Topic: Culture & Society

Most people don’t know that there are two cards in the Tarot that deal with karma. The card “Justice” (or “Adjustment”) deals with personal karma, the law of cause and effect that speaks to the consequences of our choices and actions. This is fairly easy for most people to understand: if you stick your finger into a flame you’re going to get burned. But there’s another kind of karma that’s collective and often identified with the concept of luck. In the Tarot, this collective karma is identified by the card “The Wheel of Fortune.”

Those of us who grew up in the 1950s and 60s remember that the produce departments at supermarkets used to be much different than they are now. Yellow squash, zucchinis and fresh greens like spinach could only be obtained during the summer months. Fresh strawberries were available only in the spring. In the winter months, the produce bins were filled with carrots, turnips, beets and other root vegetables. Tomatoes were available year round, but “winter” tomatoes, shipped from Florida, were green and tasteless.

Back in 1973 I discovered the works of Raymond Chandler and spent six months or so pouring through everything the crime writer had written. First I devoured the Phillip Marlowe novels, most of which had been popularized on film by Humphrey Bogart, and then gulped-down all of the short stories the writer had written for the great pulp fiction magazines like Black Mask.

A little over a year ago, I dusted off my astrology books to see what the stars would say about 2001 for this column. Looking back, the accuracy was downright frightening. The economy would be a roller coaster ride, I wrote, the situation in Israel would continue to deteriorate, there was a good chance of war or wars, and terrorism would escalate across the globe and possibly might hit within the boundaries of the United States.

Time is a funny thing. Not only does it serve the positive function of healing wounds, it also erases memories that shouldn’t be forgotten. I was treated to an example of this a few months back while conversing with a student at the school library where I’m employed.

It only figures that New Age spirituality would have to grapple with the very modern issue of intellectual property rights. Sometimes the cases are downright silly and of little or no consequence. At other times, severe blocks are put in the way of serious spiritual research and study.

Back in the early 80s I was living on California’s central coast when the city of San Francisco passed one of the country’s first restrictive smoking laws. By today’s standards, the law wasn’t very restrictive at all, only requiring that large employers supply a smoke free environment for their office workers who didn’t smoke.

Jeez! Can it really be five years since this column first appeared in the pages of ESP Magazine, a weekly entertainment paper published in Greensboro, North Carolina? Five years since ESP editor Ogi Overman asked me to write an article on the Tarot, the mystical “fortune telling” cards which are a love of mine, leading immediately to a column on alternative ideas. Five years of deadlines never missed, if sometimes pushed back a bit. Five years of biting fingernails while I tried to figure out what the heck to write about this week. Five years, four computers and five word processing programs later we're still here. Who would've thought it possible? Certainly not me.

Often, when I spout-off some rhetoric from the good old peace-love-and-groovy days, I’m accused of living in the past and reminded that this is the 21st century, with the implied suggestion that I should catch-up with the times. Actually, I’m very much entrenched in the present, thank you, and if I often quote the past it’s because I learned some values there that are timeless. These are values, I might add, that are very much lacking in our current world and if we don’t find them again soon, I fear that we are doomed to fall into a deep and dark morass from which we might never return.

As any woman who's ventured outside the “pink ghetto” of traditional women's jobs can tell you, sexism continues to be very much a part of our business culture. To be sure, laws meant to protect women's rights and guarantee equality have definitely helped. Women in the board room and female CEOs, unheard of a generation or so ago, are now fairly commonplace. But for every woman who's made it in “the man's world,” there are at least two or three who've been unable to overcome the obstacles that are set in their path.