Haunted Times Cartomancy Reading

Once Upon a Time Playing CardsThe prompt for this reading came from one of my Discord servers and is as follows: “Alright! It’s Halloween/Samhain, so let’s do some divination about what’s “haunting” us in our lives.

What’s sitting over my shoulders and/or clinging to me?

Nine of Hearts, King of Spades atop Five of Hearts – Your inner narrative is a demanding taskmaster with harsh judgements and a sharp tongue.  It is putting in overtime trying to crush happiness under its boots and leave you aching and in need of retreat.

Is this something that will always be with me, or that I should try to work into my life?

Four of Hearts, Queen of Clubs atop Jack of Clubs – Although that inner narrative may be permanent, the amount of influence it has over your emotions is temporary.  Make sure that you are leaning into your passions, and dipping into creative endeavors and those things that motivate you, to help provide you with extra strength to resist that negative inner narrative when it rises up.

Or… is it something I need to banish and/or does not serve me to keep?

Eight of Diamonds and Nine of Clubs – Only hard work and good boundaries can keep the influences of that negative inner narrative at bay. It cannot be banished entirely, but it can be controlled and mitigated if you’re willing to put in the effort.

What is the best way to handle it at this time?

Three of Hearts atop Three of Spades, Jack of Hearts – Lean into others in your life to help lift you up when you start to feel the darkness creeping in. They have the ability to teach you how to lean into the positive and seek out optimism for an emotional lift during these times.  Something you’ve yet to master on your own quite yet.

DECK USED: ONCE UPON A TIME PLAYING CARDS

Day-to-Day Divination

Prompt: “How do you incorporate divination into your day-to-day life?

Ok so first, I guess that I should point out that, although I know a vast array of divination techniques including pendulums, rune casting, charm casting, stick and stone casting, stichomancy (aka bibliomancy with regular books), tasseomancy, dice casting, etc… my main method of divination is (not surprising anyone here) cards. All kinds of cards, but cards all the same. So when I refer to day-to-day divination, it is with this method I refer to, as the others are just occasional use. So, here we go…

1) For the past two years, I have been doing a COTD mental health exercise. My shrink wanted me to start a “daily affirmation” meditation exercise. But none of the affirmation generators I could find were giving me anything I could relate to or even take seriously. I switched it up to a COTD exercise where I ask for “a positive message to carry with me throughout my day and foster perspective” and whatever card comes out I have to find the positive message in the card for me that day, then meditate on it and journal it. Surprisingly, it has helped immensely in my day-to-day life, and also in climbing back out of the dark pit of depression whenever an MDE sneaks up and swallows me whole.

2) Client readings. It’s nearly a daily thing. So… yeah. Client readings.

3) Writing exercises. I often use cards as prompts and as “flavor” in my writing, whether it’s just little short stories, a poem, or long drawn out interactive storytelling with Gideon.

4) Teaching. I teach tarot, lenormand, and cartomancy. At any time over the past decade (or so) I have sustained between 1 and 6 pupils/mentees depending on my workload and energy levels. Not to mention past pupils and mentees that come back from time to time with questions, thoughts, or just a need to discuss something in order to help them wrap their head around it a bit better.

5) I help run a server that is a tarot focused learning environment on Discord. I occasionally teach classes on the server, and I spend a good deal of time there helping others, answering questions, and just hanging out with others with similar interests.

6) Personal readings. I read for myself daily by doing monthly challenges, and I share those readings here on my blog as well as on the server mentioned above. The purpose of this is three fold, as it allows me to check in on myself, it allows Gideon to check in on me and get an in-depth look at how I’m doing emotionally and otherwise, and it provides examples for that learning server I mentioned for those that want or need to observe how others read the cards and their process in doing so.

Thinks… I think that’s it. It’s probably not, but I think it is.

Oh yeah. Lets not forget about deck shopping. I window shop (and often buy) decks on a pretty regular basis.