Various Paganism, Tarot, Etc

Matrons and Patrons

/ Twist the Leaf / 1 Comment

This week’s question from the Pagan Perspective YouTube channel is about the the pantheons one uses in their practice.

color-4287688

Topic for the Week of 8/19: “What is your perspective on matrons and patrons from different paths?”

Okay, so first I feel that I need to explain what “matrons and patrons” are. This is essentially the gods and goddesses (or other personalities and energies) you worship and work with in your faith and practice. For example, if you have a strictly Wiccan path, you have the god and the goddess. On a Nordic path, you would worship Nordic gods and goddesses. Helenic paths would worship/serve Helenic deities. Same with Dianic, or many other paths. There are certain gods and goddesses for each “venue” someone can choose to worship.

What this question is asking is, how do you feel about people that perhaps worship along one path, but choose to incorporate other outside gods and goddesses into their worship and path.  Or, at least that is how I understand the question.

In this, I feel… to each their own. If you connect with a certain deity or matron or patron, then does it really matter that it’s not in your personal faith’s pantheon? I don’t think it does. I think as you are being respectful (and educating yourself) to the culture that these other deity come from, it’s okay.

Although, I feel once you do this, if you are someone that is wanting to strictly -label- your path, I don’t think it really fits to continue calling yourself just as whatever that primary path is. At that point the label then needs to include the word “eclectic” or something to indicate that you have diverged a bit beyond the “box” of that primary faith.

I personally do not do labels, or deity. That is why I use the very broad umbrella term “Pagan” to name my faith. It allows for that eclecticism, as well as the fact that deities are not a part of my faith and practice.

 

Self Care Saturday (on Sunday)

/ Twist the Leaf / 1 Comment

SCS

Week four of accountability.  And… I think this is working out for me really well.  Even though I am tempted to take the picture and set aside my journal for later, because I know I need to make this post on the day after my Self Care Saturday, I have more discipline to get it done in my journal (and apparently, to catch up on other entries as well such as Thursday’s full moon entry).

As I mentioned before, these readings are (not usually) bearing in on any one thing or event in my life, as the question used is asking for a more general outlook. This is a self care exercise, and are not meant as a predictive reading.

I did end up switching out the oracle, as I’d said last week I was planning to do.  I chose the Dixit cards Quest expansion pack for the oracle to go with the Numinous Tarot, and I feel it is a really good fit.

The question is… What do I need to focus on in the week ahead?

Body – Explorer of Vials – It is important to bring into focus the issue of eating your feelings and take an active role in making healthy choices both emotionally and physically in order to stay healthy.

Mind – Ace of Vials – This is about our new play and allowing it to inspire, as well as the closeness and bond created as we explore this new idea.

Emotions – The Visionary & Seven of Bells – Seek truth and lift the veil on blurry confusion by connecting more deeply within my spiritual practice.  Use what I know to seek out clarity and support my own truths.

Inner Spark – The Moon – This card plays back to that of the two above, with the addition of intuition. Everything is not as clear as it could be… everything is not as it seems.  Be certain to perceive from a place of knowledge blended with intuition to find the path through to clarity.

Moving Away From – Viewing things from an external perspective.  Instead seek inner knowing and inner truth.

Heading Towards – Hidden truths.  PAY ATTENTION!! That which is hidden walks right beside you.  Awareness breeds control.

Decks Used: Numinous Tarot, Dixit Quest Expansion Pack #2

 

A Moment of Realization with the Tarot

/ Twist the Leaf / 2 Comments

basic-elements-1663243

I’m pretty well seated in how I both see and use the tarot, and comfortable in that.   But, just recently I came to a new realization about how I see the tarot and its suits.

Up until just the last few days, I had always thought that I saw the suits as “cups, pentacles, wands, and swords”, regardless of the fact that those names don’t always just “roll off the tongue” for me (so to speak).

Then, I got the Numinous Tarot in the mail and it showed me that this isn’t how I view the suits at all, which is a little odd since I’ve had other decks that rename the suits, but it really stuck out to me with this one.

