divination

Four Ways to Read Tarot Reversals

A couple of months back, I was doing an in person reading for someone who said they were somewhat new to their own tarot practice, and as I walked them through what I was seeing in the cards we’d laid out, I made a note to also explain some of the “Why”, and that turned into a short explanation of the four ways I usually read reversals, which I thought I’d share here! And: major shout-out to Lynda Hardy, who gave a presentation on reversals about a decade ago, which really helped me organize my thoughts about them and understand them better, right as I was beginning to branch out and do readings for acquaintances!

I don’t always use reversals – some decks I never let the cards turn upside-down, sometimes I’ll turn the whole deck back upright before drawing, and sometimes I’ll just tell the deck not to bother because I’m going to read them all upright. When I do use them, though, the first thing I do (as an intuitive reader) is try to feel what kind of reversal it is, by sorting them into one of three broad categories: Delay, Internalized, Shadowed, and Opposite.

Delay

This kind of reversal means that the standard meaning of the card is still going to happen, but it’s going to take longer than it normally would to come about. This delay can mean that some cards that are often understood to mean something happening soon or quickly can unfold over a longer period, like Death or the Tower. In a “past” position in a spread, a delay reversal can either mean a lengthening of the past into the present, or a very long-term past pattern stretching into the more distant past. This is probably the type of reversal that changes the meaning the least.

Shadowed

Shadowed reversals change the meaning only a little bit more than the delayed type. For the shadowed meaning, the basic meaning doesn’t really change, but any negatives are emphasized and put front and center, and any positives are downplayed. Even overtly positive cards like The Sun can be dimmed by a shadowed reversal, becoming a sign of “probable success” instead of a sure thing! A lot of tarot cards are pretty neutral, but have aspects that can become negative when taken to an extreme, and that’s when I most commonly see shadowed reversals in a reading.

Internalized

An internalized reversal most often means that the conflict in the card is something the querent is feeling internally. For example, the Five of Wands is usually understood to be about conflict, disagreement, and competition – all external, normally. If internalized, that card could instead mean that someone is in disagreement with themselves, or that they’re feeling stress from what they perceive as a competition, though the other person doesn’t have a clue what’s going on. This same kind of internalization can also mean that the actions associated with the swords and the material things associated with the coins/pentacles can become more about the querent’s inner world, their mental states and emotions.

Opposite

Opposite meaning reversals are probably the best known, and they are the type most people are familiar with, and the type that you’ll most commonly find described in the booklet that comes with a deck. Positives become negatives, endings become beginnings, victories become losses, solutions become obstacles. In booklets that don’t have keywords for reversals, it can sometimes be a little challenging to come up with opposites, but its important to remember that sometimes the opposite of a neutral thing is just a very different neutral thing. For example, The Heirophant represents spiritual tradition and religious authority when upright, and the opposites of those two things might be developing new spiritual practices, and a neophyte. None of those things are inherently negative, but they’re opposites of each other. (And before anyone gets on my case about “religious authority” being negative, yeah a lot of people who claim that title are fairly problematic, but it’s not inherently negative as a concept. People who actually know the lore and the language/culture well enough to explain it to others are religious authorities as well! It’s the demand for unquestioning followers that is toxic, and that doesn’t have to be a feature of our pagan religions.)

Hopefully that helps some of you get deeper meaning out of your readings!

Reminder: All of my 12-card or 12-rune spreads, and all of the year-overview and life-overview spreads are on sale in my web shop for approx. 20% off, now through the end of January! No coupon necessary – the sale price is just listed in the shop. (And look for a flash sale on all divination at the end of December!) Make sure you’re shopping on my website, though – I have an Etsy shop as well, but the sales won’t be active there.

Year-Ahead Tarot Forecasts: Why I Do Them

Every year on New Year’s Eve, I pull 12 tarot cards for my coming year – and most years I pull them for a few friends and family members as well. I’ve never been the sort of diviner who does daily pulls; I’m more interested in the larger patterns than the smaller flows, unless I’m investigating a specific issue. But a monthly card gives me something to focus on and consider each month, and it becomes the roof pole around which I organize myself. Then after the month is over, it becomes the center of the web of my monthly reflection, as I think about what I struggled with and what I learned during the month I’ve just completed. I think a monthly card can give really valuable insight into where you are on your life-path, and pulling monthly cards for a whole year gives you touch-points along the way.

