By jenett, on April 24th, 2011
Many books have been written on the topic of Tarot, so this is only a very general summary – essentially, enough to make some sense out of the questions “Why might I be interested?” and “When I read conversations about it, what are these terms people are using?”
What is Tarot?
The word ‘Tarot’ (generally pronounced either TA-row or ta-ROW, but not rhyming with carrot) is used to describe a particular configuration of a deck of 78 cards. These cards are something like a deck of playing cards with bonus additions – the bulk of the deck is divided into four suits (just like playing cards) though with different symbols.
The Tarot came into being through several sources, but the earliest decks similar to modern ones mostly date from Renaissance Europe, and the most widely used deck structure/symbology (the Rider-Waite, drawn by Pamela Coleman-Smith) comes from the turn of the 20th century.
A deck generally includes:
- Two main divisions: the Major Arcana and the Minor Arcana.
- 22 Major Arcana cards, sometimes called trumps, provide larger, more important, overarching ideas for the deck. These have a general order, but different decks sometimes change specific pieces of the order or symbology.
- Four suits (of 14 cards each) make up the Minor Arcana. These are often designed as swords, wands, cups, and pentacles (each tied to a particular element), but some decks vary this too.
- Each suit has the ace through ten cards you’d expect from a playing card deck.
- But each suit also has four court cards – most commonly described as page, knight, queen, and king (but again, there are lots of variations.)
The Rider-Waite deck, the many decks using it as a base, and many other decks have pictures or scenes relevant to the card meaning on every card, but some decks do not (and only have pictures for the Major Arcana and court cards).
More loosely, the term Tarot can get used for any deck of 78 cards broken into Major and Minor Arcana. There are many other divination decks out there (commonly called oracle decks) that have different structures.
How do you use a Tarot deck?
One way to use a deck is for meditation or reflection – you select a card (either randomly, or with a particular goal in mind) and then meditate on it, reflect, or otherwise use it to focus your attention in some way. Some people draw a card every day, for example.
Perhaps a more common way is by doing a reading. In this, you:
- May begin by framing a specific question (“What should I be aware of today?” “What should I know about this job interview?” “What might my next year hold?”)
- Laying out a number of cards, often in a specific pattern (called a spread). Spreads may assign a particular meaning or area to each card, and by looking at which cards end up in which places, you can get a more precise reading.
- You then interpret the cards in various ways, generally by looking at what’s there, how they interrelate, and also, in some cases, what isn’t there that you might have anticipated.
It’s often considered bad form (and not very useful) to do multiple readings on the exact same question over and over (many people find that the cards start producing nonsense after a while), but you can adjust your question, draw clarifying cards, etc. if a reading doesn’t initially make sense.
How you interpret the cards is often done by combining various information from the individual cards and the spread as a whole. Different readers will use a wide range of tools – some will use the same approaches every time, others will vary depending on what’s useful. (However, in general, a common goal is to get beyond needing to check the book about a deck’s meanings every reading…)
Some approaches include:
Traditional card meanings: each card has some traditional or common meanings. A reader can look at these in relationship to the other cards in the spread – for example, that the Ace of Pentacles might be the beginning of a new project or creation, especially something tied to money or prosperity or growth.
Intuitive reading relies more on the reader’s sense of each card, which may be quite different from the traditional meaning. This can be done with almost any deck, but it’s particularly popular with decks that have moved away from the Rider-Waite structure
Symbols are often used to convey the meanings of a card. A pomegranate on the High Priestess card calls to mind the descent and return of Persephone. A particular flower might be drawn on a card to remind the reader of trust or love. Particular colors might encourage someone to think of activity and engagement, or of rest and relaxation.
Numerology is a subset of symbology – some people pay particular attention to the way numbers interact in a spread (for example, fours are normally considered a number of stability, but not always in a way that makes growth or change easy.)
Suits can also indicate relationships within a reading. For example, a spread with many Cups in it might indicate that the issues are about emotions, intuition, relationships, etc. rather than, say, intellectual understanding, prosperity, or direct action.
Reversals happen when a card is upside down when it shows up in the spread. (from the normal position for that card.) Some people ignore these entirely, but others read them in various ways – depending on the person, they may be read as an opposite meaning to the card’s upright position, may indicate a block or limitation in that card’s energy or focus, or may have some other adaptation of the upright meaning.
