Posts tagged Reviews
Tarot Review: Shadowscapes Tarot
May 31st
Shadowscapes Tarot collectors box cover
The Shadowscapes Tarot is a deck that has been several years in the making and was published and released by Llewellyn Worldwide in May of this year. It’s a wonderful and whimsical deck created by artist Stephanie Pui-Mun Law, which has been compared with being similar to the unique and detailed work of long time tarot artist and illustrator Lisa Hunt. I would say that’s a great assessment; much like Lisa’s work, Stephanie’s art is very detailed, rich in hidden faces and images, with fine lined swirls and curves here and there to help show to energy flow and intentions behind each beautiful image. Also, much like some of Lisa’s work, Stephanie combines many elements of both Celtic and Asian themes, images and artistic styles within the cards. The Shadowscapes Tarot draws heavily on winged beings from faeries and angels to butterflies and dragons. Even some of the merfolk depicted in the Cups suit have fins placed in such a way that make them look as though they are winged water creatures. From this alone there is a feel of light airiness and the feeling of movement and transition with all the cards. There is also a strong connection to the earth element, providing a great deal of wonderful, lush landscapes as backdrops for many of the cards
The coloring of the cards is the most attention grabbing aspect for me personally. Color is one of the big selling points, or even drawbacks, for many people who select a deck to work with. As exampled by the Universal Waite deck, even a tarot system as classic and loved as the RWS can be even more loved when the colors are tempered a bit and made more soft and light-filled. Here the Shadowscapes deck uses the most wonderful blend of muted watercolors and jewel tones that make the things that really need to stand out jump off the card and the things that might want to linger in the background sit aside but not without poking around a corner and tickling your brain a bit. There are animal guides within the suits who follow us through their progression. Some include fish within the Cups, birds within the Swords, foxes within the Wands and dragons within the Pentacles. Each image is layed in color and texture to present the element of the suit in a rich way, giving each card more depth and meaning.
The major arcana cards are some of the most beautiful renditions I have ever seen. Some of the cards that are often the darker or “feared” cards have such wonderful light and hope within them. The Death card is one such card that pulls more on the image and idea of the rebirth side of death rather than the aspect of ending with a beautifully bright filled image depicting a phoenix with large fiery wings, ready for flight.
The Death card from the Shadowscapes Tarot
The cards are bordered with a beautiful metallic lavender color which helps to make a really nice frame for these colorful images. The biggest problem and the one real failure with the deck is trying to pack Stephanie’s very ornate and detailed art into small, bordered cards. The cards measure 2.75 x 4.5, which has become the standard for Llewellyn it seems, and sadly the resizing of the very detailed oriented images causes a lot of the little nuances to be lost in translation. The cards are also very flimsy. Llewellyn has gone from producing sturdy cards that can hold up to regular use to cards that need to be shuffled and handed very gingerly for fear of fraying and peeing corners and edges. These cards could also bend and crease very easily if they are shuffled carelessly causing cards to be unwittingly marked for the life of the deck.
The companion book is a wonderful help however. Each card from the deck gets a full page print in the book allowing the reader to go back and study and compare to smaller sized cards with a larger, albeit black and white version, of the image within the book. This can help with finding some of the details that might be calling you in the card but not appearing clear enough because of the image size.
Barbara Moore lends her wonderful words and insight to the book helping to create a wonderful narrative for moving through the landscape of the deck. Barbara creates a wonderful crash course to working with and reading tarot in the introduction section, working to help those new to the cards understand the deck structure so that they can make confident assessments of the cards both alone and in layouts without having to rely too heavily on the descriptions and details given in the book itself. And this will be a great boon for those who pick up this deck who are still a little wet behind the ears with reading the cards since there are not rock solid interpretations of the cards in the book. While Barbara does present a “meanings” section for each of the major arcana cards, they read more like her wonderful prose style narrative than a hard and fast card meaning. These sections are missing for the minor arcana cards and instead the last few lines of each detailed description lend some insight to the general energy and meaning of the card. At the back of the book there a handful of spreads to try with the cards. While the usual three card and Celtic Cross spreads are represented there are also some more specific spreads for reading based on love, achieving goals, and finding balance in our lives.
Overall this is a fantastic and unique deck that was well worth the wait. While it may not be the best beginners deck, for those that are looking for a deck full of color that offers a challenge and a chance to really work more with your clairvoyant and intuitive skills, this is a great deck to pick up. I would recommend working with this deck on a daily basis for a while, maybe doing a daily card pull or working through the deck one card at a time to get a better sense and feel for each card and giving you the chance to learn its unique language.
If you are interested in checking out more images from the deck, visit Stephanie’s Shadowscapes Tarot site and you can also visit her blog to see what she’s currently working on as well as look back at the archives from the creation of the Shadowscapes Tarot. You can find the deck for purchase on both Amazon.com and Llewellyn.com. You can also find out more about Barbara and her work on the Llewellyn site as well as her WordPress page.
Review: The Gaian Tarot
Mar 16th
It’s been quite a while since I came to discover that one of my favorite earth-spirituality based artists was working on a deck. Joanna Powell Colbert does some wonderful art, some that many people would be familiar with from articles in magazines like SageWoman. Two of my favorites are her images of Brighid and the Holly King.
