Messages From the Lost Spread

On Thursday the 23rd of March, I was woken up by a Facebook messenger call from my Auntie Liz in England. She couldn't find my mother, her sister's phone number and needed to relay some very bad news. My older brother, who had been missing for several days in England, had been found dead on Saturday the 18th in his hostel room. Later, we learned it had been of natural causes.

Of course, I am devastated and hurt, and miss my big brother very much. Today I realized I'd been neglecting my blog, and my art, and when I sat down to rite, the only spread I could think of was the one pictured below. A friend I met online shared this photo with a group I am in  and asked for help interpreting it. She posted it saying, "Hey ladies, what is your take on this card draw? Question asked is, "What message do you have from my niece Aliana?" When I asked her if the placement of the cards had any meaning, she replied:

"Sounds weird, but I pull for the quarters, 4 on bottom. And spirit card up top by itself. But nothing really fancy."

So I did my best and it turned out the cards were a message alright - her niece Aliana, who had been murdered, was trying to warn her Aunt that her father, my friend's brother, was allowing his grief to steer him down the path of addiction. My friend was able to reach out to him and he agreed to go into rehab.

So, with this in mind, I thought I would also do this spread. But not right now. I need to grieve differently still.

The Feather and Stone Spread - Weighing Your Options

Sometimes, I can't sleep, no matter how hard I try. Last night was one of those nights. (Well, by the time this post goes live, it will have been several nights ago...) I finally grabbed my phone and opened a drawing app  (Autodesk SketchBook) and ended up designing three new layouts. Ill give them each a post, and we will see how they work out. They could be useless, they may need tweaking, but please understand it was 4am and my brain and body were desperate for sleep. My muse, however? Not so much.

Here's the third and final 4 am spread:

1: The Feather

2: The Stone

3: The Risk

4: The Benefit

5: The Consequence

So, this layout is for when you're trying to make a decision, and need to get your ducks in a row. On one side of the scale, you have The Feather - this is the thing that looks easy but maybe isn't as simple a decision as you think. On the other side of the scale you have The Stone. This is the heavy decision, the thing that perhaps you are stressing out about more than you need to. Between them are The Risk, The Benefit, and The Consequence. They speak for themselves, I think. Note: I did not include an outcome card, because I have never felt that one should make decisions based on what a card draw tells you. I'd rather use a spread that helps you see your options, and weigh them against one another before deciding on your own what your future holds.

I drew the cards for this layout, and this is what I got (no photo  because I did this while my cellphone was dead):

The Feather: 2 of Swords - precariousness, treachery, blindness, decision, peace, integrative mind
The Stone: 7 of Cups - temptation, selfishness, illusion, debauchery, addiction, over-everything, promiscuity
The Risk: 9 of Pentacles - gain, prudence, benefit, balance, order, organization, unification
The Benefit: King of Wands - authority, leadership, fatherhood, inspired direction, vision, intuition, evolution, spiritual growth, energy, arrogance
The Consequence: 5 of pentacles - impoverishment, destitution, loss, loneliness, worry, concern, preoccupation

Before I start, I have had the chance to play with this layout a bit more since I created it, as well as have a few people test it out, like The Nerdy Witch, and what I think I have discovered is that the Feather and Stone are relative. The Feather could be a big issue, that maybe you don't consider to be as big as you thought, and The Stone could be an issue much less important than you thought. The layout is really just about weighing your options, and I included no conclusion/solution/answer card here because I want the querent to come to their own decisions, rather than depending on the cards to decide for them. That is not to say that the cards drawn wont change the querent's mind or at least influence the decision in the end.

So this is where the explication goes, but I have had a crazy week full of really big changes and this draw is not fully relevant anymore. It is, but it isn't.

So for The Feather, I drew a somewhat two-faced card. The 2 of Swords not only indicates treachery and negative things, but also making decisions and the peace that comes with the integrative mind (integrative is an adjective that means 'serving or intending to unify separate things'.) It seems somewhat contradictory, but I think it also can express the feelings one has when they are of two minds about something, and make a decision. You may feel guilty or badly about the decision, but once it is made, a sort of peace arrives that allows you to reap the benefits of that decision.

