Loveday Funck  Fairy Surreal Art

The Six of Wands is all about victory and achieving the public recognition that you deserve. You are good at what you do and are finally receiving the credit for all your hard work. We all want that recognition. We all want validation. We all want approval. We're social animals. It's part of who we are. I worked hard on a project recently but kept coming up against a brick wall of red tape and proper procedures. I tried different work arounds but kept coming back to bureaucra

The past few weeks I've been stubbornly struggling against forces greater than my own. I can't win through sheer obstinacy. Part of me feels that I'm right; that should be enough, but the more rational part of me knows that being right isn't always enough. I was given a task and I completed the task in what I felt was a reasonable and thorough manner. The Powers That Be disagreed and gave me what felt like unreasonable requirements. So, of course, I exceeded the parameters of

People lie. People hurt us. People betray us, even those we thought we could trust. Sometimes we love where we shouldn't. It's hard. I know it's hard. Grief is a process. You don't need to rush through this. Take your time. Feel your emotions. Process everything that happened. Acknowledge everything that was done to you. If you erred, acknowledge that too. Accept the part of the responsibility that was yours. Allow the emotions to wash over you and pass through yo

Everything that could be moved, has been moved. Everything is still a mess, loads of things unsorted and not put away, but I believe that when the work is done, it will all be well worth our time and energy. I let my Tarot project sit the past few weeks as I needed those spoons for other things, but I believe that I am moving out of the darkness. The veil is thinning and it is time to say good bye to things that no longer serve us and to make our peace with the people in ou

Where do you go when your spirit is broken? When your heart hurts? When you need to find solace before you are ready to go forth and try again? That place should be home. I love houses: cottages, Victorian monstrosities, even sprawling mansions. You never really know what is going on behind those lovely, crafted facades. As a child, I liked to speculate on the lives of the people behind the shuttered windows and doors. Maybe if I belonged there, I could have that little

"Learning to operate a soul figures to take time" - Timothy Leary I went into the weekend feeling stressed and anxious, very much the flipped coin in midair, the cat in mid jump who isn't certain where she will land. Saturday morning, we took a day trip out to Gryphon's Nest to take part in Harvest Moon Fest. An amazing sound bath, a guided meditation, and hours of soaking up the ambiance of Gryphon's Nest, and I felt a thousand times better. The stress and anxiety melted a

The Three of Swords warns us of pain, of upheaval, of the emotional toll of chaos. We are in a storm and clinging desperately to whatever we can find to sustain us. We survive moment to moment, just trying to make it to the other side of the storm. My life of late feels like a watered down version of this truth. My life has become chaotic. I've become a cat in mid leap, suddenly uncertain of where and when she is going to be able to land. Some people thrive on chaos. Som

The Three of Cups tells us about the power of Tribe. Life can be better and so much easier when you have support; when you have friends who love you and support you. As an introvert, I become overwhelmed with too much noise, too many people, too much activity. In a crowd, I long for quiet and peace and empty space. I enjoy being alone,. But then I'll have those moments when I just crave interaction. I want to be around people, but not just any random people. I can't just

A few mornings ago I watched a Tedx Talk by Susan Henckels, a counselor with decades of experience as a psychotherapist. I found the premise fascinating. Every friend that I have that I would credit with intelligence and self awareness seems to believe that they are fundamentally damaged or flawed in some way. They are convinced that they are the walking broken and that it's a minor miracle that they can even function on a daily basis. What if they aren't? What if I'm not?

Five years ago, I enrolled in a marketing class for artists offered by the Arts Council of Baton Rouge. The class opened my eyes to a lot of possibilities and opportunities that I didn't even know were a thing. I applied to some of the local art markets (was somehow accepted!) and my first Art Melt (also, accepted!). That first little bit of positive reinforcement was enough to propel me forward and even though I've faltered here and there, I've kept moving forward. I'd tin

In a surreal moment, an independent fashion artist sent me a direct message on Instagram, offering me a free item if I would agree to post a picture of myself wearing it and tag them in the post. Does this mean that I have arrived? With only 6000 followers, have I suddenly become a Social Media Influencer? Probably not, but it feels weird to be offered another hat. Some days I feel like I am constantly in motion to play every role, juggling masks so I can portray who I nee

Posting a little late this time, which plays in perfectly with the theme of the Two of Pentacles. Life is about balance and scheduling, about frantically trying to achieve all the things. Some days I feel like I only have so many spoons. I have a plan in place that would comfortably use the number of spoons that I possess. I plan my week around this. If I have five difficult tasks, I break it down so that I don't have to perform all the tasks at one time, but sometimes li

An Ace represents a new beginning. Over the course of our lives, we may have many dreams; many new beginnings. Figure out what you want. Find a dream that makes your soul sing, but don't stop there. Research. Figure out the steps you need to nurture that dream, then implement those steps. I'd thought many times since I started working with digital art and photo manipulation that I wanted to make my own Tarot deck. It seemed like a perfect fit, given my family heritage an

I dreamt that I was deep in the forest as a wandering child. The forest was bitterly cold. The snow crunched under my feet as I pushed my way through the undergrowth and toward the cottage of the Crone. I've never known the cottage to be empty, but as I pushed in the front door, the rooms were dark and cold. I moved to the hearth which always has a cauldron bubbling merrily over a crackling fire. This time there was no fire, no cauldron. I shuddered in the cold. I was sh

Things end. The world can come crashing down around your ears. The ground can shake and crumble and crack beneath you. You can pass through the darkest night of the soul, but the dawn does come. The ground will stop moving. The sky will clear and the bright blue of the heavens will beam down on you. New beginnings follow that which ends. The Ace of Swords reminds us that once the emotional dust settles, our head will clear and we can begin again. We can build our lives

We've entered into a new phase of the year: summer in southern Louisiana. The brutality of the sunlit days never fails to amaze me. I try to finish what must be finished early in the day as stepping outside for only a short time leaves me dripping in sweat and exhausted from the heat. This morning, my daughter and I are planning on taking her three year old daughter out to the LSU Botanical gardens to frolic in the sunflowers as small children are apt to do. Maybe. We took

We've followed the Fool on his long journey around the Major Arcana. The World represents the end of the journey; a mission fulfilled; accomplishment achieved; next level, unlocked. We've gone over this lessons over the past six months. The Fool learned that the power to create is within him. He learned the importance of moderation and balance. If we work at something, we can achieve it, but we have to remember that the unexpected can happen. We cannot plan everything. S

The time has come for the Fool to transform. He's learned much on his journey. He is ready to shed the weight of his past and became something new. Life is full of endings and new beginnings. If you aren't prepared to change, if you stay in a rut, you will never evolve. You will never feel the amazing pulse of things becoming. You will never reach even a fraction of your potential. We have to change. We have to evolve. Refuse to become a dead end. If you're feeling unh

In the darkness of night, the moon guides us gently with a beautiful half light. Some truths can only be revealed under its soft gaze. Some truths can never be fully revealed at all. We can only sense them or understand them on an intuitive level. We cannot always verbalize all that we feel and all that we know. The truth exists, shimmering just beyond the reach of our conscious mind. We sense it best in our dreams, in our visions, under the guiding mystery of the benev

Spending four hours under a fragile canopy during a series of rain storms and wind gusts serves as a powerful reminder as to just how delicate and vulnerable we and our material goods really are. I went out to Bayou Boogaloo determined to put the ghosts of the worst disaster of my art career firmly to bed. The first two days were everything I could have hoped for. The crowds were happy and friendly. Sales were good. The weather was warm with lots of cooling gusts blowing