Diary is designed to be private and elegantly simple within a calendrical format.
Finally, you might want to look into what's going on with DC 40 and the 51 Days of Reformation Intercession organized by the New Apostolic Reformation movement, a group that presidential hopeful, Rick Perry, has claimed as an inspiration. They believe that God's word should be the legal and governmental authority in the United States, and that Christians should acknowledge no other. Compromise is ungodly and any form of feminine Goddess is demonic. This includes, if course, Columbia (patron Goddess of the United States, i.e., District of Columbia) and Lady Liberty. Read about their prayer initiative at PNC-Minnesota Bureau and The Wild Hunt. They may sound like a fringe group, but with people like Rick Perry taking them seriously, we need to be aware of their influence. Personally, I am erecting an altar to Goddess Columbia to send her my share of positive juice. Perhaps she needs a tarot deck dedicated to her . . .
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad. Follow-up note: BlogPress crashed when I was trying to save, but I was able to recover most of my material in the iTunes backup.
ENRIQUE ENRIQUEZ: If we were to meet for the first time ever, without me knowing anything about who you are, how would you describe what you do, and how would you describe this new book? [This interview was originally posted at tarology (beta).]
MARY K. GREER: Hi, I'm Mary Greer, I am a teacher, writer and tarot reader. I use tarot cards as a tool for personal insight and creativity, and I do tarot readings with others to assist them in accessing their own wisdom around their personal issues. My latest book is Who Are You in the Tarot? It is a revised and expanded version of my earlier book, Tarot Constellations that teaches you how to find Tarot cards that are personal to you, your family, friends and clients based on birth date, name and the current year, along with court card significators. It also includes descriptions of each of these and methods for working with your cards to learn more about them, yourself and others.
ENRIQUE ENRIQUEZ: There is a moment before we know, and then there is The Moment we know. There may be a fraction of a second apart, and even so, they define two completely different realities. When did you know this was the book you needed to write and why?
MARY K. GREER: I have to remember back to the mid-1980s when I wrote my first book on this topic. I learned the Birth Card technique from Angeles Arrien in 1977 and have been using it ever since. When it didn't look like her own tarot book would be coming out soon, I asked permission to write my work using her technique, for which Angie graciously gave me permission. Firstly, it was a great technique about which I was excited and wanted to share with as many people as possible. And, secondly, I found myself saying the same basic things over and over in classes and readings about the card combinations. I thought it would be much more expeditious to just write down what I found worked best for people. I always create class handouts, so the materials kept evolving and my students wanted more. Unfortunately, my first publisher died and Tarot Constellations went out-of-print. I thought about revising it for years, so, when an editor at RedWheel/Weiser contacted me about doing a new book on the subject, I just said, "Yes, now's the time."
ENRIQUE ENRIQUEZ: What can you tell me about your process? How do you write your books?
MARY K. GREER: Each book is different. After writing my first three books I taught a lot of classes on how to write a non-fiction New Age book (which seemed to fit the broadest category I could speak to). Now I realize how different each book can be. Essentially I find that if I write about whatever excites me most, eventually everything becomes exciting at some point, even if only because, once I finish that piece, the section will be done. Mostly I write at the computer and, if I feel stuck, I tell myself to start anywhere—even in mid-thought. I also allow myself to use crutch words or phrases, like "it's very, very important to remember that," because, if I try to censor them, I'll freeze up. They are so easy to take out later. I rewrite a lot.
My ex-husband, travel-writer, Ed Buryn, edited all my earlier books and essentially taught me how to write, which my M.A. in English hadn't succeeded in doing. I use all kinds of tricks, like writing a difficult passage as a letter to someone or bitching about my pet peeves so that I can eventually discover what I really do like and believe in—often handwriting these and then just incorporating the good parts.
I've found the book proposal process that most publishers demand to be a great help in the early stages of figuring out what I need to know (who my audience is, how my book is similar and different to others, etc.), organizing and outlining the book, and much more. I suggest downloading publisher book proposal instructions and filling them out in the early stages of your book writing process.
ENRIQUE ENRIQUEZ: You have been writing and publishing, for a couple of decades now. Perhaps you started at a time when the boundaries between authors and reader was more clear. Now everybody's thoughts can be read. Everybody has a workshop to teach, a 'method' to share and some 'expertise' to cash on. We are all Facebook experts. Do you feel in any particular way about that? Does this makes your work easier, more difficult, or different in any way?
MARY K. GREER: Generally speaking I think it's great. We all get to share what we know. Hearing from others keeps breaking open my unconscious assumptions and helps me to see things in new and different ways. Perhaps the only thing that is disconcerting is that anyone back in the 1980s who was well-read regarding tarot books knew who had initiated fresh perspectives. Now material gets passed around endlessly and old material gets presented as new proprietary ideas with no regard to what came before. On one hand there is a mad grab for "ownership" and on the other hand there is total disregard for acknowledgement of the hard work done by others. It is true that people will continually re-invent certain classic ideas, or may have heard something briefly from which they spun their own take. On the whole, though, I think we benefit greatly from an international community who are often very generous with their work. I must say, though, that to keep up is becoming more and more difficult and time-consuming. Eeek!
ENRIQUE ENRIQUEZ: Do the readers create a (need for) a book, or is it the book the one that creates its readers?
MARY K. GREER: Both. A lot of times I've discovered through experiments in classes that there are things that people need that they don't even know about or may have rejected as a possibility out of misguided assumptions. Before the 1980s almost all books on the tarot said you shouldn't read the cards for yourself, yet everybody I knew did (guiltly). I was also teaching classes at a college on personal journal techniques and on learning skills (that used step-by-step workbooks). They seemed a perfect fit to me and precipitated one of those "moments" you mentioned earlier. I could see how to use these skills and methods to turn problems with reading for yourself into benefits. In fact, a major theme in all my writing has been how do we safely turn taboos into insights by going deeper into something than we would if we avoided it out of a little understood fear?
I also looked through a lot of books to find a "voice" that seemed natural to me and sounded as if the author were speaking directly to me as a friend. My idea was to share with other people the things that turned me on the most. I wanted to push as many boundaries as I could in myself. I also wanted people to experience these things for themselves—not just read about them. I accepted then, as I do now, that not everyone is going to like this approach.
ENRIQUE ENRIQUEZ: Are "year cards" and "Birth Cards" similar to a "Significator" card?
MARY K. GREER: Certainly, any card that a person identifies with can be used to signify that person in a reading. In spreads, where the significator is left in the pack and so can turn up anywhere in a spread (or not), then its placement is usually important and may indicate a dividing line between past and present or it can indicate that cards nearest it are most important. I talk a little about significators in my book but it is not a major emphasis. Any time someone sees a card they relate to personally in a spread they tend to pay extra attention to what it's doing. I make a lot of suggestions in my book for how you can use special cards on their own for contemplation as well as how you can make use of them in readings.
ENRIQUE ENRIQUEZ: Does a Birth Card show us our destiny, or is it showing us a destination? Is there a difference?
MARY K. GREER: No, I don't believe a Birth Card shows a particular destination. I describe the Soul Card as pointing to something we need in order to feel a sense of fulfillment. Fate, fortune and destiny are often used interchangeably and each has been defined differently through the ages. As I see it, fate is marked by where we've come from. It's all the habits, personality characteristics, emotional and chemical reactions that are part of our history, body, psychology and DNA. Knowing the past, we can pretty much predict what a person is likely to do, like if I say, "I was fated to end up in California." Fortune is what we encounter along the way. Destiny is an urge or longing that tends to pull us toward things, but there is no guarantee that we'll get there (wherever 'there' is). In fact, I don't think there is a single destiny/destination (for most of us, anyway). When fate and destiny collude/collide there's usually a sense of having found either your purpose or destruction (as in 'destined' for a bad end). It's not so much a destination as a fulfillment, to some degree, of potential. This is something I think about a lot but don't fully understand—it's still a mystery to me.
ENRIQUE ENRIQUEZ: Why do you think so much about it? What is important about this?
