I stopped using a Significator card to represent the querent in my Celtic Cross spreads a long time ago. It seemed redundant to the "live" Significator sitting across the table from me - and that one talks! It wasn't adding anything of value to the narrative, so I retired the idea. But I started considering … Continue reading The Case for a Traveling Significator
Month: August 2017
The Fool’s Debut: A Pregnancy and Childbirth Diorama
Astrology has its "prenatal epoch" that explores the period between conception and birth. I decided to create my own tarot version of the same idea. Fool's Debut Diorama
The “Personal Archetypes” Individual Profile Spread
The next time you decide to ask the cards "How does X think/feel about me?" why not ask instead "Who is X, really?" This spread is intended to explore the "building blocks" of the individuality in four modes: Instinctual, Habitual, Rational and Spiritual. Use it on anyone you want to know "stuff" about (even yourself). Testimonial: … Continue reading The “Personal Archetypes” Individual Profile Spread
An Astro-Tarot Mandala
The imperfect and occasionally unconvincing merger of tarot and astrology is something that has always fascinated me. There is a sentiment among less-esoteric practitioners that they are entirely unrelated systems, and "never the twain shall meet." As a syncretic thinker on all aspects of divination (thank you, Mr. Crowley!), I find that correspondences between the … Continue reading An Astro-Tarot Mandala
“By the Numbers” Crisis Management Spread
This is a spread that mimics the old Cracker Jacks slogan: it has "a surprise inside." The first card is dealt face-down, under the Significator, so you won't know until the end of the reading whether that surprise is pleasant or unpleasant. Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you, and the "good … Continue reading “By the Numbers” Crisis Management Spread
The Quintessence, Sub-quintessence and Grand Quintessence
The idea of summing and then numerologically reducing the values of the cards in a spread to arrive at a single Major Arcanum card as a high-level summary of the individual details serves as a kind of "capstone" on the narrative. This practice seems to have entered the modern tarot world via the books of … Continue reading The Quintessence, Sub-quintessence and Grand Quintessence
The Salmon of Doubt Uncertain Future Spread
Sometimes tarot spread creation can be just plain fun! Satirical writer Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) had a very British way with words that (along with Monty Python) has inspired many of my quirkier spread titles. Before he passed, he was working on a new novel called The Salmon of Doubt, which … Continue reading The Salmon of Doubt Uncertain Future Spread
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 