There are some more advanced approaches, too. Elemental dignities look at how the elements of each card in the spread interact with each other. Some people assign an astrological sign to each card, and look at how those signs and their ruling plants interact. Some people look at the images on each card – for example, if a figure is pointing or gesturing, does that point at another card in the spread?
Predestination or advice?
One thing that can be confusing about divination what to do with the information. Most modern Tarot readers (and other users of divination tools) consider that what we learn in divination tells us about ourselves and our situation, and shows us the choices that are most likely right now. However, it doesn’t tell us what will happen – just what seems most likely at the moment we did the reading.
Of course, we can change our situation by making different choices – and often, the simple act of doing a reading and getting information or ideas to think about may change the situation in various ways
Myths about readings:
There are a lots of myths and superstitions out there about Tarot and doing readings – some people have very specific routines they do before doing a reading (laying out a cloth, shuffling in a specific way a specific number of times.) Some people find these very helpful for setting an intention, but there are lots of ways to do good readings.
One note is that some people are fine with people handling their cards, but many people prefer to be asked first. Some decks may be out of print or fragile. Other times, people want to be careful that the cards are only handled for a specific reading. Asking first is always polite.
Useful resources:
- Books I’m particularly fond of include Barbara Moore’s Tarot for Beginners, Rachel Pollack’s Tarot Wisdom, and books about specific decks I’m using. (I started with the Robin Wood, which I still like, and am currently working a lot with the Shadowscapes Tarot. )
- Aeclectic.net has a great FAQ and other information on their website (which is massive – everything from deck reviews to book reviews to articles, to extensive forums.)
- Joan Bunning’s LearnTarot.com site also has some great information to get you started.
By jenett, on April 10th, 2011
One question that comes up from time is how to remove old energetic ties and energetic entanglements that no longer serve us. My own approach to it is pretty pragmatic: clean all the things, see what’s left, and figure out how to untangle that. Cutting is a last resort, because it has some ongoing consequences.
The methods I describe below are designed to clear out anything that isn’t serving you anymore, rather than focusing on cutting ties with a specific person (I generally think it’s more useful: sometimes we’re being limited by energetic ties we don’t know are there.)
However, you should be aware that doing this kind of work can change relationships in ways you didn’t anticipate. You may find that some relationships in your life become closer, others become unexpectedly distant. Because this method is relatively gentle (except for the one place where I note otherwise), if you don’t want that outcome with that person, you can generally fix it with some attention and time.
The practices below mostly assume that you have some solid skills: If you don’t have these yet, you should learn them first and get some practice.
Theory:
My basic theory on energetic connections goes like this:
1) We are all connected, in a very loose way, because we are all part of the larger world and environment.
2) However, some of us are more tightly connected than others, because of choices we’ve made. Some choices create closer ties than others.
Going to the same high school as someone creates some ties, but for most people most of them are relatively weak. Being married to someone is a much tighter tie. Having sex (or fooling around) with someone is somewhere in the middle. Working with someone for six months is a fairly light tie, but working together for five years is a much stronger tie.
Magical and esoteric groups, or any setting where there are strong emotions, major life-changing experiences, very new situations, or anything similar can create a very deep relationship tie very quickly. (Think summer camp, too.)
3) As we grow and change, some of those ties fall away easily. Others don’t. That doesn’t mean that those ties are bad or wrong – just that if they’re no longer serving us, we might not want to continue adding energy to maintaining them.
4) Very occasionally, someone will get a tie into us that’s really hard to shift. A family member who knows just how to push all our buttons. A boss whose actions take a sharp swipe at our confidence and self-assurance. Anyone who shifts our view of ourselves, or ability to stand tall in our own identity. In these cases, we may want and need to detatch in order to do the stuff we care about – but we may need a bit more effort to do it than getting rid of outgrown ties.
When you might consider this kind of work?
- You’ve had a major change in a relationship that means someone who meant a lot to you has either left your life, or the relationship is so different they might as well have.
- You are tidying up loose ends as you transition into a new stage of your life (as part of a physical move, a new dedication to a particular path or a next step on a path).
- You feel that there are specific old entanglements that are keeping you in patterns that don’t serve you, and you want to release them so you can move on.
I generally review my life at major transitions (physical moves, new jobs, other noticeable changes in my life), but also do a quick review at least every year (usually around my birthday) or six months (if I’m going through a range of smaller changes.)
