When pagans want to learn divination, especially cartomancy (cards), they are faced with hundreds (if not thousands) of choices.
It can be overwhelming, I know! Here’s a broad overview to help get you started.
Tarot consists of 78 cards: 22 Major Arcana, 40 Minor Arcana and 16 Court Cards. It’s become a complex, esoteric system of cartomancy. The Major Arcana contains familiar images like The Fool, The Lovers, The Wheel of Fortune and The Sun. They are considered by most to be the “big picture” cards spanning universal archetypes.
The most recognized Tarot deck is the 1909 Rider-Waite-Smith (RWS). Rider refers to the publisher (Rider & Son). Occultist Arthur Edward Waite commissioned the deck that Pamela Colman Smith illustrated. The Tarot de Marseilles (TdM) style decks feature static Minor Arcana cards (i.e. 4 of Cups shows four actual cups, 10 of
Summary: in my depths, I find wild, regal self-possession: Queen and Goddess. She knows the answer is always love.
I've vaguely sensed something subconscious blocking forward movement toward a few vital goals, despite my wholehearted efforts to attain said goals. Yet I also intuited this undefinable part of me is a prime, healthy motivator in my life. The intention of the trance is to gain conscious access to this subterranean aspect of myself. In other words, I want to consciously know, explore, heal, and empower this part of me.
Trance:
Diving into the softest waters of my subconscious—most fluid depths—where no censors halt primal womanhood, I'm only momentarily surprised to find the lady.
Due to a long-standing love, I began a project writing Tarot spreads based on fairy tales. That love also led me to a project with Lisa Hunt that is being published by U.S. Games this summer (2016). That is a Lenormand deck. I'm coming to an appreciation and understanding of Lenormand because of that and due to a class I took from the World Lenormand Association.
Recently, my friend SnowStar bestowed a major blessing on me, gifting me 67 divination decks from her personal collection.
Her amazing generosity was only matched by the gift's synchronicity: I've collected decks over my 30 years as a professional card reader, then lost a substantial portion of my collection due to a bug infestation two years ago.
SnowStar asked me which decks she sent particularly struck me, so I pulled together some personal notes I'd made, and thought I'd share them here with you, too. And please tell me about a deck or decks you particularly love. I love to hear about experiences with tarot or Lenormand decks.
It is said that each of us have someone in the world that is just for us, even if we don't want them. Some call them soul mates, some call them twin flames others call them a pain in the ass. Like it or not there is an energy out there that is your matching pair. Lucia Mattioli takes this idea to a whole new level with her deck Fairy Lights Tarot. In this deck each of the cards have a matching pair or another half floating around somewhere in the vortex of the deck. Not only does this fascinate me from a deck creator stand point, but it also totally switches things up from a reading stand point.
Before I bought this deck I knew about this fascinating plot twist within the story of the Fairy Lights Tarot. In essence it was the reason I bought the deck. I had to see it for myself. I wanted to put the pieces together and put them together I did. Although this was harder then I thought it would be, finding all the pairs didn't take me as long as I thought it would. And you can bet your bottom dollar once I did reunite the couples in the deck I took a photo of them. I did this for one reason and one reason only, I wanted a quick reference guide to the matching energy for reading purposes.
Erin Lale
Fellow faculty at Harvard Divinity School posted an open letter to Wolpe in response to his article. It's available on this page, below the call for p...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. The Wild Hunt has a roundup of numerous responses on its site, but it carried this one as a separate article. It is an accoun...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. This one is by a scholar of paganism. It's unfortunately a Facebook post so this link goes to Facebook. She posted the text o...
Erin Lale
Here's another link to a pagan response to the Atlantic article. I would have included this one in my story too if I had seen it before I published it...
Janet Boyer
I love the idea of green burials! I first heard of Recompose right before it launched. I wish there were more here on the East Coast; that's how I'd l...