MARY K. GREER: I tend to think about tarot philosophically and any deep consideration of tarot is going to lead to an examination of chance and probability and get into questions of fate and free will. In fact, this summer's Omega Tarot Conference that I organized with Rachel Pollack had the theme of "Fate and Free Will." I am intrigued by the whole idea of fate, fortune/chance, free will, and destiny and where these ideas can take us. I even created a spread to examine how these four are operating in one's life. It was inspired by a line from Dante's Inferno: Se voler fu o destino o fortuna, non so ("if it was will or fate or chance, I do not know"—Canto 32). Well, I want to know. I like words and appreciate definitions; I think that the differences being designated can be important in understanding what we make of our lives. I get pleasure out of an elegant analysis, and sometimes I get pleasure out of letting go and not having to analyze anything.
ENRIQUE ENRIQUEZ: I am interested in what you are saying because it seems to me that most of the knowledge produced in the tarot world circulates in the form of 'recipes'. An idea seems to be of value only if you can go and "do it at home". The 'tarot author' seems forced to channel Martha Stewart! People seem to want to know about methods, spreads, keys and things like that. How important is it to think about tarot philosophically? Is this something that comes down to each reader's way to come to terms to the big Whys of what he or she is doing? How is that different from 'belief'?
MARY K. GREER: I try to keep my philosophical tarot mutterings to a minimum, because I find, personally, that unless philosophy is really eloquently and beautifully said and deeply profound, which I'm usually not, it's not really worth the expression. One person's philosophy is another person's ramblings. Each reader and each client has their own perspective.
Generally, I like philosophy to inform us of something relevant and useful, and therefore I like to ground a concept in some application to our daily lives. A spread is a good test of the principles I'm exploring and my ability to understand them. I often turn spiritual and philosophical statements from great teachers into spreads like the Dante one. Basically, I create a spread position for each significant word or phrase in a quote. It either becomes a spread that anyone can use for deep insight, or I discover it can only be understood with a lot of explanation (in which case I might not share it with others). Rarely, it will not work at all.
This is different from 'belief,' in that I am 'trying out' the philosophy or ideas to see how my life looks from that perspective. I want to know if it leads to deep insights, greater well-being, compassionate understanding of myself and others, better choices and enhanced goals, etc. This also makes me a much more active reader. I tend to carry on conversations in my head with authors who inspire me, and tarot helps me do that.
I should mention that, when doing a reading, I try to operate within the client's own world view, unless I feel absolutely compelled to mention a particular conceptual framework because the cards keep screaming it at me. Of course, we are never totally free from our own philosophy, but I really question whether a client needs to hear about mine (occasionally they do).
ENRIQUE ENRIQUEZ: I like to think of tarot readings as synthetic dreams. Sometimes in a dream we see ourselves as someone-something else. We know it is us, but at the same time it isn't. There is a whole field of meaning between what we are and the way we see ourselves as "something else". Do Birth Cards, or year cards, work like that?
MARY K. GREER: Definitely they can. They give us a chance to try out a variety of perspectives. I may be a Hermit/Moon, but in a Wheel of Fortune year I get to 'try on' sensations of moving quickly, being more social or in the public eye, and may find that my words spread further afield. But all of these are only Personas that I put on in order to see what I look like in that garb, and this includes my Hermit/Moon self. It's analogous to an element/figure that turns up in a great many dreams, to the extent that it's well-known and comfortable, but I might not notice it as much as I do the new dream persona that alerts me with disturbing or unusual characteristics (like a Hermit being in a Wheel or Chariot Year).
ENRIQUE ENRIQUEZ: Something that comes to mind is the zodiac-sign notion, where a specific symbol is "given" to us by the happenstance of our birth date. Somehow zodiac-signs allow us to explain ourselves away as a certain set of fixed personality traits. How do you see that dialogue between a tarot deck that is always in flow, always ready to give us a chance encounter with an image, and a birth-card, something that stays with us, something that is set for us by the biographical milestone of our own birth.
MARY K. GREER: We respond to chance encounters in the moment of a reading. The card is viewed in relation to the immediate question and to other cards in the reading. With Birth Cards, we can continue to explore how they relate to us for our whole lives and can watch our special relationship to them evolve over time.
Any system used for defining people can be limiting. That's why I like looking at a multitude of systems—to get a fuller picture. They also help us articulate things we might not have been able to see or understand otherwise. Personality systems allow us to look at ourselves through a bunch of different colored glasses or different shaped mirrors. Each highlights something the others don't see. One of the greatest benefits is to learn compassion for others through recognizing that others have ways of being and acting that are essentially different than our own. Seeing this in them helps us see such things in ourselves.
For instance, I used to get furious when my Lovers Soul Card husband would make plans for "us" without asking me first. I came to realize that he was a "we-thinker," whereas I, with my Hermit Soul Card, am an "I" thinker who decides on my own path and then may ask others if they want to join me. I assumed others should think and act the same way I did. But, my spouse was not being thoughtless or rude. He had different unconscious assumptions about relationships than I did. I also came to understand this part of my own automatic way of approaching things. Our Soul Cards gave us a way of recognizing, talking about, and respecting this dynamic.
By the way, sun-sign astrology is terribly limiting and possibly the least interesting of all the information found in an astrology chart. Each element in each personality system reflects a specific aspect of self. Experience teaches you to recognize what these are. Furthermore, as a person becomes more conscious and aware, the kinds of things reflected tend to change because they can reflect a new level of meaning. For instance in a reading, Pentacles, for some people, represent shelter, food and money, while other people are secure in these and, therefore, respond at an more abstract level of security, worth and value.
ENRIQUE ENRIQUEZ: I agree with you about zodiac-signs being fairly uninteresting, yet the idea seems simple enough to appeal to the vastest amount of people. The idea of a Birth Card also seems to fit in our long-to-belong. Do you find that people respond better to the images when they are framed as birth/year/soul cards than when they aren't?
MARY K. GREER: Actually I meant Sun Signs. Zodiac signs, in tropical astrology are simply symbolic divisions of the solar year mapping the location of planets in an astrological chart. I find the study of astrology and of one's chart to be very rewarding.
As to responding better to the tarot images as Birth Cards—some do and some don't. I certainly don't think everyone has to use this system! It's only an option. I have noticed, however, that in beginner classes, it's a wonderful way to get people quickly involved with the cards—first with their own personal cards and then expanding to those near and dear to them. Before you know it, they have a personal relationship with all the trump cards—they have seen them in action, so to speak.
ENRIQUE ENRIQUEZ: How does the idea of Birth/Soul Card relate to Jung's archetypes?
MARY K. GREER: As is frequently pointed out, each of the Major Arcana relate to primordial ideas that Jung called archetypes. With Birth Cards, we get to see how the related archetypes align with our life direction and how that archetype symbolizes core patterns of growth and change. If it works for you, great! If it doesn't, then find concepts that serve you better.
ENRIQUE ENRIQUEZ: Is the 'chance operation' of picking a random card out of a deck the same kind of chance of picking a card based on our date of birth?
MARY K. GREER: Not at all. "Chance" (if there is such a thing as chance) exists in the moment and day we are born, not in the card. There's no chance in the way the numbers add up, and I don't think chance is involved in which cards correspond with which numbers. Think of it this way: each of us is born into a particular culture, defined in part by the way we look at time and the calendar we use. In theory, our Birth Cards reflect our relationship to that. There's no way to prove whether or not there is intent behind this, but I find that when I act "as if" there were, "as if" I were drawn to experience this life through a particular season, day, minute, then I find I can experience my life in much more meaningful and exciting ways. It enhances my life and relationships with other people.
ENRIQUE ENRIQUEZ: I like your "as if" proposition. I find it very healthy to apply it every time I look at the tarot, but I also think it is useful when we consider all the intellectual beacons of our culture, like Marxism, Freudian theory, or any religion in general. Now, how can we put the "as if" in our readings, when so many clients look for certainties in the tarot?
MARY K. GREER: Of course, I'm always acting "as if" the tarot can offer worth while insights to me, and as if they were magic and magic were real, because then they tend to work that way for me. The biggest "as if" for me, when reading for others, is that I act "as if" my clients have all the wisdom they need inside themselves. The question then becomes, how do I conduct a reading in a way that will actualize their own knowledge and so that they make their own well-considered choices.
