Showing posts with label Guest Posts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Guest Posts. Show all posts

Guest Post: 5 Things You Should Know About Fighter Pilot's Daughter by Mary Lawlor

 


Our guest today is Mary Lawlor, author of Fighter Pilot's Daughter. She is here to talk about her latest memoir. Be sure to check out her book, Fighter Pilot's Daughter!

5 Things You Should Know About Fighter Pilot's Daughter

By Mary Lawlor


1. It’s a true story—an account of my life as one of four daughters in an Irish-American, Catholic, military family.

 Fighter Pilot’s Daughter is one of the few works of non-fiction about a specific military family and one of even fewer that situates the experience of military family life on base and all the moving within the larger picture of the late Cold War. 

2. The plot of the book follows the moves we made at the behest of the Marine Corps and Army. And we moved a lot –on average once every two years.

3. Fighter Pilot’s Daughter is my first book of non-academic writing. I spent many years as an English professor and published a couple of academic books. This was my first venture into making a story about my own, personal experience. It was a very exciting and very frightening thing to do. I had no idea if I could pull it off but was thrilled to see that I could.

4. Some readers have wondered how my sisters, who have a central role in Fighter Pilot’s Daughter, reacted to the book. Well before publication, I gave them the manuscript to read. I wanted to know if there was anything they objected to so we could talk about it and work out potential issues. But they were very supportive and didn’t complain about anything—none of the complicated pictures of our family the book conveys, including our father’s alcoholism. I’ve been very grateful for that support and wouldn’t feel right about the book if they hadn’t seen it before it came out.

5. Fighter Pilot’s Daughter is one of the few works of non-fiction about a specific military family and one of even fewer that situates the experience of military family life on base and all the moving within the larger picture of the late Cold War. 


Mary Lawlor is author of a memoir, Fighter Pilot’s Daughter: Growing Up in the Sixties and the Cold War (Bloomsbury 2015) and two books of cultural criticism, Recalling the Wild: Naturalism and the Closing of the American West (Rutgers UP 2000) and Public Native America (Rutgers UP 2006). She studied at the American University in Paris, the University of Maryland, and New York University. She divides her time between Easton, Pennsylvania and Gaucin, Spain. Her novel, The Translators, is set in 12th century Spain and fictionalizes the experiences of Robert of Ketton, first translator of the Koran into Latin. She hopes to see it out next year. In the meantime, she has started a second novel, The Women’s Hospital, set in 18th century Spain and inspired by the life story of an Irish woman whose family moved to Cádiz, escaping English oppression in their own country.

╰┈➤ You can visit her website at https://www.marylawlor.net/.

Connect with her on social media at:

╰┈➤ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mary.lawlor.186/ 

The Supernatural Powers of the Tarot by Karen La Puma


The Supernatural Powers of the Tarot
by Karen La Puma

The magic and power of the Tarot is a tuning fork into cosmic wisdom, where you can hear the ancient wise voices and the Calls of the Gods. This cross-cultural visual system will lead you on the spiritual journey. It is a map that reveals the evolutionary process and the cosmic curriculum.  

Joseph Campbell researched world mythologies and gave us the one


great myth, the Hero’s Journey. From it we are told that “Supernatural Aids”will come to help us, once we embark on the Spiritual Adventure and ask for more purpose and meaning.  

Tarot is a “Supernatural Aid.” It has been my faithful guide and spiritual companion. These synchronistic revelations are Magical Talismans and Mystical Helpers. It is like having your own personal psychic on hand. 

The Tarot is a great wisdom system of spiritual ascension that connects us to all of life. It is often called an unbound book that is made up of 78 cards. There are 22 Major Arcana or universal principles that perfectly fit with Astrology. Traditionally there are 10 planets (including the luminaries) and 12 Zodiac signs.  

The remaining 56 Minor Arcana cards are made up of the four elements fire, earth, air and water. In each suit there are ten cards that correlate with our life lessons and opportunities and four Royalty cards as our teachers.  