Brighid
So when I heard about the Gaian Tarot quite a while back I was really interested in finding out more about it. At the time she had only completed the images for the Major Arcana and a collectors edition of the majors were available through her website. I bookmarked the page and tossed around the idea of purchasing them for months. They were around $80 dollars, which I didn’t think was terribly unreasonable for a self-published piece that was so beautiful. But it’s very rare that I use the majors alone and I knew that I’d want them for more than just altar devotional and meditation work. So I decided to wait, especially after she explained on her site that she was in the process of creating the cards for the Minor Arcana. I waited, checking back on her site from time to time, and finally, last year my waiting paid off. The minors were done and Joanna was preparing the deck for mass publication! I was excited, anxious to get my hands on them, but then it turned out that the deck wouldn’t be out until September of 2011! Egads! No!!! Joanna was fortunate enough to have a plan worked out with Llewellyn, who will be publishing the deck next year, which would allow her to create and sell1,000 decks in a special edition run. As soon as I got the message from her email list I went right away to purchase one.
This is where a turn of events, a very interesting one, takes place that just shows you that sometimes even something that seems so silly as a deck of tarot cards is just meant to be and the Universe will make sure it happens as it should.
I go the site and start filling out the information to be able to pay for the cards over four payments between the fall and winter with the deck planning to ship by Ostara. The deck was $245, something that I knew was worth the money given what it was and the fact that it was self-published, but part of me was hesitant. Right before I was about to hit the button to pay for the first payment I could hear my husband in the back of my head yelling at me for not only purchasing yet another deck but for spending almost $250 on it. So I left the page, not paying, and deciding that it might be best for me to wait until the deck came out in 2011. A few weeks pass and I get a “thank you” package in the mail from Joanna and I find myself a little confused because I knew I didn’t pay for that first payment. So I email her and explain what I think happened and, at first, planning to offer to mail the gift back and just leave it at that but before I could stop myself I saw that I had typed out that I would like to purchase the deck and where do I go to pay. I went with it, sent the email and a little while later got an email back from her with the details on what to do. All I can say is I’m glad that twist of fate happened because this was the deck I was meant to have.
So, now for the deck itself.
Gaian Tarot
The feel of the cards is like nothing else. Everything in the collectors edition of the cards are produced in a green manner. The cards are printed on recycled paper with soy based ink and the coating is a water-based coating called aqueous coating. When you hold these cards and you run your fingers on them they feel like you’d expect a tarot decked named after Gaia should feel; it’s earthy and solid but has a loving gentleness about it. The art on the back of the cards is just as beautiful as the art on the front of them.
backart
The set up of the deck is one that will certainly appeal to those who might be more “new age” inclined, but that’s not to say there is anything fluffy about the deck! There are many people who have a hard time with the more ceremonial aspects of traditional tarot, and even many of the art decks are nothing more than mere clones of the Rider-Waite Smith deck. Joanna has taken the concept of the RWS and rather than cloned it, placed the principles in a world of earth-based spirituality from start to finish. Some cards have taken on differ
Herbs
cards
The other changes include the suits. Here you’ll have Air for Swords, Earth for Pentacles, Water for Cups and Fire for Wands. The court cards also change a bit and the genders are not as rigid as in the RWS deck and many of the clones. Here you’ll see men and woman exchanging roles as the Princes are replaced by the Child of each element, Knights are Explorers, Queens are Guardians and Kings are Elders. Their messages come across in a similar way to the traditional tarot ones but with a little twist depending on how you view gender in the tarot.
bag
The other wonderful thing that you get with the set is the companion book. Usually the book that comes with a deck doesn’t get more than a small glancing from me, but this book gives you stuff to actually DO with your cards, ways to explore with them that include meditations and journaling exercises that ma
Gaia
In the end you get an amazing deck of card that really are more than just something to divine with, it’s a tool for meditation, for spellwork, for ritual. It’s a tool for working on really understanding yourself. I was surprised to find some of the cards that really made me stop when I was going through the deck the first time. I have never been very drawn to any other version of The Hermit before but the one in Joanna’s deck is honestly one of my favorites I’ve ever seen and it’s one of my favorite cards in the deck.
The Hermit
Without any doubt a lot of love went into the creation of the deck and the collectors packages. Images on Joanna’s Facebook page show the work that she and her community did to put together and package the sets to ship out to everyone and you can feel the energy jump off those pictures and you certainly could feel it when you opened the package when it arrived!
If you are able to purchase this limited edition version of the deck, I would urge you to do it right away. It is amazing and something that I think anyone following an earth-based path should have. If you’ve never taken to the tarot before this could very well be the deck that does it for you! It’s a gentle deck but it’s a deck that isn’t afraid to still show you the firm, tough love messages either. For me this is personally a gentle deck, especially when you hold it in comparison to my “heavy hitting” decks I use like
sign card
You can find out more about Joanna Powell Colbert and the Gaian Tarot online at:
Twitter
Facebook
Gaian Tarot
Gaian Tarot Majors
Gaian Tarot Minors
Gaian Tarot Collectors Edition
The Simpsons take on Wicca
Nov 30th
As someone that doesn’t watch The Simpsons I was completely unaware about this new episode airing this week that tackled the subject of Wicca. Since I also didn’t hear about it until after it had aired I went and hunted it down online and found the episode already up on the Fox website (you can find it here if you haven’t seen it). The basic gist of the episode is that Lisa stumbles upon three Wiccans performing an Esbat ritual in the woods and she finds herself interested in their beliefs after they tell her that they worship nature. But when the three Wiccans and Lisa are discovered by the cops doing an initiation ritual for Lisa in the woods the three teen-aged Witches are arrested and Springfield gets to experience it’s own Witch Trial.