I sometimes suggest that clients "try on" a suggestion or perspective "for size"—and offer them more than one perspective. Then I ask how each "fits." I want the client to always be evaluating things for themselves. I also sometimes say things I deliberately know are wrong so a client can "correct" me. It can be a way to help them realize they already know something or have made a judgment or choice inside that they hadn't yet recognized consciously. Perhaps I over-emphasize the conditional, but I try to always remember that my own invasive judgments and proclivities may not be appropriate for another person, so I keep giving clients choices until they seem to have ended up at some kind of destination, and then I ask them if this is where they really want to be. Thus, a tarot reading can be a "dry run" or rehearsal for the future—a trying on of attitudes and approaches.
ENRIQUE ENRIQUEZ: Your idea of "acting 'as if' clients have all the wisdom they need inside themselves" is absolutely beautiful! I think it is very healthy for a reader to assume that all clients are more or less imaginary. I know that I find it very sobering to think that, as a tarot reader, I am imaginary. So, thinking that I am an imaginary tarot reader who speaks to an imaginary client, and we, along with the trumps, are all part of a strange dream, is a delightful thing. That probably is not what you meant, but still, Thanks!
MARY K. GREER: If our whole life is about acting "as if," then we definitely have moved into acting as if life were a dream, and that's a pretty mystical/magical and wondrous place to be. By the way, I also teach classes in "Life as a Dream," in which we look at life events using dream techniques. After a while a person begins to function naturally within a special kind of being-in-the-world that is often mentioned by poets and mystics. Not everyone feels comfortable doing this.
ENRIQUE ENRIQUEZ: Now, I suppose that a Birth Card or a Soul Card could help clients to re-imagine themselves, or even to imagine a way out of themselves. Is that right?
MARY K. GREER: Definitely. And that's where a focusing on the highest and deepest aspects of a card become important. Ultimately, I think we transcend any of these labels, but 'going through' them can, paradoxically, help us to do so.
ENRIQUE ENRIQUEZ: Is there anything in your book for those who don't believe in Fate nor Destiny?
MARY K. GREER: Sure they can try out the mechanics and see if the results serve them in some way. I tried to leave the underlying principles open-ended enough that each person who finds the system intriguing can make of it what they will.
ENRIQUE ENRIQUEZ: Do you remember, and would share, a memory of a reading you did that made you proud?
MARY K. GREER: This one is from fairly early in my tarot reading career. I was visiting my younger brother and his wife and offered to do a reading for her (my brother wasn't interested at all). I remember that I had always thought of my sister-in-law as a rather colorless, please-everyone kind of person. I don't remember any details of the cards, but it quickly became apparent that she thought and felt deeply about things at a level I would never have guessed. When I said this, she started crying and said, "No one has ever seen that in me before." For the first time she felt that someone else had looked beyond the surface and recognized something in her that had never been acknowledged. My whole attitude toward her shifted, and through the years she's proven to be amazingly deep, wise and strong. I don't often read for family and close friends, but I feel that every one of those readings has been powerful and has drawn us closer—perhaps because they've always taken us deep into previously uncharted waters of knowing each other.
I'd also like to mention doing brief readings for several of my mother's ninety-plus year-old friends at her retirement community. Difficulties showed up for each of them, but we faced them squarely, head-on (at that age can you do anything different?) and found a certain attitude or strength of spirit that could serve them. I felt so honored to be able to share a moment with each person that seemed to touch on the core of their being. It was like looking past the veneer that they so graciously kept up, to see them as much richer and braver beings than I had before. Old people often feel like they are not seen anymore.
ENRIQUE ENRIQUEZ: I find it very hard to read for older people, because I am more interested in what they have to say than in whatever I could tell them. I always want to derail the reading and ask them things. Is there any type of client you feel uncomfortable reading for?
MARY K. GREER: I don't do at all well with people who are rigidly lying to themselves—who have created a habit of such deep denial that they daren't let anything else through. I don't feel I should challenge such deeply held defense postures, even when the cards show me what's going on. If I continue the session, I find myself forced into a straightforward reading of the cards based on traditional meanings, which such clients usually reject anyway. When I realize it is not my job to 'fix' them, then I can move into a kind of compassion that just lets them be.
Occasionally someone is so fascinating that I want to just sit and talk with them. Then I have to discipline myself to keep the focus. After all, they are paying me to help them look at a particular concern.
ENRIQUE ENRIQUEZ: You are talking about "compassion," which is certainly a good word to use, although I personally prefer "indifference". A street sign doesn't care if we turn left or right. The job of the sign is to signal, not to make us take the turn. Even so, I have to say that I don't read for enlightened beings looking for the next stepping stone in the development of their inner self, but for women who obsess over their love life, and people in fear of what they cannot control. Half of the time these clients behave as if they have a toothache, and they go to the dentist, and the dentist takes an X-ray and says: "yes, you have a rotten tooth", and they ask the dentist to please take another X-Ray, and then another one, and another one. They keep asking the dentist to do it "one more time" hoping that at some point he will look at one of these X-rays and say: "Look! You are perfectly fine!"
This fascinates me because it links the act of the reading to gambling. Asking the same questions over and over, either in the same reading or over a period of weeks, has the same compulsory feeling of putting coins in a slot-machine. There is an entrancing irrationality in the whole process, and I tend to treat such irrationality as I would treat a soap bubble. I do my best at letting it float, without attempting to pop it out. I think that irrationality is the 'Prima Materia' of tarot readings and any other kind of divination. What do you think?
MARY K. GREER: Some people, although they may not know it, are looking for a definitive sign that says, "now is the time to move on," but they don't know what that is, and they refuse all the 'logical' signs. I try to focus readings more on learning than on advice or prediction. So, although a situation may not a good one, the person may not yet have learned all the lessons necessary, or the timing isn't right for a new direction. Of course, some people are just plain stubborn or stuck. My inner mantra is, "I don't have to fix it." I don't try to solve their problems. However, indifference is a little beyond me in that I am very empathic. This is why I created "The Breakthrough Process" (discussed in most of my books), with which I conclude most readings. Basically, at the end, the client choses cards from the spread that show: 1) their major problem, block or obstacle, 2) a way to break through that problem, 3) what they most want to develop in themselves, and 4) an action that is in alignment with #3. I become a scribe writing down what they say, so it is clear the choice is in their hands. This leads to what I see as an ideal purpose for tarot: to help us meet whatever comes in the best possible way.
ENRIQUE ENRIQUEZ: Finally, if this were our first meeting ever, after having this conversation, what would be the last thing you would want me to hear from you?
MARY K. GREER: I'd want you to know how much I enjoy our back-and-forth conversations, even if this was more one-sided than the previous one. You notice the little things that others would overlook—observations that open me up to areas I rarely get to touch on and that challenge me to think about what is most important. Thank you for this opportunity to talk about my favorite subject.
Jeanne Fiorini asks a great question on her video "TarotWorks Tarot Tip #10″:
Do you use your tarot as you would the Emergency Room, or do you use your tarot the way you would the Health Food Store?
Think about this for a moment before you watch her video:
Jeanne is a tarot maven, with creations ranging from tarot wrapping paper to bags to books to instructional videos—all found at TarotWorks. In addition to her youtube videos you'll find lots of helpful advice in her book Tarot Spreads and Layouts, especially as it relates to tarot for personal insight. In some ways, the title is a misnomer in that this short but pithy book contains far more in terms of sensible advice and good reading skills than you get in most other books. How often, as I read her text, I found myself thinking, "I wish I had said that!" To give myself credit, occasionally I have, as Jeanne is not reinventing the wheel but succinctly describing methods that take years to discover otherwise—in a no nonsense and elegantly easy-to-understand way. In a recent article in the American Tarot Association newsletter, Tarot Reflections, you can learn how Jeanne has integrated her studies of Psychosynthesis with her approach to Tarot.
The spreads and layouts comprise almost two-thirds of the book, and what is truly unique here isn't just the layouts or the different number of cards or the range of issues (which we also get), but that we are given:
- questions that will help us understand what a card means in a particular spread position,
- things to consider about how the cards might relate to each other,
- guidelines for expanding the layout,
- helpful hints and reminders about intention, focus and attitude.


