Change of Plans - announcement

Some holiday plans were cancelled due to snow and ice, and a variety of other things.

While private and phone appointments are booked until after New Years, I've opened up the unexpected down time to e-mail tarot readings. 

As a holiday special, mention the "code" "The Vampire Diet" in your e-mail, and get a "four seasons" reading for $5 off ($20 instead of the usual $25)

The "Four Seasons" reading is a good one for the New Year's season, but doesn't work like the typical "what will happen in 2013" predictions. A "Four Seasons" reading is more like driving directions, to help you navigate the new year. Each card is a guiding theme or key idea for each of the four upcoming seasons...winter, spring, summer, fall. This reading isn't limited to new years...it covers the next four seasons from whenever you get the reading...it isn't limited by calendar year.

Just send your name, age, any questions, "Four Seasons" and "Vampire Diet" in an e-mail to:

ModernOracleTarot@gmail.com.

Your reading will come as a reply to your e-mail. You will get a separate money request from PayPal at that same e-mail address. Just follow the easy instructions in the request to pay using either a PayPal account or major credit card.

Don't forget: My readings do not make predictions about what will happen in the future. I don't read what other people think, feel or will do (eewww...talk about stalker-creepy. I wouldn't want to be on either end of that.) I don't take medical or pregnancy questions...those should be handled by your doctor. Age 18 or over to order, entertainment and personal enrichment only...you know the drill.

Whatever is "in the cards" for all of us in 2013, I hope that you all have a happy, safe, healthy, prosperous New Year.

~Ronda

www.ModernOracleTarot.com

The Yoi of Fall

Just finished the first Saturday of our Fall schedule. Yoi. And double Yoi.

Copped out on the supper thing, and we are feasting on tasty but nutritionally bankrupt things with a side of (unsweetened) fruit juice as the only saving grace.

Am kicked back checking the e-mail on the webbernet machine, and finally caught Alton Brown on the Nerdist channel (holy geeky nirvana!). Color me an official "dork fork" fan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZhSzLx5eBg.

A.B. is a Whovian....triple extra bonus genius points for him in my book (just not this one)

While snarfing my piping hot pizza nuggets, gave some thought to the Fall schedule. It never turns out the way I planned, but you have to start SOMEPLACE...so here is the skeleton of the thing, subject, as is everything in life, to change:

Blog posts: Sun-Tue-Wed-Thur

E-mail Tarot: 24/7, no appointment needed, delivery time may vary, most within 12-24 hours.

Phone Readings, Private Tarot readings, Party entertainment: by appointment only (see www.ModernOracleTarot.com for details)

E-mail Natural Health questions and consults: 24/7, no appointment needed, delivery time will vary, most within 24-48 hours to allow adequate research time if needed (see www.RondaSnow.com for details)

Reiki Sessions, In-person Natural Health Consults: by appointment only

Thanks, and hope you are having a good Saturday!

The Way of the Peaceful Vampire

Reblogged from "The Vampire Diet" blog on amazon.com for Kindle (I gave myself permission)


Of all the modern vampires, I have a real soft spot for the Cullen family in Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series. Their "coven" reminds me of that quote from Richard Bach "The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life."

My brother-in-law is family both ways. On the surface, he seems like a happy-go-lucky athlete. Every now and then, you catch a glimpse of the deeply thoughtful, loving intellect that lies beneath. During this summer's visit, he said something amazing.

He's quitting smoking. Thank goodness...cigarettes will kill you, and I'd like the dude to hang around for a while. This time he said he is "at peace" with the idea of quitting. There is no doubt in my mind that he will quit this time. There is an ocean of profound under that one statement. It's a deep idea that applies here too.

It is so easy to fall into the mainstream diet trap...to focus on food & exercise while forgetting about the mind and spirit. This blog has been taking that turn lately too. Time to throw some esoterica at you.

You can argue that being happy will bring a healthy weight from a purely physical standpoint. If you reduce stress, there is less adrenal gland interplay with insulin production, glucose metabolism, and fat deposition.

