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November 28 through December 4, 2022

We'll need to practice flexibility on Monday and Tuesday as the Moon travels through Aquarius and upends our plans on an hourly basis. Take heart though, as the disruptions and shifts are bound to work in our favor, eventually! A Pisces Moon will put us in a more spiritual and reflective mood on Wednesday and Thursday, encouraging us to step back and take a look at the bigger picture in regards to what is happening in our lives. Our most productive days of the week will be Friday and Saturday, as the Moon charges through assertive Aries and allows us to catch up on anything that slipped through the cracks at the start of the week. Neptune will turn direct on Saturday, ending a five-month cycle of retrograde movement and allowing our intuition and spiritual sides to thrive! A Taurus Moon hangs overhead on Sunday, encouraging us to take care of our physical bodies and restore balance to our personal surroundings.

by Sam Bennett

You have so many great ideas, and you can’t decide which one(s) to follow through on. Or maybe once you finally settle on one and get into it, you get bored and drop it like a hot potato for something new. I know.

One of the side effects of being a creative genius is that you have a billion great ideas and a lot of skills and talents, so it can be difficult to figure out where to focus. This is so often what happens: You get a brilliant idea. It appears instantly — so full and rich and detailed and vibrant inside your mind — and you just know it’s a truly 
great idea. And then — just as quickly — you feel stuck, overwhelmed, defeated. You have no idea how to move forward. Thinking about the thing in its entirety is just too overwhelming, so you get stuck before you’ve even started.

Here’s the thing: your brain is a beautiful machine especially designed to look for patterns and solve problems. It works like a charm. Pose almost any question to your brain, and it will present you with an answer in no time at all. Genius, I tell you.

But if there are too many unknowns or too many variables, the machine grinds to a halt. Or it gets stuck in a loop, going around the same block over and over again. “I want to do X, but maybe I should do Y first, but I can’t do that until I do Z, so maybe I shouldn’t even try...but I really want to do X, but maybe I should do Y first...” Exhausting, right?

Breaking It Down
Let’s say your big, beautiful idea is “I want to redo the whole house!” And you can see it! Gorgeous and gleaming. A full, rich, detailed vision of your house completely redecorated appears in your mind.

In this situation some people recommend creating a Vision Board, which I think is fun because I love gluing things onto other things. A Vision Board is a fun, artsy, self-actualization project — it’s a collage you can make of images and words, usually cut from magazines, that, posted prominently, serves as a visual reminder of your goals and dreams. You can also make one online, which is fun, too. And if a Vision Board helps or delights or inspire you, then go ahead. But artists usually have no problem articulating a clear vision. Their vision is usually quite detailed and complete and often features sequels, theme parks, and a worldwide grassroots social movement.

As you consider this beautiful vision of your redone home, you feel the gears in your mind begin to grind: Where to begin? How to afford it? Is now the right time? How do I know if a contractor is trustworthy? What if the paint comes out ugly? Where do I find those cool glass tiles? I don’t know how to tile! Ack!

Too many unknowns and too many variables.
So if you can limit the scope of your project — take it bit by bit — you will be doing your brain a big favor. Tackling, say, just the carpeting in the upstairs bedroom will allow your brain to start searching its files for carpet in the same way that your computer can search for and find information easily once you give it the right name or search term. And now that your brain is whirring away on the idea of carpet, it might just remember that there’s a carpet store over by the lunch place you like, and it might remember that your cousin Denise just redid her house — and maybe she’ll have a few ideas for you — and hey, is that an ad for a carpet sale in today’s paper?

If you have some Vision Boards that are just hanging around making you feel bad about not having achieved your goals yet, for crying out loud, get rid of them. Inspirational tools are just that — tools to inspire you. The minute they quit inspiring you, lose ’em.

Breaking your project down into manageable, bite-size bits makes it something you can actually do, as opposed to leaving it a big, overwhelming, untouchable vision that leaves you stuck. Think of it this way: If you find yourself procrastinating, your project is too big!

You can see how you might be able to make some real progress if you break you projects down into smaller chunks and spend a little time on them every day, yes? But this still leaves you with the all-important question, How do you know which project is the right one? For starters, you have to discern which of the projects matter most to you, and ditch the ones that don’t. Here’s a little quiz-type exercise that will help you do that.

We often downplay the importance of desire in our lives, but I have noticed that the things we really want to do pretty much get done. And the things we do not want to do pretty much do not get done. Have you noticed that, too?

Exercise: Five Quick Questions
Call to mind one of the many projects you are procrastinating on. I know you have lots, but for now, pick just one. Whichever one floats to the top of your mind first is fine. Now — working swiftly and without pondering — answer yes, no, or sort of to these five questions:

1. Do you think you will learn from and enjoy working on this project?
2. Will completing this project make a difference in your life?
3. Will completing this project make a difference in the world?
4. Does your soul ache to work on it?
5. Ten years from now, will it matter whether or not you have done it?

Take a minute to muse on your answers, and jot down a few notes about what you notice. You may have noticed that those five questions are really one question, phrased five different ways — five different angles of attack on “Does this project truly matter?”

You may find that while you feel your project would make a big difference in the world, your soul does not ache to do it. That’s okay. And that’s important information for you to have if you decide to move forward: don’t expect this project to make your soul sing. You may need to find some other spiritual sustenance while you’re working on it.