What do you need?
Useful tools vary depending on your preferences, but I’m fond of:
- a handful or two of sea salt (table salt will do)
- a soap you consider particularly refreshing and ‘new’.
- incense you consider purifying and cleansing (sage is classic, but there are lots of other choices. If incense is a problem for you, you don’t need this.)
- music that reflects the kind of changes the new openness might bring me.
- comfortable clothing that helps you enter into a ritual mindset. (For the approaches below, flowing sleeves and long skirts are less practical, but see the notes below.)
You should also include at least one tool that helps you reflect on yourself and what you want. For some people, this is a journal. For others, it’s a divination tool (Tarot, runes, something else). For some people it’s a pad of art paper and markers/paints/whatever.
You also want whatever other things you’d normally use for ritual or magical work. For some people that’s altar clothes, candles, incense, statues, and more. For some people that’s their favorite tree outside. (You will want a bit of privacy for this.)
Starting clean:
A good place to start is from as energetically clean a place as you can. Generally, I suggest:
Center and ground.
Focus on balancing your energy: letting out anything that is no longer serving you, taking in things that allow you to grow and heal.
Wash your various selves.
Have a bath or a shower, focusing on washing away any energy or energetic ties that no longer serve you. Take it seriously – scrub yourself the way you would if you’d been camping for a weekend, or out playing in the mud. Get between your toes, behind your ears, and everywhere else you can think of.
As you scrub, focus on the unwanted energy washing away from you and (when you open the drain, if you’re in the bath) flowing out through the drain, flowing far far away and dissipating. If you’re in the shower, this is even easier.
I generally prefer to throw a handful or two of sea salt in the bathtub (it’s a great psychic cleanser) along with a couple of drops (3-5) of an essential oil that helps with cleansing and purifying (both lavender and rosemary are cheap and have lots of uses. Right now, I’m using a blend of juniper, fennel, and grapefruit a lot. There’s a folk tradition of putting a bottle of beer in the bath, and I’ve found that pretty effective, too. Shower users can use a salt scrub, or hang a small muslin or felt bag of dried cleansing herbs (hyssop, lavender, rosemary are good choices) under the shower spray.
Get dressed in a way that helps you be your best possible self.
Best possible self in the sense of what you want to continue to become. If you’re making a transition from ‘stay at home mom’ to ‘back to the workforce’, dress in clothing that at least somewhat reinforces that. If you’re leaving behind a relationship that’s no longer working, consider wearing something that ex really didn’t like – but that you love on you. That kind of thing.
Spend time reflecting:
What stuff in your life do you want to let go of? Do you feel any resistence to doing that? Why? Why not? What would help you feel like you could move on?
For example: if we’re moving on from a romantic relationship that had – like most of them – some really good stuff, and some really hard stuff, we might want to hang onto the good memories, but recognise that we need to move on, and let go of what might have been. We might spend time looking at photos or listening to songs that remind us of the good times, or writing a list of the things we’ll miss. But then we might go and continue, and write a list of why we’re done now with that relationship, what we’re *not* going to miss, and what we’re looking forward to as we move on.
The exact questions you’re going to need to ask yourself depend a whole lot on your situation. In some cases, like the example above, it’s pretty straightforward: there’s a clear ending to work with. In other cases, it’s going to be a lot fuzzier: you may know you need to do *something*, but not really what you’re trying to change.
Journalling can help here, using prompts like “I wish I could….” or “I miss…..” or “I remember when …. made me happy.” Start with things like that, and free write for 10-15 minutes. Look at what you come up with, and see if there are any patterns, or things that keep coming up.
Divination, if you have a divination method you feel at least somewhat competent with, can also help. (Or get help from a friend with more experience. Some online forums also do a reading exchange.)
Look at what keeps coming up. Any time I plan to do a major clearing out of old ties, I pay extra attention to what things I keep circling around in my life. Often (because I’m a big reader), I start seeing a similar theme in a range of books, the things I’m drawn to reading. Some people find that their playlist is out to get them: certain songs show up all the time. If you do regular divination, you might find the same cards showing up a lot. You may hear the same word or phrase coming up in unexpected places. Things like that.
These shouldn’t be the only thing you use to make decisions, but they’re often worth exploring in more detail. What is that thing, what does it mean to you? Why?