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Radar-activated speed bumps will make you check yourself before you wreck yourself
If speed traps won't keep people from speeding, maybe the threat of serious damage to their cars will. That's the idea behind Gwyn Harvey's radar-activated speed bump system. If the radars catch you going too fast, speed bumps will rise up from the road ahead, forcing you to either slow down or destroy your suspension. It seems like a logical idea, but you've gotta figure the amount of damage that would cause to vehicles and the number of potential accidents would keep it from ever really being implemented. Drivers wouldn't stand for the chance of having serious damage done to their lowered Civics, and such a system would doubtlessly be insanely expensive to install. So don't worry, lead footed Tesla Roadster drivers: for now, your undercarriage is safe from harm. Check the video post-jump to see the bumps in action.
Left Lane News, via TechEBlog

subset: commoncrawl


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Standing Firm: 2012 West Coast Conference
The Apostle Paul exhorts us from the book of Romans, saying, "If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all." Christians are not to be cantankerous and difficult to get along with. Instead, we are to …Read More
The Autobiography of God: 2011 Fall Conference at Reformation Bible College
The Bible speaks of how God deals with man. Because we are sinners, we are tempted to conclude that therefore it is about us. The truth is we exist for the sake of His story. The Bible is God's …Read More


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Billy Shakespeare
I tried to beg out of a recent invitation to speak at a fundraising event for the Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre. The organizers wanted me to talk about the Bard himself, and that is a subject I am definitely not qualified to address, especially on a program with a Hollywood producer, award-winning writers, English professors, and other Shakespeare experts. I'm just the publisher of a Southern literary magazine.


