Tarot Casting 101: How to Do Spell-Work With the Tarot 🔮✨
Tarot Casting is like creative visualization on meth. 😳 Find here all the basics for doing spell-work with your tarot deck! Featured: the Starchild Tarot Deck by Danielle Noel ❤
All Tarot images via The Starchild Tarot by Danielle Noel
Tarot Casting is like creative visualization on meth.
In popular magic craft, spell casting uses herbs, minerals, flowers, & synthemata corresponding with deities to energize an intention. Citrine for courageous shadow work. A sliced apple for self-love & beauty. Et cetera.
Tarot Casting uses symbolism to energize an intention. Imagery is a mainline to the subconscious of the spell-caster, so Tarot Casting doesn’t require any hardware other than a card deck… unless extra hardware is how you want to roll.
In this post, I’m going to tell you the step-by-step I use to perform my weekly Tarot Casts, so you can also start using the Tarot to energize your intentions!
HOW I CAST SPELLS WITH THE TAROT
All Tarot images via The Starchild Tarot by Danielle Noel
At the top of every week, I pull 3 cards from The Starchild Tarot to energize an intention. I come at each week’s Tarot Cast asking a version of the same intention, which I phrase as a Q: How can I unlock more beauty, power, or wisdom?
For me, Beauty + Power + Wisdom = the Goddess Trifecta. Anything I can do to bring more Beauty-Power-Wisdom into my life is good, because I can transfer more Beauty-Power-Wisdom into the world. In my quest for raising hella Goddess consciousness, I require maximal Bee-Pee-Dub.
I jot down a few notes on the pulled cards in my planner-grimoire & if I need to, I check the reference book. Finally, I publish my weekly Tarot Casts at the top of the HellaNamaste homepage, explaining the messaging of the individual cards & the overall aesthetic. I also include an easy activity for applying the insights, which I plug into my planner-grimoire, so I actually do it.
The Tarot activity is mondo important to me. Our life’s circumstances morph constantly & the Tarot insights from this week won’t stay fresh forever. You’ve got to ground Divine inspo IRL ASAP or else the intention starts losing its juice.
So, I follow-up every Tarot Cast with a little real-world action. I do what I can to make the insights tangible & transferrable.
I use The Starchild Tarot, because the Major Arcana cards are interpreted steps on a journey to Awakening. Each card is a key unlocking a new phase of our evolution towards cosmic consciousness. The Minor Arcana interprets the feeding & fueling of our soul through ordinary functions & experiences. I’m totally on the bandwagon about Starseeds & Lightworkers incarnating on Earth after evolving through several lifetimes in other galaxies, & I believe imagery does help unlock our genetic memory about those others lifetimes. (Are you a Starseed? Find out here.)
HOW TO CAST YOUR OWN SPELLS WITH THE TAROT…
All Tarot images via The Starchild Tarot by Danielle Noel
There are 2 different ways you can cast a spell a.k.a. energize an intention with the Tarot—let me tell you about both!
The Tarot reading process I mainly use is divinatory. Meaning, I draw cards at random, by fate alone, then infer the right actions to follow-up with. It’s a bit like working conscientiously with random selection, which definitely vibes with my sensibility about magic & synchronicity.
Here's how to get started…
✨ step one: Decide on your intention
Every spell you cast with the Tarot will implicitly answer a question. Your Q can be very general (What can I do this week to raise hella Goddess vibes?) to specific & retrospective (What did I do to get so ____? Fill in the blank with the desired outcome.) Write the question down in your diary, grimoire, or on an index card that you’ll pop into your planner or pin onto your vision board. Some babes use Desire Mapping to figure this out. Some use their mission statement as their guide. Some deconstruct the best stanza in their favorite poem. Just figure out 3-5 keys to your soul-growth, then phrase them as a question directed at the cards.
✨ step two. Grab your Tarot deck & create a container
You don’t have to pull out all the stops you normally would for a full-out ritual, but you should switch up the room’s ambiance. Light candles, pin a mandala tapestry on the wall, shake your hair out of its top-knot. Pick a spot & start shuffling the deck. Phrase your intention as a question as you fan out the cards facedown. Select 3 cards at random, drawn with your left hand. You can select more than 3 (& maybe you should, if so compelled), but for me, any more is too much info to sort through.
