Laume's Studio

Several bloggers I visit regularly, as well as many others I do not have the pleasure (or time, sigh) to read, are participating in an online book club that revolves around working through the questions and challenges presented in this book - 12 Secrets of Highly Successful Women. I'm not participating because I'm trying to stay with my gut feeling that to be successful, this is a year to keep my focus on private goals and not allow myself to take on more as a way of not completing the projects and tasks I've got queued up in my life already.

Last week I was digging through my Flickr photos trying to find something to fit that week's theme for a Flickr challenge group I participate in - Shades of Inspiration - when I stumbled upon this image.

It's a photo from a portion of the Lammas altar below the stage at last year's Faerieworlds. I thought it fit the theme of "Fire and Ice" because the faery in the card looked sort of icy in color, as did the background cloth with it's pale sparkles, so it was one of several cards that I shared. Afterwards I kept stumbling upon references to the the oracle cards that I knew this card came from, because I own them - The Faeries' Oracle by Brian Froud and Jessica MacBeth. (Here's a great review of the cards.) After the third or fourth stumble.... okay, okay! I know when I'm being sent a message! I took my cards and book off the shelf and looked up the meaning.

She is card #36, Spirit Dancer. You can see an online page of her reading here, but I'll quote the short reading quip from the site and from the book below:

Starter Reading: Now is the time to focus and really concentrate on a project or process, especially one involving the creative arts. Spontaneity balanced by self-discipline will help us achieve our goals. Strive for elegance and simplicity. This is a time to bring out and share qualities that we have nurtured in private.

I also liked this wee bit from the longer description in my book:

"She also is very enthusiastic about helping us to learn to dance well with the faeries, if we don't already know how. And if we do know how, she would still be delighted to dance with us just for the fun of it. Step out boldly!"

I thought that the card's message, or rather, this particular faery's message, was spot on. It explained the overwhelming desire I've had to dance about the house recently. Like a small child who wants your attention, it feels like tiny hands pulling my cheeks around and making me look again at the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year, the goals I've already found myself straying from. And it reminded me a lot of the sort of messages bloggers who were participating in the 12 Women/Book Club were posting. And just like that I knew what I wanted to do. Instead of using that book to help guide me (although I have ordered it at the library to read), I'm going to put the faeries in charge this year.

I'll consider this card my first reading and work on the suggestions set forth in it. Instead of going at a weekly pace (the book club is doing a chapter per week), I think it's more realistic to try to absorb and work with each of my messages for about a month. I'll aim for one card reading per month although I'll follow my intuition as to when it's time for a new card, so it might be a little faster or a little slower, depending on what the faeries have to say to me.

If anyone else wants to "play" - with me, and with the faeries, I'd love to follow along on each person's journey. If I get even a couple of you who are interested, I'll make us up a little button for our sidebars and keep track of your links in mine so we can all visit each other. If you own the cards, or buy them, great! But you can play even if you don't have your own copies, as the starter readings (and of course your own intuition) are available online here.

And now, to point out the triad of key points from what Spirit Dancer had to say - spontaneity, self discipline (I love the idea that these two things can play together instead of being in opposition to each other) and "to bring out and share" - means I will be off to my studio to create.