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Why You Should Celebrate Yourself this Holiday Season
On a hectic October Tuesday, just before 7x7's monthly race to the printer, I took it upon myself to enjoy some languorous me-time at the W Hotel. Looming deadlines had triggered my tendency to crack under pressure. I settled in at Trace for a two-hour feast of beet salad, mushroom flatbread, a lamb pastrami sandwich, and butterscotch pudding, and then waddled up to Bliss Spa for a two-hour mani-pedi chaser.
Editors' Picks: J.Crew's New Balance, Christmas Birthdays, & More
Last-minute gift ideas from the exhausted 7x7 edit team.
5 Topics Everyone Will Be Discussing Over Brunch
Cultivate conversation with these interesting topics.
Dragons, Legos, and Human Rights at @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz
Avoiding tourists and their go-to spots is practically a precursor for San Francisco residency. But in the process of dodging out-of-towners, we often miss out on some of the beloved cultural gems that bring these tourists to our fair city. Case in point? Alcatraz. The visionaries at For-Site have given us the recently acclaimed @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz, the perfect excuse to hop on a ferry and head to the notorious prison of yesteryear.
PianoFight Brings Cocktails, Theatre, and Live Music to the Tenderloin
After three-plus years of fundraising, negotiating, brainstorming, and no shortage of elbow grease, the former Original Joe's has officially transformed into a multi-stage venue, PianoFight, complete with a cozy-sleek restaurant for post-perfomance refreshments.
The Procrastinator's Guide to NYE in the Bay Area
Believe it or not, two weeks from now, it'll already by 2015. And if you live in the Bay Area, you know that it's the one night a year that the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants residents actually make plans ahead of time. Many reservations are booked and events are sold out, but we've got you covered—read on for our top picks for how to ring in the new year.
I.V. Hydration Therapy is Our Favorite New Hangover Cure
This weekend skip the black coffee and Tylenol routine for something a little more fabulous: I.V. hydration therapy in the comfort and ease of you own home.
PG&E and 7x7 Toast to San Francisco's Favorite Charity
The Bay Area is home to hundreds of charitable organizations making contributions, both big and small, within our community. To celebrate these efforts, Pacific Gas and Electric Company and 7x7 started an annual tradition (now in its fifth year) to help shine a spotlight on one stand-out organization by naming it "San Francisco's Favorite Charity."
A Christmas Day Guide for Jewish Folks in SF
For many, Christmas Day is all about the big man upstair's son—or, more to the point, it's all about this nightmare—but for a chosen few, it's just another day off from work. If you're not taking part in the time-honored tradition of gaudy holiday hysteria and early AM gifting under the tree, here are a few choice ways to spend that day in San Francisco.
Maker's Mark Hosts the Ugly Sweater Party of the Season
'Tis the season for twinkle lights, festive cocktails and, above all, the spirit of giving. Last week, at hot Union Square lounge Hawthorn, 7x7 teamed up with Maker's Mark and La Cocina for #ItsGoingToGetUgly, an ugly sweater party with a heart—proceeds from the event benefitted beloved local charity La Cocina.
Essential SF knowledge in your inbox
2014 Hot 20: The Bay Area's Top Movers and Shakers
100 Things to Do in SF Before You Die
Scenes of the City: Gorgeous Photos From Around the Bay Area
The Big Eat 2014: 100 Things to Try Before You Die
Local Tastemakers' Bay Area Favorites
Standout Locals We Want to Be Friends With


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(Policy HR 130)
Under state law, personnel records are considered public records and may be inspected, extracted or copied by any citizen of Tennessee during business hours, in accordance with reasonable rules of the office having custody of such records. The law does provide confidentiality for certain information and this information should be redacted from the file prior to public disclosure:
Campus Contacts
Here you will find a list of the main campus contacts to take care of your needs.
UT Policies and Procedures


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Standard Delivery: Dispatched in 1 business day(s)
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EMI Details
100% Authentic Brands
Product Covered Under Trustpay
TrustPay protects customers with a 100% moneyback guarantee if there is an issue with product quality, size or delivery
The Micromax Funbook Pro is a stylish tablet that comes replete with multimedia and connectivity features. At its core is a powerful 1.2 GHz Cortex A8 processor that powers all the functions of this device. The Micromax Funbook Pro operates on Android's Ice Cream Sandwich operating system. It comes fitted with a big 10.1 inch capacitive touchscreen that displays crystal clear images. The tablet comes with built in Wi Fi, supports 3G networks via a dongle. The Micromax Funbook Pro incorporates a VGA front facing camera that can be used for making video calls.
The Micromax Funbook Pro comes fitted with a big 10.1 inch capacitive touchscreen that effectively displays vivid, crisp images with a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels. Dual Mali 400 graphics card enables you to play graphics intensive games with ease.
The Micromax Funbook Pro can playback a range of multimedia files like MP3, WAV, AVI, MP4, H.264, DIVX, XVID, WMV, MOV, MKV, FLAC, and 3GP. You can connect any standard headphones with 3.5mm jack to this device to enjoy these multimedia files.
Internet Browsing and Connectivity
The Micromax Funbook Pro features built in Wi Fi that lets you log on to any Wi Fi hotspots to access Internet at high speeds. Connect 2G or 3G Internet dongle and surf the web seamlessly with faster speeds. A USB and HDMI port are also featured on this device. The Micromax Funbook Pro also offers turn by turn navigation support. Check out our range of micromax tablet.


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Crossroads: Paratroop Padre
From a World War II, a story of highly decorated chaplain Francis Sampson as he deals with an ex-con with a chip on his shoulder who is disrupting the unit.
To Download or Embed this video, go to this link.
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text: Former Florida Senator Claude Pepper with UTWA group Labor unions--United States Labor union meetings Textile industry unions United Textile Workers of America Local identification number: L1974-14_34 Group at United Textile Workers of America convention in Miami, Florida. Former U.S. Senator and future U.S. Representative Claude Pepper is pictured (holding book, in double-breasted jacket). Roy Whitmire (Southern Co-Director of the UTWA) is second from right. Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library Georgia State University. Libraries. Special Collections photographic prints StillImage Image/jp2 http://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/labor/id/1068 8 x 10 inches United Textile Workers of America, Southern Area B Records, Southern Labor Archives 1952 Florida--Miami The contents of this item, including all images and text, are for personal, educational, and non-commercial use only. This item may be protected under United States and international copyright law. L1974-14_34, United Textile Workers of America, Southern Region, Area B Records, Southern Labor Archives, Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University, Atlanta.