✨ step three: Flip your selected cards face-up
What catches your eye first? This is where I start jotting down notes. Try gathering as much info as you can before referencing your guidebook. When you do flip through the guidebook, note key phrases, plus astrological, gemstone, & deity correspondences. (The Lightworker’s Guidebook that comes with The Starchild Tarot does this--& creator Danielle Noel is soon publishing a bigger guide!) This takes as long as it takes, which is why I keep my Casts to a 3-card maximum.
✨ step four: Decide on your follow-up actions
Rarely have I found that Tarot insights needed to gel. If you’re totally clueless, re-shuffle the cards & draw again or read someone else’s interpretation of the cards’ messages. (Try Tarot Wikipedia.)
Your Tarot Cast activity should be something you can break down into a couple of tasks & shouldn’t overwhelm you or bump you off your weekly grind.
If you’re dealing with Minor Arcana cards, you can pretty quickly guess which aspect of ordinary life the cards are speaking to. (Swords correspond with our beliefs & mental life, Cups correspond with relationships & intuition, Wands correspond with enterprises & creativity, & Crystals / Pentacles correspond with ordinary daily doings.). Major Arcana cards will speak to broader, transformational experiences.
If you pulled only Minor Arcana cards, you can bet the activity should challenge your ordinary approach to how you do things. If you’re dealing with all Majors, your actions should put you into a certain kind of experience, where you’ll be tasked to build or draw on an inner-resource, like serenity, self-authority, or clarity.
A mixture of the 2 indicates that you can use an ordinary aspect of life to create a Major experience that will evolve you deeper.
✨ step five: Write the follow-up actions on the back of your index card or begin plotting them out in your planner
Before breaking the circle, schedule when you’re going to take the action & decide how you’re going to reward yourself when it’s complete. (Incentives produce mad synchronicity.)
✨ step six: Once the activity is followed-up on, journal it!
Get it down fast! You can’t reflect & integrate the insights until you do. Once the feelings produced by taking the action have passed, you lose clarity!
USING SPECIFIC CARDS IN YOUR TAROT CASTS…
All Tarot images via The Starchild Tarot by Danielle Noel
Sometimes the outcome is more vivid to you than an intention. You feel it & want to strum that vibe.
In that case, random card-selection might not cut it for you. You need to go directly to the cards that sympathize with that vibe.
You can do this 2 ways.
🌟 THE FIRST WAY: You could fan your cards out face-up & select the ones you vibe with. This might take as long as 8 seconds & you might draw between 3-5 cards. You can jot down notes about what on the cards feels on-point with your intended outcome, then deconstruct their commonality.
🌟 THE SECOND WAY: Or you can draw cards that formally correlate with your intended outcome. Sasha Graham has written a book to help with that: 365 Tarot Spells. This article over at Biddy Tarot & this one at Llewellyn Worldwide have a couple quick references to help you choose the right cards for your intention, but all you really need is your deck’s guidebook. Flip through & set page markers on the cards that sound just right. Separate the winners out from the rest of your deck.
Once you have the cards, use them to charge the intention! If you’ve already created a sacred circle, you need to concentrate on the cards. Fully. Cleave away the usual banal mental chatter, the ping-ponging emotional reactions, & let the cards do what they’re designed to do: imprint your subconscious. Now your intention is auto-piloting your life, aligning you with the circumstances that produce sympathetic resonances which will orchestrate your desired outcome.
Hella synchronicity. ✨✨✨
WHAT ELSE CAN YOU DO TO REINFORCE THE CARD’S IMPRINT…?
All Tarot images via The Starchild Tarot by Danielle Noel
Why don’t you...
Stack the cards & set a piece of sun-charged quartz on top, then carry the stone in your pocket & sleep with it under your pillow ✨ snap a pic of the cards with your phone (Instagram flatlay style) & set it as your lock screen ✨ scan the cards into your computer, print onto cardstock, then trim them down to clip inside your planner ✨ combine symbols from all the cards into a sigil, then draw the sigil in your planner, diary, on your lecture notes, & pin it to your vision board ✨ meditate on the cards in a new moon ritual
For Tarot Casting, you’re relying on the resonance generated within you to power you towards what you want. The conscious & subconscious minds flex with one another.