The Stone card I drew talks about temptation - specifically the temptations of the flesh, and the illusions we cast on ourselves when we follow those temptations blindly, and the addictions that come along with getting in too deep too quickly.

So, before I talk about the other cards, lets talk about The Feather and The Stone together. Each of them represents one side of the scale. The Feather is the thing we thing may not be  big deal and that carries less weight, while The Stone is the thing we are perhaps putting too much weight upon. So here, this is saying that my Feather is my need to make a decision about something im feeling at odds with, and that my Stone is the guilt and fear itself I have regarding that decision.

Moving on to The Risk: This card seems to indicate to me that the decision I'm facing puts things I value at risk, like balance and order, prudence and unification. However, any change in life puts these things at risk.

The Benefit card speaks about authority, leadership, inspired direction, vision, intuition, evolution, spiritual growth, energy, and arrogance. Considering the decision I was facing at the time of the draw, this makes a lot of sense to me. The person it is clearly speaking of does mean many of these things to me, and the decision I needed to make would affect my relationship with that person.

The final card, the Consequence card, talks about some fairly negative things. At the time I did the reading, I was worried that it meant that making the decision was a bad idea, but now I think it may have been a warning to not allow my Feather and my Stone (the guilt, and fear) - to overwhelm me.

**Sorry for the delay in posts. I should be getting back on track over the next few days!**

Dangnabbit

Scheduled posts have not been posting when they should, and I have had a very busy few days with some major changes going on in my personal life, so posts haven't been showing up at 3pm CST every day as they should. I am working to resolve this.

More posts as soon as figure this out!

The See It All Spread

Sometimes, I can't sleep, no matter how hard I try. Last night was one of those nights. (Well, by the time this post goes live, it will have been several nights ago...) I finally grabbed my phone and opened a drawing app  (Autodesk SketchBook) and ended up designing three new layouts. Ill give them each a post, and we will see how they work out. They could be useless, they may need tweaking, but please understand it was 4am and my brain and body were desperate for sleep. My muse, however? Not so much.

This is the second:

It was 4 am. Don't judge.

1 - 3: The Seen ( this is stuff you know about )

4 - 6: The Unseen ( this is stuff you don't know about )

7 - 8: The Choice ( this is what you have left after seeing it all )

I deliberately chose not to put an outcome card in this layout. I think just seeing what is there, the stuff that was in the open and the stuff hidden from your view, and then seeing what you need to choose between now that you've seen it all is enough. This isn't about prediction, its about laying it all out on the table and seeing what you have to deal with.

So lets try laying some cards out and see what we get.

1 - 3: The Hermit, Reversed, The 3 of Pentacles, and The Page of Pentacles.
4 - 6: The 8 of Wands, The Ace of Cups, and the 6 of Wands.
7 - 8: 9 of Swords, Reversed, and 5 of Wands, Reversed.

So, the Seen begins with the Hermit card in reverse, and this indicates immaturity and foolishness. The 3 of Pentacles indicates effort, persistence, tenacity, priorities, commitments, focus, intention, and direction. The Page of Wands then indicates brilliance, learning, courage, beauty, self liberation, release of fear, spontaneous expression, freedom, new direction, and adventure.

To me, these three cards may be about the querent's point of view. What they can see because it is their perspective.

The Unseen begins with the 8 of Wands, indicating motion, journey, ideas, actions, swiftness, progress, communication, transformation, and problem solving. Then the Ace of Cups indicates a breakthrough, the open heart, the trusting heart, and expression. The Unseen ends with the 6 of Wands, which indicates victory, success, advancement, revitalization, energy, and expansion.

These Unseen cards could mean a lot of different things - I think it will have a lot to do with context for the querent - but it could be the perspective from another involved party's point of view, or the querent's subconscious mind's perspective, what they may be hiding from themselves.

Finally, for The Choice, we have the 9 of Swords, reversed, meaning suspicion, doubt, shame, imprisonment, desolation, misery and death, and the 5 of Wands, reversed, indicating the other option in The Choice is contradiction, complication, competition, restriction, restraint.

Honestly, for this querent, the Choice seems to be that making either choice is leading somewhere negative. But, as I always say, negative can simply mean a warning of the possible.

