Tarot Cast • August 21st, 2017

Today’s the day. The North American solar eclipse is HAPPENING, people! Rachel over at Aeolian Heart wrote a post about what you should expect astrologically from this rare & romanticized event. Here’s a taster:

“Expect to contend with theatrical emotions, where the performance of one’s public persona (character, role, image and face) metamorphoses into newly hyperbolic grimaces of tragedy and comedy.”

Read more here. In the article, Rachel also asks a germane question, prompted by the Leonine vibe of the eclipse:

“What expression do I choose to wear in the face of fear & uncertainty?”

This week’s Tarot Cast goads you into answering this Q. In the first position, the Serenity card: the major key for retreat & introspection. Coincidentally (or fatefully), the Serenity card also corresponds with Virgo & Mercury, which are hella retrograde as of late. Mercury Retrograde is always an opportunity for a little retreat & soul-digging. (Read more about Mercury Retrograde over here.) 

In the description for this week’s Tarot Cast activity, I actually describe the line between “spiritual bypassing” the issues of the day & stepping back in order to get a longview of what’s happening… & your role in it all.

We’ve also got the 9 of Cups & The Starseed: 2 Major Arcana keys & my favorite card of the Cups suit. It’s going to be a beautiful, illuminating week, people.

💠 SERENITY.

MESSAGE: STEP BACK FOR A WIDER POINT-OF-VIEW.

The Serenity card in The Starchild Tarot is identical to The Hermit card of the Rider-Waite deck. It’s the key of spiritual retreat, introspection, & self-purification. The inner-resources you develop from taking yourself out of the heated debates du jour better equip you for dealing with the true-world experiences those discussions are supposedly about. Serenity is the opposite of self-righteousness.

💠 Nine of Cups.

MESSAGE: THE CIRCLE OF LOVE BEGINS & ENDS WITH YOU.

Numerologically, 9 is a hair’s breadth away from the end of the cycle, where the elements the suit refers to recycle back through the journey. Love, inspiration, & soulfulness flood & ebb dreamily from the Ace of Cups all the way to 10, its zenith of adoration, joy, & family harmony. We are prismatic thresholds for the Divine to shine on the world & the 9 of Cups symbolizes a self-aware contentment on matters of the heart. The expression of this card: beatific contentment. The 9 of Cups reflects the choice of letting the world notice your joy… of infusing your beliefs, feelings, & actions with love. Someone wearing the face of soul-satisfaction makes others suddenly realize how thirsty for joy they actually are. 

Hint: no one can give you love & joy. Your only option is to shine.

💠 The Starseed.

MESSAGE: REMEMBER. REMEMBER. YOU ARE NOT YOUR EGO.

Numerologically, The Starseed card corresponds to 0. The Starseed symbolizes the germ of your soul as it journeys through the cosmos, incarnating numerous times in several different dimensions, stockpiling conscious experience. 

The Starseed corresponds with The Fool in the Rider-Waite deck: the Innocent, the Beginner. Starseeds are new to this reality, but they’re genetically wiser: in previous lives in different cosmic realms, starseeds survived apocalypses. In some cases, they watched their home planets perish into voids. They’ve already been tasked to find the Truth about themselves in the face of horror & peril.   

In some ways, the Starseed also represents the End of the journey to Awakening, because even after you’ve amassed the experience & delicately crafted your persona (the tool you use to rudder your passage through this chaotic realm), you realize how much the persona handicaps your authentic, lightworking, joy-radiating starry-eyed Self.

If you at all identify (ironically) as a Starseed or a Lightworker (they’re one in the same), you might be feeling scattered. You might be feeling jabbed at & may be feeling a little jabby as well. Stepping back might seem irresponsible, like spiritually bypassing these huge concerns. The cause is righteous, after all!

If you’re feeling low energy--too low to even guess what sort of inspired action you can take on the issues--then read on for this week’s activity!

(Curious about this "Starseed" stuff? Bookmark this post to read later: 13 Signs You May Be A Starseed.)

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🌙

this week’s tarot cast action:

replace every minute spent in debate with one trivial, but enlightened action.

