writing exercise with the tarot

Weekly Creativity Prompt – Doomed From the Start

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Prompt: “Draw up to three cards from your tarot (or oracle) and use them for guidance in choosing something to share with us about your childhood.”

d'Morte Disney Tarot

My sister and I once made a plan that was doomed from the start. (The Tower)

We decided to force our father to treat us as equals by cutting her hair like mine and dressing identically so that he couldn’t tell us apart. (Strength Rx)

Instead, it resulted in him following through on a threat he’d made a number of times in the past, and he took the door off our bedroom and the bathroom too. (Death)

DECK USED:  D’MORTE DISNEY TAROT

Weekly Creativity Prompt – The Devil

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Prompt: “Pull the card from your deck that matches [The Devil from Tarot of the Hidden Realm]. Compare the imagery between the card provided and the card from your own deck(s). How would you read them differently and why?”

Tarot of the Hidden Realm - The DevilTarot of the Hidden Realm – Here we see temptation personified in the countenance of Faunus, Cerrunos, and Pan.  The horned one tempts lovers to dance in the forest, and lose themselves in each other as they swirl and sway among the trees.

The lovers must be willing to step into this space, to join the dance… but the temptation is so great will it feel like a choice if they concede? After all, how can you resist such a seductive invitation?

Steven Universe Tarot, Occult Ornithology Tarot, Sortilegios Tarot

Steven Universe Tarot – Here we see the puppet straining against the chains as the puppetmaster lingers in the background, in full control of the situation much as the rider of the Chariot controls his horses. The depiction here is what happens at the end of the Devil card’s journey.  You’ve given into temptation, you’ve yielded to the seduction that teased you into succumbing. At first you felt you were in control, but no more.  Not now.  Now you find yourself truly trapped with only your own choices to have brought you to this place.

Occult Ornithology Tarot – In this card the magpie collects and collects until their nest is gilded with gilt and glitter.  They celebrate their good fortune, and hoard their treasures, always craving just one more no matter how many bits and baubles they gather up.  The stage of the Devil depicted in this card is the obsession that builds before the trap snaps shut.  The magpie does not feel himself chained by his obsession quite yet… but it is only a matter of time.

Sortilegios Tarot – For this deck’s imagery, we see a depiction of a six-winged seraphim in the process of consuming a human figure. What I see here is a depiction of scrupulosity.  This is when one’s religion becomes an obsession, to the point that their minds become closed.  It is often accompanied by “religious snobbery” and can be an addiction like any other thing someone becomes hyper focused on and obsessed with.  Here, we see a figure that has dove in head first and although sharp teeth of the seraphim now pierce the flesh and make them bleed, they are too far in now to pull out.

DECK USED:  TAROT OF THE HIDDEN REALM, STEVEN UNIVERSE TAROT, OCCULT ORNITHOLOGY TAROT, SORTILEGIOS TAROT

Weekly Creativity Prompt – The Playlist

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This is a fun repeat exercise that I’ve now used a few times and resurrect every few months!

Have you ever listened to a song and suddenly realized “This song is such a Tower/Emperor/Hanged Man song!”? This activity is based off of a love for music and how we associate music with the world around us.

Activity: Randomly draw five cards from your deck. For each card pick (or find) a song that you feel fits that card perfectly.

Bianco Nero Tarot

Death – One Headlight by The Wallflowers
https://youtu.be/Zzyfcys1aLM

Three of Wands – Time to Pretend by MGMT
https://youtu.be/B9dSYgd5Elk

Seven of Wands – Drive by Incubus
https://youtu.be/fgT9zGkiLig

Three of Swords – Perfect Situation by Weezer
https://youtu.be/jwv-iRvyDZg

Page of Swords – Losing My Religion by R.E.M.
https://youtu.be/xwtdhWltSIg

DECK USED:  BIANCO NERO TAROT

Weekly Creativity Prompt – Feeling Your Way

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Prompt: “Draw a single random card from your favorite deck and share with us how the card makes you feel.”

Okay, so this isn’t perhaps my absolute most favorite deck, or even the most favorite deck I’m using this month.  But, it is one of the favorite decks I’m  using this month and I’ve really connected with it well and am enjoying it a great deal.

The Alchemist's Garden Tarot - Two of Cups - Rosa multiflora - Rose - ConnectionTwo of Cups – Rosa Multiflora (aka. Rose) – Connection

Throughout history the rose has been revered as a flower of love and the connection between people. Whether the color is red for passion, yellow for friendship, white innocent love, or pink for admiration, the rose is all about the connections that we make with each other and the communion of energies and emotions that are a part of humanity’s makeup.

When I see this card and Rosa multiflora imagery, the clusters of pink roses speak to me of that inter-connectivity and how people need people. This isn’t a single long stemmed rose, but rather it is a variation of multiflora, which grows with clusters of flowers gathered together.

Whether we are an extrovert or an introvert, all people thrive in connection with others… some thrive in large groups, and others with just one or two close people. But, it is that connection between people that helps bring depth and breadth to life as a whole, and most suffer in some way when it is not present in their lives in some manner.