This layout may need some tweaks to be a properly functioning layout. Let me know what you think in the comments below!

Next Blog: The Feather and Stone Spread - Weighing Your Options

The Follow Your Heart Spread

Sometimes, I can't sleep, no matter how hard I try. Last night was one of those nights. (Well, by the time this post goes live, it will have been several nights ago...) I finally grabbed my phone and opened a drawing app  (Autodesk SketchBook) and ended up designing three new layouts. Ill give them each a post, and we will see how they work out. They could be useless, they may need tweaking, but please understand it was 4am and my brain and body were desperate for sleep. My muse, however? Not so much.

Here's the first:

The Follow Your Heart Spread

It was 4 am. Don't judge.

A five card spread arranged in a sort of a heart shape, this is how is breaks down:

1: You, or the Querent, right now, in this moment. Your/Their state of mind
2: Choice A
3: Possible outcome of making choice A
4:Choice B
5: Possible outcome of making choice B

So for the test draw, I drew:

1: The Hierophant - morality, challenge, commitment, intention, society, orthodoxy
2: 2 of Cups - reflection, carnality, passion, love
3: 3 of Cups, Reversed - pleasure, liberality
4: The Lovers, Reversed - repulsion
5: 8 of Swords, Reversed - triviality, censure, freedom, relaxation

So, the breakdown:

1: The querent is represented by the Hierophant, who I personally have always considered a card that represents the religious and 'moral' right; those who believe they are right because their faith says they are, or their interpretation of their faith does. The Hierophant used to be known as the Pope card, so this just reinforces that. So lets say the card here is saying that the person feels that the choice they have to make is a moral one, that they feel morally obligated to make the 'right' choice, even if their heart may be leaning toward something less socially or morally acceptable.

2: One side of this choice is represented by the 2 of Cups, which is about reflection - and this card's definition of reflection I have always understood to be the reflection of introspection, of looking at yourself in the mirror and seeing yourself truly, honestly, and objectively. It is a Cups card, so also is about passion and love, and carnality - carnality being about the physical needs and wants of the body, the passion of the physical relationship. Perhaps this card is represents choosing something that has to do with physical attraction, being attracted to something or someone who induces the carnal desires - but not without love as well. Or maybe its the love of the lust here that is the choice the querent is faced with possibly making.

3: The possible outcome from choosing the carnality is pleasure and liberality - the freedom to be physical and lustful. This card has the appearance of being a positive outcome, but without the context of what situation and environment the querent is in while making this choice, we can't say for sure.

4: The other side of the choice is the Lovers in reverse; repulsion. Where the upright meaning of this card is about attraction and being in a 'perfect' relationship, the reverse is the opposite. It is about pushing someone away. So now with both sides of the choice unveiled, it looks like the querent needs to choose between accepting the carnal desires and passion and love from another, or pushing them away.

5: The possible outcome from pushing away is the 8 of Swords, reversed. This card speaks about trivial  freedom, relaxation, but not without censure. Seems like if the choice is made to push this away, then the querent still may end up walking on eggshells .


Next blog: The See It All Spread

Wheel of the Year/Twelve Months Spread

Now, it's a tiny bit late in the year already to be doing this, but luckily, we did this spread in the Tarot Practicum group I lead just after the new year, so I have my draws ready to share.

The Wheel of the Year , or Twelve Months Spread, is a twelve card draw that you do at the beginning of the year, as a sort of forecast for your year. Obviously, things change and the cards may not hold true throughout the year, but its a fun exercise to try. I wrote the cards I pulled in my planner, so I can refer back to them every month and compare their keywords to my reality.

There's no right or wrong way to do it - arrange the cards however you like. We did a grid of two rows of six cards, and read them left to right, January through June on top, July through December on the bottom.

I drew:

January: 4 of Wands, Reversed
February: 8 of Wands
March: 6 of Pentacles
April: Judgement
May: Queen of Pentacles, Reversed
June: 3 of Swords, Reversed
July: The Sun
August: The High Priestess, Reversed
September: 2 of Wands
October: Page of Wands
November: Ace of Wands, Reversed
December: Strength

So let's break that down:

January's draw indicated prosperity and harmony of the lesser things in life.