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Debate is masturbatory. I studied philosophy at university for 7 years--most of my adult life. Most of my closest friends were debate team members who grew up to become razor-toothed attorneys. Some of them defend people who did (& continue to do) bad things. Some of my friends prosecute people who got caught doing the right thing… though it went against the rules.

Unfortunately… yes, unfortunately… debate is the lifeblood of modern philosophy. Philosophy, which translates to For The Love Of Wisdom. 

Debate is the art & science of proving I Am Right. And the longer the debate, the less wise action taken. The only action debate inspires is action taken out of angst, rage, resentment, & desperation. 

These week’s cards fatefully align with what many of us are struggle against: the urge to feel right.

Because we are right. Right?

How can you tell the difference, if you’re stuck in the same roiling mass as the people standing on the opposite side of the issues?

To grow a little wiser, which is the spine of serenity, here’s the inspired action I suggest you take. For every single urge you feel to launch a Twitter war or argue with your friend’s racist uncle through a Facebook comment train, pop over to the ACLU & make a donation. Make a teensy donation right now, just to get the feel of it.

But why?! Why NOT debate? Why throw money at an organization that stays out of the debates happening on the sidelines, an organization which instead takes clear, well-formulated action to get in front of the people who need to hear the real score on what’s happening? An organization that gets supplies & resources to the people who need them, who in turn are now empowered to get supplies & resources to others who need them, thus bringing the invisible majority onto our radar?

If you don’t vibe with the ACLU in particular, donate to the organization that’s doing the actions you can’t be doing, given the constraints on your time, energy & focus. If you’ve got time to pick Twitter fights, perhaps you have time to volunteer on behalf of that organization that has the strength & momentum to make a bigger impact than merely enraging bystanders on the Internet.

Because no one is very impressed with the clicking you do to share a meme over Facebook or Twitter.

Serenity comes from having the strength to pull yourself out of the melee, no matter how attached to the outcomes of the conversation you are. Wisdom will not suddenly arise out of name-calling & attacking each other’s points of view… there is no other frame of reference.

In the Lightworker’s Guide, the reference book of The Starchild Tarot, the Serenity card’s message:

“You are waking up to a renewed sense of spirituality that is illuminating your life in new & vibrant ways. You may feel less inclined to share your thoughts & views with others, as you realize each person is on their own cosmic path to enlightenment.”

It is not spiritually bypassing the issues if you choose to turn off Twitter notifications. It is not spiritually bypassing the issues to respond to cruel remarks with a solemn retort: “That’s inappropriate.” “Unnecessary.” 

Take all that annoyance, anger, & other shadow-drama welling up inside you & channel it into where the biggest bubble of conscious intention as already amassed. Donate. Write a letter to your state senator. Ask a survivor of hate-crime or racist backlash, What do you need? I’ll bring it. Where can I help?

And if this post (or just the general vibe of the social climate) is getting to you, you can email me! I’ll do what I can to help spin the sitch for you. 

And let me sign-off bringing it full-circle with my household’s #songoftheday:

MEWITHOUTYOU, “THE SUN & THE MOON” 

Mine's been a vivid story, dimly remembered
And by the hundredth time it's told, halfway true
Of bad behavior well engendered
What good is each good thing we think we do?

Daniel broke the king's decree
Peter stepped from the ship to the sea
There was hope for Job like a cut down tree
I hope that there's such hope for me

Find a friend and stay close and with a melting heart
Tell them whatever you're most ashamed of
Our parents have made so many mistakes
But may we forgive them and forgive ourselves

All Tarot images via The Starchild Tarot by Danielle Noel.

Tarot Casting 101: How to Do Spell-Work With the Tarot 🔮✨

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!! ❤

Antidotes to Patriarchy: My Unsolicited Tips for Empowering Self-Care During the Post-Inaugural Craze

If you’re anything like me, you’ve had major FOMO this month. I admit, since the election, it's felt like one long bad day. I'm holding an ideological crisis at bay.

But in my actual real world experience? Nothing is ruined. I'm still the holy queen of my own psychic universe. Life is sweet & bright. Gratefully, at this point in my own journey unto sacred femme empowerment, I've gathered plenty of power-boosters; a cache of simple prescriptions to recalibrate my psychic pH & fight psychic toxicity. I call them Antidotes to Patriarchy.

