Welcome to my personal blog.
Here you will find my musings, thoughts and observations, all inspired by my experiences as a full-time professional tarot reader.
Roots and Wings Tarot Spread
In honor of Mother's Day, here is an original four-card tarot spread. What did you inherit from your mother? What will you do with it?
Miniature Rider Waite Tarot Deck, Published by U.S. Games
In honor of Mother’s Day, here is a tarot spread about one thing we all have in common. We are all born to a mother. From there, our experiences with our mothers vary widely. Nonetheless, we each have a mother who has given us the gift of life, along with many other gifts and lessons, whether through experience or DNA. Here is a spread about those gifts and lessons. Use it to help you understand that part of you that came from your mother.
These are the card interpretations. Watch the short video to see the layout, and to see the spread in action!
Card 1:This card will show you, or help you understand, a gift, talent or positive quality you inherited from your mother.
Card 2: This card will show you, or help you understand, a challenge, problem or lesson that came from your mother, or from your interaction with your mother.
Card 3: This card will show you, or help you understand, what you must do to mitigate, release or heal from that challenge.
Card 4: This card will show you, or help you understand, the best way to use and develop the gifts and talents you have inherited from your mother.
Imbolc 2014 Tarot Blog Hop: Tarot, Healing and Creativity
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Imbolc is also known as "Brigid" or "St. Brigid's Day." Brigid (often pronounced “Breed” or “Bride”) is the most tangible deity to me. I’m rarely comfortable putting human form to Spirit, although I love legends, myths and stories about deities. But Brigid, the triple Goddess of smithcraft, poetry and healing, feels almost corporeal to me.
Each Imbolc I journey in meditation to her forge. She takes from me my burdens, and transforms them into the tools I need to create my future.
When I was a very small child we lived next to Mr. Petty's blacksmith’s shop. Sometimes Mr. Petty would let me come in to the dark, hot, dusty shop. I would hold my aunt’s hand tightly, both excited and afraid. I remember the huge bellows, the heat, the sparks and flames. I remember the sound of his hammer, and the glow of the hot metal as he worked.
Maybe that is why Brigid, Goddess of Smithcraft, is so real to me now. Maybe Brigid had marked me, a six-year-old girl with hair the same color as her own, even then. Maybe Brigid arranged my trips to the blacksmith shop as a way of forging a connection between us.
In all the years I have celebrated Imbolc and read tarot, never have I devised a spread for my journey to Brigid’s Forge! This year, I’ll correct that.
Brigid’s Forge Three-Card Tarot Spread
Card one: The path I must take.
The journey to Brigid’s forge is the journey to release emotional burdens, to transform hurt into something valuable, and with it, to create something new. This card represents the mindset of this journey – what I must consider prior to the journey, or how I must prepare myself.
Card two: The burden I carry.
This card will speak to the hurts, disappointments and sadness I carry with me that no longer serve me.
Card Three: Brigid’s gift.
Brigid takes my burden in her forge. Heating and hammering, she forges it into something useful for me. This card will speak to that gift, and how I might use it.
Here is my interpretation of the cards I received. The deck I used is Ellen Dugan’s "Witches Tarot."
The Path: Karma (Judgment)
In Witches Tarot Judgment is renamed "Karma." That it falls in position to denote my path to the forge is pretty amazing. My path is my calling, and unavoidable. I am summoned to the forge. I bring with me the knowledge, wounds, failures and accomplishments of my past, fully ready to receive closure and rebirth.
The Burden: The Fool
I love the Major Arcana cards here – Judgment followed by the Fool is very powerful. The Fool clearly represents the burden I carry. On one hand, I am healed and evolved enough to be very cognizant of my spiritual journey and to be unburdened by worldly concerns. On the other hand, my natural Fool-like state causes me to live in a way that is very different than the norm. I accept and appreciate my journey, but I am sometimes burdened by the difficulties that come from being so different from societal expectations. The trick of truly being the Fool is to have no fear. Fear is my burden.
The Gift: Queen of Wands (Reversed)
For years the Queen of Wands has been my significator, specifically in regard to my spiritual path and my work as a tarotist. The Queen of Wands usually represents my highest ideals of who I can be and what I can achieve.
Sometimes I lose focus and fall short of what I know I can do. I think the reversal on this card reflects that disappointment – my next book isn’t getting finished quickly enough, I have so many projects to do and so little time.
Brigid’s gift is to help me be me, better than before. Brigid’s gift is to help me stay on my path and achieve what is already in motion, with greater passion and energy. At her forge, Brigid transforms my fear into confidence.
Picture at top: Brigid, from "The Goddess Oracle" by Amy Sophia Marashinsky and Hrana Janto.
An Interesting Tarot Spread
Here is a tarot spread for you to try. Or maybe it's better to refer to it as a tarot technique. It's one I have been using for many years but never before thought to share it.
Start by making a list of the areas in life that are most important to you right now. Alternatively, if you are feeling worried, you could make a list of all your worries. Often these two lists turn out to be one and the same. When you make your list don't think about order of importance. Everything is important.
By way of example here would be my list: Family, Career, Spiritual Path, Creative Path, Home, and Personal Health/Well-Being.
I usually list each of my family members individually but didn't here for the sake of privacy.
The next step is to shuffle your cards (oracle cards will work as well as tarot cards if you prefer).
Then pull one card at random for each item on your list. Don't ask any specific questions, just think about the item and pull a card.
To continue the example, here's what I pulled.
Family - Nine of Pentacles Rx
Career - Hanged Man Rx
Spiritual Path - High Priestess
Creative Path - Eight of Cups
Home - Queen of Pentacles
Personal Health/Well-Being - The Lovers
The important thing about interpreting cards with this technique is to be really open both intuitively and intellectually about what the cards are saying. The questions the cards answer are intentionally very open-ended. Essentially the questions could be understood as "Tell me something about…"
Using my spread as an example we see that my biggest worry is my family, but it doesn't need to be. I worry that my kids won't have everything they need, but the Nine of Pentacles Rx tells me that is my own insecurity, not reality.
The Hanged Man Rx tells me that I am fully in control of my career.
The High Priestess for my spiritual path tells me I am in the process of learning and sharing wisdom. I am thrilled to see this card here.
The Eight of Cups for the creative path is interesting. It seems I must explore how my emotions help and hurt me in my pursuit of creativity.
With the Queen of Pentacles I see that my home is secure.
The Lovers tells me I need to make some decisions and integrate some new things into my life to maintain balance and improve my well-being.
Try this quick and easy technique to create an immediate personal spread for yourself or for a querent!