Mary Greer Collecting Stories for Possible Publication

Following a suggestion from Jewel I'm listing this request here. I'm interested in collecting stories based on the use of Step 4 in my book _Mary K. Greer's 21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card_. Basically this involves creating a wild, crazy fairy tale (as if spontaneously making it up for a child's bedtime story) using a tarot card you've drawn for yourself as the only illustration. You can move beyond the borders of the card to wherever the story takes you.

The rules of the "game" are:
1. Use any 'pictorial' card. Name the deck and card.
2. It should be in response to a reading for yourself: either a one-card draw or any card from a larger spread. Keep a personal record of your question, the situation and what you feel the reading meant, but don't post them here.
3. The fairy tale should be spontaneously created, either through taping it aloud or writing it. If taping then give yourself a 5-minute time limit. If writing, then a 12-minute limit. Try to speak or write non-stop. The text should preferably be no more than 300 words (500 absolute max). Edit it for clarity, spelling and grammar, but keep it fresh.
4. It must begin "Once upon a time . . ." and include specific details from the card itself. It helps to have done Steps 1, 2 and 3 prior to doing this story.
5. Be wild, crazy and outlandish. When in doubt, make-up the craziest thing you can think of.
6. Title your story. Put your title in the Title section of your Posted Reply).
7. Post your story here. If you are willing for it to be published then PM me with permission to do so and your personal info including real name, address and email.

The collecting process will be open for quite some time.

Mary K. Greer

O.K., Mary, I'll come out and play.

I used the Morgan Greer and I drew The Ace of Cups.

I did my reading for my question, typed that out and saved it.

Then I wrote this (a bit over the 500, but I just typed away and didn't edit at this point):

The Bird that Dropped some Spirit on an Old Lady’s Head.

Once upon a time, there was a bitter old lady. Well she wasn’t really old yet, but she was well on her way to feeling that there wasn’t much joy left, in the final stages, in the life of a woman who valued her Youth.

Each day, upon awakening, her mind filled with fears of becoming

…..incapacitated, feeble-minded, and quite dependent on others for her basic needs in life.

One day, as she walked out of her local CVS, arms burdened with bags filled with pills, and more bags filled with chocolates, shortbreads, corn chips, cheese doodles and starlight mints,

…she saw a beautiful white dove fly overhead. Looking up, briefly, to marvel at the beauty of this creature, she was hit smack in her better eye by a large dropping of the bird’s last meal.

Fearing that she would go blind from all of the toxins
that would soon eat away her vision, she snapped the eye shut, ran to her hybrid car (she was a gas saver…at least with her car), pushed up the hatchback , dumped the bags in and panicked.

Convinced that somehow this flying pigeon
was a messenger from beyond cursing her with the final woe on her road to complete decrepitude, she drove immediately to Dr. Wiserly’s office.

Although a licensed internist, Dr. Wiserly frequently
relied on what suspiciously seemed to be magic formulas for diagnosing illnesses….

True to form, he took seven (a magic number) vials of the old lady’s blood and sent them off to be examined for three (another magic number) tests.

He wished to know:

1) Could she be a diabetic?

2) Would the bird droppings cause a flesh-eating antibiotic resistant strain of staphylococcus infection?

3) Should she perform the evil eye cleansing ritual at the next full moon, using five samples of new drugs dropped off that day by the big pharma reps?

Low and behold….the results showed that this poor old woman now had

Diabetes!!

“Oh wow, er, woo, er, woe is me, she moaned. I will surely die from a stroke related to the stress of giving up sweets ….or from a fall, from blindness caused by NOT giving up the tasty glucose-elevating daily gobbles of goodies.”

With tears streaming down her face, she glanced up once again, and, seeing another dove flying toward her from the distance, she ran as fast as her chubby legs would carry her, lest her other eye became prey to the casual, yet spirited bombings from a seemingly benign creature.

Just as she approached the hatchback of her hybrid, the dove swooped down, landed on her shoulder, fluffed up its feathers, and settled there quietly.

“Whada'ya want!? “ screeched the old biddy.

With that the bird, looked around the woman’s face, and peered with its tiny, black eyes right into the woman’s only working eye.

Inside her head, the lady heard a beautiful voice speaking to her.

(Understand, she was prone to hearing voices on a fairly regular basis, some of which urged her to do things she knew were a bit dodgy for someone of her years).

“I am

The Dove

From Above

With a message of Love.”


“ Whass'at spos’da mean?”

Again she heard that sweet voice inside her head:

“I am the Bird with

The Word.

Do not be deterred.

Candy is handy, but diabetes is ….

Guess there wasn’t a rhyme for that word.

But the old lady got the message.

From that day forward, no toppings when shopping and no more bird droppings.

The Love from above with the voice of a Dove

Gave a Gift that did shift her Path from her Wrath

And extended her Youth because of the Truth.




terri

Terri -
What a great way to start the stories - with an Ace, no less.

Everyone - I won't be commenting on the stories, as each is it's own uniquely perfect piece, except to say thanks. I will be PMing each one who contributes with a couple of questions that I hope you are willing to answer.

Mary

LOL Terri, I love it!

Mary, I love your book, I've drawn the card, now I've only got to type out the story.

Alright, this came from the Knight of Wands from the Robin Wood deck:

Once upon a time, there was a young boy. He was rather impetuous, flying off the handle, going to rescue imaginary damsels in distress. His parents had hoped that age and responsibility would calm him, so for his 15th birthday, they bought him a horse. A beautiful chestnut stallion.

Perhaps someone should have told them to get a gelding, not a fiery, fly by night stallion, but the steed's name was Tranquility, and they chose him on that very name given to him by his previous owner out of irony, not out of the nature of the horse. The boy and horse fit together like no other combination, one's fiery impetuous nature feeding into the other's.

When he came to the dinner table one night and stated that he would ride in the little known horse race across the Atacama desert for a purse of $500,000, his parents put up the expected fight, demanding that he stay home, refusing to give him the entry money, doing anything in their power to keep him from harm’s way.

As the weeks progressed, the boy no longer put up any fight against his parents about the race, instead reluctantly agreed that perhaps they were right all along. Instead, he asked if he would be allowed to go to his best friend’s house over the weekend. Since he had so nicely agreed not to go to the race and they had no reason to stop him, they conceded and thought to themselves what a wonderful, quiet boy their son was turning into.

Friday turned into Saturday and they thought nothing of it. Saturday turned into Saturday night. As per their usual routine, the parents turned on the nightly news just as a story of the Atacama desert horse race was beginning, the desert that no one dared to cross. As the cameras panned and the reporter turned to a rider in the race to interview before it started, both parents turned pale as they recognized their son, giving a wonderful interview about how eager he was to win the purse. They watched in helpless horror as the beginning of the race was televised live, and saw their little boy start his race across the desert.

ah, keeping a journal pays off she says, as she rushs off to thumb back thru the pages...

what a great idea!

Hi there, Ms. Greer!

I am glad to see this going on!

If you wish to publish this request in my backyard, that would be delightful, too.

It also might be unnecessary, since Aeclectic rules!

Now that I have the rules, I am off to do my work. Mary, thank you for providing us with this opportunity.

Terri and Piper, great stories!!!

Piper - Thank you for your story - a classic that never fails to satisfy. I will PM you with a follow-up process.

Ferol - I'm going to stick to Aeclectic Tarot for the time being, but feel free to let people know at your meet-up.

Mary

Nice job, Piper!!!

I hope we see more stories here. It was such a delight to participate...

.....and I learned a lesson along the way.

terri