Yearly Archives: 2020

A Tarot Grand Tableau Pt 2

Although houses can be used to quite some success when combining Tarot with a Grand Tableau, it probably isn’t the best starting point for a learner. Directions and smaller clusters of cards on the other hand, people get those quite quickly and easily and can apply them with very little skill or experience required.

What follows here are techniques I have garnered from various sources, I cannot claim them to be my own, although how I am using them is.

Box 1 – The overall meaning of the reading

2 of Cups, Page of Swords, 10 of Wands. A relationship is headed for troublesome news and quarrels, and the querent just can’t see the wood for the trees. This is the straw that broke the camels back.

Box 2 – The heart of the problem

10 of cups, Kn of Swords, 7 of Swords. Ohh boy we have the “happy home” matched up with the impulsive grudge holding knight with the pokey swords, he’s the only one in the deck who rushes away from the future, headlong as fast as he can, and what he is running from is the 7 of Swords, the Sneaky Pete card, if you think someones talking about you behind your back and this card comes up, then I bet a pound to a penny they are.

The 10 of cups is directly above the Knight so he is focussed on wanting that happily ever after even if it means making a few swift cuts along the way.

Box 3 – The querent (and their love interest if any).

6 of Swords, Strength. Although we are not using the house system it is really useful in a Tarot GT (and this interpretation of the original spread) to keep the “Man” and “Woman” houses, to represent the querent and the partner. It can give very interesting insight into each persons mindset and paired with the corner cards (marked with stars) can reveal previously unknown aspects to personality and intent. Here we have the “wife” studiously ignoring her husband in favour of her cat, the cat which we see echoed in the Queen of Wands, so “I ain’t saying she a gold digger but she ain’t messing with no broke” and the 7 of swords crowning her suggests she’s got a spiteful tongue and she’ll use it if she has too. Looking at the 2 of Cups, the Devil and the Ace of Wands I’d also be cautioning the “husband” to watch out she could use sex as a weapon too.

Box 4 – The outcome

Judgement, 4 of Coins. We are starting to move into predictive reading here, which is great. This suggests an amenable outcome to the divorce with the powers that be literally ruling from above in favour of the querent, financial stability and the hard earned cash will be theirs.

Arrow 1 – What is behind them

The Devil, 9 of Swords, Tower. Codependence and toxicity are a trap of their own making, sleepless nights will only cease if you are prepared to make a change. They’ve done their thinking, they’ve acted and now its all done bar for the shouting. They’ve worked through the heart ache mentally and its time to move on. What we don’t get here now by not including the house system is that the paperwork has been drawn up which we would have seen with the Lenormand houses of “Book” and “Letter”, this is where Lenormand can be far more succinct and fusing the two systems is really powerful.

Arrow 2 – What is in front of them

The future is relatively unknown at this point because the querent didn’t lay a full spread. But one thing is clear, growth an opportunity will take a front and centre role in the querent’s life once all this muck and gubbins is over. And if we are going to get a little crude, that great big wand is a waving, so he looks like he will get some.

The 4 corners (marked by stars) Additional details of note that can shed additional light on the situation, see explanation of Box 3

This has all been written from a male querent’s point of view, but what if this was a woman that laid those spreads, well we don’t get to chose our clients. Best case scenario they are just a bit spoilt and selfish in which case a blunt read may have just saved a marriage as it may have bought them time to self reflect. If they were a narcissist there would be nothing I could do, they would protest their innocence, stamp and shout, declare me wrong and not making a connection possibly. Until they contact me again a few months later for another reading! And therein lies the true skill of a Tarot reader 😉

A Final Word…..

So using techniques from another system we can adequately interpret what on face value looks like one red hot mess of a spread, we have allowed the newbie reader to consider “houses” which really aren’t so different from the titles given to various card placements in more traditional spreads associated with the Tarot such as the horseshoe, Celtic cross or Wheel of the year. We have allowed them so search for connections in the cards to see deeper meaning, and we’ve looked at directionality, past, present, future and boxing, all in a hap hazard grid layout. By examining both approaches we can see that the interpretations are not so different, but that combining the two gives a more detailed picture. Not a bad knowledge dump for a shoddy meme. Can I reiterate, please folks don’t stop posting these spreads this is how you learn ignore the negative nellies, they are not your people!

