I can still remember my first real tarot obsession. Pregnant with my first child, living remotely and off grid. I had a deck of Rider-Waite cards and a rather good book (78 degrees of wisdom). I spent a lot (seriously a lot) of time just looking at the cards- whilst oddly reading Tudor history novels. Tudor History is dominated by two families fighting for the throne- one had a white rose as their symbol, one a red- “the war of the roses” which is probably why the roses caught my eye. In Death and the Fool we clearly have white roses. In 2 wands, ace of pentacles, Magician, hierophant, Queen pentacles, 9 swords we have red roses. My other big obsession (aside from Tarot & Tudor history)
There is a lot of fear around at the moment- whether it is the coronavirus, global warming, politics….. turn on the news and we seem to live in dark times indeed. What cards do I associate with fear in Tarot? And what have I learn from them? The Moon. Yes it can mean psychic awareness, spiritual development, dreams, hormones- and so many different things. But more than anything I see the Moon as clearly representing fear. Alastair Waite who designed the deck described the Cray fish crawling out of the lake as “primal fears” When I connect to this card I imagine myself caught in a paralysed fear between the Cray fish and the hounds- who are enlarged by my fears, and the half light of the moo
One of the most powerful ways to use Tarot is to understand yourself better. An improved mindset, and releasing self limiting blocks really is life changing. I use a simple analogy about raffle tickets. Two friends chatting- one comments “I’m so unlucky, I never win anything at these raffles” And friend asks “but have you even bought a raffle ticket?” It’s a crap analogy because I hate raffles- but it is true in life. If you believe you can’t achieve something then you will unconsciously block yourself from achieving (often even starting). Our perception of the world is coloured by our expectations- and often we have held them so long we are not even aware of them. So this is my “who am I” s
My understanding of runes has been a long journey of immersion in these deceptively simple symbols. It is a journey that I am still living, still learning, and still loving. I work with the 16 runes of the younger futhark, and my understanding has developed mostly through my practice of the 16 rune stances from the tradition of Stav. These rune stances can then be used to explore movements- often martial in practice and using a staff- to better understand the energy of each of the runes shapes. Each of the runes has Gods or Goddess's associated with them- I work with a pantheon of 19 Deities. The best way to understand the Deities is to read about the Norse myths. There are many great boo