You can make the same case from a mental-emotional standpoint. Mind and body are utterly connected. A contented outlook, combined with good information and a sprinkle of self-awareness, can find the non-physical connections to what we choose to eat. If you figure out why comfort foods comfort you, or discover why you don't pay attention to what / how much you eat, then you can go a long way toward making a healthy change. That doesn't even touch the way mood, appetite, and brain biochemistry are connected.

But then there are the spiritual aspects that diet books, nutritionists and mainstream fitness 'gurus' seem to avoid. Being at peace with your decision to live a healthier lifestyle is truly important. In tarot, the 9 of Wands card is often associated with the idea of "acceptance". But not the way you might think. Like I tell my tarot clients, acceptance doesn't have to mean acquiescence. This isn't about giving up or giving in. It is about taking off the rose colored glasses and dealing with the reality of a situation - to accept it for what it is so you can deal with it...calmly, peacefully.

This card, and my brother-in-laws realization, is also very close to Dharma Drum Mountain's "Four Steps for Dealing With a Problem": face it, accept it, deal with it, let go of it. Being at peace with what is makes it easier to be at peace with what we need to do.

It is so easy to drop into a fearful, defensive stance when it comes to losing weight or quitting smoking. I told my brother (you can skip the in-law stuff as far as I'm concerned) that I was trying to cut out sugar. Later on he didn't offer me a sweet dessert when he offered it to everyone else. It's a small thing, but to me it was huge. It was quiet, peaceful acceptance of what I'm doing. I wish there was something more I could do to support and encourage him in his efforts. A little peaceful acceptance can go a long way.

That's where a family-of-heart, like the Cullens, give us a good role model. They have a accept what they are, and solve the problem through an ongoing lifestyle choice. Except for the occasional adventure with humans, hunters, werewolves and Volturi, they are pretty much at peace with themselves.

We welcome our heart-family into our lives, and the same spirit can help with our physical health. Instead of fighting obesity, we can welcome weight loss and fitness. Instead of fighting cigarettes, we can welcome smokeless health. It's a subtle attitude difference, but an important one. Marc helped me learn that.

Thanks man. I appreciate it.

************************************************

For a tarot reading with the author, please visit www.ModernOracleTarot.com. For Holistic Health and Stress Reduction tutorials with the author, please visit www.RondaSnow.com.

Thoughts from the Wheelhouse

I'm hooked on a fishing show. 


Never thought I'd say THAT. I don't fish. It makes me woozy to ride the "lazy river" at the water park. Don't get me wrong, I love to eat the crab the guys on TV catch, but never thought I'd want to watch the process of catching it in the first place. 


What does that have to do with intuition, tarot readings or the mind-body-spirit connection in dieting? It is a round-about connection, but we'll get there. Like almost everything in "The Vampire Diet" and "Modern Oracle Tarot" blogs, it is all about choice and taking charge of our own life. 


It's no secret that I loves me some Mythbusters. I watch Discovery Channel and Science Channel all the time. Not long ago I saw an ad for their series "Deadliest Catch" where there was an ill crew member. He had "the look".  It caught my attention and the part of me that spent 13 years in medicine like a grappling hook. Whatever was going on was real, and it was bad. That guy would have looked scary enough rolling into a well equipped emergency room. Can you imagine dealing with that situation in the middle of freezing water nowhere with nothing but a blood pressure cuff, a bottle of sports drink and a radio? Yikes! My hat, were I wearing one, is totally off to Captain Keith and the "Wizard" crew.


Now throw that little bit of light viewing in the mental stew-pot along with Marcus Bach's excellent "Secrets of a Buccaneer Scholar", Gina Mazza's "Everything Matters, Nothing Matters", the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, and every other poetic captain-ship-ocean metaphor you've ever heard. The universe is trying to tell us something. These are powerful images and analogies for a reason.


Living life well is a solitary achievement.


We are each captain of our own ship. At the same time, we are deeply connected to the all-that-is just like a ship is connected to water. We can't disconnect from the one-ness of our existence any more than a ship can float up in the air levitate over waves. 


