Two tarot spreads

The first is from a deck called Gypsy Tarot, which turned out to be a deck of playing cards. I use it for 1- and 3-card readings.

In Tarot nomenclature, the 3 cards are (left to right) 3 of pentacles, 10 of wands, and 8 of swords. This spread reads Past, Present, and Future in the same order.

The next layout uses one of my favourite decks. The artist, Fergus Hall, was commissioned to paint a Tarot deck for a James Bond movie. Roger Moore, the 70s, Paul McCartney singing 'Live and Let Die'. Shudder. Lets move on rather quickly, shall we?

But Mr Hall made a really good Tarot deck. Not heavily didactic like Rider-Waite-Smith, not overly clever or icky-cute. Not self-consciously Deep and Mysterious.

The layout is called the Celtic Cross. The card thats at an angle is usually laid over the card to the left of it.

On Whom I Attend

Cherie is the grey lady on the washing machine. She is the elder, and is waiting for me to turn the tap so she can drink. There is a water dish behind her, but Cherie likes running water so she can drink, bat at the drips, lick the water from her paws. She often drinks from vases or any vessel that has water, regardless of stability...

I called her Sharee at first, because we lived in a somewhat bogan area. Every society has its Bogans. Westies, Dubbos, -the west of the eastern areas of Australia is more rural and less urban. Bogan and Dubbo are the names of small inland towns.

Rednecks, chavs, hicks, hillbillys. So I gave Cherie a name that the bogan cats wouldn't tease her about. I changed the spelling from phonetic to the way the French spell it.

Her kitten name was 'Feral Rat Kitten', but with maturity I think 'Sheena, Jungle Queen' fits her better.

The boy on the fence is Rowan, as named by the animal shelter. The name seemed to fit him and he was used to it. He is about his early teens and likes to get out and play. I say to him, "where have you been, my blue-eyed son?", if I have to call for him and he shows up later. Its a line from Bob Dylan's song 'Hard Rain'.

So his alternate name is The Blue-eyed Son, even though his eyes are light green. And they shine orange in the dark, unlike Cherie whose eyes shine blue-green. I also call him My Beamish Boy, after Lewis Carrol's poem in 'Alice in Wonderland'. The hero of the poem slays the monster Jabberwock and gallumphs back home. He is greeted as "...my beamish boy!"