My Year-Ahead spread is one of my most popular divination products, and the monthly card forms the basis for my Card of the Month Club on Patreon (which will remain the place with the lowest price point for a monthly card from me unless you catch the New Year’s Eve flash sale), though I draw the cards for the Patreon Club just before the new month starts instead of all at once. With the spread in my shop, you can have all twelve cards at once in a deck of your choice, whereas the Patreon Club has a different deck for every month throughout the year. Also, the Year-Ahead spread in the shop gives the option of an additional three cards for a yearly focus, and those can be in the same or a different deck.

For myself, I usually pull two cards: for tarot, I use all major arcana, but I also pull oracle cards (from an oracle deck I’ve been working on), and the interplay of the two cards gives me even more insight into each month in the coming year. In the past I’ve also used lenormand, runes, and ogham to good effect, and I do have an option in my shop for 12 runes if that sounds more helpful! Any of the deck listings with an option for 12 could be used for a year-ahead spread, and they are all currently also on sale through the end of January: no coupon code needed!

So if you’re interested, please check out my web shop! These spreads are approx 20% off now through the end of January. Make sure you’re shopping on my website, though – I have an Etsy shop as well, but the sales won’t be active there!

Tarot Deck Review: Dark Exact

Deck: The Dark Exact Tarot
Writer & Artist: Coleman Stevenson
Publisher: Self-Published
Overall Rating: 7/10

Cardstock: These cards are a different shape than the standard tarot card, a bit more square, more like some oracle decks I own, but larger than poker size – approximately 4 inches x 3 inches. They have a semi-matte texture, and they riffle shuffle pretty well. My only complaint any the cardstock is that small dings to the edges tend to expose the white of the card interior, which is in sharp contrast to the black face of the cards. But one could always take a sharpie to the edges.

Artwork: The artwork is very minimalist, tarot symbology pared down and distilled to its key essences. The minor cards are mostly pips, but arranged in an evocative manner with the occasional additional symbol, like an alchemical elemental triangle, and the heart in the Three of Swords. The Majors have more detailed images but still usually one main element: a flower bulb for The Hermit, lines on a person’s palm for Judgement, an ouroboros for Death.

Book: The booklet is very short and has very small font but manages to pack some really good keywords for upright and reversal readings of all the cards. It also has a very brief explanation of tarot in general, and two spreads: past/present/future, and a Celtic Cross. There is also a full sized guide book, but I haven’t purchased that (yet?) and can’t speak to its contents or quality.

Likes: I think that this deck really does what it set out to do: be a minimalist black and white, very readable deck. It fills its aesthetic niche very, very well. I also think that the inclusion of a second Fool card, so that there’s one for the beginning of the journey and one for the conclusion is a really interesting touch.

Dislikes: I think I might’ve liked these cards better if they were actually poker sized and if the edges were bonded or coated somehow but those are really very minor detractions and very personal preferences.

Overall Recommendation

I do really like this deck, I think it’s a great addition to my collection and really is the best of the black and white decks I was looking at with more minimalist artwork. It’s a nice counterpoint to some of my busier fantasy art decks. But I’m not sure I’d recommend this deck for a newbie reader or for someone reads more intuitively based on what in the artwork draws their eye. A newbie reader might be able to learn with this deck if they also buy the full sized guide book, but without having seen the book I couldn’t say for sure.

Ancestor Oracle Cards

I’m a relative newcomer to deathwork, having spoken pretty much only to my Beloved Dead before being trained in spae (aka “oracular seidr”) in 2019, but as I progressed in that I found myself drawn to doing this work on other contexts. When I’m in a spae ritual, that framework does most of the heavy lifting of connecting seer and ancestor, but I was finding that my own skills were sharpening as well, my ability to connect and to hear, and I thought I’d try a different bridge, one with which I was already deeply connected: cartomancy.