Honestly I have little opinion about the episode. It was pretty silly and really wasn’t offensive in my opinion, frankly it wasn’t any more questionable than any other portrayals of Wiccans and Witches, especially of the teen variety, that we see on any other television show these days.
Did any of you see it? What did you think?
Mood: blah
Review: Cunningham’s Book of Shadows by Scott Cunningham
Nov 16th
In 1993 the Pagan community lost one of its foremost writers and teachers on eclectic American Wicca, Scott Cunningham. Scott’s writing career was quite expansive. He had written both fiction and non-fiction and his books on Wicca are considered to be classic, must-reads for beginners. When Scott passed away at a young 36 it was believed that he had other books in the works but he had amassed such a large collection of papers and documents that it would be 16 years before this book, “Cunningham’s Book of Shadows” would finally be released. But does it live up to the hype and expectations?
“Cunningham’s Book of Shadows” is a collection of various Wiccan rituals, spells and correspondences that most people would expect to find within anyone’s Book of Shadows. The thing that will likely draw most people to this book is the fact that this could very well be Scott’s Book of Shadows. The only problem with this is that much of that sort of material was well covered in Scott’s 20 previous books on Wicca. This book contains 16 chapters covering everything from Sabbat and Esbat rituals, prayers and invocations, recipes for ritual feasting, herbal recipes, incense and oils, magickal and spiritual lore, spells and more. There is an extensive bibliography at the back as well to help find additional reading material and there are several personal stories from those that knew Scott personally included in the back appendix.
There are several things about this book which stands out right away. This book, for all intents and purposes, is a “greatest hits” of Scott’s previous books. The manuscript for this book was found in an envelope in a manner that made it appear as though it was meant to be published. However the manuscript was, at least in the publishers opinion, incomplete. It is thought that this was sort of a first draft and Scott would have worked to flesh the book out in the future. Because of that Llewellyn has taken chunks of pertinent material from Scott’s previous books and included them here to supplement chapters and lead into rituals and spellworking sections. Much of the bulk writing that isn’t spells, recipes or rituals is annotated at the bottom of the passage as being an excerpt from a previous book. And even many of the spells and rituals will be quite familiar if you have Scott’s “Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner” or “The Complete Book of Incense, Oils and Brews”.
There is a bit of previously unpublished material though, but it’s a little, well, interesting. There is a story in one of the lore sections called “The Story of the Sky People” (p. 205) which basically tells a tale that aliens descended to earth, blended in and bred with earth beings and thus created the first magickal priests and priestesses on earth and eventually they created the city of Atlantis. More or less the gist of the story almost seems to be saying that magickal people (such as Wiccans, one would assume) are descendants of alien and Atlantean beings. At the end of this story this is a line that says “Note: this is a legend and should be viewed as such.” No idea though if this was one of Scott’s notes or a publisher note so people wouldn’t think Scott was totally out of his tree when he wrote this. There are also invocations and prayers which are almost equatable to rewrites of classic Wiccan literature such as the Charge of the Goddess; the first section “Words from the Old Ones” seem to take very heavily, and blatantly, from pieces such as this one.
There is also a bit of a cheap thrill sort of sell with the book in that Llewellyn has included some of what is supposedly Scott’s hand typed and annotated pages along with the published material in the book. Toward the end of the book it begins to look like filler with each page of printed runes and descriptions is mirrored on the opposite page with the “hand typed/written” copy from the original transcript.
One of the most interesting new additions to Scott’s material that we haven’t seen before (or at least not that I could recall) is that of Dryghtyn (p. 15). Dryghtyn is mentioned in some of the new rituals and prayer material presented in the book and appears to be the name that Scott has attributed to Source with the God and Goddess being born of Dryghtyn. This was interesting because you don’t see this name for deity used much if at all in eclectic material but you do find it in some British Traditional material, most notably Patricia Crowther’s “The Dryghtyn Prayer”.
In the end, “Cunningham’s Book of Shadows” boils down to being a nice collection of many of his best magickal bits in one handy, hardcover book. It doesn’t really bring a lot of new material to light and it certainly isn’t the posthumous new Wiccan classic that I think many people were hoping for. It’s worth checking out if you are a fan of Scott’s and would like to have something like this on your shelves, otherwise it is an easy one to pass on.
Mood: tired
“Eastwick” goes *poof*
Nov 12th
I don’t know if I’d say I’m terribly surprised by the news yesterday that the ABC is on the verge of canceling it’s new show “Eastwick“, the television spin-off of the film “The Witches Of Eastwick” which was based off the John Updike book of the same name (am I the only one who is starting to wonder if the world has run out of story ideas). The show which stars Rebbecca Romijn, Roxanne Torcoletti and Kat Gardener in roles based off the movie characters of Alex, Jane and Sukie, respectively, is not officially canceled. Word is that ABC declined to order any additional episodes, which means that nothing beyond what was originally shot for the season initially will be aired and a second season has not been decided on. ABC is planning to air the remaining episodes that it had produced. If TVGuide.com is any indicator, it looks like that means one more episode on November 25th however the season details on Wiki list the season finale as being slated for Spring 2010 (I would assume that was before this news).
Many reports of this abrupt end of the show have outright call the show a flop saying that ratings have dropped steadily since the show premiered in September. The show is in a slot that is up against Jay Leno’s new prime time show and “Eastwick” and consistently beat out Leno in the ratings, so that is really saying something about how badly that decision to move him to prime time really was! Either way, it looks like the fate of the witches of “Eastwick” will hang in the air for a little while before ABC finally pulls the plug altogether, which is pretty likely.