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KANATA, Ont.--Neal Powless's third goal of the game, at 4:38 of the fourth quarter, guaranteed the Columbus Landsharks their first win of the season, 15-11 over the Ottawa Rebel Friday at the Corel Centre.
Kasey Beirnes and Gewas Schindler also recorded hat tricks as the Landsharks boosted their record to 1-3.
The Rebel seized the early momentum with unanswered first-quarter goals by Dan Marohl at 4:00, Chris Konopliff at 4:49, Ryan Painter at 11:47 and Jaime Roy at 12:43. Schindler's first goal cut the Rebel lead to 4-2 before the intermission, and Powless and Beirnes scored to tie the score with 10:32 left in the second.
The Landsharks widened their lead with five third-period goals, but let the Rebel stay in the hunt by giving up power play goals to Steve Evans and Painter.
The Landsharks scored on six of their 11 fourth-quarter shots to put the game away.
Kyle Jamieson set up five Columbus goals, and Brent Rothfuss had a goal and three assists.
Roy scored three times for the Rebel, while Konopliff had two goals and seven assists.
Winning goalie Ken Montour stopped 42 of 53 Ottawa shots. Rebel netminder Andrew Leyshon lasted 53 minutes, making 37 saves. Matt Disher, who is still recovering from a back injury, stopped three in a seven-minute shift.
Tag(s): Home News Archive


text: Bay View Library Staff @ Kid's and Family Night/Chill on the Hill By Fran G on Aug 4, 2014 11:45 AM Staff from the library will be attending the Kid's and Family Night/ Chill On the Hill this Tuesday, August 5th, at 6:00 p.m., at the Humboldt Park band shell. Hear some great music and visit us at our table. Make your own Super Reader mask and learn more about what's happening at all the Milwaukee Public Libraries. Forgot to sign up for Super Reader this summer? No problem! Sign up at the park and you can still earn prizes and go back to school ready to learn. Don't let Dr. Brain Drain defeat you! http://www.bayviewneighborhood.org/chill_on_the_hill


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2011 Audi A5 Cabriolet 2.0 turbo petrol from Australia and New Zealand
Likeable but not loveable...
Complete engine rebuild after 27000km due to faulty piston rings and oil consumption problems. All handled very well by the dealer, but hardly gives me confidence over long term reliability.
General Comments:
This is hard to explain, but no car has ever had me quite so lost for words when people ask me the simple question "are you pleased with it?".
On a 25C day, on a smooth road with the roof down, it is a fine place to be. I have to say that cabin quality and overall fit and finish is near faultless. I think the equipment levels are good for the price; and, undeniably it looks great - classy and slightly understated, a "true" soft top still looks so much better than foldable hard tops. Performance is not bad from the 2.0T FWD set up, and I really like the flexibility of the CVT gearbox. As convertibles go, it is pretty practical; my kids can fit in the back no problem.
This is where it gets difficult. Whilst I never expected sports car handling, the dynamics of this car are very disappointing. Anything other than gentle acceleration from rest results in unbelievable wheel "scrabble" and furious blinking of the traction control light. If it is slightly wet, then it can be downright embarrassing! Driving the car hard in "sports" mode does feel like a rodeo ride sometimes - hanging on for dear life!
It's hard to explain, but I can also say that I never owned a car that is so completely lacking "character" in any way. It feels coldly executed, with the engineers at the centre of everything, rather than the owner. One of the things that really annoys me every day is the heating and ventilation. In my opinion, it's just trying to be too "clever" and is very frustrating to use - regularly changing settings in response to my perceived needs!
The ownership experience has been overall OK. I had one instance when I first got the car where I was left seething by the arrogance of the service personnel, but that seems to have been a one off. They handled the requirement to rebuild the engine at 27000km (a well documented problem with 2.0T petrol engines) very efficiently. Service pricing is close to "outrageous" - $800 for what is basically an oil change is very steep.
So would I buy another? I'm really not sure - I would think very hard before buying a FWD Audi again. Having also driven a FWD A4 for a few weeks when my car was being repaired, the chassis didn't seem much better. I would be interested to try a quattro model of the same car to see how it compares.
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Don't Know
Review Date: 22nd November, 2013


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Obama Violated Law to Secure POW's Release
By Harold Hutchison
|A wounded Afghan is moved to a medevac chopper.
(DOD photo)
Days after Barack Obama announced that the United States had secured the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl by releasing five Afghans being held at Guantanamo to the custody of the Qatari government, controversy has erupted over the exchange.
According to multiple media reports, the exchange has drawn fire from many Republican lawmakers, who were already restive over Obama's plan to withdraw most American troops by the end of this year, with a full withdrawal by the end of 2016.
In a joint statement, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) and Senator James Inhofe, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that Congress must "carefully examine the means by which we secured his freedom. America has maintained a prohibition on negotiating with terrorists for good reason. Trading five senior Taliban leaders from detention in Guantanamo Bay for Berghdal's release may have consequences for the rest of our forces and all Americans. Our terrorist adversaries now have a strong incentive to capture Americans. That incentive will put our forces in Afghanistan and around the world at even greater risk."
In the days since Bergdahl's release, some of those who served with him have begun to speak out. "I was pissed off then and I am even more so now with everything going on," Matt Vierkant told Newsmax,com. "Bowe Bergdahl deserted during a time of war and his fellow Americans lost their lives searching for him."
Bergdahl had reportedly become disillusioned while serving, and according to some reports, walked off his base on 30 June, 2009. According to media reports, his father made a number of Tweets that were seen as pro-Taliban, including one in which he said that he was "still working to free the remaining guantanamo [sic] prisoners."
|Official portrait of Senator James Inhofe (R-OK)
Adding to the controversy are claims that Obama broke a law requiring him to give Congress 30 days' notice before releasing any Gitmo detainees in the process of carrying out the exchange. "Our joy at Sergeant Berghdal's release is tempered by the fact that President Obama chose to ignore the law, not to mention sound policy, to achieve it," McKeon and Inhofe said in their statement.
Senator John McCain noted that the released Afghan prisoners were the "hardest of the hardcore" detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. "I think the big issue here is what's going to happen to these five individuals," McCain said on CBS's Face the Nation. "If they re-enter the fight, then it is going to put American lives at risk, and none of us want that to happen."
Taliban commander Mullah Omar hailed the exchange as a "great victory" for the group that harbored Osama bin Laden as he planned the 9/11 attacks.