So last year around Samhain, as a sort of experiment, I offered five free rituals for “A Message from your Ancestors”. All the participants were aware they were guinea pigs, but they were game to try. After these part few years, it seemed like the Dead were on everyone’s mind, but I kept to my Seidr Guild‘s rule of a-year-and-a-day to let the newly dead cross over and get settled. As I did the first few rituals, however, quickly found that not all the Beloved Dead I was seeking to connect with were willing to use tarot cards to clarify their messages. I have a few oracle decks as well, but none of them were well suited to provide good answers.

My solution? Create my own Ancestor Oracle Cards, first as a list in a notebook, then on blank cards, and finally written into the margins of a deck of regular playing cards with a vintage aesthetic. I paired that with an old silver dollar I bought online and then suddenly the messages were all clearer and brighter and the Dead were more willing to talk!

So here below, for your free personal use, is the list I developed. I set them to specific individual cards (and I’ll be sharing that additional information on my Patreon for my supporters) but I’ll copied them in here alphabetically for your easier perusal. Feel free to expand or adapt to suit the needs of your personal practice, but if you share it elsewhere I’d appreciate credit or a shout-out!

Abundance
Attention
Balance
Calling
Change
Choices
Compassion
Conflict
Constraint
Discernment
Divinity
Dreams
Expression
Family
Forgiveness
Fractured
Gratitude
Grounding & Centering

Guides & Guardians
Harmony
Healing
Home
Hope
Inspiration
Integration
Intention
Intuition
Journey
Joy
Learning
Love
New beginnings
Patience
Persistence
Perspective
Power

Prayers & Charms
Progress
Protection
Purification
The Querent
Realization
Reflection
Release
Remembrance
Sanctuary
Shadows
The Spirit
Strength
Surrender
Transition
Trust
Truth
Wisdom

If you’re interested in my ritual, it’s currently on sale in my shop! Check it out: “A Message from your Ancestors”.

Ribbons as Ritual Adornments

November 15, 2021
by Alexandra

Most of the Pagans I know are fond of ritual adornments: robes, jewelry, makeup, even the occasional veil. I have my share of devotional and enchanted jewelry, to be sure, and I own couple of items of clothing that pretty much only get worn to Pagan gatherings, SCA events, and the Renaissance Faire. But I don’t see many other people wearing ribbons, which is a shame because they’re such a versatile item! Since my hair is long enough to put up or put half up, which is my usual preferred style, I usually wear my ribbons in my hair. I have, however, worn them both around my neck and around my wrist in the past, and I find they work just as well in that manner. I usually buy silk ribbons with edging, about a yard long. They are easy to find on Etsy dyed in almost every color and color combination you could possibly want! I own about a dozen, most of which have a ritual or devotional purpose, and the picture below shows three of the ones I use most often.

Three ribbons, folded loosely, laid out on top of a woven cloth. One is dyed in shades of blue/green/magenta. One is ombre beige-brown-black. One is dyed shades of grey. — A selection of my personal ribbons.

The top one, in shades of blue, green, and magenta, is the hair ribbon I usually use for divinatory work. It is a key part of my personal ritual to align my headspace with the practice of intuitive divination, and when I’m rushing that’s sometimes the only thing I do. I find that the act of tying it in my hair or around my wrist has become an effective mental trigger for changing my focus and sliding into trance. Even in my hair, the slight weight and movement of the strands as I move my head is noticeable, and helps me maintain focus. On my wrist its presence is even more palpable as I shuffle and draw cards or cast objects. I don’t always use the ribbon every time I do divination, though. If I’m away from home and am just pulling a few cards on the fly I don’t usually have it with me, but if I’m doing a reading for a client I always take the moment to pull it out and tie it in. It’s as important a piece of my personal preparation as grounding and centering, and when I’m feeling a little under the weather or preoccupied, it helps me to set those aside, and open instead to the work that needs to be done.

