writing exercise with the tarot

Weekly Creativity Prompt – Three Themes

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From your deck of choice, select one card for each of the themes listed below:
1) A Wander in the Autumn Woods
2) Guidance from the Past
3) The Beginning of the End
Post the cards you chose here, and share with us how you made the connections that you did with the prompts above.

Halloween Ephemera DeckA Wander in the Autumn Woods
The Hermit

When I need time alone, it is to the woods that I go.  When I need to allow silence and stillness to wash over me, it is to the woods I go. When there is restlessness and chaos in my heart?  It is to the woods I go.  Forest bathing (shinrin-yoku) is a real thing, and even when I do not hike, I will wander in the woods, taking in the scents and the sounds and the flavor of the air. I will lie on the forest floor and soak in the sense of moisture and life.  I will seek out the stillness and cool wet of the rainforest, and it will be a balm upon my soul.  The Hermit seeks this peace and inner reflection, he seeks solitude and silence to delve inward and explore his soul.  I seek the same in the woods.

Guidance from the Past
The Hanged Man

Just the other day I did a reading where the Hanged Man came up along with the Six of Cups, and I was asked from these cards to reframe how I relate to my spirit guides, and to acknowledge that these guides have been with me all of my life.  Some of them among the living in my past, others always in the ethereal.  The thing is?  They’ve always been there though, and they have always tried to guide me the best that they could.  This shift in perspective helps me in understanding that even our guides are fallible, but they are doing the best they can… just as I am. New realizations like this and changes in perspective are what the Hanged Man is all about.

The Beginning of the End
The Devil

As someone with a highly addictive personality, anything that brings me enjoyment or pleasure has the risk of becoming an addiction.  This isn’t limited just to drugs but also different foods, hobbies and activities, behavior that wins praise or admiration, purchasing things that bring me pleasure such as books and decks, bringing home plants to nurse back to health.   All of these things are innocuous on their own, but through pleasure and temptation can be allowed to turn the tables and become harmful… even disastrous, if not kept in check.  You become a prisoner of your own making, and a slave to those things that you allow to take over. This is the pattern of behavior that the Devil card is all about.

DECK USED: HALLOWEEN EPHEMERA CARDS

Weekly Creativity Prompt – Cookies

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Pull (at least) three cards use them to tell a story about a child that befriends the monster under their bed.

Emanuelle Tomato Mini Tarot 2020Daddy always told me that there’s no such thing as monsters under the bed.  He said that I’m a big boy and I should act like it, and that it’s all in my imagination.  That if I’m determined enough, I’ll forget about the monsters and they’ll just go away.  (Strength atop The Chariot)

I really did try.  You see I even started sleeping with the light on, and put bells on the floor under the edge of the bed, and had teddy guard me from the chair beside the bed and everything.  All these changes should have made the monster go away. (Death)

You see… the thing is tho? My monsters don’t stay under the bed. They come out and wander around the room!  They growl and slobber and their glowing red eyes always feel angry, their sharp tipped fingers like daggers and just as dangerous! (Emperor and The World)

Momma had a different idea.  She said that instead of working to kill the monsters like Daddy said I should?  I should be kind to them.  She told me to think of how horrible it must feel for all the children in the world to be so scared of them all the time, and how lonely it must be.  (Adjustment and The Empress)

She told me to take a chance, and be nice to the monsters. That sometimes?  Even the most horrible people just need to be given a chance to show that they have another side, but that it takes someone special to see beyond the scary parts and bring that other side out in them. (Fortune)

So I got some cookies and I waited up one night, worried and trembling in my bed until the monster crawled out of the dark space beneath my bed and started shuffling around.  Then I sat up in bed and said hi!  I offered the monster a cookie. The monster was so surprised and happy! Now each night I stay up just a little bit past bed time so that we can visit. (Aeon)

It turns out that the monster’s not so bad after all, and his sharp long fingers are really handy!  He can pick up berries with them!  And he even picked the lock on my treasure box that I’d lost the key to!  I’m not scared of the monster under my bed anymore… now?  We’re friends, and I feel safe because I know he’s watching over me while I sleep. (Art)

DECK USED:  EMANUELLE TOMATO MINI TAROT 2020

Weekly Creativity Prompt – The Salesman

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Pull up to three cards use them as the foundation to tell us a cautionary tale.

