AUTHOR'S NOTE: Bear with me here, this moves quickly from subconscious meditation to the utilitarian aspects of cartomancy and should be worth your time. It is, however, aimed at professional diviners and won't be understood or appreciated by dabblers in the "pop metaphysics" of online tarot reading. I had a dream recently where I encountered … Continue reading The Five-Beat Measure: A Tarot-Reading Prep Routine
Tarot Techniques
Jumping the Gap: Multilayered Tarot Reading
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In the past I've written about the fact that every tarot card contains several layers of meaning, and reading one can resemble peeling an onion. If a practical, action-and-event-oriented approach fails to illuminate the matter, a deeper cut could reveal the psychological angle of "attitudes and behaviors" to be adopted or avoided by … Continue reading Jumping the Gap: Multilayered Tarot Reading
2024 Celtic Wheel of the Year Layout
AUTHOR'S NOTE: For the next solar cycle, I chose not to pull random cards to represent the Celtic year, but rather to use the tarot trump cards associated with the eight Celtic holidays and the four zodiacal ingress dates for the Sun, thus creating a universal layout with slightly more irregular sequencing than the typical … Continue reading 2024 Celtic Wheel of the Year Layout
A Tarot Reckoning: Descent into Impressionism
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Lately I've been spending some time on the r/seculartarot sub-reddit, and after viewing numerous posts I've concluded that they categorically reject any kind of unstructured approach to the tarot (as one might suppose from the title of the sub). I find myself wondering "If you stifle creative inspiration, imagination and ingenuity in tarot … Continue reading A Tarot Reckoning: Descent into Impressionism
A Tarot Grand Tableau: Cross-Cutting Heresy
AUTHOR'S NOTE: When Lenormand experts are confronted with the question of whether tarot cards can be paired with traditional Lenormand spreads, they sound the alarm and man the battlements. But in keeping with my current action-and-event-based approach to tarot, I can see how the Minor Arcana might be used in a manner similar to the … Continue reading A Tarot Grand Tableau: Cross-Cutting Heresy
Turbatus Somnus* – A Sleep-Cycle Disruption Spread
*Disturbed sleep (I know very little Latin, blame Google Translate) AUTHOR'S NOTE: It's common to ask the tarot "How will my day go?" Here I'm asking "How will my night go?" Insomnia is a subject I haven't tackled before in a tarot spread. I have a mild form of it and the cause is seldom … Continue reading Turbatus Somnus* – A Sleep-Cycle Disruption Spread
The “Ex-Partner” Dilemma: Abandonment and Avoidance
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm currently following an interesting sub-reddit thread in which the conversation centers on ex-partner reconciliation and the broader issue of "soulmate/twin-flame" connections, two areas of concern that are frequently brought to a diviner's attention. Then it broaches the subject of "attachment style," which I didn't realize has become an area of formal study … Continue reading The “Ex-Partner” Dilemma: Abandonment and Avoidance
Anchoring the Abstract
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Many years ago in Rachel Pollack's 78 Degrees of Wisdom, I encountered the 21-card, 7x3 tableau of tarot trumps (the Fool was set aside as a "thing apart"). The arrangement ran from the Magician at the top-left to the World at the bottom-right. More recently, I came across it again in Sallie Nichols' … Continue reading Anchoring the Abstract
“Grow, Grow . . .”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: My title is an allusion to a quote from the Talmud mentioned by Sallie Nichols in Tarot and the Archetypal Journey: "Every blade of grass has its Angel that bends over it and whispers, 'Grow, grow!'" One of my favorite semi-truisms about the tarot is "Every time I perform a reading for another … Continue reading “Grow, Grow . . .”
“Guided Intuition”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Before the mystics and psychics among my readers get too excited, this essay is not about the participation of "spirit guides" in tarot reading, since in my estimation such entities may be nothing more than astral phantasms of subconscious origin projected by those seeking the comfort and confidence of an external spiritual authority. … Continue reading “Guided Intuition”