The other two ribbons, one in shades of beige, brown, and black and the other in shades of grey, are both devotional adornments. The tricolor one in the middle of the photo above is one I use for rituals to Hela, and to work with the Dead. For me, the colors evoke bones and the dark earth of graves and caves. Like the one I use for divination, this one helps shift my focus, and helps me align myself with the chthonic energies. I use it to help me shift into the oracular headspace associated with the spae tradition I’ve been trained in. While I also place a veil over myself when I am acting as seer, that act moves me through the gates of Helheim. The ribbon primarily helps me begin the journey down, and clarifies messages when the Dead come to me, though it likely helps with clarity in Helheim as well.

The ribbon in shades of grey is a devotional piece for Na Morrigna, and I use it each dark moon in my oracular rituals, but also whenever I am doing Their Work, or attending rituals in Their Honor. It helps me connect with the trio of Goddesses who came to me and named themselves in the plural: Na Morrigna as a collective, not An Morrigan in the singular. I’ve identified them elsewhere as the three daughters of Ernmas — Morrigan/Anu, Babd, and Macha — and so I wear the ribbon as well when doing work for them or attending rituals to them individually, as well.

Others have discussed Pagan veiling practices much better than I could hope to summarize, but I do want to mention ribbons in connection with that, briefly. For those who cannot veil completely, I’ve seen the idea of hair jewelry or other accessories used in place of a scarf, and I think a devotional hair ribbon (for those who can tie it into their hair) would be a great alternative. They’re very easy to style into hair, and they don’t have a religious connotation in US mainstream culture, thus allowing their usage by people whose practices and/or beliefs are sub-rosa*, without posing the threat of being found out.

I have other ribbons I use for healing work, for certain types of spellcasting, and to wear when I honor other entities, and I keep them all in a little accessory bag with my ritual jewelry. In the past I have just taken the whole bag with when I’ve gone to pagan events. Most of the ribbons are multicolored, like the ones in the picture above, and I’ve gotten them from several places but my favorite source is probably Jamn G lass o n Etsy, because of the sheer range of hand dyed colors they offer. Or you could buy white ones and dye them yourself!

*Note: I tend to prefer using “sub-rosa” to “broom closet” terminology for a couple of reasons, one of which being that it’s such a lovely phrase! For me, “under the roses” evokes images of lush gardens protecting hushed conversation and midnight meetings from prying eyes, which has a similar aura of mystery and secrecy to my own experiences being a teen with a covert polytheistic magical practice in a staunchly Catholic household.

Crow Calls: an Ogham Divination

September 9, 2021
by Alexandra

This moon’s message comes a bit late thanks to Hurricane Ida and the migraine she caused, and I was instructed to do a less intense version of my ritual, and to draw ogham instead of channeling poetry. The message itself does somewhat explain why I was given lighter duty: rest is important for all healing.

I pulled three ogham feda*: Tinne, Beithe, and Nin. In the personal lists I’ve been developing, the kennings for these three are Tested Resolve, Beginning Healing, and Knotted Weaving.

Three birch discs, pyrographed with ogham (Tinne, Beithe, and Nin, from left to right), sitting on a brown knit bag, on top of a silver tablecloth.

Tinne is here to represent the near-past, and in that context I understand it to be the completion of a trial by fire. We’ve been dealing with things we weren’t sure we could handle – and yet we did handle them, if perhaps not as well as we might have liked. Still, that cycle is now behind us, and we need to focus on our current and future cycles.

Beithe is here to represent the developing present, the thing we should be working on right now. This is the fid* that really explains my instruction to rest: we should be focusing on healing. Having completed one cycle, we need to rest and rejuvenate to face whatever comes next. Beithe is a fid of healing, but also of beginnings, in my understanding. We need to start the next cycle as favorably as we can, to aim for positive outcomes.

