
Using tarot for effective planning.
One of the first things I often tell clients is “the future is not fixed, but our minds often are. Think of tarot as a living map- helping you to explore possible outcomes.” Which is probably why I love using tarot as a planning tool. I always keep in mind when using tarot for planning... #1 If you don’t believe the future is fixed, then keep an awareness on the cards to decide how “concrete” the reading is. This is also why I like to do several smaller readings looking at th

Tarot and the black poles...
The one thing I always tell my students when learning to read tarot is “look at the cards”. Before you speak, write, pick up a book or head to google- look at the cards. They have pictures for a reason- the cards speak with the rich image of symbolism. Each time we have a spread in front of us there is a unique blend of symbols just waiting to be seen. One of my favourite details in the Rider-Waite deck (I am so in awe of Pamala Coleman-Smith) is the black poles. To my knowl

The unfathomable nature of water
Over the month of May I connected with water through a series of group shamanic journeys, and this blog shares some of the experiences and understandings from these journeys. I connected to “ocean” using the rune laug. I connect the rune laug with ocean, sea, the Vanir, and the Norse deity Njord. Our drummed journey started by going through a rune door with laug engraved on the door, walking through woodland to the world tree Yggdrasil, and then walking deeper still to the o

Tarot questions I don’t answer…
Really there has only been one- though I will explain the ways I side-stepped many others- but I did once receive an email question focused on a relationship and the last question was “so do you think I should murder my wife?” Honestly I refunded the money and deleted the email. That was a question I refused to even engage in. Usually before answering any question I have three major considerations, Am I comfortable with this ethically. Do I think it is helpful for my client.

What is a rune- and how to understand them.
As I step forward more into teaching the rune-lore that underpins my beloved seidr work I find I am being asked questions that I understand the answer to- but struggle to translate into words. One of the fundamental questions being “what is a rune?” I wanted to explain how I understand a rune (though experience is probably a better word), and decided the best way was to use the runes. So I created a bind rune using the younger futhark. I'm still struggling to express exactly

To read reversals, or not?
When I first started reading Tarot I did read reversals- it helped me to highlight if the energy of a card was “stuck” or to decide which cards were expressing a more “negative” expression of their meaning. The seven years ago I decided to start teaching Tarot, and I put a lot of thought into how I wanted to teach... Did I want to follow the books of other tarot authors- asking my client to purchase their books and then using them to underpin my teaching? Did I want to focus