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Another great webcam joins the plethora of animal cams! Who can get enough of peeking in on animals as they go about their day?
At seaotters.com/live , the world's first HD live stream of CA sea otters in the wild catches otters at Elkhorn Slough, the largest tract of tidal salt marsh in California outside of the San Francisco Bay. It's home to the largest concentration of southern sea otters on the California coast. The slough and wetlands provide critical habitat for hundreds of species, including sea otters, sea lions, harbor seals, great egrets and brown pelicans. At the mouth of the Elkhorn Slough sits the Moss Landing Harbor, in which lies a one of a kind spot where otters love to hang out together to play, groom, eat, and nap. Go take a look!
Be sure to follow seaotters.com on social media. I'm pretty sure it's all manned by humans rather than those dexterous pawed cuties, but you'll find it's a good place to get updates on how to enjoy and help preserve these creatures.
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text: please click on adds its free cost you nuttin it help us a lot keep doing what we love doing entertain you thanks guys Video has surfaced showing what appears to be a mermaid hanging out on a rock, just off the cliffs in Israel. Check out the video and see if you can figure out what in the world it is. Unless you think these two men are trying to dupe the entire world into thinking mermaids really do exist? Show more


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When will I see results of my smart lipo to my stomach and love handles the docotr took over 2000 cc of fat out. It has only been two weeks today. I'm very scared and I just would like to know some people say 1 to 2 months. Please help
When Will I See Results of my Smart Lipo to my Stomach Upper and Lower and Love Handles the Fat That Was Taking out As Like 2000
Doctor Answers (2)
Are you wearing your garment? This important You may need to ware several more months to see the beginning of the results. In the meantime watch what you eat andexerxise
These answers are for educational purposes and should not be relied upon as a substitute for medical advice you may receive from your physician. If you have a medical emergency, please call 911. These answers do not constitute or initiate a patient/doctor relationship.


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Keeping the IRS out of your health care
CORPUS CHRISTI - The scandals surrounding the Internal Revenue Service continue to grow. We now know that President Barack Obama's hand-picked chief counsel of the IRS was aware of his agency's malfeasance. With this revelation, the shaky narrative originally pushed by the administration — that all blame lies with a few meddling staffers in the Cincinnati office — has come crashing down around them. This scandal implicates officials at the very highest levels of the IRS.


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Talking with, Yes, Oprah's Latest Book Club Pick: Jonathan Franzen
Well, Time magazine is one thing, but the latest twist in the intersection between pop and literary culture is brilliant enough that it may land its leads on the cover of Us Weekly. Jonathan Franzen, known to many readers and nonreaders alike as "That Author Who Rejected Oprah" (though he's perhaps more accurately described as "That Author Who Expressed Ambivalence About Oprah's Book Club and Had His Membership Revoked") after his last book, The Corrections, was and then wasn't an Oprah pick, will finally be welcomed back, as Oprah Winfrey helped to launch off her show's final season today with a bit of reconciliation and closure by choosing Franzen's new novel Freedom. It's her first Book Club pick in a year--but, she promises, not her last one. (That's a sigh of relief you are hearing from booksellers and publishers across the country. Unless you're in Brooklyn in which case it may have been a tornado.)
Oprah calls Freedom "an epic family saga that has it all—sex, love…even rock 'n' roll!" When I picked it for our August Best of the Month shortlist, I said it was "a wrenching, funny, and forgiving portrait of a Midwestern family," and it is. I'm a big Franzen fan (check out Strong Motion too!), but it's been fun to see colleagues and friends, some of whom had never read him before--often because they were turned off by that whole Oprah episode--picking it up and devouring it as eagerly as I did.
The Great Reconciliation is an event so overstuffed with built-in plot and commentary that it feels like everything that can be said about it already exists, so I don't have much to add, even at this early hour. But as it happens the author in question made a stop by our offices earlier this week, so it's excellent timing to share our discussion. We didn't talk about Oprah, or Franzenfreude, or any of the other controversies that seem to attach themselves to this fairly mild-mannered novelist as if he were Missouri's answer to the Gallagher brothers. (That's not to say Oprah did not come up: after he read a very funny section from Freedom (on Connie's first visit to Joey in college) to a large group of people here at Amazon, the first question from the audience was one he must have gotten a few hundred times, asking him to explain l'affaire Oprah, to which he emphasized that he had actually been thrilled when he first heard she had chosen The Corrections. The complications only came later...)
Instead, we stuck to the book: how it came about (apparently one early seed was his crush on Mia Hamm) and what it's been like to have written the book everyone is reading (and that was before today!). You can listen to us below, or read the full transcript after the jump:
Amazon: It's been nine years, which was also the time, I think, between Strong Motion and The Corrections. I know this is a terrible question to ask a novelist, but I'm very curious about what that time is like and how a book like this comes together over such a period. Where did you start? How does a novel accrete for you?
Franzen: It accretes almost literally in the form of bad pages, failed attempts to get it going earlier. The nine-year thing is a little misleading because I did publish a complete and original memoir in that period. And the nine years between Strong Motion and The Corrections is also misleading because I had done a book's worth of essays in that time. So I like to think of it as more like four or five years between books.
Yeah, the accretion of pages: starting with 20 ideas or 30 ideas and trying to just failing for long enough that patterns in the failure start to emerge.
Amazon: Are those ideas based around characters, around people that walk into your story or are they things you capital-W Want to Say?
Franzen: Not things I want to say. It's very much character driven. Very late there comes in a wish to do something formally new. If there isn't some interesting thing going on formally, even if I have some characters finally figured out, it still won't happen until I get the formal thing too.
Amazon: Speaking of a formal question, I was curious about, I guess, the overture for the book, the first 25 or so pages. I love the way that works as kind of a chorus talking about the story we're about to read. Is that something you came to late in the game or was that something that you began with?
Franzen: It was basically the first thing I wrote. I had a hundred unsolved problems two years ago. One of the big ones was that I wanted the book to be set more or less around the present time, but three of my four main characters were by then in their mid-forties. I had to account for the first 20, 25 years of adult life.
Finding some overture that had its own integrity, and in fact was published as a short story in the New Yorker, was a way of getting that awkward couple of decades out of the way so I could get down to what I really wanted to write about. I was also interested, I came to be interested, in tracing what had been happening to the country and neighborhood life from the gentrifying early '80s to the sprawlified time we now live in.
Amazon: I found that as a reader--I found it very freeing almost, that overture that you start the story fresh again after hearing it once.
Franzen: You start to... I had an idea of some of the characters, but that overture was also really where I figured out more specifically what their stories were.It's fun to start a book from the outside, most famously Flaubert does it in these weird first five pages of Madame Bovary where we meet Charles Bovary, I believe his name is, through the eyes of his classmates in school. Then we never again come back to that. There's clearly something attractive for the writer in starting completely with the surfaces. Here's a mystery seen from without and then, having warmed up in that way, getting into it.
Amazon: Then the book turns to Patty through whose eyes most of the story is told. What about her first accreted for you and what drew you to her as someone to tell a story around?
Franzen: Strangely I think I was first drawn to her as a person who'd been a jock, and a jock she remains. The full dimensions of that didn't really come out until I was writing, and the importance of both competition and teamwork to her character. These are important notions that are floating around our culture now. Competition in particular is weirdly seldom spoken of given that it's considered, and may in fact be, the primary engine of our political economy.
But as far as I know, it came out of a little television crush I had on Mia Hamm or Brandi Chastain.
Amazon: And you tried to imagine what would happen if they broke their leg?
Franzen: Well, those women were truly at the top of their form. And when you reach that level, I think you're in just a different world. Novels tend to be written not about the people at the very top because suddenly they become historical figures. You're reading about Winston Churchill in a novel about Winston Churchill and everything you know about Winston Churchill gets in the way.
The same thing even if you set it in the present. You say, well, this person is the Speaker of the House, the United States House of Representatives. We know who the Speaker of the House is. And we also know who the star of the US Olympic Women's Soccer Team is. So you have to drop down a notch or two before you get into territory that can be fully imagined and fully owned by the writer.
Amazon: As someone who is often described as writing about the way we live now, how do you pay attention to how we live now and at the same time cut yourself off enough to tell a story about it? How do you balance those two things?
Franzen: Even if you put earplugs in, the essentials leak through. I've spoken of this before, but trying to shut out as much of the noise as you can so that maybe only one percent comes through. Then you actually could examine the signal when there's so little of it. When it's a hundred signals all jabbering away simultaneously, it's very hard. But if you don't allow yourself Internet at the office, if you listen to one or two songs at a time rather than have a playlist of 300 songs, if you read the business section of one newspaper, you get a lot. You get the whole picture but in loose enough form that you can start seeing the connections and making some of your own connections.
Amazon: I wanted to ask about God. More the author as God. There's a moment in The Corrections, which I was tearing through when it came out, when Alfred's on the cruise ship and he takes a spill. I became very angry with you because I thought you had killed him off. And there's a death in this book--I don't want to spoil things--that is quite arbitrary. I'm just curious how you make a decision to knock somebody off that you've created.
Franzen: It's sort of like asking a painter, "Why is there red in that corner?" The answer is almost as arbitrary as, "Well, there needs to be red in that corner." I don't think there is a God. And if there were a God, I doubt he/she would be an aesthete. But if there were, that's the kind of God I'd want.
Amazon: Who could see the form of a story?
Franzen: Yes. I think of someone like Denis Johnson, who's just a great American writer, as somebody who writes in a voice like the God I wish we might have.
Amazon: So it's been about two weeks since the book came out, although it seems even longer.[laughter]
Franzen: Yeah, it seems much longer than that at this point.
Amazon: Yeah, it's been a busy month and a half at least. It's been exciting to see a book out in the culture like that that I know that people outside of the business are going to be reading that I can actually have a conversation about. What conversation have you been hearing back from people who've had a chance to read the book already?
Franzen: It became apparent early in the summer, when the advance copies of the book went out to reviewers and people in the industry, both that I think a lot of people were hoping to see a wipeout. They were looking for the skis in the air and the explosion of snow, and that would be very satisfying. It also became apparent that people were actually just enjoying the book.
So far, because it's only been two weeks, I've not been hearing from all the people who have bones to pick with me. It's actually been great. I think that, in all modesty, I think that's what drove a lot of the pre-publicity for the book was people saying, "Well, we thought he was a bad person. But unfortunately the book is kind of fun to read." I don't read the reviews, but people have told me about some that sound like they were uttered through clenched teeth.
Amazon: I think pleasure is a big word, with all your books. I think you've written about this that it's not something we always associate with capital L literature, but it's something that I often... I mean, that's why I turn to capital L literature. It seems like one of the things you're trying to do is give people pleasure.
Franzen: Yeah, it's complicated. There are very important wonderful realms of literature which do not yield up their pleasure to the first casual reading. That's why we have, or used to have, literature departments in colleges where you would actually learn how to read Emily Dickinson. You'd learn how to read John Milton. You'd learn how to read Virginia Wolff.
So there is a certain connoisseurship, and people arrange themselves along the spectrum between the not-enjoyable-by-anybody to someone like Dostoevsky who, you know, you're two pages in and, oh my God! This young man is planning to make himself a new Napoleon by hatcheting his landlady.
So it's a big tent, and I would really want to stress that there are all different kinds of pleasure. I come from a place, a household, where books were not really read very much except to children to help them succeed in life. And I think at some level I'm trying to write books that my parents, who were not readers, might be surprised to find themselves enjoying while also trying to provide some of the more literary pleasures that it takes awhile to learn how to appreciate.