Our ship-of-self is part of a fleet. We command alone, but do not sail alone. You might not see yourself as captain of the ship, but, in a sense, you are. Think of the crew members on the crab boats...they aren't in charge of the actual ship, but they have the command call of how they conduct themselves. Each of them decides how they navigate their own personal 'ship' within the 'fleet' of the crew. They choose how to act, how to do their job. And they see results of those choices - fast - in their share of the profits and if they come back next season or not.


We are all captains in that sense. You can choose to sail alone, unconnected, but that seems to make an already risky business even riskier. 


We reach out to connect for guidance. The Captains have GPS, maps, and training to guide them, just like we can reach out to intuition and spirituality to guide us, but in the end, we call the shots. We can read diet books and recipes all we want, but in the end we decide what we buy, chew and swallow.  We can communicate and connect with other "captains" while we are in command our own ship. We get whatever information we can, yet we  still move with the waves and tides of our existence. Whether we roll with it, plow through it, or get rolled by it is our own decision straight from the captain's wheelhouse.  


Or at least, that's how it seems to me.


www.ModernOracleTarot.com

Go Dark

Reblogged from "The Vampire Diet" blog out of love of dark chocolate:


I'm of two, maybe three minds about chocolate.


I love chocolate. The darker the better. I mean the 80% cacao stuff that if you took it any further you'd be gnawing on a cacao tree like a crazed beaver. You know, chocolate.


But that's just me. I know lots of people who actually like milk chocolate better than dark (seriously? really??) and even some who actually like white chocolate (ewwww. You KNOW that isn't even really chocolate, don't you??)


But what kind of place can chocolate have in a healthy diet, I wonder. 


Before we go one word further, don't forget, the "Vampire Diet" isn't about telling you what is healthy, it is about finding fun mental analogies to stick with whatever-it-is you choose as your healthy way of  "feeding".


But personally, I still go in circles with chocolate.


Coffee is another matter. I love it too. It is antioxidant too. BUT you can have that with no sugar. Don't know about you, but I taste a lot in common between a dark, dark, lovely,  delicious chocolate and a good quality cup of coffee. Especially if you drink it black.


Unsweetened chocolate is too far, even for me. To sweeten chocolate with anything other than sugar is an abomination against human kind and all of nature, let's face it. 


So do you avoid dark chocolate in the name of avoiding sugar, or do you choose it as a tightly controlled treat? It is easy to avoid milk and white chocolate when you don't like it anyway...but the good stuff?


I can argue that it is ok. Chocolate is just a smushed up tree seeds, basically. Pretty wholesome as things go, especially if it is lightly sweet with a little sugar without a lot of fuss, corn syrup and additives. I can't even knock corn syrup in this application. Corn syrup is a boon to mankind when it comes to desserts and confections. If that's what it takes to get tree-seed-antioxidants down my gut, isn't that better than no antioxidants at all? 


Self-control and discretion is everything isn't it? Very vampiric qualities. 


I'm going to go have a cup of coffee and think about it some more.

Announcements

In-laws visiting from out-of-town for the next couple of weeks...


I'll still be here doing e-mail readings, but the turn-around might be a smidge slower than usual. So if you want an e-mail reading, don't hesitate to order. I'll get it to you just as soon as possible. Thanks in advance for your patience.


Will be springing some new recipes on them, so look for the results of that over on "The Vampire Diet". It will be my first slow-cooker pulled pork.


Have a great week!

Cornerstones and Fulcrums

Reblogged from "The Vampire Diet"...continuing from Friday



In Friday’s post, we talked about ideas being the cornerstone of change.


The cornerstone I was thinking about for today is personal responsibility. It is nearly impossible to act differently unless you have some vague idea that something else is possible. On the other hand, ideas are motionless unless and until you act upon them. If you have an idea or a bit of knowledge, but do not change what you actually do, then ideas alone can’t be an agent of change. If ideas influence how you do things or how you make choices, then they are essential to change. They might attract other things that prompt change, they might set lessons in motion just by being ignored, but in the short term, ideas alone need a little help from our spine to made real.


