Having named my project and, given that I think this particular project has ‘legs’, I have established a new site and I will gradually be migrating material on to it.
Make sure to visit at Waltz With A Matilda to learn more about Australian Women and how Tarot and their stories intersect.
The Four of Wands indicates that plans have begun to bear fruit and that desires are being attained. The appearance of this card suggests that all the hard work is not only being rewarded but that the creative project one has embarked on has the potential to develop even further. More hard work and commitment may be demanded but it will be worth it.
Everything about the contribution Cheryl Salisbury made to women’s football and the Matilda’s Football team oozes with Four of Wands energy. A pioneer of women’s football, Salisbury became Australia’s most-capped player of either gender and has been credited with being a driving force behind the Matildas becoming a true contender in the world game.
Matildas all-time cap leader Cheryl Salisbury has been named alongside a plethora of Australian male footballers into the Australian Sports Hall of Fame.
Salisbury joined the likes of John Warren, Harry Kewell and Ray Baartz in admittance to Australian sport’s premier pantheon, becoming the first Matilda to do so.
Salisbury captained the Matildas for seven years from 2003 until she retired in 2009, having played in four World Cups in 1995, 1999, 2003 and 2007 as well as the Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004 Olympic Games, and the 2006 and 2008 Football Confederation Women’s Asian Cups. At the Sydney Olympics she scored Australia’s first ever goal at that level and at the 2007 World Cup she scored the goal -with effectively the last kick of the game -that secured Australia’s passage to the quarterfinals for the first time.
Salisbury’s dedication was fully recognised when she inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2019 as an Athlete Member for her contribution to the sport of football.
The Four of Swords can signal that it is time to retreat. The Four of Swords is a moment of rest. Whether this is from a choice to withdraw, or whether it is from pure exhaustion, it is not clear.
Leigh Sales joined the ABC in Brisbane in 1995 as a junior reporter and went on to hold a series of senior roles, including being NSW State Political Reporter and National Security Correspondent. From 2001-2005 she was the ABC’s Washington correspondent, covering stories including the Iraq War, the 2004 US Presidential election, Guantanamo Bay and Hurricane Katrina. She returned to Australia as anchor of Lateline for three years before taking over at 7.30.
After almost 12 years in the role, Leigh Sales announced she had decided to step down as presenter of ABC nightly current affairs flagship 7.30. Sales told 7.30 viewers that she had a strong sense of it being time to pass the baton to the next runner in the race and to take a break. She said that “the end of an election cycle felt like a good time to move onto something new”.
In her time in the role as anchor Sales interviewed hundreds of leaders, newsmakers, celebrities and other people of note, at home and abroad – including tonight’s Australian TV exclusive interview with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
It is not always easy to be in touch with your purpose in life. Knowing when to let go and ‘leave the building’ takes courage. Usually the move is associated with a desire to find a peaceful, still place. It is a time to shift the focus inwardly so that recovery and healing can take place.
“It is in periods of rest that some of the best ideas are born, when the mind is left to its own imaginative devices and has the space to process in its own way.
This card is imbued with a spiritual tranquility and stillness. Sometimes showing a person resting inside a church interior, it points to the kind of rest we can get when our souls are at peace. We tune out from the bustle and in to a more spiritual, inner peace. The Four of Swords can lead us to a deeper spiritual practice, allowing us to overcome a chattering, worrying ego and feel peaceful and connected”. from Little Red Tarot
In her announcement Sales made reference to spending more time with her two young sons. The Four of Swords is all about making decisions like this, it is about redirecting our priorities.
The Seven of Wands is an activist’s card. It’s that image that shows up to say ‘your truth belongs to you. Hold it high.’ For some of us this may be an actual fight for survival in a society that won’t accept our existence. For others, it is about standing tall and getting our message out there so it can be heard – again, this can feel like a fight.
Little Red Tarot
“Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue has dedicated a lifetime to upholding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights to improve outcomes in health, education, political representation, land rights and reconciliation”
Lowitja O’Donoghue was born in 1932 at Indulkana, in the remote north-west corner of South Australia, to a Pitjantjatjara mother and an Irish father. When she was just two years old, she and two of her sisters were taken away from their mother by missionaries on behalf of South Australia’s Aboriginal Protection Board.