On several websites comments from readers ran the gambit of not really caring to people up in arms that a lighthearted show that isn’t a cop or hospital drama can’t manage to stay on the air. I’m getting these people don’t get the Hallmark Channel, WE or Oxygen. There’s lots of this sort of stuff over there if you’re looking for it! I personally never watched the show and can’t really wager in with a personal opinion. The idea of a TV version of one of my all time favorite movies with a Wisteria Lane meets The Power of Three make-over didn’t appeal to me in the slightest. I suppose in the end it’s all for the best because then I don’t have to worry about losing another show I like (I’m still not over the end of “The Soprano’s”).
Extreme Paranomal…again…my shock and awe
Oct 27th
Yes, that’s right, shock and awe. But I’m sure you can guess that it’s not GOOD shock and awe. Last night it occurred to me that the part two of the “special two night event” was on and I turned the channel to the show even though I had missed the first five minutes. Since I knew that one of the two locations had something to do with Voodoo I was especially interested to see how this would turn out. And…just…wow.
I gave the sort of blow by blow of how their investigations go in my post about them last week so I really don’t need to get into it again because this episode followed the same format as the last one. Silly instigation of spirits, putting themselves in potentially dangerous situations (both physical and spiritual) for the purpose of gathering evidence or creating some shock factor footage and just in general showing no respect for the spirits and locations being investigated. However it’s the first segment, the one that deals with a Voodoo curse in Louisiana from 1915 when a supposed Voodoo Priestess named Julia Brown places a curse on the whole town. A hurricane came several days after her own death killing just about everyone in the town. And in come “Ghostman” and “Demon Hunter” to check out the validity to the hauntings that have been reported in the area since.
They use a coffin as an altar, they invoke Papa Legba, Baron Samedi and Mama Brigitte (they invoke her with sparking water which I found interesting because I had always known that rum with hot pepper was appropriate to her). There is suddenly a sound of drums from somewhere and two of the guys take off and start exploring the woods and leave the “Demon Hunter” behind to hang out at the coffin altar. When they call to him to ask if he saw something that they saw and ran after they get no response so the come back and Nathan is laying on ground, mouth agape and eyes wide open looking paralyzed. Wow…really?
Here is the first part and I’ll include the second part as well but if you watch the first part you’ve seen all you really need to see. Although if you watch the second part you can get to see them mark the the whiney guy with chicken blood and put him inside the coffin altar, bury him alive and try and provoke spirits while the guy is in the coffin.
Honestly, I think that regardless of how ridiculous these guys are, this is just unbelievably disrespectful! The whole episode pretty much opens up with Shaun saying “We’re gonna mess with Voodoo for the first time in 15 years of investigating.” Keyword here being “mess”. Maybe it’s just me but that’s where my shock and awe comes in, the disrespect. It just doesn’t seem as though they’re working with the practices in the rituals from a place of respect or anything of that nature but more from a place of shock value. It’s like a 15 year old that dyes their hair green, gets a tattoo and starts doing things to freak out their parents; they don’t know what they’re doing, they aren’t doing it for any real reason, they’re just trying to get a reaction.
You know what the WORST part of all of this is? I can’t tear myself away from watching this train wreck. I’m sure if this does end up coming back on A&E as a regular show I wont watch more than an episode or two. There are two things that would make me less annoyed with this show. First, incorporating some ACTUAL experts in their investigations when they are going to do things like rituals. So with this Voodoo ritual they should have brought a Voodoo Priestess with them rather than just going and talking to one. Second, it would be great to see them do some research with their evidence after the investigations rather than just “hey we found some stuff let’s go home”. Their “evidence” of EVPs and their heat sink evidence are pretty suspect without any sort of follow up. When you see heat sink evidence of someone sitting somewhere when the three on camera personalities are in view of the shot that doesn’t automatically mean it’s a spirit, especially when you’re dealing with people that have a camera crew following them around. So who’s to say who or what that is?
Yup, cheat thrills. The real shock and awe for me is how many people seem to be loving this show based on the comments that A&E is getting on their Facebook and Twitter pages. It’s also surprised me greatly that there are people saying that this is what they would rather see other than shows like “Ghost Hunters”. It just makes me realize that we’re still not really in a place for television shows about true paranormal work and experiences. I guess in the meantime you can always check out the awesome team of Beckah and Katie Boyd and visit their site Supernatural Hotspots and watch their investigation videos and check out their stories. Until we start demanding better of the media and these “reality” paranormal shows we’re going to continue to be nothing more than a Halloween freakshow all year round.
Let the paranormal insanity begin!
Oct 20th
Ah…Halloween must be in the air! Monday night a new paranormal show premiered on A&E called “Extreme Paranormal”. Now, I wasn’t holding out MUCH hope but at least a LITTLE hope. I always do when there is a new paranormal show on but I’m starting to think that I need to count my blessings that “Ghost Hunters” keeps spinning off new shows and just stick with that. In case you haven’t heard in November Sci-Fi (which, as a refresher, I refuse to call SyFy), has a new spin off from “Ghost Hunters” coming called “Ghost Hunters Academy”. This show will be featuring groups of college students and would be ghost hunters working with Steve and Tango from the popular Ghost Hunters franchise as they learn the ropes with paranormal investigations. I have hope there. “Extreme Paranormal”…no.
