Tarot Tuesday

I've decided to start over again, slowly, with my old Friend, the Tarot of the Cat People. So I'm working through my "Tarot for Your Self" book, from the beginning, with this deck.

(You can see my first entry about this book here, and about this deck here.)

After recording my Tarot profile as seen in my first entry about this book, I moved on to a simple three-card spread. I know how to do the cross spread, but for now, we'll stay simple with the three-card. I've always read it as past-present-future, but this book suggests not only that, but also body-mind-spirit. An interesting twist.

Today my three cards are Nine of Pentacles-Ace of Pentacles-Two of Wands (inverted).

If I look at them as Body-Mind-Spirit, I see that I am incredibly wealthy in body (well, yes, I'd like to be a little less so!). My mind is at a peak of power right now, and my spirit is...torn. Torn between two things, distracted, dealing with a loss of faith. At a time when it really should be cementing its dominance.

Perhaps this is telling me I really need to work on letting go of the last bits of indoctrination left over from my conservative Christian upbringing. I still have a little trouble with rituals and overt spellwork; I feel silly calling out aloud to my gods or tracing figures in the air/on the ground. And this is something I need to get over.

I learned the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram from a friend over the weekend. There are parts of it I really like (And around me flames the pentagram, and within me the six-rayed star - I love that. It feels like a shield that doesn't feed solely off my own energy.) and parts that I feel really funny about. (Tracing the pentagram in the air, intoning certain words that have no real meaning to me.) I've already changed some of it; the gods I call upon being the most significant. (Rhiannon before me, behind me Mannanan, to my right Brigid, to my left Cernunnos.) I will probably continue changing it until it feels right to me.

Did any of you have issues with your magic? Did you ever feel silly performing a ritual? Any ideas for how to get over it?

Tarot Tuesday - An old (but new) deck

The first Tarot deck I ever owned was "The Tarot of the Cat People," gifted to me by my first boyfriend on my 18th birthday. I've always been a cat person, and the illustrations on this deck are beautiful. At the time, I was very much into Vampire the Masquerade Live Action RolePlay, or LARP. This involved getting together with a bunch of friends and pretending to be our characters for a few hours each weekend. My character was a gypsy-raised vampire who told fortunes with her Tarot deck.

I loved that character; I had some evenings I will never forget playing her. And the Tarot - I told some amazing fortunes. I told one of the Storytellers all about the character he was playing, to the extent he pulled me aside and demanded to know who'd let me look at his notes. I played this character, and used those cards for game, for several years. And the cards took an imprint. Whenever I attempted to do a spread for me or a friend, inevitably the response would be "well, that's a perfect spread for my character, but completely wrong for me!"

So, sadly, I set that deck aside. I went through a few other decks. The Dragon Tarot that a friend had in high school, though it had cool illustrations, just never clicked with me. I couldn't read it. The Celtic Dragon Tarot is GORGEOUS, and I use it with my spellwork, but it never worked well for spreads. The Housewives Tarot is brutally honest and blunt, but still hard for me to read. I just never found a deck that was as intuitive as the Tarot of the Cat People was.

So about a month ago, at The Crystal Fox here in Maryland, I happened across the Tarot of the Cat People. A new deck. Same illustrations, just - not the deck that I'd used in game. So I bought it. It's like finding an old friend who you'd lost touch with. It's so familiar, but I still find myself relearning the details.

Do you use the Tarot? What deck do you use? Did you have to go through many decks to find the right one?

Tarot Tuesday (also 44 Days of Witchery, Day 20: A Picture of a Tarot Card and its meaning)

Sorry for the poor quality, I used my webcam today.

The Page of Swords came up in a reading for me today and I immediately identified with it. I actually had a lot of swords show up today, of the "cutting through the bullshit and telling it like it is" variety.

You see, I may have unfortunately alienated my parents, and a few other relatives, by being so pissed off about Rush Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke a "slut." I think I am rightly pissed off, as he, in effect, called me a slut as well, as well as every other woman on birth control. And as far as I know, Limbaugh's book is still on my parent's headboard, they still listen to his radio show, and still borrow his newsletter from my grandmother when she's done with it. My father used to tape his television show and watch it. So I basically said on Facebook that he thinks I'm a slut and a prostitute, and since they listen to him, do they think the same? 