For anything truly specific, you need a strong psychic link. That’s why many witchy babes use correspondences or synthemata, like herbs, crystals, & flowers. Some even use hair or nail clippings. I explain more about correspondences & synthemata in this post, but they’re definitely not required for run-of-the-mill Tarot Casting.
When I incorporate the Tarot into bigger rituals (for bigger, more specified intention-setting), I photocopy the cards onto cardstock, so I can drip oils on them or even burn them up in my mini cauldron. I always mention the Tarot in my monthly Goddess Moon Magic posts, along with correspondences, synthemata, & other hardware you can use in a new moon ritual or with a particular Goddess.
OKAY SO—you now have everything you need to start casting your own spells with the Tarot!
If you have questions about the grammar & inner-workings of the Tarot, send me an email! I’ll answer you directly, & also use your Qs to inform the next few posts & offerings I have planned for bringing more of the Tarot into your life!
In the meantime, may all your private tarot-magical rituals be lit AF!! ❤
13 Signs You're A Starseed (& What to Do About It If You Are)
"Star-seed?" Ya, like, an alien. An alien incarnated here to help restore the karmic balance of the human species. Totally serious.
.Gifs via Ignacio Torres. Visit his portfolio here.
Starseeds are basically like mercenary wisdom warriors. Originally from other star systems, they've incarnated on Earth to seed a new consciousness. They're spiritual overachievers and totally allergic to low-vibrational conventional living, a.k.a. Muggle life.
I suspect most star witches are starseeds. Both feel as if they were born with mission statements coded in their DNA. Star witches and starseeds are wiser, more sensitive, and less beguiled by Earthly drama. Our moxie manifests as a life-serving pragmatism to raise hella sweeter, brighter vibes (as opposed to typical self-serving ambition).
Low vibes are hella toxic for the typical starseed, which is why both really care about fengshui'ing their lives around high vibrational activities and people.... not that they're always successful.
So, you already know you’re a cosmic babe, but are you also a starseed? The 13 signs below will help you figure it out. 💫
And of course, because you are a cosmic babe, you'll want to know what to do about your starseed status. I also have tips and resources for activating your latent abilities!
YOU MIGHT BE A STARSEED IF….
.Gifs via Ignacio Torres. Visit his portfolio here.
You’re purposeful
You may even call it an “existential kink.” You’re nettled by a soul urge, a restlessness to fulfill some sort of mission. You’re not killing time asking questions like, “What’s the meaning of life?” You’re finding clarity with action.
You’re prone to saying (or feeling), “I want to go home”
But not home, per se. You’re not missing yo’ momma or a place where you keep your stuff. Your “home” is larger than life. Starseed homesickness is a meta-craving impossible to satisfy. Your only hope is channeling the longing into creativity, fulfilling your mission, and raising hella vibes while you’re here.
You are sufferingly empathetic
You may have consciously tried hardening your heart to human suffering. Or you may feel weak and like you’re caving into your spongy anahata chakra-zone. In either case, you’re sensitive to suffering and trying to manage how it affects you.
You are hyper-perceptive
It’s like your awareness enlarges to encompass the space you’re in and all the other people in proximity to you. You know what people are talking about, even if out of earshot. You sense your roommate’s mood when she’s in the other room. You can “feel” the neighbor’s dog pawing at the fence and the house noiselessly shifting its weight. Most star seeds overwhelm easily or suffer certain types of anxiety, like social anxiety or agoraphobia, if they haven’t learned to integrate all this subtle data flooding them.
You might also have a photographic memory, an ability to visualize finely-detailed imaginary people and objects, and have a SUPER fast learning curve.
This may be why you’re gifted in subjects like astronomy, physics, and philosophy, even if you’re more interested in creative subjects.
You are naturally punk rock
Have you ever heard yourself say something like, “I’m not going the speed limit because it’s a rule, this just feels like the right speed to go at”? Authority (whether it’s your boss, your class instructor, or “society”) gets under your skin more than ANYTHING. You simply resent hierarchies and the idea that human beings formally subjugate each other.
You’re an insightful problem-solver
Star seeds are “wisdom warriors” for a reason. Whether it’s finding a solution to a friend’s unique relationship problem or figuring out how to sync the universal remote to the TV, you’re a natural creative analyst.
