Tarot Tips: Tarot for Meditation (Part 2)
Published: Sat, 12/01/18
"This holiday season I have something extra-special to celebrate..."
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![]() Newsletter of The Tarot School
http://TarotSchool.com ISSN: 1529-0565 Vol. 10 #10 / December 1, 2018
In this Issue: - Welcome
- Tarot Tip: Tarot for Meditation (Part 2)
- Tarot School Aphorism
- Diviner's Corner: Discovering the Crystal Ball - Cool Tarot Project: Sigils of True Sight - Upcoming Events Welcome to a new issue of Tarot Tips!
And a special welcome to our new subscribers.
![]() This time of year is filled with celebrations of all kinds. There are spiritual celebrations, public celebrations, and celebrations with friends, family, and the tarot tribe. So much of our attention is turned outward, but we think it would be a wonderful idea to take some time to celebrate yourselves as well! Celebrate your curiosity and quest for knowledge, your enthusiasm and creativity. Celebrate yourself for letting tarot support you as you discover more about your personal psychology, and for including tarot in your spiritual life and work. By being a seeker, you are enriching your own life, as well as the lives of all of us. Celebrate yourself for being the shining star you are! In this issue, we have Part 2 of Carolyn Cushing’s tips on using tarot for meditation, and The Diviner’s Corner features some fond memories from Heatherleigh Navarre, who will be leading a session on Crystal Ball scrying at next year’s Divination Day event. We also discovered a cool tarot Kickstarter campaign that isn’t a deck. Gina Thies is taking some time off from her Best Practices column to be with her ailing mother. Please keep them both in your thoughts. Whether your celebrations are filled with people and activity, or spent by enjoying some quiet private time, we wish you many bright blessings as we head into 2019! And one more thing...
This holiday season I have something extra-special to celebrate! My beautiful granddaughter, Molly Josephine Mukon was born on the auspicious day of 11/11/18 at 5:28 pm. My daughter, Rachel and her husband, Chris are over the moon in love with her –– as is our whole family! ~ Ruth Ann ![]() With love and gratitude on the tarot journey, Ruth Ann, Wald, and Gina
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TAROT FOR MEDITATION (Part 2)
Visio Divina with a Tarot Card by Carolyn Cushing, Soul Path Sanctuary well to having a deeper dive encounter with a particular Tarot card. It is an adaptation of Lectio Divina, an ancient practice for praying the scriptures from the Christian tradition, in which a text is read a number of times as a way to inspired movement in meditative thinking and prayer. Traditionally it is a four step process of Reading (or in this case, Viewing), Meditating/Rumination, Prayer, and Contemplating. Taking a Long Loving Look (Visio) Sit comfortably with a Tarot card (or any inspirational image) before you. Gaze at it. Take “a long, loving look.” Then close your eyes and let some part of the image come into focus for you. Spend a few moments with your eyes remaining closed to be with that image. Open your eyes and gaze again at the card or image for a moment or two. When you close your eyes again for a few moments, perhaps a new image will come up for attention or the one from your first round will re-appear. Accept whatever comes. You may want to repeat this step a third time. Ruminate (Meditatio) Take up your journal and write or draw/doodle about what you saw / experienced. Muse about what these images might mean to you. Explore now with words and/or doodles for a few minutes. (Optional - Only to be done after your own reflection: Read just a bit from the book that came with your deck or an inspirational Tarot writer such as Rachel Pollack about the card. Remember you are reading for inspiration. Stop when you hit an idea that resonates with or expands on what you have already been journaling/doodling about. Include it in your musings. Stop reading and start writing/doodling again.) Insight and Prayer (Oratio) Close your eyes and clear your mind with a few gentle breaths. Let some message of insight, gratitude, or supplication arise from your heart. Be with this message. Connecting with Wisdom (Contemplatio) Rest in what you have received. Pause before you jump into your busy life. Be in the presence of your new connection to this card and the wisdom of the Tarot. About Carolyn: Carolyn Cushing loves to work with people to make positive life transitions, grow spiritually, and develop creatively. In addition to working one-on-one with seekers, she has taught and facilitated Tarot classes and groups in Western Massachusetts; been a guest teacher at the Northwest Tarot Symposium, HATHOR Forum, and Gaian Tarot Circle; and led meditations and co-created rituals at Readers Studio. Carolyn creates learning environments and circles where deep sharing and exploration are possible. She is a co-founder of the Massachusetts Tarot Society, and contributes a regular column on Tarot for soul practice to the Cartomancer. Find her online at soulpathsanctuary.com Tarot School Aphorism ![]() Diviner's Corner DISCOVERING THE CRYSTAL BALL by Heatherleigh Navarre ![]() When I was a child of about ten years old, there was nothing more magical to me than walking up the steps to the tiny shop above my aunt and uncle’s restaurant. The shop was just a converted storeroom with slanting ceilings, a few small tables and chairs, a dusty bookshelf or two, and a few teacups and saucers turned upside down on a drainboard. The stairs were creaky, so whoever was at the top could always hear you coming and would call out a greeting. This shop was the domain of my uncle Phil’s mother, great aunt Rita. Rita was short and solid, and wore her white hair up when it was long enough, or in soft, face-framing curls when it was short. She had a strong Boston accent, a ready smile, and little tolerance for foolishness. We kids were not permitted to be frequent visitors to her shop, as she was engaged in “SERIOUS BUSINESS,” which made me relish even more the rare times I was permitted inside. For it was in those tiny rooms, with the sunlight slanting through the high windows, that I first witnessed the practice of fortune-telling. Rita read playing cards, tea leaves, and the crystal ball mostly, though tarot occasionally made an appearance. Those cups on the drainboard would be flipped over, she’d tear open a bag of her preferred Red Rose tea, dump the contents, and cover them with piping hot water from the kettle. She scarcely gave her clients time to sip the hot brew before grabbing it up, turning it slowly, swishing the leaves around, handing it back to the lady (it was always a lady back then), and directing her to turn the cup upside