A Moment to Reflect

As of tomorrow afternoon, our house here in New Hampshire will be empty of furniture and we will be moving to temporary quarters while our new house is being built. We have been here since 1980, so this is a major turning point in our lives. I will be packing my computer and peripherals today, …

“You Want Fries With That?”

Another day, another new topic. I haven't quite reached the point of the weary "time to make the donuts" drudge from the old Dunkin Donuts commercials yet, but sometimes I wonder. Professional wisdom for blog management is that those who post something 11 times a month receive more viewer traffic (and potentially more advertisers). I'm not in …

Not If, But When

For those of us who believe that tarot divination is an effective tool for identifying future possibilities and tendencies in an individual's personal reality, the question of "when" looms large on the predictive horizon. There is a divergence of professional opinion on the subject of how long a reading is "good for." Some people say they have …

The “Marriage of Convenience” Joint Dynamic Spread

Occasionally I'm inspired to attempt a business relationship spread. This one shows the joint dynamic between two entities that share common interests and are seeking ways to cooperate to their mutual benefit. Thus, there are no "negative" positions in the spread, and the individual cards will tell the tale "for good or ill." Reversals may …

“I Smell A Rat” – A Problem-Solving Spread

Everyone knows that the Devil can be a perfidious fellow (what The Eagles once called a "cru-el dude"). Here I cast him as the proverbial "rat" in the classic "I smell a rat" trouble-is-brewing scenario. A key feature of this spread is that the Rat may not appear exactly where the Querent suspects he is going …

A “Turning-Point” Example Reading

We are on the verge of a major household move to the other side of the State, so I thought I would use that event as a test case for my "Turning Point" spread. I used the Golden Universal deck with reversals, and the RWS Centennial Edition for the one duplicate trump card that came up …

The “Turning Point” Life’s Journey Spread

Most of us have had the experience of reaching a major turning point in our lives (a death, a divorce or break-up, the loss of a job, a relocation or other new beginning, etc.), with no idea what lies ahead. This spread is intended to explore that uncertain future from a "destiny" perspective - spiritual, …

Tarot 101, My Way – Minor Arcana: The Tens

Plato considered Ten to be a perfect number when viewed from a philosophical rather than a mathematical perspective (in the second case, the term has an entirely different derivation attributed to Euclid). In the qabalistic model of the Universe, Ten delivers the "last gasp" of an elemental energy in its increasingly encumbered progress down the Tree of Life. The original, largely spiritual, force …

The “Just Folks” Personality Profile Spread

I don't do much personality profiling with the tarot because I think it works best as an action-and-event-oriented approach to divination (the "situational awareness and developmental insight" thing I'm always on about). But when I do it, I tend to be comprehensive. Here is a spread that is aimed at examining the multiple personae that an …

“According to Dignity”

I've carried on at some length in previous posts about the concept of Elemental Dignity, which is a method of inflecting the meaning of a card according to the elemental influence of its neighboring cards in a spread (that is, the level of agreement or disagreement between the qualities of the classical elements [Fire, Water, Air and Earth] assigned to the …