“Extreme Paranormal” appears as though it will be the latest in the A&E psychic and paranormal shows, something that the channel is getting quite deeply involved in. The cable channel is airing the two part pilot on the two Mondays leading up to Halloween (naturally). On October 19th the first of the two shows aired and it was quite a scene. This show is very similar in style to “Ghost Adventures” (which you can see how I feel about that here). Basically three guys with equipment that go running around provoking spirits only to later run away. And they seem to have no purpose for doing what they do other than to freak each other out and “catch evidence” of a spirit.
The best, or really worst, part of the show is the “occult expert” Nathan, AKA “The Demon Hunter”. I can’t even being to tell you the number of eye roll/giggles that this guy gave me in the hour of this show. In this episode Nathan, along with Shaun, AKA “Ghostman” and Jason, who has no cool “Top Gun” call sign, went to visit the New Mexico State Penitentiary which saw some of the most brutal inmate deaths during The New Mexico Penitentiary Riot during two days of February 1980. One of the brilliant ideas that these guys come up with is to visit the cell of a victim that was pulled out and burned alive and use fire and blood to try and draw his spirit out to make an appearance for them. They get one guy to lie on the floor in the exact spot where the inmate died (there are burn marks on the floor showing how he was positioned at the time of his death), they outline the body in chalk, use a flammable gel to outline that, Nathan cuts his hand and draws out blood to draw “The Tree of Death Rune” inside the outline and then lights it all on fire to get the inmates spirit riled up all while basically verbally taunting him as well. Seriously!?! As for “The Tree of Death Rune” I honestly don’t know what he was talking about. The rune he drew looked somewhat like Algiz upside down which was interesting since that’s not so much a rune of death but protection. If anyone could shed some light on this I would love to hear it because I’m seriously wondering if this guy maybe spends too much of his time playing World Of Warcraft when he’s not being “The Demon Hunter”. Which, by the way, they have the nicknames because they have a site and podcast called “Ghostman and The Demon Hunter”.
But after going nuts cutting bars off cell doors, lighting fires, screaming like little girls and generally acting like idiots they just leave. No discussion, no assessment of evidence, no real purpose to their visit. “Hi, we just want to come in and light shit on fire and maybe use a power saw to bust up some cell doors. Mind if we spend the night next week?”
And then they went to a lake to hunt down a serial killer which was even more ridiculous. They constructed a large circle with pentacles and a triangle attached to it out of foam with bit clear plastic party cups glued to the top to act as makeshift candle holders for tea lights and then they send it off afloat into the lake where this spirit apparently resides. Nathan tells Shaun to go in the water but to stay in the circle because he’ll be “protected by God” as long as he says in it…because meanwhile Nathan and Jason will be, you guessed it, lighting a circle on fire on the beach and summoning the spirit of the serial killer out of the water. Yes, a fiery ring of invocation, complete with skulls and all, on a beach at a lake while some guy is floating around with a flashlight in the water inside some rejected NERO prop. Really!?! And naturally they piss off the ghost which comes up from the water and grabs Shaun by the back and tries to pull him under, however Nathan will be sure to point out to him that it happened because he left the circle! OH NOS!!!
Honestly, this is just getting to be too much! There are enough of these paranormal shows on and a few of them, mainly the “Ghost Hunters” shows, seem to serve a purpose in trying to help the living and the dead cope with and understand their unique situations. Things like this and “Ghost Adventures” are just silly and pointless. At the beginning of “Extreme Paranormal” there is a disclaimer stating that portions of the rituals have been cut and that you shouldn’t try this at home. I can only assume that the reason for “cutting out parts of rituals” is so that they don’t encourage people to light their living room floors on fire or anything like that in order to call on spirits that might be in the house.
On a somewhat brighter note, after that monstrosity ended a show I hadn’t seen before came on called “Medium/P.I.” This show stars one of my favorite magickal people and psychics, Jackie Barrett as she works with her friend Sean Crowley who is the Captain of the cold case homicide division of the NYPD to try and solve cases. This was an interesting show and I enjoyed it since it showed people with the gift of sight working to HELP people, not just piss off ghosts for the hell of it. Besides, it was nice to see Jackie Barrett back on TV. She was the runner up of Lifetime’s show “America’s Psychic Challenge” back in 2007. Sadly this didn’t seem to list any upcoming episodes beyond the one that I saw. However another episode of “Extreme Paranormal” will air next Monday what the paranormal triple threat visit an insane asylum and put Jason in a straight jacket in an effort to “draw out ghosts”! Good times.
“Time to nut up or shut up”…yes, it’s Zombieland!
Oct 3rd
I wish I could give the this movie 100 thumbs up in front of the post title! “Zombieland” turned out to be the best 81 minutes of my life this year so far. Seriously.
“Zombieland” tells the story of 4 of the, possibly, last humans left on earth after the zombie apocalypse has finally happened. Woody Harrelson’s character explains early on that knowing the names of those that are still alive is a bad idea because it will cause you to get attached, so instead of proper names they call each other by where they are from; Tallahassee (Harrelson), Columbus (Eisenberg), Wichita (Stone) and Little Rock (Breslin). At the time the apocalypse happens Columbus is a college student in Austin, Texas and he decides to try and get back to Ohio to see if his parents are still alive. As he is heading east he hooks up with Tallahassee, a crazy zombie killing machine, also headed east and willing to take Columbus as far as Texarkana in his Escalade since Columbus has been walking. Tallahassee’s main side mission is to find a Twinkie, and this leads them to eventually meeting Wichita and Little Rock, two sisters trying to get to Pacific Playland in California, an amusement park that is rumored to be zombie free. After a series of cons on the guys, they all end up together heading west to the amusement park and on the way nothing short of hilarity ensues.