Taking inventory:
Here we get to the meat of the practice.
First, take inventory. Working your way slowly over your body in your mind, examine your aura and energy by whatever sense works best for you (or more than one sense.)
Take your time and slowly identify any spots that seem dirty, sound fuzzy or off-key, feel mucky or sticky, or that feel tense, tied up, or tangled. Don’t feel like you need to do anything about them the first pass: just identify where they are.
You may find that a specific sensation, emotion, or even person comes up as you look at a particular spot – if it does, make a note of it, and go back to your scan. Good notes can help you decide what to do later.
Make sure to cover your whole body: it’s usually easiest to start at one end (the top of your head), work your way down your back, under your feet, and back up the front (making sure to get the sides of your legs, the underside of your arms, etc.)
Spots of particular interest include:
- Chakra points (you may want to do more research, if so.)
- Spots on your shoulder blades or on your back.
- Areas of old injuries or pains that are strongly associated with someone specific in your past for some reason.
- Anywhere that just doesn’t feel right.
I’ll note: it’s possible that this scan will turn up spots that aren’t quite right, but that aren’t related to energetic ties. (It could be a physical injury, illness, or something else to pay attention to.) If you’re a heavy computer user, your neck and shoulders aching could be feeling the burden of lots of connections – but chances are, it’s probably that you’re spending a lot of time looking at a screen. Physical stretches, varied exercise, etc. might be all you need.
You may want to take a break here. As you build a baseline over months and years, it’ll be a lot easier to figure out what’s normal for you, and what’s something to pay extra attention to. When you’re starting out, taking a break between doing this inventory and making any changes can help you get clarity about which things are actually a problem, and which things are parts of other things in your life.
You may come to feel (with some time for reflection) that specific spots feel directly connected to specific people or events, while others don’t.
Cutting away:
This is the other core part of the practice. I generally suggest a light but firm intention here, of removing those things that no longer serve you, while leaving those things that do. Don’t get too specific: you may not know yet which things those are.
Go slowly, and if something starts feeling like it’s the wrong choice, back off. You can always come back to that spot later. It’s much easier to do multiple passes (doing a little bit, taking a break, seeing how you feel, coming back a day or two later) than to rebuild connections once you’ve broken the energetic tie directly.
The one-person method is a bit harder to do, but can work if you have sufficient focus and direction of energy. Basically, go back over your body, bit by bit, and as you hit a tangle, muddy spot, or fuzzy spot, you slowly focus on the energy clearing and becoming clear, light, and freely moving. In some cases it may feel like releasing a kink in a hose, so that water can run easily again. In other cases, you may find that releasing that thing is like cutting a piece of string connecting you to something outside of you.
Before you release something like that, take a moment to take a deep breath or two, and let your mind roam a little. Does this feel connected to someone in specific? Is releasing that energy what you really want to do (releasing the tie entirely can change your relationship with that person quite a bit). Or do you want to take the information, and use it to sit down with that person and work out any problems in your interactions face to face?
You may well find that some spots are a lot easier than others. I generally find it’s harder to reach places I can’t reach physically (middle of my back, for example). You may need to repeat the whole process a couple of times over the course of a week or two.
You may also find spots that make you feel happy – that are connections to people you love, value, and want to keep in your life. You can renew these areas by directing a little energy to help make them sparkle and flow easily – buffing off a piece of metal with a soft cloth, rather than scrubbing.
The two person method requires someone else who’s good at directing energy. It’s traditionally done with an athame in a number of trads, but you can also do it with your hand. Either way, the person doing it runs their hand or blade at a 90 degree angle to your body. (So, if they’re working on your back, the flat of the blade or flat of their hand is parallel to the floor, and perpendicular to your body as you’re standing up.)
While they’re working, they’re focusing on scraping off or flicking away (depending on whether they’re using a blade or their hand) any bits of aura and energy that are stuck, grungy, or too tangled to be of use. (So you need to trust them quite a bit – both to recognise the good stuff from the bad stuff, and to act in your own best interest.)
This method is often a good bit quicker in my experience than doing it all myself, and there are spots other people find much more accurately. Starhawk and Hilary Valentine describe a general version of this in their book Twelve Wild Swans.
