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Tarot Card Rituals
15 Plays4 months ago
In this episode of the show, Karen speaks about approaching your work and play with the Tarot in a reverent manner, one that moves it from enjoyable pastime to sacred ritual. She shares not three, but four specific processes, each of which can nourish the spirit, and move you into sacred space with yourself.
If you would like to learn the Tarot in person with Karen in Albury, check out the Courses and Events on her webpage here. If online training suits you better, check out the current offering here.
Karen offers in person and online sessions from her garden studio in Albury. You can check availability here.
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Transcript
Introduction to Tarot Rituals
00:00:16
Speaker
Hello, Karen here from Soulful and Wild. And we're gonna talk about tarot card rituals today. Now, you're probably aware that I am a mad tarot lover. And I've been reading the tarot for about 30 years. Actually, it's 30 years this year. And I've been involved in spiritual things for well before then, really, as many of us have here. But today, talking about
00:00:45
Speaker
some sacred rituals that we can do with the tarot. Now, I guess the thing is, working with the tarot is a spiritual practice from my perspective, not so for everybody. It's a little bit like some people who are artists treat their paints and the process of the creation of an artwork.
00:01:15
Speaker
like a spiritual undertaking. And for me, reading the tarot is the same. So a lot of this is about intention. So I'm going to try and fit in three different rituals that
Daily Tarot Practice
00:01:30
Speaker
you can do. We'll see how we go time wise. Now, the first one may sound a little simple, but it is not a mundane thing.
00:01:39
Speaker
a daily tarot card practice. So I'm going to describe to you how I think this can be done and made a sacred practice or a sacred ritual, if you will. Now, I don't know if you have ever been into an old church or an ancient cathedral. If you do go into a place like that where people have prayed,
00:02:08
Speaker
and honoured God and taken their woes and their hopes and their dreams and sat with those in silence and in prayer. You know, you don't wander into a place like that. It has its own energy, its own vibration. And when you enter into it, you move into that space yourself. And I would suggest that when you do your daily tarot card practice,
00:02:37
Speaker
and you make that a ritual that you enter into it the same way that you would if you entered into an ancient cathedral with a sense of reverence, yeah? You're not gonna walk in there stomp, stomp, stomp with your muddy old gumboots and your dirty, you know, top on. You're gonna go in clean, clear with that real sense of reverence is probably the best word to use.
00:03:07
Speaker
So there are so many benefits to a daily tarot card practice and you can just make it part of your life, right? So I recommend that you have a very special tarot deck that you use for that. If you've just got one deck, then, you know, you will use that for everything. But if you can, if you happen to have a collection of tarot decks, because you've caught the bug and it is a bug,
00:03:34
Speaker
It's kind of a fun bug, but you might end up 50 before you know what's happened to you. You might choose to have one deck in particular that you use for this practice and you might keep it in a special place. Perhaps you have a special table that you turn into kind of like an altar or your sacred place where you can build that energy of communing with spirit just the way you would
00:04:04
Speaker
if you were sitting on a particular cushion, if you did a meditation on a daily basis or went to church for prayer. So with that right head space, with the right energy, you are going to shuffle your cards, boom, boom, boom. And I recommend that you drop the deck into three piles, moving towards your left, boom, boom, boom.
00:04:31
Speaker
And then you put those piles back together into one, but you put them in a different order. So you sort of mixing it up a bit, then cut the deck in half and then allow your, your awareness to draw, be drawn to one pile or the other and use that pile to select your card from. And you know, that pile that you, you choose, I'd spread the cards face down on your table or your altar.
00:04:59
Speaker
and either allow your hand to run above the cards and just be drawn to one in particular, or you might scan with your eyes across the cards, and one card will draw your attention, and that's the one that you choose. And of course, before you select the card, you're holding that thought in your mind, or you might actually say it out loud, what?
00:05:28
Speaker
What wisdom is available to me today? And then choose the card or what teaching. You can actually fine tune this a little bit to suit yourself. But I think they're quite nice ones. What wisdom can I be shown today or what wisdom can I be given today? I'd suggest that you have your own tarot journal, a special book,
00:05:59
Speaker
And once you've selected the card, give yourself a few minutes of space in which to do this. And look at that card and just sit with it. Take a couple of breaths perhaps. You might actually, that's a really great idea. If you take three lovely deep breaths, not too deep. You don't want to hyperventilate, but three lovely deep breaths.