Antidotes to Patriarchy are habits of self-care which empower the Feminine in my everyday reality. Antidotes stoke my creative fires, dampen the media noise, & stock more oomph in my tank.

And lately, I'm finding them crucial to staying on my grind. I've plugged alerts into my phone to ping throughout the day & remind me to apply an Antidote.

If the inaugural craze has you moving around in a cloud of funk, let me share some of the Antidotes I'm drawing on most right now!

💠 GET OUT OF REACTIVE MODE.

Reactivity is disempowering. Although Twitter makes you feel like you're participating in the convo, you're still only a bystander. Power down your TV. Temporarily delete your social media apps. Be constructive & find inspo instead. Block out time to light candles & just listen to music; to hand-write love notes to your friends; to daydream. Remember, you are responsible for your own experience. If you can't tangibly affect something that's affecting you in this mo', you're wasting vital energy. Store it up & channel it somewhere useful.

💠 GO ACTION-BY-ACTION.

Focus on follow through, not on debate. If you've got to make a point about something you read about (especially if it shows up in your social feeds), print it out, paste it into your diary, & scribble furiously about it until the urge the respond moves through you. Instead of masturbating your point of view & stoking the fires of hate-debate, use social media to alert people about the concrete actions you're taking. Why not read about the next 10 actions for the next 100 days (you can do this even if you didn’t join the Women's March) & update FB / Twitter whenever you complete an action? This is the only way to make sure the post-inaugural craze loses its crazy without losing its heat.

💠 SPEAK SOVEREIGN.

Sovereignty means taking responsibility for your beliefs, how you feel, & the way you act. Which means, not blaming what's happening on TV for why you won’t take care of yourself. Don't miss deadlines, skimp on chores, or otherwise let your life end up in the weeds. If you're feeling overwhelmed, say no to anything you don't need to take on right now. Stop posting on Twitter or FB that you're not eating or haven't showered. Commit to the belief that you do have power & exercise it where it matters most: maintaining your functionality.  

💠 FIND SOLUTIONS WITHIN YOURSELF.

Now is the time for idealists to give substance to their ideals. Step away from media & reflect: What can I personally do to counteract this political aggression? Even if it's as small as paying for the order of the person waiting behind you in line, start somewhere. Surprise yourself with what you can come up with & appreciate how gratifying it feels.

💠 TRANSFORM THE HEART OF SUFFERING.

If you're reading this, you might be empathetic by nature & upside down with overwhelm. Try Tonglen meditation: a technique where you breathe in the world's pain, then breathe out higher vibes. Pema Chodron, femme Buddhist extraordinaire,  talks about Tonglen meditation in this article. You can also follow along with Pema as she demonstrates Tonglen breathing in this video.

💠 LEVERAGE YOUR PRIVILEGE.

You have access, resources, & options. Use them mindfully. Give your money away to activists; donate time teaching English to Syrian refugees; post empowering poetry to your social feeds. Even if you’re a stay-at-home mom with limited bandwidth & cash on hand, you can still leverage your privilege through demonstration: your children are your witnesses. Claim boundaries. Never justify your needs. Let them see how you honor yourself & other people. 

💠 SELF-EDUCATE & GO INDEPENDENT.

Build a life that protects your vulnerabilities from the insanity of Patriarchy. Jen Dziura will get you squared away. Start here: How To Run Your Career Like A Gentlewoman. Charge up your laptop, grab a notebook, your favorite pen, then tuck away into a cafe with a huge cup of coffee for a few hours of binge-reading. Trust me--this binging will feel 1,000x more gratifying than what you've been doing on news blogs, because you will take away plenty of actionables.

And, frankly, that's what you really need: actionable information.

So... the election. The inauguration. Yeah, it's a bummer. Shocking. Crazy-making.

But you're not disempowered. If you feel that way, you've self-selected it. Let the gross feelings move through you instead of anchoring you down.

Remember, attention is intention. Continue ritualizing the Yin, demonstrating self-authority, & creating what you need by taking ownership of what’s truly your's: your time, attention, & energy.

Reclaim your psychic space. Don't trivialize your power by focusing it on Twitter, Facebook, & broadcast TV. Put your attention towards whatever gives you the greatest agency.

What are you doing to stay well during the craze? Tweet it me!

Stay brave,