Nin is here to represent the near-future, and in this context I understand it as a fid of communal goals, and of working together as a community. A symbol I associate with this fid is the hand-tied fishnet. It takes more than one pair of hands to make one in any reasonable length of time, and more than one pair of hands to both cast it into the water, and to pull it back in. Nin speaks to me of weaving, both literal fibercraft and metaphorical joinings. As we look to the future and our own healing, we need to both support and be supported by those in our communities. We are a community of Crows, but we belong to other communities, too: spiritual, and geographical, familial and professional. All and any strong community ties matter, and those webs will look different for each of us. As you work on self care, make sure to also put aside some time for community care, as well. Learn how to be a shelter for others, and learn where you can go to find sanctuary of your own.

Hopefully that gives you insight into your current situations, and with any luck I’ll be back with more poetry next month. The next Dark Moon is October 6th.

*: Fid and Feda are the singular and plural, respectively, of the Irish word for each individual ogham letter, meaning also tree, wood (or something wooden, like a walking stick or wand). See it here in the eDIL.

Hedgewitch: How I Describe My Magical Craft

I mentioned in a previous post that I tend to refer to my magical practice as hedgewitchery, and myself as a hedgewitch, but I thought it would be useful to go into that in more depth in this new blog post.

So, what do I mean when I call myself a hedgewitch? What is it I do ?

This: I practice folk magic to balm and bane, I divine for omens, I truck with spirits, I cross the hedge to walk the worlds, and I dabble in herbs.

FOLK MAGIC

A lot of my magical practice draws on folklore and folk magic traditions, and incorporates the materials I have around me in a way that some might call traditional witchcraft. I use pieces I’ve learned from family and friends, or invented myself, with what bits and bobs I had on hand or could easily acquire: paper or yarn, candle or salt, herb or stone. I read about other witches’ practices, I talk to my peers, and we inspire each other to use materials or magical technologies in ways that solve the problems in front of us. Most of it is highly personal and highly intuitive, often with guidance from spirits. I have a couple of pretty tools (a brass bell, a copper mug, a pillar of quartz, an engraved wooden spoon) but most everything also has a very practical purpose. I love the look of a fancy wand as much as the next magpie, but I’ve never really used ceremonial tools with any regularity, and I rarely do magic in a manner that requires an altar set just-so. In fact, many of my most “complicated” workings are done almost entirely in trance.

BALM AND BANE

Healing and hexing are two sides of the same coin, in my view. I can heal with darkness, I can curse with light, and in fact I have an upcoming workshop for the NoVA Pagan Moot on exactly that. I am trained in several modalities of energetic or spiritual healing, and I combine them intuitively for those who seek my services. But just as poison in the right dosage can be medicine, a medicine in the wrong dosage is often a poison. Non-consensual or inexpertly targeted healing can cause harm, and sometimes a binding or a banishing can twist someone’s fate so that they’re heading in a more positive direction. Magic is complicated, consent matters, and every effective spell has consequences, intended or not. I try to do more good than harm, but if I’m between a rock and a hard place I will use every tool in my arsenal. I see a lot of people who have a very all-or-nothing mindset around banework, and I don’t think that’s nearly as helpful as having actual discussions about ethics and harm reduction, and us each figuring out our own personal boundaries.

I am an eternal student of divination: I keep learning new forms, and I keep going deeper with the forms I am already proficient with. I practice several types of cartomancy, I read ogham staves and rune stones, I take omens taken in the wild from the flight of birds, and I sometimes even turn to modern technological omens like shufflemancy and the rolling of d20s. Not everything works well for me: I’ve never quite gotten the hang of pendulums or spirit boards, for instance. But I am proficient enough in many forms that I have enough confidence in my skill to offer these services for money, and the reviews I get back are extremely positive. I use my tools to divine the future, the past, the present—to illuminate anything that is shrouded, to look around corners, to answer what-ifs as best I can, knowing as I do that things are always in flux. I use these tools to speak with and to get messages from spirits of many kinds, both for myself, and on the behalf of others.