The Alchemist's Garden Tarot - Root of Pentacles - Metrosideros excelsa (aka. Pohutukawa) - NurtureRoot of Pentacles – Metrosideros excelsa (aka. Pohutukawa) – Nurture

The Pohutukawa is an evergreen of the myrtle family that is endemic to New Zealand. The kahika flowers that this tree produces offer sweet nectar, while the strong roots that can even cling to rocky cliffs to support the colorful tree that towers above.

This combination of strength and beauty speaks deeply to me of the Queen of Pentacles and her strength… and her beauty.   She is supportive and warm, yet strong as iron.  She supports… she is sweet… and she is hard.

This card speaks to me of all these qualities.  It speaks to me of safety and stability.  Of someone that isn’t afraid to let their strength and stable foundation show, and can radiate beauty even as  they hold together all that matters to them.  It is a card that depicts a delicate and beautiful hand with an iron grip that will be used to support itself and others.

DECK USED:  THE ALCHEMIST’S GARDEN TAROT

Weekly Creativity Prompt – Scavenger Hunt

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Prompt: Draw three cards. Find something around your home (or where you’re currently staying) that you feel represents each of the cards. Then draw, paint, photograph, artistically display, collage, or otherwise depict these items in some way. Then share and explain about the connection that you see between the item and the card you’ve paired it with.

Young Witch Tarot - Seven of CupsSeven of Cups – Each stone has it’s own strengths and weaknesses, it’s own unique vibrations and abilities.  And with each spellcraft and ritual, cartomancy reading and energetic influences I want to project or draw in, I stand before this table and the myriad of stones available to me and seek out the one best suited for the need and situation at hand

Knowledge plays a big part in this process, but so too does intuition as I find myself more often than not hovering my hand over the stones and letting my hand be drawn where it needs to go. The facts about that stone come after and the logic fills in the gaps, explaining why that stone is best, or finding the reason my hand was drawn in that direction..

Young Witch Tarot - The MagicianThe Magician – The tools of my path are many, and some are more useful, and more important, than others.  It isn’t enough to have the tools needed, but you also need to be able to use them with skill and efficiency.

My granite mortar and pestle plays a huge and multi-faceted role in my path. It’s practical uses stretch the gamut from kitchen witchery to herbcrafts, from incense making to cauldron.  Like many tools it does double, triple, quadruple duty and more and is arguably the most useful tool in my practice.

Young Witch Tarot - King of CupsKing of Cups – The man knows not just what I like, but goes out of his way to make sure that the reminders of him are just right.  He is kind and strong, supportive and loving, demanding and willing to listen.  He guides… he demands a lot… and yet everything he does is emotion directed.  Emotion driven.

Gideon is my King of Cups, and the picture of the Hanged Man that hangs here on my wall was a gift from him. It is a reminder that he doesn’t just pick out something he thinks I’ll like, or even that he knows I will like.  He picks it out because he has delved deep and understands –why– I will like it.  He seeks to understand my soul, as evidenced by this picture that my eyes land on every day.

DECK USED:  YOUNG WITCH TAROT

Weekly Creativity Prompt – Sentient Sentinel

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Prompt: Pull (at least) three cards use them as the foundation to write about the life of a sentient tree.

Tarot in Wonderland - The Oracle of AliceJustice – Once, the large Douglas Fir had lived in the center of a vast forest, but man had slowly cut into the forest again and again, until eventually all that was left of the forest was a few acres of land. When the workers came to begin clearing his spot, he watched them work with great sadness, following their progress as they took down his smaller friends and uprooted the earth around him.

As the day grew long and the sun eased closer to the horizon, the contractor pushed for more work from the men, demanding more done  and the last tree to be removed.  When the man with the chainsaw came, the old bark of the tree groaned and branches snapped as bows were shifted to allow the man closer to the trunk, and at the first nick of blade to bark a low groan of bark and wood was accompanied by rustling… and the man’s chainsaw was found lost on the ground… the man somehow gone.

Wheel of Fortune – No one saw what happened as the man had gone beyond the boughs of the fir tree in order to get close to the trunk, and after a short time searching, it was assumed the man had left and it was decided another would take his place.  Here again when the man got close and went to cut into the tree with the chainsaw, the man disappeared, the chainsaw dropping to the ground to tumble out from under the tree and yet another search was done.

The third lumberjack went into the tree to do the same as the first two, but this one makes sure that to have others watching over him.  As he starts the chainsaw, he takes a moment to look up, and drops the chainsaw as he begins to scream.  The two other men that had tried to cut down the tree are suspended more than twelve feet in the air, impaled on broken branches sticking out of the trunk.

As he watches, fronds of fir come down and bend in, and as the watchers watch on they scoop up the man with the chainsaw and lift him high, hugging him into the trunk and impaling him on another broken branch high up along the tree’s trunk.

The Sun – This is how, as humanity came to invade upon nature’s turf, certain spots remained left untouched.  As land was cleared and what might have become the last forests in the world cut down, it came to be that some were preserved after all.  Parks and hiking trails, protected land and forestry.  For it was when nature finally started to fight back, that man realized that she was no longer going to allow for the abuse that gone much too far.

Man learned at last that they must live in harmony with nature, and the Douglas Fir in the forest remained where it was, happily protecting the land upon which it stands for centuries to come.

DECK USED:  TAROT IN WONDERLAND THE ORACLE OF ALICE