If you’re focusing on a specific person (for example, removing ties with an ex, or someone else you’re removing from your life for good reason), you can focus on that person, and you may feel a very strong physical sensation in a particular spot on your body. (You may not, too, and that’s okay.)
Focus on removing the connection to that person without malice or hatred – you’re pruning a rosebush or weeding your garden. It’s not personal, it’s not emotional, you’re just clearing the way for something new. (Strong emotion will help feed the connection, anyway, which is not what you want right now.)
When you remove a strong connection like this, it can be easy for the connection to try and re-attach. To help prevent this, once you’ve removed it, smooth over the spot where it was until there’s no rough energy for it to reattach to.
Rest. Reflect. Repeat as needed.
Connection with the world, with other people, is complicated. Chances are, you’ll want and need to repeat this regularly. If you haven’t ever done it, you might want to check back in with yourself in a week, a month, three months, and see how you feel. As you get more experience, you’ll get a better sense of when you might want to do it again.
You might also be interested in two posts on my blog (this will take you away from the Seeking area of my website):
Both use some of the techniques described above as part of a larger ritual work.
By jenett, on April 10th, 2011
One question that comes up a lot is “How do I know when I’m ready to start doing X?” Here’s my answer.
It depends.
Specific paths and traditions and other groupings within those paths have their own limits. Sometimes these are practical: you can’t do certain rituals in my tradition, for example, until you’ve got the appropriate preparation *and* introductions to the relevant entities involved. And some are common practice, or good precautions to keep people getting in over their heads in ways that are hard to recover from – just like learning some basic food safety is important for people learning how to cook.
What’s your reason?
Does it have a purpose beyond “This is cool and I want to play with it?” Play can do a lot of good, but it’s also a really easy way to get in over your head without realising it. Having a very clear reason for doing something, and taking a lot of time to plan through it tends to help avoid that problem.
(Don’t just ask “what do I want to do?” but also “How am I going to make that happen” and “Why is this the right time for this thing”. In detail, step by step, and looking carefully at anything you couldn’t explain in simple words to a friendly person who had no idea what you were doing. Being able to explain it helps us understand stuff better.)
As you do more of it, the planning gets easier.
Do you have the right skills and tools?
I’m grouping them together because, like cooking, there’s a lot of mixing things up here. You can often substitute some skills for less ideal tools – or use better tools to prop up your skills.
(For example, I still haven’t mastered poaching an egg without using a little floating poaching cup. That’s ok: the tool substitutes for my lack of skill. There are times this doesn’t work, however: if you don’t know how to tell chicken is cooked safely, you’re going to be stuck if you cook it no matter how good your tools are.)
However, you still need to have enough of both to actually accomplish what you want. A ritual to welcome the new season is an entirely different sort of task than a complex ritual to address several specific needs with the help and assistance of other entities: there’s a lot more pieces involved in the latter.
(To go back to our cooking metaphor: the first one is like making a pleasant simple meal for yourself and the latter is like making a formal dinner for some people you want to impress who have very clear opinions about what they like and don’t like. You have a lot more choices and options for what ‘success’ looks like in the first one, usually, even though the second one may have a bunch of possible ways to go about it too.)
What skills do you need, anyway?
There are a number of ways to approach this, but here are some core skills that are widely applicable.
Care of yourself:
Can you start from and return to a healthy state for yourself, without unduly draining yourself of energy, will, or other useful things? Centering, grounding, and self-awareness are common skills here.
Definition of space:
In Wiccan-based practice, this is casting a circle, but that’s not the only possible means of defining a ritual space. This obviously has a bunch of smaller steps and it may take time to learn and practice the basics of each one before you can put them together. Again, like cooking a meal, you may need to learn how to chop things, cook them appropriately, season them, etc. before you combine them into one meal.
A good space (and method of stepping into ritual) will not only help you step into the ritual’s center – but it’ll help you step out and return to your daily life, too.
Whatever it is you want to do.
Candle magic is not precisely the same as knot magic is not the same as creating a magical artwork is not the same as using chanting or dancing or breath or meditation or whatever to focus your intention. Do you have appropriate skills, tools, and necessary knowledge and safety precautions for what you’re doing?
(The latter is especially important for anything you’re planning on eating, drinking, burning as incense, or applying to your skin. Check any substance you’re using these ways in multiple recent sources.)
A reasonable plan in case something goes wrong.