It’s so hard to really explain how truly awesome this movie was. I know that’s sort of a cop out in a lot of ways, but it’s true. I can honestly say this is one of the first times I’ve been to a movie where honestly EVERYONE in an almost sold out theater laughed at the same things and really enjoyed it together. Harrelson and Eisenberg are a fantastic, almost Abbot and Costello type pair, playing off each other perfectly. The acting from all four is genuinely great and the zombies, of which there are many, are both funny and somewhat scary. The special effects and makeup are great. This was the first movie I’ve seen Eisenberg in (sadly I missed “Adventureland” but my husband saw it and said he was really great in that and he loved him in this as well). He’s got a lot of promise I think as a comedic actor but he kind of reminds of me Michael Cera; he does that whole “sad geek” thing real well it seems. And truth be told, and anyone that knows me pretty much knows this, but I’ve had a big thing for Woody Harrelson since I was a kid watching “Cheers” and some of my favorite movies are movies with him (“White Men Can’t Jump”, “A Scanner Darkly”, “Natural Born Killers”…and he was the only redeeming thing about “Surfer, Dude” which was a shame because that could have been a great movie).
If you like zombie movies, you’ll like this. If you like dark comedy, you’ll like this. If you liked “Shaun of the Dead” you’re going to love this! And if you can, catch this one in the theater! I would definitely say this is one you want to see with a crowd. “Zombieland” gives a lot of hope that the zombie comedy concept can work on a lot of levels and it isn’t just a one-shot fluke. Here’s to hoping that the zombie genre keeps churning out funny, exciting films like this one!
Witches & Pagans – It’s what you’ve been waiting for!
Sep 23rd
So a little while ago I posted letting everyone know that newWitch and PanGaia were expecting a baby! Shortly thereafter Witches & Pagans, the love child of BBI Media’s newWitch and PanGaia magazines, was born. And it was a wonderful occasion to be celebrated for sure!
Like I said in the past, I loved both newWitch and PanGaia. I was an avid reader of both and have saved every issue of newWitch that was ever published (they’re all in a nice big plastic file box at my book shelves, and yes, I do actually refer back to them). And I did lament the loss of it, even though I was never in the demographic for it. I also have always enjoyed PanGaia and the thought of the two coming together to create something new was exciting.
Late last week my copy of the premiere issue of Witches & Pagans arrived and like the giddy geeky Witch I am I tore open the package and started reading right away. This issue, as a first issue, is very strong and should draw in a lot of readers and should definitely quell the fears of any PanGaia readers who were worried that the absorbing of the newWitch audience would lessen the quality of material in the new rag. This is a great balance of the two and, I think, will do a few great things. It will bring some more serious and thought provoking material to the newWitch audience and show the PanGaia audience that some of the younger Pagans that are up and coming have a lot to offer the community.
As I’d mentioned in my previous post, Witches & Pagans will publish 4 times a year with each issue having a central theme. This first issue was “the faery issue”. On the Witches & Pagans site they have the themes for each issue planned through 2011 (me thinks I’m going to need to sit down and write some things to send in…hehe). Witches & Pagans has absorbed staff from both previous publications so many of the writers and contributers will be familiar to long time readers of the previous publications. In this first issue there is a fantastic interview with S.J. Tucker and a wonderful interview of R.J. Stewart done by T. Thorn Coyle, something that I thought was fantastic, one faery trailblazer interviewing another. The Wandering Witch column from newWitch has remained and tackles Renaissance Festivals. There is a great piece on the origins of the Celtic faery faith and a number of articles written from a variety of view points and places of experience on the faeries, from working with them to the simple belief in them. This issue truly becomes a guide for anyone interested in the fae and the faith and practices that surrounds them.
The overall feel of the magazine, to me, is a more grown up version of newWitch. It’s as though newWitch turned 28 and is about to approach 30 as apposed to just turning 21. There are hints of PanGaia with some of the other more intellectually geared pieces, but overall I still feel a strong newWitch connection. And with the inclusion of things like the “Good Witch/Bad Witch” column from newWitch, a personal favorite of mine, but not including the debate/opposing views column that ran in PanGaia, I could see this being a little isolating to some. The visual appearance has a less “cutesy graphic” feel than newWitch and seems to be more like PanGaia in that regard, which adds to the “we’re growing up” feel. And it was nice to see that in the “Give & Take” (i.e. Letters to the Editor) column they did a great job of wrapping up things from the last issues of the preview two magazines.
Personally, I love this. This was a great idea to save two the best of two great individual publications that needed to evolve. I am positive that there will be people from the readership of both newWitch and PanGaia that will not be happy with the transition, but you can’t please everyone. Overall I think this is magazine will not only keep the better portion of the previous readers but I’m sure will pull in a good number of new readers that may have found PanGaia too Pagan and newWitch too young and “Witchy”.
Get out there and get this! It’s what you’ve been waiting for!
If you were having a movie marathon…
Sep 11th
Before I get started with the normal writing and whatnot for the day I thought I’d post a little discussion, chit chat question for you all. It’s going to be that time soon where many of you start hanging out at home to avoid the cold, bad weather or both. Lots of times this means getting together with some friends, having some good food, good drinks and catching a flick or two. So let’s discuss…
If you were going to hang out at home with some friends and have a “Witchy Movie Marathon”…what would you be showing? And, any special witchy foods or drinks (adult ones included) that you’d be serving at your magickal gathering?
