Hello 👋

I know I've been quiet. Changes coming. 😉

A mini makeover for a less than ideal deck

You are the boss of your cards*.

Last year I bought a secondhand Soul & Spirit deck off an acquaintance on Facebook. These decks come as occasional gifts with Soul & Spirit magazine, so they're nothing special. She had several she was offloading but only that one appealed to me. It was the "Your True Calling" oracle by Genevieve McGee. More about that deck in a bit - I mention it because I love it so much that when a new S&S deck featuring Ms McGee's artwork came up on eBay I bought it blind - the Angel Blessings Oracle Cards.

Hmm.
The technique used to create the artwork is very different from my other deck, and doesn't really appeal to me. Also, and I shouldn't have been surprised by this, it is all angels, or in some cases blobs that I imagine are supposed to represent angels

And then there's this -

Really, Soul & Spirit? You need 36 images to create a deck and you resort to this?

But never mind, I can deal with all that. What I can't deal with are the cheesy and frankly redundant "affirmations" at the bottom of the cards. "Whispers - Heart whispers bring you joy". Oh puleez!

At this point, I was so underwhelmed that I considered selling it on. But then I thought No, I'll give them a chance to prove themselves. So I tried a little reading, a follow-up to a playing card reading I'd done for someone earlier in the day.

The cards were so spot on for the situation that I knew I had to keep them.

But I had to do something first. I had pretty much the same issue with the Your True Calling cards. They didn't come with their box so I didn't get the "blurb", but the affirmations and advice on the cards seemed very much geared towards helping you to find or create your dream job. Job satisfaction basically. Too restrictive for the all-purpose use I intended to put them to, and too distracting. So I fixed them.

Just like this.   Correction tape rules!

Now I can use just the titles and colour patterns (if not the images themselves ) to trigger my intuition.

*I'm trying to remember who said this. It may have been Hexe Claire, but please correct me if you know differently.

Change up your Daily Draws

I don't do daily draws.

Perhaps because the results are so open-ended. What could the 4 of Swords be trying to tell me, for example? I should take a nap? I'll be visiting the hospital? I'm going to get a headache?

So when I spotted Christiane of Cosmic Faery Tarot's suggestion on "How to Supercharge Your Daily Tarot Card Draw" it seemed like an excellent solution. I have a bunch of old cards I'd saved for craft projects. I have a corner punch. I can do this!

And this was the result. A set of cards with "focus" questions on the back. Just shuffle and pick one and apply the question to your Daily. Random instant context.

I decided to print the prompts on a sheet of labels and stick them on rather than write them all out. I have a nice handwriting, but only for about two sentences. Then it deteriorates into a scrawl.

This was my first go (originally posted on Instagram). Looks like I should just kick back and enjoy the fruits of my labour. Ok, I can do this, too! ☺

oneword

I have discovered a wonderful new unintentional practice resource.

I was looking for online journaling sites that might encourage me to journal/write more and I came across oneword.com. Here's the basic concept:

A gong will sound when your time is up and you're then invited to share your opus, but you don't have to. You can just exit the page.

Now here's my brilliant idea. Why not treat the word you're given as a card's keyword or title? And you've got 60 seconds in which to "interpret" that card. No time to gather your thoughts or summon up meaty aphorisms. You just have to let it flow.

Here's my first go:

Click image to make bigger

"Drop" triggered "drop it" which immediately became "let it go". Where the subsequent battle imagery came from I have no idea. It just flowed.☺

You only get one new word a day, so you can't binge on this, but I'm going to have a go at it every(ish) day for a while and see how it works for me. Let me know if you try it and what you think.

Edit 26 Jan 16: Ok, this is certifiably freaky. You know what today's word is? "Armor" (spelt the US way, of course). Did I have a premonition? Can I have the lottery numbers next time please?

Spirit of the Wheel Meditation Deck

I was SO spoiled with decks for my birthday this year. Ok, so maybe the fact that my Amazon wish list was awash with decks of various kinds left friends and family with little option, but they could have just said "Stuff that, she's getting socks" (which would have been cool - I like socks).

So, among loads of other equally thoughtful and appreciated goodies, including Camelia Elias' book Marseille Tarot: Towards the Art of Reading woot!woot!, were the Wild Kuan Yin Oracle by Alana Fairchild, The Oracle of Shadow & Light by Lucy Cavendish and the deck I'm going to talk about today, the Spirit of the Wheel Meditation Deck by Linda Ewashina.

This deck was particularly attractive to me because, having lived in the Pacific Northwest for a number of years, I couldn't help but be familiar with the work of Jody Bergsma. I am the proud possessor of two (admittedly small) Bergsma prints from 1981. If you're a fan, the card images will not disappoint*.

What might disappoint, however, is the little white book (LWB). Yes, there is the all-important information about each card, with three keywords (which also appear on the card), a "prophecy" which gives details about the symbolism and why you may have drawn that particular card, and a "prayer" or affirmation related to the energy of the card.