This is where reading and asking can help a lot. There are the practical things (a candle or glass getting knocked over, for example). There are the magical things (feeling jittery or drained after you’re done, for example, but there can be many more) There are some general things (figuring out how much time and preparation you need, finding a suitable space).
Some of these, you can plan ahead for, at least somewhat, based on reading and listening to others. Some will probably be things you learn about yourself as you go along.
(Good things to plan for include anything possible to get knocked over, for candles to blow in unpredictable directions and possibly go out.)
You might want to check out my page on safety for more ideas.
Can you get specific?
Specific makes for better and more effective ritual. So, for example, you say cleansing – do you want to cleanse yourself of a particular influence? The space you’re living in? Make good on something you’ve handled badly so you can move ahead?
All of those will have some similarities, but also some differences in how you approach them in spell and ritual work, and the more you’re clear about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, the easier it’ll be to come up with something effective but within your likely capabilities.
[last edited October 28, 2011]
By jenett, on January 26th, 2011
One comment that I’ve seen a lot goes like this: “I know that there aren’t right or wrong ways to do ritual: it all depends on what works for me.”
My take on this is that it’s missing a dimension – and a very important dimension, at that.
The way that I look at ritual is that it’s a lot like cooking – and then eating – a meal. There are lots of parallels. Just like we have different kinds of meals in our life, we might have different kinds of ritual experiences.
- Sometimes we’re filling an immediate practical need (we’re hungry)
- Sometimes we want to create a space for people to gather (share with loved ones)
- Sometimes we want to honor a particular event (celebration, birthday, whatever)
- Sometimes we’re seeking comfort, or sensory pleasure.
- Sometimes we enjoy cooking in and of itself: seeing how to do new things, or do them better, learning techniques, trying new combinations, etc.
- And sometimes, it’s a habit – a thing we do because the habit carries us through times when we might not be thinking as clearly as we’d like (we’re tired, stressed, distracted by other events in our lives, etc.)
All of these can also apply to ritual – ritual can bring people together, give us a framework for something new or some new goal, clarify things in our own heads and experiences, get us through hard times because the habits sustain us and reassure us, and much much more.
The other way it’s like cooking:
Then there’s the other part. There are a whole bunch of ‘right’ ways to start with raw ingredients, cook, and turn it into something that will nourish and sustain you.
But there are also a bunch of wrong ways. There are the ways that just don’t make food you like – or food you really want to eat right now. But there are also ways that are actually dangerous: approaches that mean you risk food poisoning or eating dangerous mushrooms, or all sorts of other things like that.
What’s even trickier is that these methods aren’t all interchangeable. If you have your heart set on a roast chicken, knowing how to make a great loaf of bread isn’t going to help with that – they’re different cooking techniques, and while some stuff (turning on the oven, keeping an eye on the time) overlap, lots of them don’t. (Bread does not need precautions in handling raw meat, for one thing!)
And even when things are sort of similar, there can be important differences. There are only a few ingredients different between some cake recipes and some savory bread recipes – or between cake and brownies – but boy, do those few ingredients (and the techniques) make a big difference. If you really want cake, bread won’t satisfy – and if you only ate cake, you’d be missing some stuff in your diet.
So, part of what I teach about ritual is knowing what you want as your outcome. Sometimes, it’s a very open-ended thing (“I want to spend time with my Gods”.) Sometimes it’s magical work (in which case, the rest of your ritual and actions outside of ritual had better be supporting it). Sometimes it’s trying to figure out something, becoming more self-aware. But the ritual tools you use for each of these might be quite different. Or they might be different at different times in your life. Or when you’re doing stuff by yourself versus with other people. Or all sorts of other things.
My tradition (which is Wiccan-influenced, but not Wiccan, the way I use the term) gives me a lot of tools for making all kinds of ritual ‘meals’, and I choose and adapt based on other factors. (Including the fact that there are a few rituals in the tradition which need to be done in certain ways at certain times of year).
When I’m working on my own, I’m still influenced by all the things I learned with my tradition training – why toss good techniques out of my repertoire when I don’t need to. But when I’m doing trad stuff, doing it the ‘right way’ for the trad – using the recipe that everyone else uses, in other words – is important to me, too.