Personally, I think everyone who still supports him approves, in some way, of his hate speech. But the way I phrased it caused my dad to comment with "wow, I didn't realize your opinion of us was so low."

I commented back and asked if they'd stopped listening to Rush, and if so, I was sincerely sorry. No one replied. 

If standing up for what I truly believe harms my relationship with my (conservative christian) family, then I guess that's the way it must be. I'm tired of hiding who I am and what I believe. I'm tired of hiding that I'm a feminist, an environmentalist, a liberal, and a pagan. 

I am following the Page of Swords, and I am cutting through the bullshit.

Tarot Tuesday

So I spent the weekend in Baltimore, visiting friends. We move up that direction in three months, and I can't wait! But because of that, the only things that got posted this weekend were scheduled Days of Witchery posts. We got back pretty late last night, loved on our cat, and went to bed. But yesterday MORNING, before we left the Baltimore area, we went to a lovely pagan store in Laurel, Maryland, called The Crystal Fox. (more on that if you tune in on Friday!)

I finally rebought my first Tarot deck. You see, Tarot of the Cat People was originally gifted to me on my 18th birthday by my first boyfriend. I immediately loved it, and before long, the deck really started talking to me. I could read it so easily! But I made the mistake of using it in character in a live action role playing game. ....and the deck apparently tuned itself to game. Because years later, when I met Sascha, he asked me to do a spread one evening before the game. After I was finished, he said "well, I was hoping for something for ME. That's my character exactly, though." That's pretty much been the trend of the deck. It will not do real life stuff.

So I bought it again. I'm hoping with a fresh deck, I can do better. So. I will admit, I did not draw a random card today. This is my card, this has always been my card, and I quite like it in this deck. This is Temperance:

The description of the card in the little booklet: "Temperance does not need to watch as she pours water, so perfect is her control. Her patience and self-control are reflected in the cat. A cat will sit for hours in the same spot, waiting, thinking its private thoughts. A cat on the hunt is a study in self-control: one false move by its prey is the cat's gain. So this cat waits and watches as the water is being poured; it finds the motion and gurgle of the water interesting."

I could do better about self-control. (Well, really, what I mean is self-discipline, and that's a different card.) But I pride myself on keeping an even keel; I am an emotional person, but I do use logic, and I'm not screaming and crying one moment and happy and energetic the next. I try to be a fairly uncomplicated person. Serenity is something I strive for. Some of the keywords associated with this card are Harmony, Accommodation, Compatibility, Fusion, Confidence and Placidity.

Tarot Tuesday (on Thursday)

I didn't have a theme for Thursdays yet. And actually what I will probably do is move Book Reviews to Thursday and put Tarot on Tuesday, because it sounds better. :)

But this week we'll do Tarot today.

I have several Tarot decks, so  I'll rotate between them, drawing a card each Tuesday and talking about it.

Today I used my Celtic Dragon Tarot. This is the deck I normally use for my altar; I typically have 2-5 cards on the altar at any one time. I don't actually have any up at the moment; I recently moved my altar and haven't reset the cards.

Today I drew the King of Cups.

According to the actual Celtic Dragon Tarot book, this card represents a loving and caring masculine influence. There is a possibility of a journey across water. You may experience an episode of up and down emotions.

Tarot Plain and Simple says some of the things the King of Cups represents are Compassion, Assistance, Feelings, Imagination, Respect, Trust, Understanding, Elegance, Responsibility, Reliability, Secrecy, Generosity, Wisdom, Culture...it's a very positive card. A positive masculine figure in a role of responsibility. 

I don't have a lot of feelings about this card in particular - no figure that I really feel it applies to in my life. Sascha is more like the King of Wands. Interestingly, though, the card is astrologically associated with Cancer, which is Sascha's sun sign, though he doesn't act like it at ALL.

What does the King of Cups mean to you?