In the Numinous Tarot, the suits are renamed as vials, tomes, candles, and bells.  And, when trying to sort this out?   My mind never even -went- to the whole “cups, pentacles, wands, and swords” thing, but instead went immediately to the elements.

Yes, all along I’ve known and been intimately aware with the correlations between the suits and the elements.  Cups = Water, Pentacles = Earth, Wands = Fire, Swords = Air…. and yet, never before has it stuck out to me how -much- I see the suits not as their names at all, but the elements themselves and the qualities those elements represent.

I’d guess that I’ve been pairing the suit names to the elements so long that, for the most part, they became synonymous with each other.  And yet, clearly, they are not as when push comes to shove?  It’s not to the suit names I relate, but the elements they (for me) represent.

 

The Witch’s Familiar

/ Twist the Leaf / 1 Comment

This week’s question from the Pagan Perspective YouTube channel is a “Choose Your Adventure” practice, which means going back through the topics and picking one that you haven’t covered before.  As I’m new to this channel (and responding to it) this was very easy for me as there were many, many topics to choose from.

IMG_0060

My Chosen Topic for the Week of 8/12: “Do you have a familiar? What does that mean? How do you know if an animal companion is a familiar or is familiar material?” including “The roll of pets, if any, in your practice?”

The definition of a familiar is when a spirit possesses or takes the form of an animal in order to provide spiritual/magickal assistance and guidance. To me, I feel that the primary role of a familiar is to be a guide within the liminal space, astral plane, and spirit world.

Because I feel this way about the role of a familiar, I do not believe that a living being is suited for this task, and so I do not view pets as familiars. They are companions and a deep bond can be created between a person and their pet that transcends the “keeper/pet” dynamic. Pets can even be a part of one’s practice. But, I do not think that the primary role of what a familiar is can be filled by a living animal 99.9% of the time.

That said, I do think that spirits and energy can possess or embody a physical form. So, I suppose it could be possible.  I also, though, think it is extremely rare and that most who call their pets “familiars” are misusing the term.

I do have a cat.

Miss Luna has no interest in my spellcrafting, nor in the tarot. She also has no interest in my altar or hanging out in (or on) any of my sacred spaces. In fact, she is very careful to give me space and observe from a distance during any tarot time, spellcraft time, and ritual time I have.   She often sits right in front of the entrance to the room I am in during these times, and from there she will watch everything very closely.   Then, when I am done, she will return to be closer to me and following me around (which is her usual modus operandi).

Meanie, my previous cat, was much the same in this behavior.

 

 

#TarotTube (non) VR to Inspiring Aliens and Brian Cormack Carr

/ Twist the Leaf / 1 Comment

I was inspired to do this post after seeing Brian Cormack Carr’s YouTube response.  The original tag was from Inspiring Alien’s #TarotTube update video.

Untitled-1

The Questions:

1.What made you start Tarot YouTubing?

Well, I don’t make videos, but I do spend time watching TarotTube. What made me start?  It’s an interest of mine and I’m sure it just showed up in my “suggested videos” at one point and I realized “oh!  they have that on YouTube too?” and from there I was hooked.

2. What is the tarot scene like in your area?

Lots and lots and lots of opportunities to get a reading around where I live from a number of little metaphysical shops to small psychic reading establishments.  I would say you will find some kind of “Woo” within each city block, or possibly every other city block, around where I live.

3. Name an overrated deck and an underrated deck?

Hmmm Overrated just in that I can’t connect to it but it seems -everyone- likes it? The Prisma Visions Tarot.  I just don’t get it.

The Visions of Life Tarot, which is one of my daily draw decks for this month.   I really like the tongue-in-cheek humor that the deck offers up, and when I was looking for information on the deck, the only thing I could find was ONE YouTube channel in Russian that did a walk through.

4. Tarot in one word?

Life  (That is not to say that “tarot is life” in the colloquialism sense of using the word, but rather that it is a representation of life.  All aspects, all stages, all paths.  Life.)