February's draw is all about motion: the journey, ideas, actions, swiftness, progress, communication, transformation, and problem-solving.

March's draw talks about philanthropy and charity, but also about attainment, accomplishment, productivity and tangibility. (It should be noted that this card's reference to charity is about giving in a wise way - being mindful of what you have so that when you give you aren't giving more than you can afford to give.)

April's draw is judgement, perception, insight, assessment, discernment - the analytical mind at work - and also reunion, awakening, and consciousness.

May's draw is about neglect, dependence, lack, and misuse.

June's draw is about compromise, confusion, delay and disorder.

July's draw is about cooperation, success, liberation, collaboration, teamwork, partnership, and unlimited energy.

August's draw is about false knowledge, shallowness, and conceit.

September's draw is about dominance, rulership, enterprise, power, and unification.

October's draw is about brilliance, learning, courage, beauty, self liberation, the release of fear, spontaneous expression, freedom, new directions, adventure, spring, and having nothing to fear.

November's draw indicates a false start, setbacks.

And, finally, December's draw is about strength, passion, creativity, risk-taking, charisma, radiance, regeneration, expression, gifts, taming, overcoming fears, lustiness, strong faith, trust in one's own abilities, confidence, unconditionality, intuition, domination, and harmony.

Now, although I have said it before, there is no reason to take any of the negative cards to heart. Our future is not set in stone, and the cards are merely warnings of what is most likely to come, given the current path you are on, at the time of the drawing. I choose to see the negative cards, May, June, August, and November, as opportunities to change things. I will enter those months with a positive outlook despite what they warn of, and will do what I can to not allow those negative things into my life. Now, this isn't to say that we don't need to have negatives in our lives - bad things are bound to happen, and they are how we learn from one moment to the next. If nothing ever happened in our lives that was bad, we'd never grow into better people. But if a negative thing is avoidable, then I should try to avoid it. I wouldn't stand in the way of an oncoming car if I could simply step out of its path.

Now, lets break this down a bit further. Keywords are wonderful, but its very easy to be overwhelmed by a bunch of vocabulary when it is out of context.

To be honest, January is a blur to me. The month passed far too quickly to remember whether it was prosperous and harmonious - but it wasn't bad, either, or I'd remember that. We do remember the bad times far more easily than the good.

February was absolutely spot on, for me. I had some really good ideas and have set some plans in motion that I hope to play out over the coming months. My creativity levels were high, and I feel that I was quite productive as an artist. I even earned money in February that I wasn't expecting.

March is underway, and the draw had a twofold prediction: philanthropy in the form of wise giving, and accomplishment and productivity.  So far, the first half of the month has been an accomplishment, as I have sold more in passive sales of my art than ever before, and I was able to go buy myself something I needed without dipping into household funds for once, which was very nice. Earlier today, I signed myself up for a giveaway round robin, which is wise giving, in that I can afford to not sell the item I'm giving away, and that because it is a round robin style giveaway, it will also garner me some advertising as the people signing up for the giveaway will visit my page as they work through the round robin. Wise. There's still half of March yet to go, so perhaps I will find myself able to say I've accomplished more - oh, I can! I started this blog, and I'm keeping it up! I have always had a hard time maintaining blogs like this, but this time I'm writing articles ahead of time, scheduling them for posting, and even making time to work on it a bit every day. So far, so good.

April ( my birthmonth! ) has keywords that have double meaning for me:  judgement, perception, insight, assessment, discernment - the analytical mind at work, which makes me think of two aspects of this group of terms. First, the need for personal growth through the judgement of self. I think its important to continue to analyze my actions and thought processes in order to enact self change and grow into a better, more emotionally mature person. Second, they refer (to me) to psychology, which is my personal field of study when I am at school. I'm not currently in school, but intend to get back to it. Perhaps in April I will find myself setting that in motion again for the Fall semester. With luck, as I'm turning 40 this year, I'll also have a really great birthday party to remember.

May's draw warns me of neglect, dependence, lack, and misuse. But the question here is: Whose neglect? Will I be neglected, or will I be the one neglecting others? Or will it be a duty I neglect doing? Will I experience dependence on something or someone and feel the loss of it, or will someone become dependent on me and then find themselves without me?  Will I be misused, or will I be the abuser? Until May comes, there's no telling, but I can be aware, notice the signs, and perhaps change my path enough to lessen any blows that come my way or that I might deal out.