down onto the saucer. She’d cluck her tongue, shake her head, or smile and give a low whistle before she launched into her telling of the fortune – sort of a symbolic editorial preface that was part of her delivery style. It was in those rooms that I fell deeply in love with divination. I loved the riffling sound of cards being shuffled, the smell of strong black tea, the gleam of the crystal ball, and all the rest. But looking back, I think now that what intrigued me most of all those many years ago was the intimacy of those moments – the image of a pair of women bonded by a common desire to unravel the mystery of the future, one woman seeking to understand her own fortune, and the other equally intent on helping to shine a light for her to better see her path, her options and her destiny. Together they would chart a way forward, and I watched women smile, cry or hug Rita (sometimes all three) every time they stood up at the end of a session. As a child I was positively mystified by how on earth Rita and her colleagues could look into smooth, polished rocks and see………..well, ANYTHING! All I saw were the natural featherings, cracks, and shimmering rainbows in the stone. I would look for people, animals, signs of weather, anything I had heard my aunt mention seeing in there, but to no avail. I thought, in my child’s mind, that it must be somehow like a television, and I needed to learn how to change the channels. Rita, and the psychics that worked alongside her, would say things like “You can’t see anything in there until you learn to stop looking,” or “Try letting your eyes cross a little,” or even (and most confusingly) “It’s a lot easier to see what’s in the crystal ball if you just close your eyes.” I learned from all this that fortune-tellers are a mysterious, and not altogether logical bunch of folks. Of course, now I understand all these comments and more. What they were trying to explain to my child-self, was that crystal ball gazing is an art that can only be mastered by UN-learning our conventional ways of viewing the world, rather than by trying to forcefully direct our gaze in some way. It would be twenty years later that I myself would seek to see the future in a cup of tea leaves, and even longer still before I found myself successfully gazing into a crystal sphere to see what, or who, might be hiding there. But when I did at last return to the family business (which had long since moved out of that tiny second floor space and into a storefront a few blocks away), I found that it was just as magical a place to be as I had remembered. These days there are more men, both as clients and as diviners, and it seems there is some new divination tool developed or “discovered” every week, but I find myself going back again and again to the old-school favorites of my childhood. The smell of tea is still my preferred fragrance, and swirling the leaves around the bottom of the cup is incredibly satisfying. But my favorite is still the crystal ball. In that gleaming surface, I have seen dolphins jumping next to a fast-moving boat, a man boarding an airplane carrying a purple duffle bag, a colony of termites devouring a wood-framed cottage, a young woman throwing her graduation cap into the air, a curly-haired black dog running across a park toward his favorite person, the toddler who is also his best friend, and I once saw the woman who sat across from me, a slender wisp of a thing, reflected back to me in my crystal ball as a very pregnant expectant mom, holding her belly and smiling joyfully. These images don’t always make much sense to me when I see them, until I describe them to that person in the other chair, and they excitedly tell me how much it means to them. The crystal ball gives me a wealth of information about who these people are, what they need to know, and sometimes even what they need to do differently in order to change their path. It has taken years, maybe decades, to discover this art, and maybe that is why crystal ball scrying hasn’t seen the same rise in popularity as tarot over the past few years – it isn’t a quick read, there are no printed pictures waiting to be interpreted, and it requires time and patience and copious amounts of practice. But, if you have a little time, why not start now, and see where it takes you? About Heatherleigh: Heatherleigh Navarre is the owner of Boston Tea Room, a psychic shop just outside of Detroit, Michigan, which is home to fifteen professional diviners, and has been in her family since the 1970s. http://bostontearoom.com/ We’d love your suggestion or submissions for this column! If you have an idea or would love to contribute, please contact us at [email protected]. Cool Tarot Project SIGILS OF TRUE SIGHT –– Tarot Themed Hard Enamel Pins ![]() Align yourself with the occult power of the Tarot with these Minor Arcana themed enamel pins. Each hard enamel pin will be a precious 1” and made with polished gold and black enamel. Each pin will have a butterfly clasp and a custom backing card. Bring intention to your day by wearing any of the suits and drawing energy from the charm… • Suit of Wands Wear this pin to rekindle your inner fire and blow the breath of creation on the embers of your resolve. Strive ever forward, through sweat and hard work to the celebration bonfire on the other side. Wands grant willpower, inspiration, and growth. • Suit of Cups Wear this pin to channel the rush of rains and floods to renew your intuition or bring flow to your interactions with others. Wear it near to your heart to activate your second sight. Cups grant intuition, empathy, and love. • Suit of Swords Wear this pin when you need to invoke the power of the tempest to move through conflict with a keen mind. With this token, you are not victim to the winds, but energized by them. Swords grant clear thought, freedom, and rapid change. • Suit of Pentacles Wear this pin when you need solid ground beneath your feet and solid coin in your hands. Rest assured that when you get your hands dirty, you are sowing the seeds of a successful, secure future. Pentacles grant practicality, prosperity, and stability. This Kickstarter campaign ends on December 18th at 2:00 pm EST. CLICK HERE! Forest Hills, New York
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• December 8 – 9, 2018 ![]() WINTER INTENSIVE The Lords of Tarot: Esoteric Titles of the Minor Arcana Forest Hills, New York • April 25, 2019 Divination Day (Website coming soon!) • April 26 – 28, 2019 ![]() 2019 Readers Studio (Sold Out! Contact us to get on the waiting list) http://ReadersStudio.com (Note: This is still the RS18 website. The new one won't be ready for a little while yet, but much of the information is still useful.) Join our 10,350+ fans and join the fun!
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