00:06:26
Speaker
naturally deep breaths, perhaps before you ask the question and choose the card. So that's probably the nicest thing to do. What it does is it creates space for this new information to come in. And yeah, so take your breaths, then select, you know, ask the question, then select the card, and then you are tuning into the card and you can just
00:06:53
Speaker
allow your eyes to fall to the image and just notice what comes up to meet you. And you might get one particular symbol from within that card, really jumps out to you first. So pay attention to that. And as you sit with it, just for a few moments, allow whatever is there to come. All right? You don't have to turn this into a great big thing, but be still with it. And
00:07:25
Speaker
Allow the card to speak to you. You'd notice a colour, any particular symbols there, what's the picture about. And you might get a sentence or two, you might get a lot more. You may just get one word. Write that down in your journal. Write it down. Then pop your cards away. I like to leave that card that I've chosen standing upright so that when I come home, I can see it there. And at the end of the day,
00:07:55
Speaker
When you've got a moment, whether you're having a little cup of tea or a glass of water before you go to bed, go back to your tarot cards and to your journal. Pick up the card again and have a think about the day. Just revisit it and just consider how this card has shown up for you, how the message has shown up for you.
00:08:20
Speaker
have a read of what you wrote in the morning. Just see if there's anything else that you can add to it. I'm sure there will be if you sit with this for a few moments. Now this does two things. It gets you really familiar with the cards themselves. It gives you an opportunity to gather to yourself your own symbols, your own meanings for each of the cards
00:08:50
Speaker
And it does bring teaching to you reflection opportunities and wisdom. All right. Wisdom to you. These tarot cards, you know, they really are quite magical in the sense that they, they bring information to you. They can teach you so much about who you are, how you're operating and how you respond.
00:09:18
Speaker
where you're triggered, all sorts of wonderful learning can come to you through these images. So a Dali tarot card practice. And I would suggest that every day, every day of the week for a set period of time, you might do it for 12 months. And if you keep a record in your book for a whole year,
00:09:44
Speaker
Just a simple practice like this, seemingly simple. You'll actually learn a lot about yourself and knowledge is power. You know, when we know who we are, it's so much easier to interact with others, be present and be compassionate with
Tarot Feng Shui
00:10:01
Speaker
them. But this is for you. Yeah. And it is all about the way you show up to do this and the meaning that you give it.
00:10:13
Speaker
So that is practice number one, the daily tarot card practice. Now the other thing is let's call it tarot feng shui, all right. Now I imagine that you either have an interest in the tarot, you are a tarot reader or you'd like to know more about the tarot. Now
00:10:38
Speaker
Whether you know lots about it or not, we both know that you can easily access what a tarot card, it's meaning, it's standardized meaning is. You can Google that, you can follow me on TikTok. There's lots and lots of ways. You've probably got a book at home. If not, you can get one. There's heaps of stuff on the internet about the tarot card meanings.
00:11:07
Speaker
Look at your home and the things that you want to have happen there. Now I imagine that you know what Feng Shui is. It's about the use of symbols and the placement of things in your home to move energy through your home in a way that is beneficial for you and your intentions for your place. So you can actually use
00:11:33
Speaker
the tarot card images or a symbol that represents the tarot card archetype and place that in certain parts of your house to create the energy that you're seeking. I'll tell you a funny story. I live in a very small little house and which I adore. I think they call them Shouses. It's sort of a shed house, really cool, fun. And so it's smallish, but
00:12:03
Speaker
perfect for me. And when I was building this little place, I thought, OK, I want to lay the right energy down, right down from the very beginning. So what I did is I got a tarot deck and I sat with the tarot and I thought about what was going to be happening in my home, what I wanted to have happen, how I wanted things to be in my office this space here.
00:12:34
Speaker
What's the energy that I wanted this space to hold? What energy should be resident in this room, in this part of my home, to really bring my work to life and make it be beneficial to individuals and groups and to the world, to the collective?
00:13:00
Speaker
So I had to think about that and I thought about all the different cards and what it could be. And then I actually consulted the tarot in the traditional way. I asked the question after shuffling the cards and really being in the right space and I selected a card. And yeah, so I did that for each area of the house. So for example, in the kitchen, I chose the sun card.
00:13:31
Speaker
because the sun is about health and vitality and energy and joy. And I thought that is the perfect energy for me to have in the kitchen area. And so I chose a card for each area of the home, even the front entrance, the verandas. On my back veranda, I have an area for sitting and having cups of tea and chats, you know, a couple of chairs and a little table in between.
00:14:01
Speaker
And I've got a lovely old timber table with some bench seats on the other end of the veranda where, you know, friends gather for meals. Sometimes I'll do a little bit of work out there, but mostly it's about social gatherings and family gatherings that happen there. So I was thinking about that and I thought, yeah, you know, the nine of cups, perfect.