Or perhaps you answered yes to every question but the first — that might be an indication that you need to find someone else, or gather a team, to execute this project.

But if you discovered that the project you were thinking about really doesn’t matter to you, then for crying out loud — cross that project off your list or delegate it or something. There’s no sense agonizing over a project you don’t even care about.

Now think of another possible project, and repeat the exercise. In fact, repeat it until you have five possible projects that definitely matter to you. Feel free to pull projects from various areas of your life; this doesn’t need to all be about your creativity. It’s always a good idea to try it with at least one really crazy-daisy, dumb idea — even something you think is a bad idea. And you may also want to add in some “duty” options (like the voice in your head that says that you really should go back to school and get that advanced degree).

So now you have a list of five front-runner projects. Congratulations!

From the book Get It Done by Sam Bennett. Copyright © 2014 by Samantha Bennett. Reprinted with permission from New World Library. www.NewWorldLibrary.com

Sam Bennett worked at the renowned Second City Theatre in Chicago alongside comics Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert. In addition to her multifaceted writing and performance work, she specializes in personal branding and career strategies. She lives in Los Angeles, CA. Her website is TheOrganizedArtistCompany.com

What book or books do you recommend for those of us who want to learn more about how to do an accurate tarot reading? I was giving readings to family a few weeks ago and I felt bad because I couldn't say much as I was relying on the tiny book that came with the deck. I would like to give better readings for others. Thanks for any guidance in this matter.

Mary Lynn

Susyn:

As a reader and teacher of the Tarot for over 20 years, I understand your frustration. There are many books on interpreting the Tarot, so you'll want to pick one that offers expanded interpretations. I have written a comprehensive book on the subject that you may find helpful. It's entitled Tarot Prediction and Divination, and it will be available for purchase in January.

It's essential to have a basic understanding of the cards, but for the most accurate readings, you have to learn how to coax the cards to speak to you. When you are able to use your intuition in this way, a single Tarot card can have any number of meanings depending on the question posed, the cards surrounding it, and the circumstances underlying the reading.

There are a number of Tarot books on the market that can help you learn to interpret the cards with skill. Along with Tarot Prediction and Divination, there are books that focus on expanded meanings, spiritual readings, symbolic interpretations or general guidelines for reading the Tarot. To determine if a book will be valuable to you, it's best to review the table of contents and page through it, reading a little bit here and there.

One of the trickiest things is figuring out how the cards you are looking at speak to the question being asked. This is one of the first things I address in my book. I then go on to explain the three ways Tarot can be used: for predictions, therapy, and spiritual growth. I also explore how to use the Tarot's visual cues to awaken your psychic gifts and unveil the hidden messages in the cards.

Beginning readers will find everything they need to get started with predictive readings, while experienced readers can use this guide to expand their abilities, refresh their thinking, and take their interpretive skills to the next level. From your letter, it seems you have been reading the cards for a while. As with any practice, the more you work with the Tarot, the easier it will be to get the results you desire.

My book includes 15 original layouts, 45 sample readings, and a series of helpful correspondence charts. It also includes special sections on how to choose the ideal Signifcator, which card combinations to watch for during a reading, predicting timing, and what each card means in relation to the topics of health, career, romance, relationships and spiritual matters.

Since it's a comprehensive guide to all aspects of the Tarot, I recommend you give Tarot Predictions and Divination a try. It's available in January, 2011, at Llewellyns.com, Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and many local book stores.

*****

Mata:

You're asking this question at just the right time, for a great new book is about to hit the market by our very own Susyn Blair-Hunt. It's called Tarot Prediction and Divination and I believe it will become available any day now.

Another book that is great for beginners is Tarot Made Easy by Nancy Garen. What makes this book unique is how she divides each card's meanings into different categories.

If you are doing a reading on a love relationship, you have only to go to that card's page and look under that category to see a specific and easy to understand interpretation. She breaks each card down into many different categories, so regardless of the nature of your question, you're sure to find a relevant answer.

Since this is a great deal of information, memorizing these meanings is probably not practical. To do readings without a book, you'll have to have at least a general idea of each card's meaning. From there, you can use reason and intuition to ferret out what it may mean in light of the question being asked and its position in the spread you're using. You can get this general idea of the meaning of each card by studying classic interpretations or by reflecting on the images in the cards and journaling to develop your own interpretations.

There are people who give great tarot readings who do little to no memorizing at all. These folks are essentially doing a straight psychic reading with the cards as springboards or starting points. They kickstart their own inner voice/ intuition by looking at the pictures on the cards and allowing messages to begin to channel through them.

Though the cards seem to take on different meanings with every reading with this approach, that doesn't make it inferior to a classic reading method. In fact, I have seen psychics give amazing tarot readings without really using the cards at all. One of the best psychics I've ever had a reading from worked this way. She laid the cards out, glanced at them once, and then launched into the reading without ever looking at the cards again. My sense was that she was clairaudiently hearing the information she was relaying, not getting it from the cards.

Of course, to do this, you must develop your psychic senses to the point where you don't really need a divination tool anyway. Since it's preferable not to be dependent on tools, it seems to me that the time it would take to memorize meanings for the cards might be better spent on general psychic development. While you're working on this, you could use the cards and the book I recommend above to supplement what you get intuitively.

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.