Creepy Tarot

Temperance – There was once an insurance salesman named Nick that spent his entire life taking one caution after another.  He never over-ate, even when the food was good.  He never over spent, no matter how much he might want something.  He never took a single risk in his life.  Because he sold life insurance to others, he felt it was important to live by example and show people that with proper precautions and proper care it is possible to live a long and healthy life, spend as much time with their loved ones as possible, and then pass away knowing those loved ones would be cared for.

Justice – The irony was that Nick didn’t have any loved ones.  He spent his life alone, moving from day to day and year to year living an empty life with not a single remarkable moment with which to hold close and treasure.  His over abundance of caution in turn left him in a prison of his own making.

The World – One day as he was creeping up on his sixth decade of life, he met a lovely silver haired woman named Meredith.  This woman was beautiful and vibrant, with a laugh that spoke volumes about a life well lived and fully enjoyed.  She enchanted him with her smile and began to pull him into her life one small step at a time, introducing him to a world of bright colors and bountiful flavors and memories filled with joy.  And as he spent more and more time with her, he moved further and further away from the old and drab life he had lived, and into a new and vibrant life of joy and celebration.

Moral of the Story – Don’t allow an overabundance of caution to hold you back from filling your life with vibrant experiences and joyous relationships.

DECK USED:  CREEPY 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 couple of months!

Have you ever listened to a song and suddenly realized “This song is such a Tower song!”? This week’s activity is based off the love of 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.

Sasuraibito Tarot

The Devil – Criminal by Taemin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFQL7BS6lrs

Knight of Wands – Firestarter by Prodigy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmin5WkOuPw

Judgement – Split Down the Middle by Leo Xia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zyTHx6ZSbo

Five of Cups – Everybody Knows by Leonard Cohen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gxd23UVID7k

Seven of Swords – Hug & Kiss by Dress (feat miso, fka, sogumm, lydia paek)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvnTQrKTwdc

DECK USED:  SASURAIBITO TAROT

Weekly Creativity Prompt – The Last Dandelion

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Pull (at least) three cards use them as the foundation to tell us about a natural and/or fictional creature’s greeting of the Fall season.

Wonderland Tarot (Majors Only)The Bloom – When the season first changed (Death), I felt like I was on top of the world (The Emperor) and all of my usual uncertainties (The Moon) and inhibitions were set aside for the enjoyment of the new season (The Fool).

The Tuft – But soon my inner dialogue started coming in and nitpicking at every little silly thing I was doing (Judgement) and telling me that I had to make a choice for a more responsible path (The Lovers).

The Seeding – I did what it said and I threw away my joyous celebration of the season in the process (The Chariot).

The Empty Bud – Now I feel like I fucked up (The Tower). I need to retreat and reevaluate (The Hermit) and delve deep into my own inner secrets of why I did what I did (The High Priestess). Hopefully my progeny will do it better and differently (Wheel of Fortune).

DECK USED:  WONDERLAND TAROT (A MAJORS ONLY DECK)

Weekly Creativity Prompt – The Winner

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Pull up to three cards use them as the foundation to express and/or describe someone’s (real or fictional) reaction to winning the lottery.

The Astro Tarot

When the ticket turned out to be a winner, he couldn’t believe it.  He’d never had a bit of good luck in his entire life, and then the numbers were called and he’d won.  He’d really won!  He’d been buying the tickets so long that it was more habit than hope any more, and then his world changed in a moment’s stroke of luck that made up for all those unlucky moments that had come before it. (The World)

The funny thing about habits, though?  Is that even when your dreams come true, habits don’t die.  They live on and continue to influence us no matter what circumstances change in our lives.   And so even though he’d won the lotto he continued to play it anyway.  The one percent of his income he’d put toward it for so many years continued… but now?  That one percent was so much larger.   Having never learned to manage money, over time that one percent started to eat into his winnings… of course so did the indulgences he couldn’t help but purchase now that he had the money to do so. (The Devil)

In the end, he ended up back where he’d been all along.  The winnings gone, they had taught him a valuable lesson, but one that he’d learned too late. He knows now that it’s important to spend money wisely, no matter how much of it you have.   His bank now empty once more, the wisdom will carry on regardless.  (The Hierophant)

DECK USED: THE ASTRO TAROT