Tarot and Oracles become a library

So here we are in 2019… I've had quite the year. This time last year I lost the use of my hands and didn't find out the reason until March. I have an unusual form of rheumatoid arthritis which can have a dance partner in lymphoma. So I've been under various regimens of pharmaceutical experiments attempting to find the one that will put this all in remission. At least I have most of the use of my hands, most of the time… Rheumatoid arthritis killed my younger sister in 2009 and I know it's a lifetime dance partner. It affects your heart, other organs and vision in addition to all the damage to your joints and limbs.


While I've been recovering, I found a real change in my purpose and focus. I had to stop working entirely in August and September. I could not provide spiritual support at the local Cancer Centre anymore. I could not see clients in my home, nor teach my beloved classes. The paradox of all of this is that my intuitive skills ramped up incredibly. My body is more decrepit but my connection to Spirit is exponentially improved. I decided I wanted to try and catalogue all 500 or so tarot, oracles and divination tools for a reason.  It came to me that three things were trying to "birth" – a round Oracle to be used in the teaching of psychospiritual development, the pictographic runes and play board I devised over 20 years ago, and finally a book on the historical interconnections of tarot with the Crusades, Egypt and divination systems in central and western Europe. I needed to do research with all the materials I've collected since 1976. They were in a disarray…

This brings me to my tarot journey and the library. I've been trying to make a successful tarot library since the late 80s and DOS. Brian and I were discussing how many library programs I've had just to try and track all of my tarot, oracles and international divination systems. Most of the programs I tried either didn't have the capacity for the books and cards, or they were cumbersome. The worst ones were unsupported by the developers after about a year. Or I would upgrade windows and the old programs wouldn't work anymore. I have a 3 inch binder full of printed pages of partially complete library information from these old programs. I do own a license to a library program since 2014 but it just didn't work for me.

For a while now I've been trying to find open source, freeware or Linux-based library systems which didn't involve an external server/cloud/monthly subscriptions and similar. I did not want something that a lending library would use since I'm not loaning out my materials. I simply wanted to catalogue my own materials on my own computer for the purpose of research. Out of the blue I actually found something the other night. I downloaded it and used a barcode scanner which I bought for the previous software and never got to use. I was completely elated with the results of the trial. I am about to register this software. The company is called Bolide Software" In case any of you want to check it out here is the link:

https://www.bolidesoft.com/software/amb_setup.exe

This is more than a blatant plug... I like to support small businesses. These people specialize in archival software over different type of media. I want my friends and readers with similar issues to make use of a journey which for me has been 43 years...  By this I mean the journey of collecting tarot and trying to catalogue and organize it. But you could be wanting to organize DVDs, or e-books, or photos. I asked a question of a company rep in an email and got an answer within 12 hours. Real people talk to me, not an FAQ. Check them out if you like.

So this winter you will find me in my teaching room cataloguing away. I'm doing my best overcome and work with the rheumatoid arthritis. I'm back to seeing a few clients but not anything like I was. I can do a winter's dream journey with my tarot and oracles one by one as I archive them. My thanks to Bolide software for helping me to get organized.