Quest 2016 continues today. Please remember it is not too late to join us…even join us midstream…we will hold your hand as you cross the stream…I promise… We received a beautiful question from Dr. Tina Seelig (faculty director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), the entrepreneurship center at Stanford University’s School of Engineering), author of in Genius: A Crash Course on Creativity (2012, Harper Collins) and Insight Out (2015, Harper Collins):

What advice would your future self a year from now give you today?

 My future self had two words for me: Play more!

Today’s Tarot Layout

I chose three cards to help me bring more humor, beauty, and play into my life.

Key to Humor: Wheel of Fortune

No matter whether we are riding the Wheel of Life up or down, we can always draw on humor to lighten most situations. If not in the moment, in retrospect. I grazed my Tarot library for further inspirational phrases regarding this card. From The Way of Tarot, The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards by Alejandro Jodorowsky with Marianne Costa I found:

Enigma, Eternal Return, New Departure, and Shooting a Film.

Maybe my next poetry movie should be based on a humorous poem about Fortune, or Lady Fortuna! Or I could journal to the card, answering: What role do I allow humor to play in my life? How might I bring humor into my art and writing?

Key to Beauty: Princess of Swords

To understand this Key to Beauty, I drew on a familiar phrase for the Thoth Princess of Swords used often by my co-blogger at Tarot for Two, Mary Allen. She likes to say this princess is “doing battle with the universe.” Perhaps in order to connect to the beauty all around me, I need to stop “doing battle,” let go, and enjoy the natural word. Or, step in and see the world through her youthful, vibrant, warrior girl eyes.

I could journal to the card, stepping in and writing the story of what brought her to this point depicted in the card.

Key to Play: Nine of Swords

The Nine of Swords is not traditionally known for being a peaceful or up-lifiting card. In the Rider Waite version, you see the querent as sleeper sitting upright, holding head between hands in an image of the mind inundated with nightmares, fears, or anxieties. But notice the quilt draped across the frightened sleeper is covered in astrological symbols and planets as if all the help she needs is in her lap. If I wanted another creative project I could sew myself such a quilt to quell anxiety, sleep beneath it, and see what dreams I dream.

I decided to pull the same card from the typically much gentler Inner Child Cards: A Fairytale Deck. While we see a child hemmed in behind nine swords, the accompanying interpretation is delightful:

“Seek the imaginative dragon inside yourself…Let it guide you toward a transformed vision of future goals.”

The interpretation also called for staying aware of the ways we habitually armor ourselves and actively making an effort to let go of the “cycle of entrapment by opening gently and lovingly to an expanded view of your life.”

I could journal to this card, asking what armor I still have on, unaware, or armor I’m holding in reserve and why. I could journal to the nine most pressing worries and counter with nine ways to alleviate the worry.

Today’s in-process drawing depicts this Dragon of Imagination I welcome back into my life and my business artistry. I also dedicate this Dragon to fellow Quester Brenna Layne and her site, where you will find all manner of dragons in all manner of settings.

Related Links and a Footnote to Process:

After writing this post, I followed Dr. Tina Seelig on Twitter (@tseelig) so I could thank her for her prompt. I found this video on her Twitter feed that made me cry. It is about creativity in little girls and grown women, that ends with the question, What’s holding you back?

Take a look here to see the striking difference between how the little girls and the women respond to a chance to play: Brit Morin: Make Time for Play, Stanford’s Entrepreneurship Corner.

In synchronicity, I feel Morin’s talk speaks directly to a the theme of connecting to our unmarred child selves, something I hit upon this week from a survivor’s standpoint in a guest post I wrote for fellow Quester Ginny Lee Taylor at Women of Wonder: Words as Spiral Path: Owning Your Story.

More about Dr. Tina Seelig, author of today’s prompt for Tracking Wonder:

Tina is a faculty director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), the entrepreneurship center at Stanford University’s School of Engineering. She teaches courses on creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship in MS&E and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford. She has written 17 books and educational games, including in Genius: A Crash Course on Creativity (2012) and Insight Out (2015), both published by HarperCollins (and both highly recommended).

A sampling of posts by Questers responding to today’s prompt by Tina Seelig:

#365 Quote, Just Keep Going by Vanessa Herald

Quest 2016: Future Self by Kimberly Houston

Stardust by Brenna Layne

Future Self by Tina Pocha

The Wisdom of My Future Self by Philippa Rees

Advice from Future Self by Anna Sircova