One cornerstone does not make a building.  Just like a rock can’t make a lever without a stick. 


After thinking about it a little more, A lever would be a better mental-example than ‘cornerstones’ in this case. It was a start...ideas are so basic, so foundational, so needed to build something new. Ideas are the turning point, but more is needed.


Think about levers. We all learned about them in elementary school science. Or at least played on seesaws at recess. 


Ideas are the fulcrum...the turning point around which change begins. Personal responsibility a is the stick that gets stuff done, that makes the change actually happen. 


No matter what diet books we read, or what regulations are enacted, or what resources we have at our disposal, who is that picks up the fork or picks up the cup? Who is it that opens our mouths and who swallows? The same person who can change all of that. We are the ones who got ourselves overweight, and we are the only ones who can get as fit and healthy as possible. Knowing what to do is of marginal value until we take the responsibility for ourselves and do it. 


That is the concept that I was trying to crowbar into words last week when the perfect, elegant, simple expression of it fell into my inbox. That is where the Richard Bach quote comes in.

“It isn’t up to my parents to change my past . . . even if they want to change it, that’s not in their power. It is, though, in my power. I can let the past go! If it’s never our fault, we can’t take responsibility for it. If we can’t take responsibility for it, we’ll always be its victim.”

Richard Bach

The quote, I’m proud to say, is used with permission.


It isn’t in the power of books or support groups to change our past...or our future. It is in our power to let our past go, to take responsibility for our mis-judgements and do things differently. We may have eaten poorly, been sedentary and hand a hand in our own ill health. But we can let that past go. If we continue as we are, then we that past is in vain. If we change, then we instantly transform that past from a mistake into a life-giving lesson. If we take responsibility for both what we did and what we will do, then we are free in the here and now as well.


Have you ever seen a whining, victimized vampire? If that is part of the mythos, it is in a comedy or parody. Even in camp and satire show vampires as powerful, in control, and self-responsible. They own their atrocities, whether they regret them or not. In choosing to be healthier, we are letting go of the past and leveraging ourselves into a new and better direction.


I feel lighter already just thinking about it.

Cornerstones

Holey smokin' guacamole!

I feel like a kid who just got Superman's autograph. Or, if you are our neighbor Jane, a six year old that just met Batgirl.

Remember the other day when we were talking about soda regulations in "Since When Did Dracula Have a Nanny?" from "The Vampire Diet" blog? Less than 4 hours after writing that, I read a post from Richard Bach's Blog about his new book "Thank Your Wicked Parents". Even though the topic is different, the post had a quote from the book that suited our topic perfectly - except it was said with far greater kindness and eloquence.
I didn't want to just slap the quote into our conversation all willy-nilly. I wanted to be as courteous, respectful and well, legal, about it as possible. So not knowing what to expect or quite what to do, I wrote for permission to use it. Blow me down. Mr. Bach himself answered!

And there you have why I have fallen in love with blogging and the Internet. Through the 'net and his kindness, I was able to have a short conversation with one of my all-time favorite authors! Online information can be fast and loose and unedited and of questionable quality, but at other times it is an unique opportunity to meet lovely brilliant minds we never could have met in person. I've always wanted to thank Mr. Bach directly, personally, for the gift his books brought to me at a time when I needed them the most. What a privilege to be able to do just that...and get permission to quote him too! Talk about frosting on the proverbial cake!

Here, Mr. Bach gives us an example of one cornerstone to real change. What does it take to make a real change - to take steps along a newer, truer, more genuine path for ourselves? One thing is, simply, ideas. How can you go in a different direction unless you get the notion that other possibilities really exist? Words and pictures are the bones and lifeblood of ideas. Without language and/or images, ideas can be ghostly, boneless things. Making a change based on ideas without language is like trying to capture morning fog in a butterfly net.