You resent feeling disappointed or bored
Not to say you tend to be bored—you’re the kind of person who trembles at the beauty of a ladybug crawling up a dewy dandelion stem. Life is brills, right? Which is why you resent getting sucked into cul-de-sacs of low-vibe feelings, like disappointment or boredom. Inspiration easily cures you.
Your inner-thermostat is set to “wonky”
You slip into a sweatshirt and socks while your roommate is throwing open the windows. You feel chills about a half-hour before sunset. Star seeds feel uncomfortably cooler than everyone else around them. No one can really explain why.
You were a solitary child
Sure, you were probably friendly and conscientious of the other children’s feelings, but always felt out of place amongst the group. Parents and teachers might have described you as more thoughtful or called you an old-soul. A few bonafide star seeds have told me they were on the opposite end of feeling out of place: they alienated other kids by getting too rambunctious. Whatever the scenario, you were an odd duck.
You’re irresistible to little children and animals
Even if you’ve got ambivalent feelings about such creatures, they beeline for you! Toddlers make eyes at you in the grocery store and library. You’ve heard at least a couple times, “I can’t believe she’s letting you pet her! She usually hides under the couch until guests leave!”
You lived through a traumatic even or series of events
Some people who met you much later on might be surprised to learn you’d lived through it—they’d never suspect it! I actually believe many of us “blueprint” the lives we incarnate into. We specifically choose a lot of rough ’n tumble early on to psychologically prep us for the higher-order work we want to perform later on. It may also activate soul-memories and latent genetic abilities that we wouldn’t be able to access without intensive meditative training.
You’ve also had CRAZY mystical experiences!
Maybe it was a UFO sighting, prophetic dreams, or conversations with otherworldly creatures.
I’M A STARSEED! IT’S SO CRAZY! 🙀 NOW WHAT DO I DO?
.Gifs via Ignacio Torres. Visit his portfolio here.
That’s awesome! ☺️🙌🏻 Obviously, you recognize by now that you've got special needs and intentions. You've got to be very, very conscientious about how you create your life: starting from your basic daily routines and scaling upwards to how you plan to figure out and then fulfill your mission.
✨ The very first thing to do: CLAIM IT
Tell people, "I'm here to make the world a better place" Excuse yourself from situations, relationships, and conversations bogged down by analytical details. Link up with other cosmic babes to share your story and support other star seeds on their journey. Don't feel ashamed, guilty, or afraid to set yourself apart from the righteous, self-loathing status quo. If you're deliberate and start walking your talk ASAP, other people's reactions won't matter.
Create a vision of who you want to be: the starry girl beholden to no one. To become her, what do you have to start believing? What should your self-talk sound like? What do you have to feel? How should you react to heavy emotions?
And most crucially, how do you have to behave today, and everyday after this, to eventually think, feel, and act like that person... automatically?
Here’s a blog post all about the different ways you can draft, craft, and publish a mission statement: basically a beautiful creative project that helps you outline, refine, and articulate your purpose, and even plot its unfolding over specific chapters of your life!
✨Next, ACT like it—Action creates its own authority
Ownership is sovereign. Owners get to make the choices that shape all ensuing circumstances and events. If you believe you have a spiritual mission encoded in your DNA, you’d prefer using your privilege (the same you’re enjoying right now to access and luxuriate with this blog post) in creating a life-path serving your bigger purpose, versus allowing “the world” set the rules and conditions for your life.
Sovereignty is bearing total responsibility for who you are and how you live.
Once named and claimed, who’s in charge of it: your core message, intentions, and must-haves for fulfilling that intention?
I’m actually talking about the first steps of spiritual freedom. Freedom means letting other people (your parents, teachers, "society") off the hook for fulfilling your own purpose. Remember, you’re here to work.
If it doesn't cohere with who you want to be, let it go and let it be.
The sooner you take ownership of your experience, the more time, focus, and energy you can channel into your purpose here on Earth.
For more on this topic, visit this post: My Rules For Sovereignty: How To Become The Holy Queen Of YOUR Psychic Universe.
✨ Finally, create a well, purpose-driven LIFESTYLE
It's all on you to establish best lifestyle practices that will 1) keep your vibes high and flowy, 2) help you quickly metabolize spiritual blocks, and 3) commit you to stay on a steady drip of daily inspiration.
