Car Woes and pre-reading

Got car woes again! When I turn the key off in my main car, it still leaves the "auxilary" power turned on. This just started the other day. Problem is that aux power on means my air conditioner motor still turns a tiny bit -- even when it's turn off. End result is that it drains my battery within an hour or so.

Doesn't sound like a big deal, but I'm about at the end of my rope with this car. Put about $7000 into it last year on repairs and such -- which is a little more than the car is worth. I'm reluctant to keep putting money in -- if I knew this would be the last problem, then it'd be an easy decision. Since the recent track record has been minor troubles every month that add up over time though, I'm expecting more trouble in the future. Plus -- my sweetie scraped a concrete road divider and scratched up the passenger side (the entire side -- front to back). I just don't know if I wanna keep tossing money down this pit.

Pity, 'cause it's still a sweet-driving and looking car (Check it out here! ) ... but I think it's time to start looking around for another solution.

Also wanted to talk a little bit about what happens "pre-reading". As the week progresses, I try to look for things that I hope you'll find interesting that I can pass along in my "pre-reading" section. Sometimes I have to put things that I find interesting (if it's a "slow" week!), but you get the idea. I have good intentions -- but I often forget what I wanted to write about when reading time comes along!

I usually start preparing on Sunday -- I want to do the reading early in the morning. I shoot for Monday morning, but if I have other things that come up I push it back a day at a time. Quite often I'm near the end of the week before I know it. In these cases, I'll go ahead and do an afternoon or evening mailing ... but I always try for mornings first.

I really don't need much time for the reading -- what I need most is the right atmosphere. With three kids, work, and family demanding time, that's quite often the hard part. That's why my Monday intentions usually get pushed back to late-week rush!

I don't have a special reading "place" like a tarot table or cloth (used to use them, but couldn't keep them from getting cluttered by the rest of the family!) anymore -- I'll usually just sit in bed with the computer on my laptop. The deck I use is the Robin Wood Tarot Deck -- I've got over 100 decks, but this is my main "working" deck. I've had this particular deck for a long time -- and it's travelled around a bit, too. I take it with me when I travel -- especially if I'm going to a special spiritual or mystic place like Sedona, Glastonbury, Chaco Canyon, or Strawberry Fields in Central Park!

I'll shuffle the deck while trying to concentrate on "I'm interested in a general tarot reading -- looking for general guidelines and perspectives". I like to count down card in the deck -- whatever the date is, I'll count down that number of cards for the first card in the reading. I then repeat the count through the remainder of the deck for the second card.

Once I've got the two drawn, I like to take a little time to think about the two cards. I start thinking of as many possible interpretations as I can -- and then let the "right" one filter to the top on its own. Sometimes I'll draw the cards the night before just to let them "percolate" overnight.

Sometimes I'll have written the "first" part of the reading already -- the personal message part. Sometimes I wait and do it all at once. I try hard not to let the personal message overly influence the reading interpretation -- there's really no intended connection between the two. However, I must admit that sometimes the two fit together very closely.

I write up the readings in Wordpad, then cut and paste them to my mailing list provider. I used to serve my own mailings on my servers, but the overhead of keeping up with bad addresses drove me batty. My new provider takes care of that for me (but charges me for it, of course!) Still, I usually do just enough on the ads to pay for the mailing service!

And that's the mechanics! If you'd like to chat about readings (procedures, decks, interpretations, etc, etc), just drop me a line! I'm always glad to talk Tarot!

Woodsong
Tarot by Woodsong
http://www.woodsongtarot.com

Many Thanks!

I'm so grateful for an email I received today! Actually, I'm always grateful to receive emails with the subject line "Re: Woodsong Reading" -- I really enjoy reading your feedback. Many folks send helpful tips and thoughts -- I guess because of my rambling before each reading when I discuss issues or problems I'm facing, people send encouragement and helpful perspectives.

Today I received an email discussing today's Esbat (full moon). It offered things to consider during this event -- in particular, it mentioned developing courage and learning. Well, this afternoon I had to do a presentation on a new product. This was going to be the first time I had ever done (or even seen) this presentation and I was pretty nervous. After I read this email, I realized I was missing a little bit of courage and wasn't really treating this event as a learning experience. My presentation didn't have to be perfect today -- I just had to present the information in a meaningful manner, but I also had to "learn" while I was doing it. My goal didn't have to be to "present a perfect presentation", my goal became "I want to learn enough to present a better presentation next time". This took a lot of the pressure off -- because it made me realize that there's always an evolutionary process as you become more experienced with a project.

Hey, I've Started a Blog!

Not too sure how this'll turn out ... I seem to have enough trouble making my weekly reading deadline ... but I thought I'd try to put together a BLOG. I seem to come across enough things that just don't fit in the weekly reading and thought perhaps a Bloggish journal might be a good medium.

Since this is the very firstish post, I'm still experimenting a bit. Let's see how this looks -- once I get things down, I'll start adding more content!

Woodsong