Quest 2016 continues with CEO of Owner Media Group Chris Brogan.

Brogan asked Questers:

How will you better clarify whom you serve and what you do for them in 2016?

Today’s Tarot Layout

I pulled a card for each website where I engage and asked the Tarot for insight into how to use that image to help me better clarify whom I serve and what I plan to do for them in 2016.

Key to Mother Writer Mentor website: The Hanged One

This card reminds me of a frustrating but ultimately illuminating aspect of motherhood: often mothers are called on to sacrifice their own own goals or aspirations for long periods of time as we live moment by moment through crises or rites of passage with our children. The hidden gift comes when we keep the unconditional love of our ‘witnessing’ mother self calm enough to observe without reacting. As writers, no time is ever lost, if we pay attention.

The image of the golden glow of light from the head reminds me of finding a spiritual connection even when we are seemingly “upside down” and enduring the most difficult of circumstances. Being a mother and a writer allows us the means to eventually bring those rays of insight forward possibly to our children, but at the very least to ourselves and to other mothers trying to navigate parenting.

Mother Writer Mentor is meant to give mothers a venue where they can write about how they get to the page as they are raising their children; we support an “and” model  (one can be both mother and writer). We also empathize with the loneliness and isolation that can accompany motherhood and seek to create a non-competitive, supportive writing community.

Mother Writer Mentor is currently open to both general guest posts and our latest more specific call for guest posts: Secrets Between Mothers and Daughters.

Key to Tarot for Two blog: The Seven of Wands

My co-blogger Mary and I consult the Tarot to better understand how we are reacting to the world around us and ultimately to have greater agency. The Seven of Wands is a powerful image for trying to face challenges. Called Valour in the Thoth Deck, the Seven of Wands in the Rider Waite Deck depicts a querent armed with a staff, her thighs splayed in “ready” fighter’s stance; she’s facing down six other staffs rising up towards her.

We mean for our shared inquiry on the website–where we write to our Tarot cards of the month and connect them to the month’s happenings–to help others feel they too stand a chance at rising to meet life’s challenges with courage and an open heart. We also believe in going down a compassionate Royal Road of Tarot; taking a friend down the road is far better than going it alone.

I plan to build on the Wheel of Archetypal Courses I taught last year by posting regular Tarot Writing prompts at Tarot for Two in 2016 and developing the Tarot as Poet’s Mirror Consults seeded in summer of 2015 by expanding consults across disciplines to work not only with poets, artists, and writers, but to also serve mothers and creatives in other fields.

Key to this website right here: The Art Card

I love seeing The Art Card, also known as Temperance, fall here. My home site is a portal for my favorite art-forms: poetry, poetry movies, Tarot Writing classes, Quest blogging, Poetry Prompts for November Butterfly, and Transformative Blogging posts. The site could use a structural overhaul so the content is more accessible and could likely be organized in a more artistic way. I hope that those I serve feel encouraged to allow their art selves to be tempered by the artistic process either by trying out the poetry prompts, signing up to take a class, or signing up to work together one on one as I develop my Tarot Writing project consulting in 2016.

Key to Feral Mom, Feral Writer blog: The Three of Disks

The three red wheels on the Thoth version of the Three of disks made me think of a tricycle. Feral Mom was my first blog. I still post there, but I’m no longer raising three children on an isolated acre in the redwoods. I still consider it a bit of an emotional home base for me; when I wish to address the more feral aspects of motherhood, I still blog there occasionally.

Today’s in-process drawing is a variation of the Hanged One, perhaps nested mother and child, inverted.

More about Chris Brogan, author of today’s Tracking Wonder prompt:

CHRIS BROGAN explores how people use content and community to build marketplaces around areas of belonging. He is CEO of Owner Media Group , providing simple plans and projects for business success. He is also a highly sought after professional speaker and the New York Times bestselling author of eight books and counting, including his forthcoming book, Insider: Strategies and Secrets for Business Growth in the Age of Distractions.

A sampling of posts by other Questers responding to today’s prompt by Chris Brogan:

Who do you serve? by Kimberly Houston

Dragons Slayers Welcome by Tzivia Nancy Gover

Quest 2016 Drumming for the Tribe? by Philippa Rees