Pragmatism and proactivity set cosmic babes with starseed lineages apart. High vibe livin' is a deliberate choice you don't fall into. Start by subtracting ordinary habits from your daily routine, like Netflix, Facebook, or gaming. Replace the activity with an introspective activity, like writing in your diary or talking out loud into the Voice Memo app on your smartphone.
Answer the question: Who do I want to be? How do I want my life to feel? What do I want to do? Why am I here? Dig deep.
Once you start breaking up the top soil, you'll start realizing all the seemingly trivial ways you've been undermining your naturally magnanimous capacity.
Before adding Netflix, et al., back into your day-to-day, mix in some fresh new lifestyle habits, like meditation, creativity, or volunteerism.
Start establishing smart, nourishing habits and routines, so you keep at a low burn of high vibes!
✨ claim it, own it, then take care of it!
What exactly is "low-vibe drama"? Trivially, it's the need to justify yourself, explain your motivations, or earn validation. Low-vibe drama can be totally self-destructive though, manifesting as a victim complex, chemical and emotional co-dependency, and rage against the low-consciousness status quo.
Sounds pretty normal, in a way, amirite?
Just because you’re from a star does NOT mean you’ve got an edge on the un-Awakened. You are just as susceptible to the low-vibe drama you’re here to heal. If you weren’t here to learn as well as help, you wouldn’t be here. (You’d be a spirit guide or some other type of spiritual parole officer like that.)
If you are going through low-vibe drama, initiate the healing process! Perform banishing rituals (I talk all about my first banishing ritual here), visit an energy healer, then get a therapist to help you figure out the patterns you're stuck in.
THEN, start living your purpose!
Starseeds… ACTIVATE! ✊🏻💫
OTHER WAYS OF ACTIVATING YOUR STARSEED SENSES… 💎✨
.Gifs via Ignacio Torres. Visit his portfolio here.
What else can you do to raise hella starshine in your life?
🌟 Are you a witchy starseed? You might be a star witch.✨ Visit that post for the 411 on star witchery (basically, astrological magic), and how to start using star witchery tuh-day!
🌟 I love the Starseed Activation video! It's like falling in love! Also, listen to frequency 528Hz. These tones hum at a frequency that unleashes intergalactic genetic memories!
🌟 Feel a spiritual Awakening coming on? ✨ Ash's Tumblr organizes all the flurrying questions of the starseed experience and spiritual awakening. I've linked to the Awakening Tips page, but also check out the Helpful Links and FAQ pages
🌟 Which type of starseed are you? Also, learn about the 5 Alien Species That Are Already On Our Planet. Which one resonates?
🌟 Also, how to find your pleiadian starseed markings,⚡️, and what’s the link between starseeds and rH negative blood type? 🤔
🌟 Here it is: a full write-up on the conversation linking starseed lineages with Atlantis and Lemuria, because it exists.
🌟 Okay, but what’s the difference between a starseed and a lightworker? This article dives in.
🌟 And just FYI: What are the 7 signs of a lightworker? (Read as: what are the 7 types of lightworker.)
🌟 Wait—what are we doing here, exactly? Here’s some starseed lore expounding on the extraterrestrial caretaking of humanity, specific to Sirian starseeds. 💫
🌟 Lol, this is what the starseed forums are referencing when they get salty and start calling each other “lizard person.”
🌟 Want to hear some starseed "coming out" stories? A few of my favs: Gigi Young: My Starseed Story, Ma Nithya Swarupapriyananda: A Personal Story of Awakening, and Katya from IndigoDiaries.com: My Starseed Story
🌟 Pressed Against A Star (a poem for longing to be home), by Danielle LaPorte
🌟 Also, the Starchild Tarot by Danielle Noél. Perfect pairing: The Book of Tarot: A Guide for Modern Mystics, also by the artist. I have posted images of my tarot readings with the Starchild Tarot, Akashic Edition in this post about getting started with astrological tarot, as well as all over HellaNamaste (you’re welcome ✨), and my starry heart can barely keep from exploding.
Bookmark this post or the links I directed you to, and visit whenever you need a cosmic boost! I'll update and re-share this post as I add newer starseed resources .
Do you happen to know of any other excellent starseed resources? Hit me up over email! 🙌🏻✨