5. Name three small tarot YouTube channels.

I chose to consider “small” as being three channels with under 400 subscribers.

Yarrowen, Ozark Oracle, Crow Quill Tarot

6. Your favourite type of tarot video on YouTube?

I very much enjoy tarot videos that are focused on shadow work. Heather Carter does a lot of these and really stands out as an excellent and enjoyable channel to check out for those kind of videos.  It’s not all she does on her channel, but I really enjoy her depth.

7. What would you a) think b) say c) do, if tarot suddenly didn’t exist?

So the question specifically says “suddenly didn’t exist” which I’m going to take means it did exist and then every tarot deck (and Lenormand and oracle deck) on the planet just… disappeared.

a) “WTF?? Where the hell did my decks go?”, b) “Oh hell no, I’m gonna fix this shit”, c) grab myself a set of playing cards and start drawing on them to make my own divination deck.

8. Do you use tarot apps?

Yes.  Not for readings, but some of the tarot apps out now have guidebooks for decks on them, especially apps made by The Fool’s Dog LLC.  This is useful for decks that I own, but either don’t want to dig out the guidebook for, or don’t have a guidebook for. This makes these tarot apps a spectacular resource.

9. Your favourite thing about the tarot community?

That it’s a community. I like that.  Not everyone always agrees or gets along, but that’s part and parcel of a community, I think.

10. Tarot video ideas?

Actually, I’ve submitted one or two to Modern Metaphysical Man, which he’s been kind enough to do.   Most of the time when ideas come up, I reach out to someone in the community I think the idea would fit well with and pitch it to them.   This means that they are then no longer stored up in my brain so I have NO idea what to write here at the moment.

11. Who do you tag?

I think by “tag” this means doing responses to their tags?  Anything that catches my interest and attention.  Some of those I’ve done responses to include Ethony, The Hermit’s Cave, Brian Cormack Carr, KellyBear, and others.

 

My Most Important Tarot Reading (non) VR to Becca Tarot Night Owl

/ Twist the Leaf / 3 Comments

On YouTube, Becca Tarot Night Owl did a video that spoke of her first tarot reading, which was the most impactful tarot reading of her life.  I found it really interesting and I feel the want to share mine here.

tiger-3389015

I don’t remember my first tarot reading, so I can’t really share much about that.  Because I come from a home where tarot (or rather, Lenormand) was a part of life and our faith, readings and card pulls have always just “been there”.   BUT, I do have a most impactful/important reading.

That would be a reading done by Z (with Tarot) when I was ten years old.  It was a Life Path reading, which involves thirty nine cards (plus any jumpers or clarifying cards that enter into the mix).   She does this reading for me every ten years, meaning that I’ve had it done again twice since then.

In this first reading, there was a great deal of information on the past, the present, and the future.  But, what really stuck out to me was the overall message that came at the end.

This was delivered gently, and with great empathy and understanding as she explained that the “moral of the story” for my life would be one of struggle, strife, and woe… BUT, that it’s okay to have this kind of life.  It’s okay to find your life filled with struggles and hurdles, strife and discord, woe and adversity.  These things are lessons in life that teach you how to become better.  Better at the things you want to do… Better at the way you find your joy… And, just an all around better person as a whole.

She told me that my life would have many, many things to overcome and work through, and that these things are there not to drag me down and make me miserable.  Instead, they are there to create strength and foster deeper roots within myself and my life with which to anchor me through the hardest parts, like a tree standing strong in a storm is anchored deep within the soil.

She was far more eloquent, and that moral of the story stuck with me in a way that the reading itself didn’t.   Ten years later at the age of 20, she did the reading again, with much the same result…. as was the case last year when I turned 30 and she did the reading for me again.

Most people would consider this reading  to be a bad one, but I don’t.  Not at all.  Because it prepared me for what was to come, and helped me to understand that I’m not a victim.  Not of people, or of circumstance.  I’m a survivor, and each hurdle I come upon (of which there have been many, and will surely be many more) is an opportunity for betterment in some way, not a road block.