SPIRITWORK

I have deep relationships with two pantheons of Deities: the Tuatha Dé and the Vanir. I am also deeply entwined with the Álfar and with the Daoine Uaisle, through the Fairy Queen I serve. I maintain relationships with my local Good Neighbors, Nature Spirits, and Land Wights where I live, where I visit and practice, and where I travel. I honor my Beloved Dead, and those Ancestors (of blood or of path) who appear to guide and to help me. There are spirits in my household; they are my allies and my companions, my guides and my guardians. I also maintain cordial relationships and open lines of communication with many of the Deities and other tutelary spirits of my human-incarnate friends and associates. Most of my magical work involves these many types of spirits; I do workings with them, for them, because of them, on their behalf, or at their request.

HEDGECROSSING

Hedge-crossing, hedge-riding, journeying, pathworking, world-walking: whatever you may call it, I use these to refer to the act of travelling in spirit to the Otherworlds. This is a type of trancework, and the one I use most often. I slip between this world and an Other to see spirits more clearly, to converse with them, or to take a look at the landscape and flows of energy. I travel to visit spirits I know; I travel to seek those I have not yet encountered. I go seeking answers for myself and for others, and I bring answers back in words or images, scents or feelings. Sometimes I wander the worlds for the sheer joy of it, the ecstasy of spirit-flight. From time to time I go walking in my dreams, but most of my wanderings are waking visions.

HERBALISM

This is the one area that I most wish to have additional education in. I am familiar with some herbal remedies for common things like colds, scrapes, and bruises; I know remedies for menstrual cramps. I have deeper education in a couple of chronic conditions I am personally dealing with, including migraines, but I would like to take an actual certification programme at some point. For magical uses, I work with herbs and resins a bit more intuitively, mixing flavors and intentions into food, blending oils for scent and resonance. I speak with the plants themselves, and learn what they would teach me. When I need to ground deeply and my usual way is not enough, I go walk the land or else I spend time in my own garden. The cycles of plant growth, of harvest, of weather, of the moon, bring me back into the present, back into balance with the cycles of my own life.

Oracle Deck Review: Wild Wisdom of the Faery

Deck: Wild Wisdom of the Faery Oracle
Publisher: Blue Angel
Writer: Lucy Cavendish
Artist: Selina Fenech
Overall Rating: 5/10

image (c) Blue Angel. Cards shown are: Lift the Darkness, Acorn’s Invitation, Star Dust, and Into the Woods

Cardstock: They’re pretty flexible and smooth, but the cards are nearly too large for me to shuffle. They measure about 5.5″ tall and 3.75″ wide (or 14cm x 9.5 cm). Still, I manage to get them mixed up well with a combination of shuffling methods. The deck box is a two part hard case, which so far is holding up well.

Artwork: The artwork appears to be mostly traditional media, but the artist’s website says that she often begins with watercolor or acrylic, and then adds a little more in digital form afterwards. If you haven’t noticed yet, I’m generally a sucker for watercolors. A lot of the art is pretty “twee”, almost all the fairies have wings, and while there’s a range of sizes (from tiny to human-sized), there’s not much by way of diversity of body shape or skin tone (mostly femme, white, thin, and wearing filmy clothing). The cards also have the name and keywords written over the image, despite the rather large border, and the contrast isn’t great on a few of them.

Book: The booklet pretty large, about 170 pages, though the beginning is a bunch of New Age Fairy Nonsense that sees Them as mainly benevolent (if tricksy) nature angels, and says that all the stories of bad luck and negative encounters are a product of Church propaganda. For example, they define the Unseelie Court by saying: “not so fond of humans, as they feel we have been very harmful. Most of the Unseelie’s [sic] have ‘given up’ on us. ‘Tis up to us to prove them wrong.” Yeah okay, I guess maybe kelpies eat people because they… littered? Sure, okay, let’s just ignore several centuries of living belief and practice. [/sarcasm]
The booklet does include a few interesting spreads, though I still can’t advise invoking the Fair Folk or asking them for divinatory advice on your life situations, the way it recommends.
The descriptions of the cards themselves have a few paragraphs of description and then a few paragraphs each of divinatory meanings and reversed meanings, which is always helpful. The cards all have their number on the top border, so you can flip through the book to find them, but they aren’t in alphabetical order.