Mood: curious
I've been watching a lot of movies…
Aug 27th
I’m not going to go into a big, long serious of serious reviews, picking apart details and whatnot; I’ll save that for a time when I’m not starting to feel my eyes getting heavy from a night of doing other things. Instead, I thought I’d share some of my thoughts on a few movies I’ve seen lately.
I went to the movies twice this in the last week or so. The first movie I saw was “Inglourious Basterds” last Saturday and then this past Tuesday I saw “Julie & Julia”. Then last night I started working through my list of movies on DVD (or in this case Cinemax) that I want to watch. This particular viewing consisted of “The Rocker”.
Ok, so first, “Inglourious Basterds”. I’ll admit that I’m a big Quentin Tarantino fan. I figured I was going to like this one regardless because you get to take a war that I have always been really interested in, have Tarantino direct a story involving said war, and then throw in Brad Pitt. The thing that because pretty clear early on in the movie is that the trailer might be a little misleading, especially if you’re not used to how Tarantino likes to mess around with stuff and often just confuses the hell out of you to help weave his stories. This one has a couple different stories going on at the same time that all sort of come together into one really epic ending. If you want to really break the stories down I would say we’ve got about 3 or 4 stories that are going on at once (some bigger than others) but they all manage to pull together and connect in the end. There are lots of subtitles in this one as well which I wasn’t expecting. But I did feel that having French and German actors speaking in their native tongues added to the film a great deal. I appreciate that authenticity.
One of my favorite scenes happens early on in the film when the Basterds are seen taking a patrol of Nazi soldiers captive and Pitt’s character Aldo tries to get them to tell him where the next band of solders are hiding out, which he suspects could be a nearby orchard. This is also when we really meet Eli Roth’s character Donny “The Bear Jew” Donowitz for the first time. As an aside, I can’t STAND Eli Roth. I think he’s one of the worst horror writers and directors out there. HOWEVER, I really liked him in this movie. I think I’d like to see him act a little more and write and direct a little less. Anyway, this is what happens when Aldo tries to talk to the Nazi Sargent they have captive.
Aldo: I need to know about the Germans hiding in trees. And you need to tell me right now.
Sgt. Werner: I respectfully refuse, sir.
Aldo: Actually, Werner, we’re all tickled to hear you say that. Quite frankly, watching Donny beat Nazi’s to death is the closest we ever get to going to the movies.
[Aldo shouts to Donny who is off screen]
Aldo: Donny!
Donny: Yeah?
Aldo: Got us a German here wants to die for country. Oblige him.
And thanks to Tarantino’s wonderful direction the entrance of Donny and the sound of the bat he carries tapping on the inner walls of an underpass tunnel are just fantastic and really build the scene….and I’m not going to get into anything with what happens next. But it’s actually kind of funny, in that sick Tarantino sort of way.
So overall “Inglourious Basterds” was fan-freakin-tastic. I HIGHLY recommend this if you’re a fan of twist and turn stories and especially if you like war movies and enjoy the much darker, sicker sort of humor. It’s long, about 2 1/2 hours, but really quite a magnificent bit of cinema.
Ok, next we go to something MUCH less bloody. “Julie & Julia” is the story of woman about to turn 30 who is having the all to common “OMG I’m going to be 30″ crisis who suddenly finds herself taking on the task of cooking every recipe in Julia Child’s opus “Mastering The Art of French Cooking” in the time frame of one year and she’s going to blog about it along the way. Now, if you aren’t into cooking or don’t know anything about Julia Child and the kind of cooking she did, you might not see where this is quite the massive undertaking. French cooking is not easy by any stretch of the imagination. “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” is over 700 pages long. It’s a big deal. Now this story is interwoven with the story of how Julia Child got into cooking and how she became the world renown chef she was. And, unless you’re completely living under a rock you know that Meryl Streep takes on the role of Julia Child in the film and, I have to say, she is magnificent! She does the voice perfect and they made her look so much like Julia Child in her younger years that it’s worthy of a few double takes at times. Stanley Tucci plays Julia’s husband Paul and he’s also fantastic (Tucci is also going to be on screen later this year in the Peter Jackson directed film “The Lovely Bones” based on the best selling suspense novel).
Here is something to take into consideration with “Julie & Julia”. I’m a vegetarian. I haven’t eaten meat is a good couple of years at least (since early 2007). When I left that movie I was sooooo hungry!!! Even though I wouldn’t eat it I can’t help but admit that all the beef stew, or to be more correct, boeuf bourguignon, looked so damn good! In the end it comes down to a really sweet story that was told wonderfully. I’ve done some reading though and found that Julie Powell is not quite how she is portrayed in the movie (i.e. not as cute, sweet, etc). That was a little disappointing. And to be honest I was surprised at how many horrible reader reviews her book that the movie is based on got on Amazon. I am going to read Julia Child’s book “My Life In France” though. Now I’m completely intrigued. For me the movie was a flash back to sitting in my grandmother’s bright yellow kitchen in her condo as a kid and watching “The French Chef” on the little tv in the kitchen while she would make dinner. Now I need the DVDs of “The French Chef” and I’ll be happy…lol.
And then I watched “The Rocker”. Not a lot to say about it, it’s what you’d sort of expect. Cute, funny in a goofy way, not a very original story (it is sort of “School of Rock” for high school kids) but it was a nice hour and 40 or so minutes of fun. I love Rainn Wilson and as much as I thought this would be horrible, I actually thought he wasn’t bad at all. The kids aren’t terrible either but it’s no masterpiece of film. Cute, funny, you could watch it with your kids.
