Kahlil Gibran, The Tides of Breath

You are not enclosed within your bodies,
nor confined to houses or fields.
That which is you dwells above the mountain
and roves with the wind.

It is not a thing that crawls into the sun for warmth
or digs holes into darkness for safety.
But a thing free,
a spirit that envelopes the Earth
and moves in the ether...
This would I have you remember
in remembering me.

That which seems most feeble
and bewildered in you
is the strongest and most determined.

Is it not your breath that has erected and hardened
the structure of your bones?
And is it not a dream
which none of you remember having dreamt,
that builded your city and fashioned
all there is in it?

Could you but see the tides of breath
you would cease to see all else,
and if you could hear the whispering of the dream
you would hear no other sound.

- Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

One of my favorite quotes of all time... it is works like this that inspire me to write, when I feel the power of words to send me like this. Maybe I love this poem so dearly because I am a Gemini, an Air sign. That being what it is, I am also strongly aligned with the Club suit in the deck of cards, the suit symbolizing Air. I used this quote from Gibran in my introduction to the Club suit in The Playing Card Oracles, because I feel it so aptly and eloquently describes the spirit of these cards. In these trying times, most especially, how valuable it is to recall our eternal nature, our oneness with "the ethers..."
If you would like more information on the Elements and the Card Suits, see my youtube video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7rOxWYAIHc
All blessings,
--Ana

HEALING.... THE FUTURE OF CARD READING

Increasingly I am finding the Oracle Readings to be beyond what I ever originally fathomed them to be. I mean, I always knew it was cool to be able to "read" people and see that the cards actually did "work", also that maybe glimpsing into the future would somehow help people. Somehow in seeing what they were creating in their life they would see that they also had choices.
Now I am seeing something more. Something beyond what I saw before.
Lately, I have been finding the readings more and more transformative, in the sense of events actually SHIFTING for people after their reading, and I believe this is due to the way I have shifted the way I look at the cards in a reading.
And here it is.

I no longer look at the cards as "good" and "bad." In other words, the old "this forebodes a good outcome and this is a bad."
I have shifted to looking at all the cards as a gift - meaning all the circumstances in a person's life are PERFECT for them at that moment and it is the way they are viewing the circumstances given that is helping or hindering them. No more good cards, bad cards. No more good life, bad life.
This is very big.
EACH CARD HAS A GIFT TO BRING, just the same as each life circumstance. Each layout or circumstance has a unique set of energies with equally unique opportunities.
Are you really swallowing this?
Some cards have more obvious gifts than others, but that is my job as the reader.... to find the OPPORTUNITY in the card layout, the POSITIVE course of action given the ENERGIES at play in that person's life. The energies are what they are (for the moment, anyway). It is the perception where personal power enters in.
Once I give PERMISSION for the person to be experiencing what they are experiencing, patterns of distress are released and situations shift of their own. The situation has been freed.

This is a way of looking at life that I have found for myself, that is now translating into my readings: Acceptance and Gratitude for WHAT IS. My opportunities are here, they are now.
The results of such a way of looking at life is translating into tangible and happy results for my clients - as it has for myself.
Although there is no way to follow up with everyone, the people I have followed up with express that often the very next day after a reading something profound shows up within the situation they were consulting me about. Often a real bone-cracker but sometimes just a feeling like, oh... that's not a problem anymore!!!! Why did I need that reading so bad?!!!
For the people I have not had the blessing of following up with, it is a knowing. I KNOW the readings are a force for shift. I feel it. I feel the person's situation shifting in ME as I am doing the reading. The new standard is the reading is not complete until I feel this shift.
Now wrap your head around this: What I am now starting to grasp is that even once a reading is scheduled the shift begins happening. Simply in anticipation of the reading (premonition?), by the time the appointment time comes the pressure has already been released from the situation.

Open your mind to a reading as a healing. Why should it be anything less?????
It is real. It is the future of card reading.

PLAYING CARD ORACLE LESSONS NOW ONLINE!

It has long been my dream to bring The Playing Card Oracles to more and more people, in a very practical sense. I would love to see The Playing Cards recognized and being USED by people everywhere in the way they were originally intended. This is the return to our personal power through our alignment with the natural and powerful rhythms of Creation.
SO.....
This is the plan....
Videos will be posted on youtube and accessible through the video bar on this site under the user account 52cardmagic. My goal is to post a new video once a week. The first teaching video is there now, in 3 parts, called Card Reading Mastery. This is what you are learning as you master the playing deck. It will include things from the book, The Playing Card Oracles, although it will include things that are not in the book, as well.
ALSO.....
I AM AVAILABLE FOR PRIVATE, ONLINE INSTRUCTION. This is through SKYPE or via email. Please email me at ana@anacortez.org for appointments and rates.
Thank you especially to all the very devoted fans of The Playing Card Oracles over these years since the book was published. Your support has kept me going.
Love,
-- Ana