Likes: I like the general art style, though I wish it depicted a more diverse cast. I also do actually really like the amount of information the booklet gives for each card, because as I’m learning a new deck I really like to figure out what the writer and artist were both thinking, so I can better understand their symbolism, and build that into my intuitive readings. I do also like it when there are a couple of keywords on the card when it’s an oracle deck, because with those there’s no set of meanings like there is with tarot, lenormand, or runes.

Dislikes: Basically the entire introductory section in the the book. And the lack of diversity. And the borders, and how the keywords aren’t well contrasted. The size of the cards.

Overall Recommendation

TL;DR: if this one goes missing or gets water damaged, I probably won’t buy a new one. A lot of my clients seem to like the artwork, but I never use this one for my own personal readings unless I can’t use something better. I bought it a while back because it was pretty, but this one really is a bit too twee for my tastes. The Faery Forest Oracle by Lucy Cavendish again, but with artwork by Maxine Gadd, is a bit less twee, and I find that they work okay together, for better rounded answers. The Wild Wisdom of the Faery Oracle sugarcoats like a candy store, so if you’re looking for a very gentle deck with a sunny disposition and cute artwork, it’ll probably serve you well, but I think a fair few of my readers will be put off by the twee.

The Importance of Consent in Divination and Oracular Work

May 4, 2021
by Alexandra

Since this came up recently elsewhere, I thought I’d share with y’all my basic guide to etiquette in divination and oracular work! It can be tough to figure out boundaries when you find divination and godphoning come easily to you, and you feel called to the role of a messenger or oracle. But as with most things, the first thing to keep in mind is consent.

So: before you do divination for someone else, make sure you have clear consent to do so. Make sure you’re on the same page as far as who (ex. Bast) or what (ex. their wyrd, The Universe) is being queried, and how the question, if any, is phrased. If you’re using a form of divination that has meanings associated with a symbol set, it’s also a good idea to make sure that you’re on the same page about whether you’re just pulling runes/cards/what-have-you and conveying those, or if you’re also going to interpret them. Also, if you usually charge money or take tips for readings, that should be clear upfront.

If you’re feeling like you ought to do divination on someone else’s behalf in order to offer them advice, that all still applies: don’t ask any spirits what advice to give someone unless:

1) the person actually wants advice (as opposed to space holding or comforting),
2) they consented for you to query these specific spirits,
3) with these specific questions.

Asking your Deities, your Guides, and your Ancestors what your friend should do to fix their life isn’t usually very helpful, because they don’t have solid relationships to draw on, and you’ll need a lot of discernment skill to make sure they aren’t just telling you to tell your friend the advice you want to give. Asking their Deities, their Guides, and their Ancestors, with their permission, is more likely to get you helpful and nuanced answers, because those spirits are more aware of and engaged in your friend’s life.

However, quite a few people who feel called to this path have had an experience where, for whatever reason, a Deity or other spirit asks us to pass on a message, often in a too-real dream, during a journey meditation, or in a ritual. At that point, it’s best to tell the spirit that you will try, if the intended recipient is willing to hear it.

I don’t recommend promising you definitely will deliver the message, because there are times that the recipient is not going to be able to hear it from you, for a variety of reasons. First, we come back to that concept of consent: the best way to start this conversation with the intended recipient is just to tell them you’ve received some insight that is a message for them from a spirit (or name/ describe the spirit), and ask them if they wish to hear it.

Then, if they say yes, do your best to deliver the message as accurately as possible, and gently suggest they verify it again with another source if it’s something potentially life-altering (like changing jobs, or moving out of state, or getting divorced). Even if you practice divination, too, they should ask a different diviner. If they say no, they don’t want to hear it, just move on. You promised to try and you tried and that’s the end of it. If the message was truly important, the spirit will try again in a different way.

That might sound like unusual advice, but I believe we really do have agency in our relationships with Deities and other spirits, and I think one of the most important ways to use our agency is to make sure our actions are in line with our own ethical codes. Deities certainly have ethical codes as well, but they have a different perspective, and it’s important to remember that even if you’re given a divine message, you still have to be responsible for your own actions. Our personal relationships should be maintained with good boundaries and mutual respect, allowing us all to exercise our own agency. (Excepting in extreme circumstances, of course – sometimes agency is restricted for good reason, as when the individual presents a clear danger to themselves or others.)