00:14:30
Speaker
people sitting at a table, some of the decks anyway, I was thinking about a particular deck and it shows people sitting there at the table with the goblets and the plates and they're all sharing food. And I thought, yeah, perfect. That's exactly what I want. The 10 of cups actually went into the lounge room, into that lounge area. Now what I did is I actually selected those cards and when they were laying the foundation for this place,
00:14:59
Speaker
I went and put the tarot cards in underneath the metal stuff that they pour the concrete onto. And I spoke to the builder and ensured that he wouldn't let the concrete as remove the cards. So the foundation of this house has these tarot cards in them. Now that's a very literal way of doing it. And I had the opportunity to do that, so of course I did.
00:15:29
Speaker
but we can do that by literally placing a card in the room, leaning it up against a little crystal. You can get these gorgeous little timber tarot card holders where you can actually sit the bottom of the card into a slit in the timber and it'll just sit there beautifully.
00:15:57
Speaker
The other thing that you can do is you can look at your tarot card and pick out a particular symbol. For example, with this one, the Temperance card, you could put two vases, you know, two bud vases or two goblets on a bench or a window sill as a representation of the tarot card. So tarot feng shui, why the heck not?
00:16:25
Speaker
I mean, not everybody wants to have a poster of a tarot card or have one stuck on the wall or the back of the door or something. So there's a lot of different ways you can do that. But what that does do is it brings the energy that you're seeking to really have emanate through the space into the space in a very practical, literal way. So that's a lovely ritual that you can do because you can
00:16:53
Speaker
think about it, you can make a list, you can do a meditation on how you want things to be, say for example in your bedroom. If you want beautiful sleep, if you want intimate love-making happening in that room, then you might choose something like The Lovers. I've got a gorgeous painting on the wall in my bedroom and it's not The Lovers card, I've got that
00:17:23
Speaker
in the foundation, but on the wall I've actually got a painting above the bed that shows a man and a woman laying down next to each other, relaxing against a haystack. It's a famous painting, I can't remember what it's called now. And they're just reclining together on this haystack. You know, the work has been done, so it's rest time. You can do it in that way. And they are obviously a couple, so
00:17:53
Speaker
That's a wonderful one to do, something like that. So there's lots of ways you can bring the symbology, but it's the way you do it. So you can meditate on what you want to have happening in that room, imagine it. You can go through the cards one by one, thinking about holding that idea and that energy and go through one at a time, looking at them and really reflect on each card
00:18:21
Speaker
which of these cards holds that energy or brings that feeling to you in your body, you know, in your heart. And then that will be the one that you'll use. So, so you can do it that way. You can shuffle the cards, hold the question in your mind and pick a card with your left hand as you would as though you were doing a reading. That's a more traditional way of doing it, but many ways
00:18:50
Speaker
It's all about the energy you bring, how you hold yourself, yeah? Okay, so we've done the daily tarot card practice. We've done the tarot feng shui.
Three-Card Spread for Clarity
00:19:02
Speaker
Now, the three cards spread. Think about a situation that you wanna bring more light to, okay? Or more clarity to. What is it that you wanna bring more light
00:19:21
Speaker
or more clarity too. And in exactly the way I described with the other two, your intention, the energy that you're holding, basically this is a three-card spread. That's the issue. You choose three cards. The first card, card number one, shows the past. What has caused this to be an issue?
00:19:49
Speaker
Card number three, so that's card number one. Card number three is, card number two is, oh my goodness. So number one, the past of the situation. Card number two, the current situation. And card number three, the action that you need to take. That's one way to do it. The second way to do it, this is why I got confused, is
00:20:20
Speaker
Position number one is what the situation is. So that this first card represents what the situation is that you need to bring light or clarity to. Position number two is kind of the bridging card. It's the action that you need to take to get the clarity. And the third card, card number three, is the outcome.
00:20:48
Speaker
it's how it will be when the light is there, when the clarity is received. So I've given you two different ways to resolve a hidden agenda really.
Tarot for Dream Commitment
00:21:03
Speaker
So a practice, a ritual action, an action that you take, a three-card spread to
00:21:11
Speaker
work out how to resolve a problem or to bring more light in, more clarity into the situation. OK, so that's three things. Let's do a fourth. We've got time for a fourth. I don't know if you've taken notes on this, but you can reflate the podcast. So this is a tarot commitment to your dreams. Now, dreams are funny things.
00:21:40
Speaker
people get a little bit weird about making a commitment to a dream. Don't mind me, it's a little bit warm where I am today. Now, when we make a commitment to a dream, we're basically making a promise to ourselves that we're going to take action. So getting clear about what our dream is,
00:22:10
Speaker
Our major dream, not a pie in the sky idea or a hope or a wish, but a commitment to a dream. When we make a commitment, we're basically making a promise to take action. That's why people get a bit freaked out about it. So, how do we do that? A tarot commitment to your dreams. Number one, you need to get clear about what that dream actually is.