That is how Mr. Bach's books helped me. That is how I hope my books might someday help someone else. I had vague ideas, but I didn't quite have the language to really understand them much less live them. It felt like trying to grab a handful of an icy mist. Then I read "Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah", and several others like "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" by Gary Zukov, "The Tao of Physics" by Fritjof Capra, the "Tao Te Ching" and more. "Illusions" was certainly a favorite among them, which led to reading his other books, like "Nothing by Chance", "Stranger to the Ground" and of course "Jonathan Livingston Seagull". When they were published, "The Bridge Across Forever" and "One" were on my bookshelf before they were in paperback.

Now I had a conceptual vocabulary, a skeleton, for those not-quite-formed ideas from before. Books like these wrapped that icy mist in language, transforming it into solid crystals- strong, unshakable things pointing the way to a better path that had been there all along.

Ideas like these are a cornerstone for change. The solidified ones are the best ideas to build upon. Meeting like minds, and exchanging ideas turns fog into foundations and imagination into feathers.

This is the role that modern vampire lore plays in "The Vampire Diet" blog. It helps to crystallize our ideas about healthier eating. The modern vampire imagery makes that new path more visible and, hopefully, more fun. For the "Modern Oracle Tarot" blog, the tarot cards themselves serve the same purpose. The words and images associated with the cards show alternatives we might have otherwise missed, and makes the ideas we already have clearer and stronger.

If you get a chance, I wholeheartedly recommend reading "Illusions" or any of Richard Bach's books, and please do take a moment to check out his new website and new book at www.RichardBach.com.

I have a busy weekend being dropped in my lap, so we'll get back to the quote part of building cornerstones on Monday.

Before I forget to mention it - the blogs might be a little erratic during the summer, but I'll try to keep to a Monday through Friday posting schedule as best as I can. Have a great weekend! More on Monday.

www.RondaSnow.com

Big Darn Quote

Sting once said "If you can't plagiarize yourself, who can you plagiarize?"


I'm going to take inspiration from that, and if you can't quote yourself, who can you quote? Here is my post for today from my other blog "The Vampire Diet". Had a few extra, unexpected minutes so thought I'd do ONE post today (didn't think I'd get any done, being a holiday weekend and all) This one seemed to be the natural choice...pun intended.


Read, read, read-y, read read READ.


Label literacy is our only hope. At least we HAVE labeling here in the U.S. (As I understand it, it is less regulated, less honest, an downright not there in some other countries).


I've been tinkering with social media, hoping to learn to use it to promote books. As part of that I signed up for "Klout"...www.klout.com. I earned enough points to get a free sample, one of their "perks". I selected an instant tea mix...green tea with honey, that sounds nice an healthy, right?


WRONG!


The pinapple-mango flavor sounded great, especially since the sample packets arrived on a sunny 90 degree day. Green tea...good, antioxidants...one of my favorite flavors...check that for the plus column.


Sweetened with honey "granules" and sugar...OK, that's natural enough. I like my tea totally unsweetened, but I'll give it a whirl out of curiosity.


Put it in 8oz of water like the instructions suggested, and there is one word to describe it....

GGGGAAAAAAAKKKKK

...it was nauseatingly, disgustingly, overwhelmingly sweet...it was absolutely undrinkable. I though I'd gotten the instructions wrong so I added another 8oz of water to make a total of 16 oz water to one packet of mix...It didn't help. It was still make-you-vomit sweet, and you could barely taste the fruit at that point. The tea flavor was utterly undetectable in both dilutions.


Back to the ingredient list....you guessed it FRIGGEN' SUCRALOSE


The tea that was going out of it's way to look natural and healthy contains a boat load of ARTIFICIAL SWEETENER plus honey and sugar. 


The honey and sugar would have been plenty of sweetness. Especially in combination with fruit juice or fruit flavors. Adding the sucralose made what could have been a pleasant summer drink into a toxic-tasting brew of diabetes-in-a-glass. If you want a diet version, use stevia. JUST stevia. If you want a honey-sweetened tea, then JUST use honey (or your honey-sugar 'granules'). Not stupid BOTH. And certainly not a combination of honey/sugar and ARTIFICIAL sweeteners. Especially now that stevia is so readily available. 