Mostly what I have discussed above is about specific messages for specific individuals, but I also want to briefly touch on the type of oracular work my blog followers have probably seen before: monthly messages from certain Deities. With those kind of open community-wide messages, the consent exists in whether or not the person reading it wishes to consider themselves part of my community.

I’m usually pretty upfront about these messages probably being more relevant to people who have similar practices and beliefs to my own, and to people who are located in the same geographic and political region as me. People who aren’t nearby sometimes tell me that something resonated strongly with them, and I occasionally get similar comments from people who have very different practices and beliefs. And that’s okay, too! People can read it and take from it whatever they want.

Or – and this is really key – they can read one and decide it really doesn’t resonate or apply to them at all, and they can avoid my writing in the future! That’s perfectly fine with me. I’m not trying to convert anyone to my way of thinking; I’m just sharing a message I was given, and hoping it might be helpful for a couple of others who find themselves in similar situations.

As with the individual oracular messages above, if the message seems to be suggesting some sort of change, it’s a good idea for other practitioners to verify community oracular messages that seem to resonate with them. They could do their own journeywork, or turn to divination. If the message is verified, that will also give them a bit more nuance about how it applies to their specific situation!

Hopefully this was a helpful (or at least an interesting) little excursion into how to apply consensual boundaries to divination and oracular work. If you’d like to discuss more, or to ask a question, please feel free to leave a comment below, or to send an email.

Tarot Deck Review: The Everyday Tarot

Deck: The Everyday Tarot
Publisher: Running Press
Writer: Brigit Esselmont of Biddy Tarot
Artist: Eleanor Grosch
Overall Rating: 7/10

image (c) Running Press. Cards shown are: Five of Swords, Death, and King of Wands

Cardstock: The cards are smaller than normal tarot cards, closer to poker card sized, and it can be a little awkward to shuffle all 78 of them. The cardstock is of good quality, though, not too slick and not too rough, and the printing is very vibrant. I find the borders not too distracting, and the gilded edges are a nice touch.

Artwork: The artwork is tricolor (white, gold, and purple) and combines flat white, luminous gold, and a watercolor textured purple. The images are done mainly with the human figures in silhouette, and a sort of minimalistic theme overall, but they’re recognizable to those familiar with the Rider-Waite-Smith system, and have enough intricacies to be beautiful, rather than boring.

Book: The booklet is about the same size as the cards and 87 pages long. It has a short paragraph for each upright and reversed meaning for each card, which is a pretty good amount of information, but does not contain a list of keywords. Somewhat unusually, there isn’t any more information on the majors than there is on the pips.

Likes: It’s pretty straightforward, like a minimalist version of the RWS, and therefore an easy deck to read for anyone used to that system. I really do like the artwork, though I wasn’t sure about it at first. It grew on me.

Dislikes: I was somewhat surprised that the deck didn’t contain the two lists of keywords that are listed on the Biddy Tarot website! And the cards are somewhat awkward to shuffle, as I mentioned above. I also don’t really like the box. It’s a magnetic clasp wrap like the cover of a book, with no top or bottom, but there’s a clear plastic case for the cards that’s rather flimsy, and to get the booklet to stay in, it has to be inserted in a slot in the cover. I’ll be moving this one to a knit bag, probably.

Overall Recommendation

I think in a different carrying case this would make a very good travel deck. I think it would make a good first deck for new readers, if combined with the resources on the Biddy Tarot website. It occupies a niche in my collection somewhere around “neutral-pretty”, and may make a good in-person reading deck, though because of the pandemic I really haven’t been doing that lately. I’m glad I own it, but this is not one of the ones I’d buy again immediately if I misplaced it.

1 2 3 4 5

BALM AND BANE

DIVINATION

HEDGECROSSING

HERBALISM

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