I truly hope this helps someone, maybe inspires them to pick those cards back up, or for once stays a scoffing tongue when they see a spread like this.

Peace out xxx

A Tarot Grande Tableau – Pt 1

Leave a reply

I thought I might start this post in a better frame of mind but at the time of writing I am sad to report that pointing out that its a bit mean to mock and also that lateral thinking could have been used to help the person is me wanting “to pwn people with my magical knowledge of leno”. It never ceases to amaze me how unaware people truly are and how readily they attack rather than reconsider a point of view. But I shall continue regardless.

So let’s talk for a moment about the Lenormand GT as mentioned in my post yesterday, the GT is normally either 9×4 or 8×4+4. This uses every card in the Lenormand deck and each “slot” relates to a “house” (sort of a bit like in astrology) so position 1 in the spread relates to the Rider, 2 to the Clover etc. Then when you lay your cards down what you are seeing is the information relating to that area. So let’s say you get “The Ring” in the house of “Clover”, what does that mean, well depending upon the question it might mean success and good fortune regarding a business contract or maybe a marriage proposal.

These are not discrete interpretations though, not only does the card relate to the house within which is sits, it also relates the cards that are around it and even what card is in a reciprocal house. So whilst Ring in the house of Clover may seem very fortuitous, should The Clouds be in position 25 which is the house of the ring, then I would caution that the engagement may be short lived or overshadowed in some way.

Houses obviously aren’t necessarily very helpful when it comes to helping the beginner who laid the original spread which we looked at yesterday, especially when you consider the crude ad hoc nature of that spread. If the poster was a completely new then complicating the issue by mixing system is also a no-no from a teaching perspective, but for purposes of this post lets look at them briefly anyway as after all the whole point of this was to see the different ways that we could pick apart the original reading to help. (click back here to refresh your memory if you want)

So what could we do here with houses to help a person interpret the spread that was confusing them so much?

After studying the cards for a few moments my considered opinion is that the best way to go was to scrub out the houses where a card wasn’t laid. We are after all told that we should read what we see, and only what is relevant. Seems to me that maybe then those missing cards just aren’t relevant to the read!

Let’s have a look now at a few details. I am going to out on a limb and hazard a guess and suggest that this is a relationship read. There isn’t a lot of psychism here I am afraid, those cards are gnarly and there are far too many pointy swords and weepy cups for my liking. Also in my experience, I would say at least 70% of my clients ask me for a relationship read, even if they start the session by asking about career, or to find a lost object or help with a house move, it nearly always ends up with an “actually before we finish could we just look at my love life”. It’s just the way it is, human nature if you will, we all want to be loved and to be happy.

It’s not necessary to read every card here to get the main point of the read, it rarely is unless clients start asking deeper questions so my draw is to the bottom two lines primarily.

Here is my rationale as I would explain it:

Studiously ignoring what is going on around her, preferring to turn her focus away from the inevitable, the woman is oblivious to the actions of her husband (strength in the house of the Woman). He however is taking action and getting ready to move on from this toxic relationship no matter how painful and argumentative it may get (6 of Swords in the house of the Man with Kn of Swords above in Garden, Devil in the House of Ring) he’s going to try and take the money with him too, after all he worked hard for it (Judgement in the house of Fish and 10 of wands in the House of House *ha! thats a mouthful*). The divorce papers are drawn up, but he’s been having sleepless nights not knowing when to tell her. He knows his mean spirit wife, will bad mouth him (7 of Swords in the house of Mountain) which may cause complications and she will try and take him for everything he’s got (4 of Pentacles in the house of Anchor).

We could go into more details but let’s face it, there is plenty to go on right there and if its worth saying once its worth saying again. You do not have to read every card in a spread! It’s still not an ideal learning exercise though. Tomorrow we will look at how we can use directionality to help decipher the cards in a more beginner friendly way and also see if it changes the reading at all.

Lets talk about this meme shall we?

Are you a Gypsy Witch?