Renamed ‘Lois’ by the missionaries, she and her sisters grew up at Colebrook Children’s Home and did not see their mother again for more than thirty years. They weren’t allowed to speak their own language or to ask questions about their origins or even about their parents. Aboriginal girls brought up in the missions were trained in domestic service with the expectation that at age 16 they would seek employment as domestics.
O’Donoghue’s work on behalf of Aboriginal rights began in the early 1950s when she tried to extend her qualifications after working as a nursing aide at the local hospital.. She applied to complete her training at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, but was refused the opportunity because she was Aboriginal. She fought the decision, which was eventually overturned and she became the first Aboriginal person to train as a nurse at the hospital. She had by then joined the Aboriginal Advancement League, to advocate on behalf of other Aborigines and specifically to ensure employment options other than domestic work for women and manual labour for men could be available to them.
“Lowitja O’Donoghue is one of those Australians who is universally admired,” said Ms Burney in a statement.
“She broke down so many barriers, faced up to racism, overcame adversity and demonstrated that First Nations peoples can achieve anything they put their mind to.”
Lowitja O’Donoghue’s leadership in Aboriginal rights has been highly influential. A member of the stolen generation, she has also been an advocate of reconciliation and avoided politics of confrontation, finding conciliation to be more effective.
Dr O’Donoghue has received numerous awards and accolades for her work. She was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1983 and Australian of the Year in 1984, during which time she became the first Aboriginal person to address the United Nations General Assembly. She won the Advance Australia Award in 1982, was named a National Living Treasure in 1998, and awarded Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in 1999 and Dame of the Order of St Gregory the Great (DSG), a Papal Award, in 2005.
The Seven of Swords tarot card stands for trickery, theft, and dishonesty. You or someone around you might be using deceitful tactics to achieve a goal. The intention of these actions is deliberate and they are done without thought of how it will affect other people.
Born Elizabeth Jessie Hunt in 1890, in NSW, Jessie’s mother sold her to a travelling circus when she was just eight.
By the age of 17, Jessie was a champion rough rider and ring mistress of Martini’s Buck Jumping Show.
Leaving the circus, in 1913 a pregnant Jessie waved Ben Hickman off to war. Shortly afterwards Jessie gave their son to a friend to raise and headed to Sydney for a life of crime.
Jessie stole cattle, pinched clothing and dodged the police.
Unfortunately for her, she wasn’t always fast enough.
By 1916 she had served two terms in Long Bay Goal and was charged again in 1918.
The Six of Wands is all about public recognition, victory, and success. Not only have you managed to properly succeed in achieving all of your goals, but you are also being publicly acknowledged for them and the results that you’ve managed to attain. You may have received an award or some sort of public acclaim.
The facts about Australian born, Annette Kellerman, read like good fiction.
Born in 1886 in Potts Point, Sydney, Kellerman had rickets and needed leg braces as a child. When doctors prescribed swimming as a strengthening treatment she surpassed all their expectations and became a champion. But this was only the beginning of her dazzlingly diverse career.
Annette Kellerman’s achievements are extraordinary: champion swimmer and diver, vaudeville performer, international silent film star, stunt performer and entrepreneur.
The Six of Wands offers us a picture of victory. Something has worked out well, and this is a time to feel proud. There are plenty of parallels with the Four of Wands here, though whilst that card was about the energy of celebration itself, the Six is focused on the experience of triumph.
Little Red Tarot
The moment of triumph we see in the Six of Wands can take many forms. In the Wild Unknown Tarot, the card shows a butterfly, rising up from a sea of shadows. This is about spreading our wings and feeling free. It’s a moment of becoming, of personal celebration.
In the Mythic Tarot by Juliette Sharman Burke we see Jason triumphantly holding up the Golden Fleece. It is a time to be recognised by others and receive acclaim. His crew are there, honouring him by holding up Wands. It is a heady moment after having striven for so long but there are more battles to be fought. Consider moments when you have received acknowledgement of some kind. This might be a promotion, gaining a qualification or recognition for creative work.
The Hanged Man card is sometimes referred to as the traitor card. As history makes blatantly clear, persons whose individual conscience is in opposition or divergent from the collective viewpoint, can appear as traitors to the Establishment. Often upside down in relation to family, friends and the government, nonconformists can be even branded as criminals.