Do you know about stevia? It is a leaf extract, been around for ages, is safe, no-calorie and used by south american native healers to HELP with diabetes. Tastes sweet, no calories, anecdotaly might help improve glucose metabolism...why isn't the world covered in this stuff? 


Sorry aspartame and sucralose people, your days are OVER. I personally will never use either of those products again. If I want sweet, I'll have sugar, stevia, agave or non-mucked-with regular corn syrup (in candy, not spaghetti sauce). There are more flavors in the world than sweet. There are more colors in the world than pink.


I didn't mention the company name or specific product for a reason...they ALL do this. Read the labels, browse the aisles at the grocery store...there is sugar, corn syrup, and artificial sweeteners in places you wouldn't think. It just isn't this company...which has some decent UNsweetened products that I have used -recently - but we as consumers can demand better. Don't buy the crap and eventually they'll stop making it. Buy the good stuff whenever you can find it, maybe they'll make more at a better price. The dollar is an almighty vote. There is a reason somebody came up with that phrase "put your money where your mouth is". If you can't afford to spend the dollars, spend the time...either e-mailing the companies or investing the time to "do it yourself". If you can't spend money on healthier foods in the market, get the whole ingredients and custom make your own. It takes time, yes, but not as much money. "Time is money" too. I like to cook, so I get a double return on the time invested in cooking...enjoyment, a healthier dish, and usually cheaper too. Don't want the jar of spaghetti sauce because of the high fructose corn syrup? Grab a couple of cans of stewed tomatoes, some tomato paste, a few dried herbs and make your own, free from any sweeteners at all. Sure the herbs might cost a little the first time, but you can get bunch of batches out of one container, don't forget.


But back to drinks. Read, read, read-y, read, read READ. The things you drink have as much right to be whole, unprocessed, and nourishing as the food you eat. That's how the vampires do it.

Geek Girl's Movie Shelf

It is a rare treat to go to the theater to see a movie...most of the time I only see older movies on DVD, (or, more recently, stream it online). But using the DVD motif, movies can sit on part of geek-girl's bookshelf...as I call the occasional book reviews here.


I went to see "Dark Shadows" this morning. It felt like senior skip day. I'm calling it book research...yeah, yeah, that's the ticket, book research. (shhh - don't tell - in reality it was a fun morning with some really good friends!)


The whole thing was just plain brain candy fun. If you are a fan of the TV series, there was plenty of homage to the original show. The references and cameos were slick, catering to real fans.  If you never watched or never liked the original...still go see it! It is rollicking fun, amps up the humor, and is just a straight-up good Tim Burton movie. Throw in Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter and it is irresistible. Some might say compelling.


But in the spirit of "book research"for "The Vampire Diet" (my other writing project in addition to "Modern Oracle" / "Today's Tarot") ...I couldn't find a single diet or weight loss analogy in the whole thing save one: Birthday cake. No, there wasn't any birthday cake in the movie. It is an example of how, every now and then, it's healthy to ease up and just focus on something else. Let yourself have fun. Stress is bad for health and weight. Spending a laid back couple of hours with a movie like "Dark Shadows" is  the mental equivalent of having a piece of cake on your birthday, no matter what diet you are on. In that sense, "Dark Shadows" is probably the best vampire-resource for this book and blog yet - the whole point is a little fun and entertainment. Dieting sucks, so why not have a little fun with it?  "Dark Shadows", on the other hand, does not suck (well, other than Barnabas having a snack). Have a little fun with that too, why don't you? I give it two fangs up.


www.RondaSnow.com


www.ModernOracleTarot.com

Today's Tarot - The Devil

It pays to acknowledge your dark side. Get to know it, befriend it. Then it won't jump out and surprise you at a really bad time later.


Introducing my other writing project "The Vampire Diet"


www.RondaSnow.com
www.ModernOracleTarot.com