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Caring for Shoes and Boots in the Winter
Follow these quick spiff-up tips for stained or scuffed footwear now, and be a step ahead next season
By Carolyn Forte
Special Offers
Biggest Challenges
1. Telltale road-salt stains on leather
2. Black scuff marks on leather or rubber
3. Dirty, flattened suede
Fastest Fixes
Banish salt lines. If your town fights icy streets with road salt, youve surely had ring around the shoe, a white salt line that appears when leather dries. Desalting products, available at shoe-repair shops, are one option, but its just as easy to mix an at-home cleaner of equal parts white vinegar and water. Soak a rag in the solution and dab the shoes. Rinse with a water-dampened cloth, and wipe with a dry towel. Let the shoes dry, away from radiators or other heat sources, which can make leather brittle. Finally, buff with a soft cloth.
Erase scuffs. You might be tempted to scrub at ugly black marks on leather, but they need a lighter touch: Dip a soft cloth in water, then baking soda, and rub the spots gently. For rubber boots, follow the same process, but substitute your kitchen scouring powder for the baking soda. (This stronger treatment will also work on wooden or composite heels that arent covered in leather.) Once spots are gone, wipe the footwear with a clean, damp cloth and buff dry.
Be suede smart. The wet cleaning remedies that work for smooth leather arent good for suede, which needs to stay dry so it doesnt lose its texture. Instead, quickly rub off overall dirt with a kneadable eraser (grab one from your kids art box), or just lightly sand away obvious stains with an emery board. To raise the nap of suede thats flattened, scrub briskly with a clean toothbrush or terry cloth towel. If its really matted, hold the shoe a few inches above the spout of a steaming teakettle for a few seconds, then brush up the nap.
Make It Easier Next Time
- To keep pesky salt lines from forming, take action as soon as possible once indoors: Before your shoes dry off, dampen the entire leather upper with a wet sponge, then stuff the shoe with newspaper to help hold the shape.
- Before you wear shoes and boots in messy weather for the first time, spray them with a water-repellent coating, like GHRI-tested Protect-all from Kiwi ($5.50), which works on both suede and leather. Spray again during the season, after cleaning.
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