So, on that note, it’s 7:30am which means it’s time for me to attempt to get some kind of sleep for a little while at least.
Bon Appetite!
Mood: sleepy 
Book Review: "You Are Psychic"
Jul 6th
“You Are Psychic”
By Debra Lynne Katz
2004
Llewellyn Worldwide
ISBN – 978-0738705927
In the book “You Are Psychic” clairvoyant and professional psychic reader Debra Lynn Katz attempts to create an at home coursebook or sorts for the would-be psychic based on her personal experiences and training she gained at The Berkley Psychic Institute. The book is a mix of personal stories, anecdotes, and exercises for helping one develop their intuition and visualization skills. It’s a book that starts out very entertaining and intriguing but quickly seems to take a turn and by the end had me completely turned off to Ms. Katz’s techniques.
I originally purchased a discounted copy of Katz’s second book, “Extraordinary Psychic” under the premise that this was a book aimed mainly at professionals looking to expand techniques for working with clients. As this would be me, I thought it would be worth a read, but quickly I realized as I glanced through the introduction of that book that she had a previous book that this one I had was meant to expand on. So I went out and purchased the first one and thought I would read them in order to get the most from them. At this point I haven’t moved on to the second one, but I may still give that a go.
This book however, “You Are Psychic” is a book that is aimed at the open skeptic who wants to expand their own abilities as a form of proving the power of psychic ability. Ms. Katz’s all but says this is how she herself began studying the art of psychic reading and would eventually go on to be a professional reader, and now author, with a thriving business in Sedona, AZ. She begins by telling stories of how she has helped others and tried to prove to those skeptics around her that there was truth to clairvoyance. This soon moves into a series of exercises to help teach grounding and cleansing negative energy. These exercises and techniques, all dealing with grounding cords and “pillars”, were good, basic techniques that I agree all people that work with such practices should be proficient in as they are part of good psychic protection. However things start to get interesting and little less conventional from there.
A technique that Katz was taught in her time with the Berkley Psychic Institute involves creating a “reading receptacle” in the mind where all clairvoyant information is seen. This is done by closing your eyes and “seeing” through the forehead with your third eye. The reader creates a reading screen and then, as Katz’s instructs, visualizes a crystal rose, complete with stem which acts as a grounding cord, and within this rose is where all information will surface. This particular image is chosen because, as she surmises, anyone can visualize a rose. She then states that if you can’t just postulate that the rose is there and postulate the information coming to you. This automatically had me a little thrown off and as I tried these exercises I was never once able to visualize a rose that would contain any sort of images, colors or information. She also goes through a series of exercises that have to do with also being able to “blow up” and destroy your crystal roses and reading screens as a way to release the energy or connection to things you see in a reading because, as she says, if you can create and image you need to also know how to destroy and release it.
The book goes on with a number of what she called “psychic tools” and exercises, all explained in brief snippets with more of her stories and experiences than explanations of these exercises, their techniques, origins and uses. In the section of the book on actually performing readings she talks about several things, which for me, were instant turn offs. First, as she explains early in the book, you should always perform your readings with your eyes closed so that you cannot see your client or the person you’re reading for since this will only influence you and your information. She stress this point in the later part of the book along with explaining that you should never look for validation from a client during a reading because this only feeds our ego and does nothing for the person we are reading for. These two things had me almost throw the book across the room. I think that a reader needs to have their ego in check enough to know when walking into the reading that this isn’t about them, but it’s about the client, and that’s all the more reason to make sure that your client can validate what you’re giving them and that they understand what you’re giving them. If you’re sitting there for an hour with your eyes closed, not looking at or acknowledging your client and just rambling off with whatever comes to you, you could very well open your eyes to either a completely baffled client or an empty chair because you were so in your own little world that you have no idea that the person got up and walked out because you were so far off base! Just because you get information while reading someone doesn’t mean it’s necessarily for that person in front of you (like in a case were someone might be causing you to pull information about one of their children or a spouse) and it also doesn’t mean that they can relate. I agree with her about not wanting to brow-beat your client into agreeing with what you give them and this being a reason to not seek validation but validation isn’t always about the reader’s ego and is just as important to making the client comfortable with you as a reader.
Ms. Katz also includes a lengthy section on psychic morals and ethics. One thing that she talks about which relates to this but is in a previous section, is her thoughts on reading for children. She says that she doesn’t like have adults or parents present when reading for children but makes sure that they are at least within sight or earshot because she doesn’t want to get sued because of things like abuse or molestation accusations. Really?! I would never imagine reading for a minor without the presence of a parent of guardian! To me that just seems extremely unethical! I also found a section on sexual ethics and what to do if you find yourself aroused during a reading because of an attraction to the client and what to do if you think you’re destined to be in a relationship with the client, well, interesting. She then goes on to talk about “astral rape” which was just…interesting.
Frankly I didn’t gain nearly as much from this book as I had hoped. I didn’t find her techniques helpful and many seemed confusing and uninspired. I also felt that with all her talks about ethics, morals and do’s and don’t's as if she was trying to put herself on a very high moral ground where she was looking down on everyone else, including her clients. I also felt as though she was, to some degree, putting those who use tools to tap their abilities (such as tarot, pendulums, etc) as not “true clairvoyants” and psychics who are somehow less capable.
While I wouldn’t recommend this book and I don’t find much from it that can be useful to those who may have any understanding of their own abilities or the world of psychic reading and healing, it may be of interest to the open skeptic who has no previous experiences to draw from. But for the rest of us this is is one I would stay away from.
