AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm always looking for new ways to pre-select a subset of the 78-card deck that shrinks the playing field and allows pulling the cards for the reading from a narrower population. This one uses a 24-card template that, with the addition of a single six-sided die, produces a four-card run complemented by a … Continue reading “Running the Maze” – A Mixed-Media Situational Insight Spread
Tarot Spreads
Negotiated Settlement: A Best-Case/Worst-Case Trend Development Spread
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I like to say that I don't purposely seek "good" or "bad" answers in a tarot reading but only an indication of trending circumstances that can be brought to a head through the querent's focused engagement. Here is a spread that makes good on this paradigm. It uses a breakdown of generally auspicious, … Continue reading Negotiated Settlement: A Best-Case/Worst-Case Trend Development Spread
Approaching the Hub: An Elemental Alignment Spread
AUTHOR'S NOTE: While reading about the Medieval concept of "Fortuna" (later identified with the tarot Wheel of Fortune), I was impressed by the thinking of Boethius (as presented by C.S. Lewis), who put the following into the mouth of his philosophical muse, Philosophia. (Note that, although "Divine Providence" is not in my personal vocabulary as … Continue reading Approaching the Hub: An Elemental Alignment Spread
Dropping the Masks: A Shared-Dynamic Relationship Spread
AUTHOR'S NOTE: It's been a while since I created a comprehensive relationship spread. Here is one that shows the shared dynamic that can bring two parties together but also drive them apart. It sets up two "personality profiles" for the purpose of comparison, followed by a central pair that describes converging and diverging interests between … Continue reading Dropping the Masks: A Shared-Dynamic Relationship Spread
The “Power Grab” Spread: A Personal Power Profile
AUTHOR'S NOTE: As inquisitive beings we are always looking for insights that will aid us in understanding our inherent strengths and weaknesses. Although I don't use the "Tree of Life" spread often, here is a version that employs tarot cards to create a "power profile" showing the relative potency of eleven different aspects of our … Continue reading The “Power Grab” Spread: A Personal Power Profile
“Who Shall I Be Today?” – A Tweaked Daily-Draw Spread
AUTHOR'S NOTE: During my ongoing study of the Taoist Bagua I encountered the idea that, in the three lines of a trigram, the top line represents Heaven, the bottom line signifies Earth and the middle line shows the individual poised between the two. I've been thinking about ways to relate this model to the three-card … Continue reading “Who Shall I Be Today?” – A Tweaked Daily-Draw Spread
The Great Escape: A Conflict-Resolution Spread
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I was just reading about the historical view that many ancient philosophers and mystics envisioned a primordial "Cosmic Egg" that coalesced out of formless chaos, from which all life emerged as the culmination of an embryonic seed-state. I decided to explore this concept as the basis for a new conflict-resolution spread that uses … Continue reading The Great Escape: A Conflict-Resolution Spread
Polar Opposites and the Pendulum of Contrasts
AUTHOR'S NOTE: An interesting aspect of esoteric metaphysics is that there are no unconditional "black-and-white" polarities in terms of active/passive, positive/negative or masculine/feminine principles; everything is on a sliding scale and varies in proportion according to the circumstances. The result is a pendulum-swing of contrasting energies, quite often discordant themes that converge momentarily on a … Continue reading Polar Opposites and the Pendulum of Contrasts
Tarot As “Offering Bowl” – A Situational Development Spread
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The practice of Taiji envisions eight "offering bowls" that enclose space and also present the contents of that space to the aspirant. Here I've created an eight-position tarot spread modeled on the taijitu (yin/yang) symbol of the I Ching to show situational progress from constructive input (yin as receptive and cooperative) to productive … Continue reading Tarot As “Offering Bowl” – A Situational Development Spread
Getting Out of Our Own Way: More Thoughts on Attunement
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In the chapter on "Rhythm" in his book The Tao of Thoth, Ethan Indigo Smith describes being obstructed by the routine "rhythms of the world" and, in order to advance, learning to "move out of our own way, physically at first, and as we progress mentally and emotionally as well. An example of … Continue reading Getting Out of Our Own Way: More Thoughts on Attunement
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 