Mind Body Spirit
View from the Window
Tarot and Current Affairs – pt.2
Dec 14th
THE VIEW FROM THE WINDOW
Every Wednesday I sit in the window at Watkins, waiting to give Tarot readings; watching people come & go, overhearing snippets of arcane conversations and reflecting on …
TAROT AND CURRENT EVENTS,
Part Two (Part One)
Now it’s worth taking a little time to discuss the selection of the Significator card. Really I just want to underline that you need to pick the card that fits to your eye, to your judgement, to your opinion. You may use the same deck as me and come up with a very different card because we each have our individual responses to the cards and to the person we’re selecting for. If with your cards and your eye the card for Nick Clegg is the Devil, or Temperance or the King of Wands then use it.
Here’s an example of my own process. This was another political reading to see whether Hilary Clinton or Barack Obama would win the nomination of the Democratic party to be the Presidential candidate. As Clinton was already a powerful and established figure she would have to be a queen. The card that represented her would have to be one demonstrating power an drive; that (for me) narrowed it down to either More >
Tarot and Current Affairs – pt.1
Sep 5th
THE VIEW FROM THE WINDOW. Every Wednesday I sit in the window at Watkins, waiting to give Tarot readings; watching people come & go, overhearing snippets of arcane conversations and reflecting… …ON TAROT AND CURRENT EVENTS.
Part One
As they say – making predictions is a chancy business, especially about the future!
Still I’d like explain a way of using Tarot to understand the flow of current events; or at least to understand some parts of them; a small bite at a time, so to speak. Like all good methods, the principles can be scribbled on the back of envelope.
First - have a genuine question, and - Two - do the reading on behalf of person who will be directly affected by the event in question.
Let’s expand on this a little. It’s important when dealing with current events that we have some direct connection to it. If I pick up Hello magazine and wonder where David Beckham is going for his holidays, it’s unlikely to be anything more than idle curiosity. But if I have a job in Travel advertising and could use this information, well that gives me a direct connection. That will generate some real energy and enable me to use, or rather More >
How to Get What You Want from Tarot – Step 4
May 1st
Step 4: Interpretation
Part 4 of a short series on Self-Guidance through Tarot. See part 3.
Now at last we come to the big one – Interpretation. Up till now the process has been an inward journey, but now we come to the outward face of a Tarot reading, the visible side. This is what people tend to think Tarot is all about, but of course it depends on the inner clarifications we have worked through already.
Now at this point it’s likely that we dive into – or try to recollect – the various meanings and interpretations found in books, articles and the little pamphlets that come with our decks. And/or we strive to connect to any ‘psychic powers’ or ‘intuitive faculties” we may have developed. To my mind though, these are auxiliary powers that come second to simply reading what is in front of us; they may help, but can’t replace, direct insight. To misquote Bob Dylan – You don’t have to be psychic, or read a book, to know which way the wind blows!
The art to interpretation is to retranslate your original question in terms of the Tarot card you’ve drawn; or, if a multiple card layout, in terms mostly More >
How to Get What You Want from Tarot – Step 3
May 1st
Step 3: Divinatory State of Mind
Part 3 of a short series on Self-Guidance through Tarot. See part 2.
So, we have clarified our intention and, by limiting the number of factors we have to juggle, limited stress and anxiety. Now we must move on to the “divinatory frame of mind”, which we might as well call a “meditative state of mind.” Obviously when we read for ourselves the subject is likely to be “charged”; at the very least it disturbs our peace, otherwise why bother to do a reading about it?
So how can we get into our peaceful, meditative, divinatory state of mind whilst concentrating on something that disturbs us?
Luckily the answer is simple; it’s to do with putting aside only a little more than usual of our personal baggage. This is something we do every day a thousand times; we put our troubles to one side automatically over and over again. When we buy a bus ticket or a bottle of water, when we meet a casual acquaintance on the street, or call the plumber, or answer the telephone we don’t vent our negativity outwards. Instead for the time we’re engaged in these practical events we put our problems on More >
How to Get What You Want from Tarot – Step 2
Jan 26th
A short series on Self-Guidance through Tarot. See part 1.
Well, after clarifying the question, or more accurately, our intention we move on to the mechanical phase of the process.
Actually to call it mechanical is incorrect; it is the apparently mundane act of deciding the number of cards and the lay-out to use. This part of the process is the one that is the easiest to miss or mix up; it’s so mundane we take it for granted.
How many cards will I lay out? What does each position mean? Will I start from a significator card? What is my shuffling and cutting procedure?
As with all the other preliminary phases, reading for oneself requires more attention here, than reading for others. It is for this reason that I recommend using the minimum number of cards when reading for yourself. The more involved we are the closer our focus needs to be.
So our intention is to improve our focus by limiting the number of factors we have to juggle, thus limiting stress or anxiety. Obviously when we read for ourselves the subject is likely to be ‘charged’ making it harder to get into a divinatory frame of mind (which will be our next More >
How to Get What You Want from Tarot – Step 1
Dec 6th
THE VIEW FROM THE WINDOW.
Every Wednesday I sit in the window at Watkins, waiting to give Tarot readings; watching people come & go, overhearing snippets of arcane conversations and reflecting on …
ON TAROT
As a professional Tarot reader I find that lot of my clients mention that they have their own Tarot decks but have difficulty reading for themselves. It’s very common problem but it is a pity not to be able to use such an elegant and useful tool. Most of them mention the difficulty of interpreting the cards; but really that’s not the problem, otherwise we’d all have to spend weeks, months or years studying textbooks to find the right answer. It’s easier than that if we start at the beginning, because it’s those first steps that we need so much more in reading for ourselves – and are so much more likely to neglect.
So first – The Tarot is a symbolic map of our situation. Given “this” question what, for better or worse, are the possibilities for success? This means that our very first question is – “What do we want?”
Let’s take an example – “Will I get this job?” Asking in this way puts us into an More >