How techniques connect:
The final thing to think about is how different techniques connect. Individual techniques can be very meaningful but not fit very well together when they’re next to each other. Imagine a ritual where you had a very simple circle cast, followed by a completely intricate and ceremonial magical working, and then finished with something light and social with a totally different focus. That ritual would probably feel pretty disjointed.
(I have been in rituals that combined a variety of different tools and techniques successfully, but the places where it worked were always those that had an extremely clear focus – a wedding, in particular, sticks in my mind.)
So, when you’re looking at how you’re going to be doing things, you want to make sure the pieces fit with each other. Think of it like creating a playlist on your computer: you might put music from very different styles next to each other, but you’d want to have a good reason to do that. Or if you’re cooking a meal, you might cook a meal that had Indian and Mexican and Thai dishes with a side of macaroni and cheese – but you’d want a good reason for that (maybe your guest of honor’s favorite foods) or it would be a little weird.
If you’re not sure, it’s usually easier and smoother to keep things in more or less the same style and focus and level of complexity, and adjust the entire ritual rather than individual pieces. As you get more experience, you’ll have more of a sense of how to make the transitions work more smoothly.
This is also important for safety reasons. When you’re working within a particular strand of practice, different parts of that practice will help support the way that practice works. So, for example, the circle casting process might include steps that will support a particular kind of work especially well. Or make it easier to return from a ritual or trance state fully and safely. If you change one part of the practice without understanding the full picture, you might leave out important steps.
By jenett, on January 2nd, 2011
People write books about divination. This is not that. This is a very very small introduction.
What is divination?
Many people think that divination is about what will happen. I don’t think that’s true.
I think divination is about our choices. It’s about telling us what is likely, if we keep doing what we’ve been doing. But as soon as we get information about a situation, we start changing it. Divination can help us decide where to focus our energy and attention, or let us know if we’re missing something.
But it’s not in control of what happens, or why. We are. At least the bits that have to do with our actions and choices.
Continue reading Divination
By jenett, on January 2nd, 2011
One challenge that many people (especially in and just out of college, with small children, or dealing with major changes in their general life) face are real limits on available space and time to do work. If this is true for you, keep a couple of things in mind:
- It’s probably not permanent. Your life will change, your circumstances will change.
- Re-evaluate what you want and would like to do regularly (say, every six months). New options might be open for you at that point.
- If nothing else, focus on practices that you can build into your daily life, or that can be done without needing much extra space and time. The daily practices page has a wide range of ideas.
Continue reading Finding time and space
By jenett, on January 2nd, 2011
Like anything else we do, there are some useful safety notes. (And I’m sure, looking at this list, I’ve forgotten some, and will continue to come back.) I talk about safety considerations in beginning group work on its own page.
Continue reading Safety tips and notes
By jenett, on January 1st, 2011
People have gotten the idea that in order to be a witch (or a religious witch, or a Pagan, or whatever), you simply need to study for a year and a day. And that that time frame is really fixed – you can’t take longer.
The reality is a bit more complicated.
In fact, the year and a day comes from a common group practice of asking students to work with the group for a year and a day before they commit to the group, the tradition, and the Gods (via initiation). Lots of people decide (often for very good reasons) that one or more of those things isn’t for them, at least right now. It’s much better to figure that out before long-term oaths and commitments are made.
Continue reading Why a year and a day?
By jenett, on December 29th, 2010
I’ve talked elsewhere on this site about taking care of your own energy, but what about your space? Just as you do, the space you live in picks up energy and emotions. Often, we bring these things in ourselves, with the stress we bring home from work (or school), from news stories, or from things we actually do at home.
The good news is that just as you can cleanse your own energy and smooth things out, you can do the same thing with your home. A little regular attention goes a long way toward making your home welcoming, peaceful, and enjoyable.
Continue reading Home, sacred home…
By jenett, on December 23rd, 2010
One thing you’ll see come up over and over again is the idea that you need to develop your will in order to do effective magic – and many forms of effective ritual.
What this means is that you need to increase your ability to:
- decide what you’re going to do.
- decide how you’re going to do it.
- do it.
- and remain focused on your goal while doing it.
This is both very simple in some ways, and very complicated.
Continue reading Developing will
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Got a question? If you've got a question about learning about Paganism, Wicca, or religious witchcraft that I haven't covered yet, feel free to drop me a note via the contact form.
I'll do my best (time/energy/knowledge allowing) to write up an answer. (And I'll email you a link when it's up.)
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