June continues the negativity with compromise, confusion, delay and disorder. This honestly made me chuckle because June is the month before a big convention I usually attend, and my best friend and collaborator and I have plans to try to accomplish a massive cosplay project. As with most projects begun with high ambitions, I expect that June will find us scrambling to complete the five costumes we've planned, which require a fair amount of mechanical knowhow and skill to pull off.

July still has me thinking about the cosplay project, because it will require a massive amount of teamwork and cooperation to pull off. It's also usually a very busy month for me, as vending, festival, and convention season are in full swing by July, and this year I am also coordinating (with others) two festivals while trying to maintain my own vending schedule, one in August, one in September. I'll be very busy and it pleases me to think that I will have the teamwork and cooperation, partnership, energy, and success needed.

August warns of false knowledge, shallowness, and conceit. Again, these things can come in many forms, so will I be the one perpetrating these things on someone else, or will someone be lying to me? Only time will tell, but I can set out to make sure that I am an honest person in August (as I should every day) and that I keep my eye open for others being deceptive around me.

September is a month of dominion - the keyword speak to my being in control of something, or taking control of something. I do have a festival I'm a part of the planning committee for and that I will be a vendor at that month, so perhaps something is going to happen that will leave me in a position of control or having to take the reins. It also speak about enterprise and unification, which could also refer to the festival s well. Or it could all be about something completely different. We shall see!

October (one of my favorite months, despite the terrible cold) indicates lot of good, positive things are coming my way. It talks about releasing fear, brilliance and beauty, courage and learning, self expression and freedom (specifically self liberation, suggesting that I have something I will free myself from, most likely the fears I will release.) Maybe I will end up taking some big step toward something I have considered big and scary. Again, as we get closer in time, things will become more obvious.

November bring the negativity back with false starts and setbacks. November is the month I held a huge and successful dance show back in 2012, and I have performers from that show still hoping and waiting for me to put it on again. Maybe I'll try and end up failing. Maybe, with this reading in mind, I'll prepare better and not fail. Maybe its something else entirely.

December will be a month of strength for me. It's a nice idea, to close out the year, one that is mostly positive, but with its fair share of negativity, with such a good thing. The laundry list of keywords for the month basically just indicate a month of awesome. I look forward to it. It gives me hope that that some of the things I'm planning and starting now are going to end well, or be well underway and going well when the year ends.

Having gone through all of this with me, do you want to try your own Wheel of the Year/Twelve Months Spread? I'd love to hear about it if you do!

Don't forget to comment, and subscribe if you want to keep up with my posts, which for now come daily at 3pm CST.

Next Blog: The Follow Your Heart Spread

The Psychic Reader, The Intuitive Reader, and The By-The-Book Readers and Readings

As I often find myself compelled to say when teaching or simply discussing the tarot to or with others, there are no rules in the tarot. There is a structure, a history, there are many, many books defining the tarot, but when it comes down to the individual and their relationship to the cards, and the way that they personally read the cards, there really are no rules.

Having said that, I’m now going to do a simple breakdown of my personal ideas of the three types of tarot readers. I know that there are types of readers out there that I am not including, but the three I am addressing make up the majority of the tarot readers one might encounter today.

The Psychic Reader: this is a person who believes that they are gifted with a supernatural gift that allows them certain insight into the person they are doing a reading for. The cards merely guide them through the reading.

The Intuitive Reader: like the psychic reader, the intuitive reader depends on their own intuitive capabilities to perform a reading. They take cues from the imagery of the tarot deck to work through a reading, often ending up making connections that have very little to do with the intended meaning of the cards before them.

The By-The-Book Reader: The by  the book reader uses the definitions of the cards provided to them by the creators of the deck they are using to perform their readings. They supplement that with study of the Tarot and its many readings, and typically do not stray from the ‘gold standard’ as defined in the Rider-Waite structure that the majority of 78-card Tarot decks are based upon. They use common sense, and contextual clues to perform a reading and connect the dots between the cards before them to tell a story about their client.

Next blog: Wheel of the Year/Twelve Months Spread