Archetypes are living and breathing energies and express a range of experience. They are life’s patterns or rhythms and cosmic flow. Their symbols have many layers. The cards at times are like nouns, or personifications and meetings with Inner allies. They can be verbs that give a directive to take some actions or reveal the initiations. These archetypes can be adjectives that give a descriptive path or divination.  

There are major evolutionary themes in the Major Arcana cards. The first is learning to balance and harmonize love and will. The second category is setting things into motion, initiating new creativity, causing and affecting. The third topics are healing and transforming. Finally the process is attaining self-actualization or becoming whole and unified.   

Here are some of the most well-known power players: 

1.    The Fool card is the awakener or Uranus and helps you overcome fear. He allows you to hear the “Call to Adventure,” and embark on the spiritual path.  

2.    The Magician is designated to Mercury and teaches the magical power of the mind to manifest consciously. Our mental initiation is to be proactive and focus on what you want. 

3.    The High Priestess, the Moon Goddess, has the powers of inner nurturing and knowing. She tells you to tune in and listen to your intuition and your independent self.  

4.    The Empress, is Venus, is the Love Goddess, and embodies two initiations. The first is love, allow and accept what Is. The second is to move beyond struggle, control and drama.  

5.    The Emperor is Aries, the Warrior, and his initiation is to be accountable for your time, attention and intention. 

6.    The Hierophant is assigned to Taurus, and is the Inner Teacher, whose directive is to make your practical life sacred.  

7.    The Lovers card is designated to Gemini and presents the Duality principle. It shows how your relationships are your inner mirrors and greatest teachers, as they reflect what you feel about and you do to yourself.  

We all have our own special teachers that are denoted through our birthday. You can discover your own personal life-long teachers as well as your zodiac correspondence and each year you have a prominent growth indicator. 

My journey with these magical powers started when I studied with a beloved teacher, Angles Arrian in the 1970s. I practiced with the Tarot cards for five years, and then started to write a tarot book. I researched and recorded how the cards connected with Astrology, Hebrew Alphabet, Tree of Life, I Ching, and Numerology for six months. I had to put away my compilations, as I felt the subject was too esoteric and beyond my knowledge. After several decades of reading the cards, I was inspired to finish writing my book on the Tarot and create my own Tarot deck through digital collage. Awaken to Tarot and Awaken Tarot Cards are the result.  

To use the Tarot cards, first ask your questions, which is often, “What do I need to hear now?” Secondly, shuffle them in a quiet meditative space. The next step would be to go to the interruption in the book and read the commentary of the symbols. You can use the cards as a therapeutic tool by answering the reflective questions at the end of each chapter. There are many sample readings. 

Awaken Tarot Cards and the book, Awaken to Tarot, are part of a series, which is called, A Toolkit for Awakening. The series is based on the Goddess Warrior on the Hero’s Journey. The model is a combination of the symbolism of these three archetypes and gives us step-by-step process to a greater life of the soul.  

You may not identify with this model, but if you believe the Divine Light shines within you, you are a Goddess. If you want to evolve into a better human being, you are a Warrior. If you separate from the past, follow six initiations, and give back to the world, you are a Hero.   

I invite you to embark on this journey or recommit to it, and to use the Awaken to Tarot to be your own guide. All you need are this book and Awaken Tarot Cards for your guidance system. When you use the Tarot as an intuitive map, you can actively communicate with the magical inner teacher and make wiser, more in-tuned decisions. You have a light to shine on your spiritual path.




Karen La Puma
 is the Author of a series of books called A Toolkit for Awakening, which are based on the Goddess Warrior on the Hero’s Journey. She is a motivational, intuitive, and spiritual counselor in private practice in the Bay Area since 1979. She is a teacher, astrologer, hypnotherapist, reiki master, inspirational speaker, and creative storyteller with a potent and timely message to empower your life.

Her latest book is Awaken to Tarot: Be Your Own Guide with Astrology, Numbers and the Tree of Life.

Visit her website at www.soul-source.org or connect with her on Twitter and Facebook.