1 Reply

World Divination Association Virtual Conference

A fortnight ago I got to attend the very awesome World Divination Association (WDA) 1^st Annual Virtual Conference. Yes as a title that is a helluva mouthful, but that jam packed moniker properly represents the jam packed content that was presented over the weekend. 44 speakers in 48 hours, it was the COVID-19 version of a 90’s telethon. Many of us staying up past our normally very sensible bedtimes to listen live to the great and good from all over the world. And ask questions too! Liz Dean, Mary Greer, Alison Cross, Caitlin Matthews, Ciro Marchetti & Donnaleigh Rose were just a few of the speakers, plus a whole bunch of other folks whom I didn’t know then, but I am surely following now. If you are interested they’ve made the talks available offline for a very reasonable fee, and you are bound to find something that is your cup of tea. Including a talk on Tasseomancy!

I’ve never been a very active member in the Tarot Readers and Cartomancy community and although over the years I have done endorsement programs for associations like TABI and BiddyTarot I tend not to get massively involved in the day to day chit chat. I never know what’s hot and what not amongst readers. Lenormand for an example pretty much passed me by when everyone was raving about it, I came to it years later in my own sweet time as the culmination of a natural course of study rather than some social influencer or group making it popular. But I do wonder now if I have been missing out. Anyway, one deck got mentioned A LOT during the course of the weekend (well several did, but we will stick with just this one for the time being). The Gypsy Witch Fortune Telling deck. It’s a quirky little deck, its not Lenormand, its not playing cards, and its not Gypsy cards either. And yet somehow its a little bit of all three.

Published by US Games

A friend who also attended the conference described it as “the wild west of decks” and that couldn’t be more perfect a description. Currently published by US Games, this little deck can be bought for only £7 on Amazon (approx 6 USD). They are a 52 card poker sized deck perfect for a hand-bag or ruck sack. They have been around in some form or another for approximately 120 years, which makes them just a little bit older than the Rider Waite Smith deck. Cool huh!?! They are the result of German Lenormand emigrating to America, emancipating and getting its own identity. As an expanded 52 card deck only 35 of the cards could be considered to match the traditional Lenormand imagery, and then only just. The Garden is the Park, The Tower is “The Tower surrounded by clouds” etc. The Cross doesn’t even exist. Not to mention the fact that the playing card associations have been switched up. In addition I can’t not mention the fact that the cards are seriously ugly, they make Blue Owl Lenormand look pretty and worse still the ubiquitous ‘Little White Book” has no interpretations at all and yet there is a charisma about it you cannot ignore. If it was a boyfriend, your mum would call him “pretty ugly”. It makes for a quirky read.

The Roads turned to Dark Clouds a literal interpretation

Ive been doing my usual obsessing with a new deck, devouring everything I could find on the subject, living with the deck in my hand 24/7 for the last 10 days and the idea of it being Wild West, a Cowboy deck if you will, is really starting to ring true. Nobody really seems to agree on the exact nuances of reading this deck other than its a ‘quite literal’ and a bit ‘directional’ and sometimes ‘situational’. However its the most direct, shoot from the hip, draw first ask questions later deck I have ever used. In a recent spread the past section of the reading was so scarily accurate I had to ask for a second opinion to make sure I wasn’t just projecting. I’ve never been a big “fortune teller” but I can see me using this this when people desperately want a yes/no reading because this deck is perfect for it. Its short sweet and oh so to the point I thoroughly recommend you give them a try.

I’d also recommend you give the WDA a go, they have courses on everything from Mexican Loteria to Russian Cartomancy. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt so fired up and inspired and all because I got reminded that there is more to life than Tarot…..gasp horror!

Got a Problem? Try Florida Water!

4 Replies

I have a problem, I am addicted to Florida water. I am starting to think that the next time someone asks me what key tool a beginning witch “must have”, I am going to reply “Murray & Lanmans”. Got a spot? Dab on Florida Water. Want to spritz some sheets at the cheap motel you’re staying in? Florida Water is your guy. Energy feel funky after your Mother in Law has left the building? Can’t go far wrong with Florida water. Need to cleanse a item before you put it on an Altar? Yes you guessed it, in fact you may as well use it to wash the Altar down whilst your at it. Got a noisy spirit? Florida water, Florida water, Florida Water.