00:22:40
Speaker
What is that dream? So obviously you're going to drop yourself into a really calm, relaxed place. So you might like to do that with me now. So just get really comfortable wherever you are. If you're driving, don't do this. But if you're still somewhere and you have the opportunity, you might like to close your eyes, take a couple of lovely relaxing breaths.
00:23:09
Speaker
allowing your awareness to travel with your breath. Just breathing into your body and releasing that breath naturally and easily. And just keep breathing and relaxing. Just let your awareness travel with the breath as you breathe in and as you breathe out. Just gentle, gentle breathing.
00:23:39
Speaker
And you'll find that your mind does settle and you do get a little bit calmer. If you want to get too calm, just enough. Yeah. And just let your mind begin to move, to float, to travel, to wander into dreamland and
00:24:07
Speaker
In your dream land, you might find that there are clouds that move or mist. And as you breathe gently and easily, that mist or the clouds begins to shift. And as it does, you'll notice before you
00:24:36
Speaker
some scenarios and if you look over that way you'll see a particular scenario, a certain idea, a concept or a dream and then allow your awareness to move in a different direction and notice what you notice there.
00:25:05
Speaker
And you can just do this for a few more breaths, allowing different scenes to come into your awareness. Keep breathing and relaxing. And as you do, just allow your attention to be drawn more fully towards one of those scenes.
00:25:35
Speaker
the one that has more color with his movement and perhaps sound or sensation. And as that becomes more evident to you, begin to notice the details around that scene.
00:26:06
Speaker
And as you notice more and more details, it will become clear to you that this is the dream that you can make a commitment to for now. And as that settles within you,
00:26:34
Speaker
you can just let your breath continue to move into your body and out. Just notice that you're relaxed. And when you're ready, just very gently open your eyes. So you've identified in a very gentle, easy way a scenario
00:27:03
Speaker
representative of your dream. The dream for now, because dreams can change. As more information becomes present, you can change your mind. More information sometimes will make you do a lane change. You haven't changed, you haven't gone off the highway, you've just changed lane perhaps. But for now you've got your, your dream is clear, your scenario that you're going to commit to.
00:27:33
Speaker
So get your tarot cards, shuffle them in the normal way, and ask yourself, how many cards do I need to get more information about my dream? And you might choose three. You might get a different number, whatever number you get, you're gonna choose those cards.
00:28:03
Speaker
turn them up and look at them, sit with them, notice them, pay attention and record them in your current journal. Now, the important thing is the cards that come next. And these are the cards that are action oriented because there is no commitment until action is taken, right?
00:28:35
Speaker
So you're going to choose a number of cards. The first one is what is the first action I need to take to move this dream into reality and choose a card. What is the first action I need to take? Turn the card over, write it down in your journal and sit with that.
00:29:05
Speaker
make a little note of what comes to you. What is the action I need to take to bring this into reality? The next card is, in what time frame do I need to take this action? You will get something from the card. And even if you don't get it straight away, write down what you get because you can revisit this. The third card, the next one,
00:29:35
Speaker
So we've got what action I need to take, in what time frame do I need to take that and the third one is what will the outcome be if I do these two things. Okay and depending on what your outcome card is you may or may not need to choose some more cards. So this is obviously a moving feast, you know you can respond to this and
00:30:02
Speaker
You know, rituals are not solid things. They can be, but we don't live in a black and white world. We don't live in this static world.
Summary of Tarot Rituals
00:30:13
Speaker
So we've talked about four different ritualistic things to do with the tarot cards. The first is a daily tarot card practice. We make it sacred by our intention, how we do it. We've done the tarot feng shui,
00:30:33
Speaker
for your home. We've done the three card spread and a tarot commitment to your dreams. Now, you might choose with that tarot commitment to your dreams, you might like to choose one tarot card that actually represents the dream that you can
00:30:59
Speaker
you know, keep around on your altar so that you revisit it. If you've got a long timeframe or you need to do a number of steps to actualise your dream, then that will be very helpful. Because some dreams don't happen overnight, some of them are long term. This is actually quite a lot of stuff that I've kind of shared with you in this
00:31:29
Speaker
little rituals show. So I would love to hear how you find that, which ones you've done, which ones you haven't done but intend to do. So do let me know, I'll be very interested. All right, well, that's all I've got for you today and enjoy using that reverent
00:31:55
Speaker
sacred approach to working with your tarot cuts.