There is also some information about the concept of the Medicine Wheel or Sacred Hoop. It's a bit sketchy, and sometimes references are made to ideas that aren't then elaborated upon. For instance, when referring to the Moons, or in this case the moonstones, as each card is intended to represent one of the stones that make up a physical medicine wheel, Linda says "Each of the moonstones has a mineral, plant, animal and element associated with it..." But when you turn to the section on the Moon cards none of that information is actually provided. This is not an insurmountable problem because Google. I've come up with a few sources for the minerals, plants and animals, all differing slightly, of course. And I'm pretty sure they take their element from the quarter in which they fall, so for instance Budding Trees Moon falls in the eastern quarter of the wheel which, according to this system, is represented by air.

Those kinds of associations are nice to have from a divinatory perspective, but they're not essential. I've read/heard a few people say that they don't use the Spirit of the Wheel Meditation Deck for divination but rather, as the name suggests, for meditation and personal guidance.

Me, though (like in my Lotería post), I want to read with them. So what most disappointed me were the spreads. I was expecting some use to be made of the Medicine Wheel structure, especially as you're given a poster depicting the layout of the "stones". There is an Inner Circle Spread which assigns influences to the positions of the 8 inner stones of the wheel. But it strikes me that there's so much more that could be done with the energies of the Wheel as a whole. So I'm going to play with the idea for a while and see what I can work up.

For now, I've been locating the Medicine Wheel card (numbered 0) in the deck, pulling the two cards before and after it, laying them out in order - east, south, west and north - and reading them from the "perspective" of each direction as described in the LWB. Actually, an idea is forming as I type. This is precisely why I type, here and in cartomancy groups on Facebook - it blocks out the 'ooo shiny' distractions and makes me focus on the realities of card reading for a while.

*The image and card description mismatches have not escaped me, such as my birth moon card, Freeze Up Moon, sporting a lovely picture of two white buffalos despite the fact that the animal associated with it is the snake. But in fairness, the images were not created for the deck but selected from existing works "to reflect each card's unique meaning, symbolism, prophecy and prayer". Bottom line, it's pretty and I like it.

Open Readings

I’ve gotten a wild hair to start posting occasional open readings for whoever might inadvertently stumble across my blog. ☺ A bit of cosmic synchronicity. An “If you’re seeing this, it’s for you*” sort of thing.

When the idea popped into my head I thought it would be useful to run it past the cards I intended to use.

These are Madame Dora’s Fortune-Telling Cards. I like them because they give straightforward, homely advice. Or a slap upside the head if that’s what’s needed.

So, it looks like I’ve got Madame Dora’s seal of approval – Say your piece, you’ve got it in you. Besides, you know you want to, so why not?

Actually, I’m not entirely sure why I want to. I think some of it is an attempt to get myself to use my cards more. I can’t seem to motivate myself to do a “daily draw” for myself, even though I know it would be beneficial**. Perhaps by offering a simple reading for others I’ll feel, not obliged, but let’s say lightly committed to keep it up. We’ll see.

So - I may use these cards, I may use others as the mood strikes. 

I may do this daily, weekly, never again, who knows?

But assuming I do do it, at least once more, if my interpretation doesn't strike a chord, take the image and see what it says to you. Perhaps even this pre-reading reading speaks to you. I just hope you, and I, will get something at some level from this little exercise.

*IF it resonates. If not, click away, thanks for stopping by.

**Since I wrote this I’ve read Beth Maiden’s “How can we make time for tarot when we’re super-busy?” and have embraced the idea of photographing a daily and setting it as my phone background for the day. Fun. ☺

How the Darkana Tarot was born

Reading Houses within a GT

Many people like to read the Houses within a Grand Tableau (GT). I've tried it and I know the method has merit. But I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to reading a GT and I don't like to add Houses to my reading process. There's quite enough to do using traditional Lenormand methods without adding general cartomantic techniques to the mix.

This post by Madame Seaqueen, which explains Houses for those of you who may not have come across it before, employs a 6x6 GT layout however. I've seen this layout used before but not really considered it because, purist that I am, I like an 8x4+4 but... [light bulb goes on] I could use this layout for the times I think looking at the Houses would be the best way to tackle a reading. So now I can happily use Houses within a 6×6 without compromising my principles. ;)

So simple, so obvious in hindsight. But this is the sort of thing that highlights that you never stop learning your craft.

I did it!

I trimmed my first deck.

Well, I had to. I mean, why put a heavy murky-green border around such a pretty picture?

Lenormand Oracle - Lo Scarabeo

The scenery opens up once the border is removed.

These cards were also a little big, but now I have a nice dainty deck to play with.

If this has inspired you to release some of your cards from their cages, see my previous post for a link to Donnaleigh de LaRose's video tutorial.

Just a trim, please

An excellent video tutorial by Donnaleigh on removing those distracting borders from your Tarot/Lenormand/etc decks.
Cutting Corners (and Borders!) - Crafty Tarot | Donnaleigh's Blog
Off to get me a corner punch!

(I did it!)