It is part of my every day routine, when I get up in the morning before I sit down to work I spritz my entire working area to get rid of anything that might be hanging round from the day before. I even clean my glasses with it before I start writing, and as I rub making sure those lenses are squeaky clean I focus on seeing through any illusion and working with clear sight. Possibly a little new age, but it works for me and its a consistent and focussed spiritual hygiene routine. Something that so many people fail to do and yet is so fundamentally important. Waiting until your all grubbied up with spiritual gunk (and I have done it myself so this tiny nag is coming from a place of experience and love) just makes it so much harder to get truly clean when the proverbial hits the fan, so why not do a little everyday?

I have a bottle on my desk and a bottle in my handbag, wherever I go I pick up unique brands and handmade bottles.

I have a bottle on my desk and a bottle in my handbag, when I visit new countries, metaphysical shops and conferences I will snag unique brands and handmade potions, often designating certain bottles for very specific purposes because I know it’s highly unlikely I will manage to get hold of the stuff again. There are probably dozens of recipes available online to make your own, if you are that way inclined (like here *) but I am forever the lazy witch and I do like to support independent businesses.

What I do though, for the stuff I use daily is doctor the mass produced stuff which I buy from Ebay. It adds a little bit of my own personal zing to the mix. Even my husband who hates all my “pongy stuff” like fragranced candles, incenses and joss sticks likes my Florida water. Now that is saying something.

The recipe is very simple and you can adapt it as you see fit or even for specific purposes:

3 parts Florida water (I make small batches so I am looking at about 9 fl. Oz)
1 part good quality Rose water (3 fl oz.)
A good handful of Mugwort (Artemisia Vulgaris) preferably the flowers, I would like to be specific but I can’t, its sort of how I feel at the time.
A dozen drops of lemongrass essential oil.
A six drops of Frankincense oil.

Shake well together and bottle it up into a spritz (I leave the mugwort in to infuse – it does sometimes block the spritz tube but a quick shake normally sorts it).

NOTE: When I first started using Florida water I have to confess I was a little nervous about telling people that I was doing it. People get jumped on for appropriation all the time on the internet. I don’t know what it is about the internet but it just brings out the worst in people. Anyway I came across people in folk magic groups claiming that unless you were an old time Conjure or Root-worker then you shouldn’t be using this stuff. So me, being me, did a little research.

Flowery Waters have been used the world over!

“Flowery” waters, because that is what “Florida” means in Latin, have been used all over the world for as long as humanity has been able to distill. We have documentary evidence of Alchemists making alcohol based distillates as early as the 9^th century in the Middle East and there is even an 11^th century Cistercian Abbey in Wales, now sadly ruined, which was situated in a lovely place known as Strata Florida, or the Flowery Valley. The Cistercian Order were well known for their brewing and distilling and some anecdotal stories circulate that they chose that valley specifically for the types of medicinal flowers that grew there. Its not a massive leap to think that they may well have made flowery distillates. Rose and Orange Flower water is still used today for skincare and for cooking. And what is Bach’s rescue remedy if not a flowery distillate? The eau de Cologne we know as Florida Water did not even appear until the 19^th century so is really quite late to the party. The manufacturers even marketed it using the myth of the Fountain of Youth being located Florida, a myth which originated in Europe. Its success was phenomenal and was being used by rich and poor, black and white alike, it’s uses were multitudinous; a disinfectant and cleanser, an astringent, a restorative tonic to aid digestion, a perfume, a cure for headaches the list was almost endless.

So although I am not sure I would encourage anybody to drink the stuff and perhaps some of the “medicinal cures” are scientifically suspect, we cannot fail to recognise that magical Flowery waters are a world wide phenomenon which have been used for healing, cleansing and perfuming us for a very long time and therefore open to everybody, no gatekeeping required.

*I particularly like the Ritual & Vibe recipe because it contains lavender, bergamot, lemon and orange which are all though to be traditional components of the original Murray & Lanmans recipe