“Clift’s is one of the voices – and one of the most important female voices – that rose above the crowd during the post-war period, as the western world unknowingly girded itself for the social revolution that was to come.
Through her columns she advocated for a bolder, more outward looking future, and as someone who was naturally cosmopolitan she was avidly interested in seeing Australia become more open to the world and better integrated into the Asia-Pacific”.
A Woman Ahead of Her Time – The Conversation
When Prometheus willingly defied Zeus and gave shivering man a firestick he was severely punished. There is plenty of evidence that humankind is as unforgiving as Zeus. It does not respond well to those who defy establishment. But without these sacred rebels we would not have advanced beyond the cave days.
It is unlikely that Prometheus, who is shown here being punished for his defiance, was on Charmian Clift’ mind when she challenged society, but her acts were no less Herculean. Like Prometheus she confronted the fall out from stepping outside the lines of society.
Clift was born on 30 August 1923 in the last of a straggle of weatherboard workers’ cottages on the outskirts of the New South Wales coastal township of Kiama. Both socially and geographically, the little settlement of North Kiama was regarded by the townsfolk as being on the wrong side of the tracks. Of course we all know that growing up in ‘the sticks’ is not always a deterrent. Many shining stars, whose legacy lives long after them, have risen, perhaps to spite their humble beginnings.
The Hanged Man represents independence from the flock, the willingness to see things differently, see them your way. It can point to critical thinking or awareness (especially when paired with other cards that deal with this theme) and it can represent courage.
Little Red Tarot
Charmian Clift was in the vanguard of the post-World War II wave of feminism, attracting large and loyal audiences for her columns in the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Herald. Commissioned to write columns “from a woman’s point of view”, Clift wrote powerfully, passionately and emotionally in essay style about the Vietnam War, conscription, world hunger and the Greek junta. Many prominent women writers, including Helen Garner and Elizabeth Riddell, have referred to Clift’s work as an inspiration. Clift survived the scandal of an affair with her long-time famous partner George Johnston and the social restrictions on women in the 1940s to become a significant figure as a journalist and author in her own right.
In its most positive state, the Four of Pentacles suggests that you have created wealth and abundance by maintaining a steady focus on your goals and acting conservatively. You are attentive to your long-term financial security, actively saving money and watching your expenses so you can accumulate wealth and live a comfortable lifestyle not just now but also in the future.
Biddy Tarot
This rendition of the Four of Pentacles invokes the King Midas myth. Marigold, was the daughter of Midas, the king who was given the power to turn anything into gold with his touch. Unfortunately, she too was also turned to gold. Because of this, Midas despised his accursed power and sought help from the God of Wine, Dionysus.
This sobering myth has done nothing to quench the desire of many to accumulate massive wealth. Gina Rinehart, the daughter of iron-ore explorer Lang Hancock, rebuilt he father’s financially distressed company. She holds the title of being the richest woman in Australia. Her biggest asset is the Roy Hill Mining project which started shipments to Asia in 2015.
This card can be confronting when it is perceived to speak of stinginess, emotional selfishness, possessiveness, avarice, control freak behaviours, staking claims and blatant materialism. We all know that wealth accumulators can become trapped by their fear of loss or need to keep accumulating.
This female mining magnate is also Australia’s second largest cattle producer, with a portfolio of properties across the country.
If it is true that Rinehart deliberately deflated the value of mining shares in a family trust, to the detriment of her own children’s inheritance, her children are unlikely to turn into gold.
Rinehart has been honoured for her contribution to business, as well as her philanthropy, which ranges from providing support for breast cancer research, being a champion for Veterans, to sponsorship of Australian Olympians. However she doesn’t top the list of philanthropists and it is questionable how any one person can justify their stash of billions .
There is nothing wrong. with the pursuit of wealth but it is important to remember that we never truly own things in life. As the stripped Egyptian Tombs reveal, the treasures we cling to today will eventually belong to someone else.
Perhaps one of the most in your face depictions of the Four of Pentacles is in the Deviant Moon Tarot by Patrick Valenza. His card illustrates the ugly consequences of putting material gain above all else. A grotesque demon escorts a wicked miser from his counting house and leads him to the roaring flames of damnation. Like this miser the fear and greed of those amassing such fortunes may well lead towards a future filled with the kind of regret experienced by King Midas.
Wild Mother Calling 