Ritual Tarot Reading

Last Quarter Moon, February 2019

Sometimes I feel pressure to do work on each phase of the moon. I want to consciously work with the energy available but I may feel too tired, depressed, anxious, pms-y, sad, ect. to put in the work. When the last quarter of February rolled around, I was excited that the energy I was reading about matched what my intuition was pushing me to work on. I always get a little boost of pride and drive when that happens and I wanted to harness it. At the same time I was feeling really overwhelmed with everything that I need to do in March. Time for playing around (not that I’ve really been doing a hell of a lot of that anyway) was over.

I started going back through my book of shadows and found a ritual I modified based off of this Forever Conscious post from May 2018.

It involves lighting three candles to represent Past/Present/Future. We then took note cards and meditated on what support we needed in each area. I remember also pulling tarot cards for clarification with each candle. This sparked an idea to work with Tarot and the Mind/Body/Spirit energy that will color March.

I decided to do this ritual before March to give me some guidelines and things to meditate on before I got swept up in the energy. I also really liked the simplicity of the ritual. I didn’t really prepare my space as much as I usually would if I was working with a ton of herbs and stones, I just cleared my mind, visualized a protective circle and let my intuition guide me.

Here is a walk through of what I did.

This ritual actually starts the night before the last quarter. I was called to go back to a guided meditation I did a while back. It’s called the Well of Remembering and I would recommend it to anyone practicing visualization. It paired well with this ritual because you ask the well three questions and it gives you three items in response. I was given a triangular headpiece (half black, half white), an abstract wooden wand, and a silver sickle. In the meditation I pictured using these items to cast a powerful protective barrier around me with the support of my loved ones. When preparing for my ritual, I gathered items in the real world to represent these visualizations.

In the photo below you can see my selenite wand in two halves which represents the sickle and my palo santo which I used to smudge my space and to represent the wooden wand. I also wore my opalite pendant on a black ribbon over my third eye to represent the headpiece.

I mention all of this because 1. It helped me channel my intuition in a big way and 2. It shows up in the reading later.

My deck is not a traditional tarot deck, it is a Dreams of Gaia deck where each suit is an element, very tailored to my personal practice. As I shuffled my tarot cards, I came across the card 4 of Fire. I told myself I would cut the deck and start my reading the next time I saw that card without thinking about it. I did see it once when shuffling again but I sought it out. The second time I spaced and it came to me. I knew it was time to begin my reading.

I lit my three candles, saying and visualizing Mind/Body/Spirit and what those three things mean to me. Then I laid out three cards face down, one in front of each candle.

I’ve gotten into the practice of looking at the bottom card of my deck before doing my tarot reading. I think I find it grounding or something (sometimes I pull from the bottom of the deck too, it all depends). When I flipped over the deck I got a jolt of energy. It was the 4 of Fire. It was spooky but sometimes the universe just gets you like that.

The 4 of Fire is all about focus as you forge your path ahead. It is an archer staring down the bow with intention and knowledge that their actions will pay off. Upside down it can warn about your expectations or planning falling short so I have a wary relationship with this card, but here- right side up and repeatedly prevalent- it seemed very promising.

I’m not going to go into what the other cards mean for me – that feels a little personal. But I will leave the image up and hopefully the intuitively inclined can glean some insight through the images. I did want to note two things about the reading though.

• Look at the final card which represents Spirit. The figure is holding a hammer and chisel and has a crown of gold protecting their head. This imagery was so close to what I visualized in my meditation, I saw it as reassurance from whatever spirits are out there. Something is looking out for me, I just have to trust.

• Both the mind and spirit card have a heavy emphasis on the seven chakras. Chakras have always played a huge part in my meditative practice and it has become a way for me to check in with my mind, body, and spirit. The cards are yelling at me to stay grounded through my own energy in the coming month. It is a rocky forecast, and doing this may be what makes the difference in sinking or swimming through a Mercury Retrograde in Pisces (my sun sign).

This was a personal reading but I hope some of what I wrote about will be helpful or enlightening to other people. If anyone out there is reading this who likes posts on tarot and wants to see more of that, please let me know!

I am definitely going to do more ritual tarot readings in the future. It helped boost the power of my reading while not zapping my energy completely. I felt connected to my magic in a gentle, loving way and who doesn’t want more of that in their life!

If you end up using any of this ritual inspiration in your own practice, please comment and let me know how it goes!

Sending out much love – Riss.