Tarot Tips: Tarot for Ritual, Pendulum Divination & More
Published: Sat, 06/01/19
"To paraphrase Tarot teacher and writer Rachel Pollack..."
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![]() Newsletter of The Tarot School
http://TarotSchool.com ISSN: 1529-0565 Vol. 11 #4 / June 1, 2019
In this Issue: - Welcome
- Tarot Tip: Tarot for Ritual
- Tarot School Aphorism
- Diviner's Corner: Pendulum Divination - Best Practices: Sneaky Peeks – Clients Who Ask For Free Psychic Advice on the Sly - Upcoming Events Welcome to a new issue of Tarot Tips!
And a special welcome to our new subscribers.
![]() photo by Monte Farber The 2019 Readers Studio and Divination Day were a smashing success! It was the biggest yet, and all six presenters got standing ovations! A great big THANK YOU goes to all the people who helped create the magic, and everyone who was there to share their own bright spirit. If you'd like to see recaps and pictures, and connect with the community, check out the Readers Studio Facebook Group at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ReadersStudio/ We’re already in the planning stages for RS20! If you’d like to know the line-up of stellar presenters, they are… 2020 DIVINATION DAY: • Karin Dalton-Smith: Tea Leaf Reading • Gina Jean: Domino Divination • Mitchell Osborn: Animal Communication 2020 READERS STUDIO: • V. • Liz Dean • Barbara Moore The dates will be April 23 – 26 and registration will open later this year so watch this space for details! In the meantime, we're happy to keep the tarot love going! Tarot gives us a sense of direction and purpose in many ways. It is often called a guide or a guidance tool and is constantly gaining ground as a preferred tool for many wisdom seekers. In this new issue, guest contributor Carolyn Cushing writes about using tarot for rituals, The Diviner’s Corner highlights pendulum divination, and the Best Practices for Professional Readers column provides help on dealing with clients who try to sneak in a free reading by asking "What do you think?" questions. Enjoy! And one more thing...
![]() photo by Rachel Mukon Baby's First Readers Studio! Molly and I got dressed up for the RS banquet. My little Lovers-Devil granddaughter was the belle of the ball. With love and gratitude on the tarot journey, Ruth Ann, Wald, and Gina
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TAROT FOR RITUAL
By Carolyn Cushing, Soul Path Sanctuary ![]() Image from Tarot of the Moors by Gina Thies To paraphrase Tarot teacher and writer Rachel Pollack, ritual builds a bridge between the physical and the spiritual. Actions undertaken with intention – and often repeated in daily, seasonal, or annual intervals – as well as the objects used are the piers and cables, roadway and ramp of ritual. You can have a very simple bridge (a log over water) or a masterwork (the Brooklyn Bridge). When we pause to stand upon these ritual bridges of connection between earth and spirit, we tend our souls. Taking this time prepares us to move with greater wisdom, love, and strength through our everyday lives. Tarot can be both a guide for creating ritual and an element of a ritual. The details of one card can show you a complete flow for a ritual. For this year’s Opening to Wisdom Ritual at Readers Studio, for example, the 8 of Cups from Tarot of the Moors was all the inspiration we needed. In the image, a figure walks along the edge of desert dune away from 8 cups and toward a deep blue sky filled with the constellation Pisces, the planet Saturn, and a full well of water. Our ritual began with participants calling to mind the roles they play in their everyday life and imagining putting these responsibilities behind them. With Moroccan music playing in the background, they were then invited to walk around the ritual space, feeling themselves walking more lightly having left their burdens behind. The ritual continued with participants going inward to make an imaginable connection to a star or flow of water and to receive a message about what intention to set for their time at Readers Studio. Cards can also take their place along with candles or bells as consciousness-shifting or attention-focusing items in a ritual. Their symbolic meaning as well as special beauty make them fitting additions. And their portability support creating rituals-on-the move. Each year in the weeks leading up to the Summer Solstice, I wisdom wander with handfuls of cards in nature or around town. When something beautiful calls my attention or I experience a synchronicity, I will reach in and pull out a card by chance. I connect the card and what called to me, often doing a little arranging of natural elements to create a mandala. I’ll pause and offer words of prayer. I might take a picture before returning things to the way before I arrived so I can have this image from my impromptu ritual for continued contemplation. Finally, the wisdom figures and powerful symbols of Tarot cards can inspire invocations to begin your rituals. The first ritual offered in the meditation room at Readers Studio was guided by Persephone from Ellen Lorenzi-Prince’s Dark Goddess Tarot. I wrote this invocation for us to use as we began an underworld journey: We come to the threshold of life and death. We remember death down deep in our bones: the star that exploded to give life’s form. We remember life deep down in our bones: the spark of each cell that helps us rise up. We ask to pass under its lintel. We ask to step over its sill. We ask to go down to the Underworld. We offer ourselves to the Queen of the Dead These are the ways I have used the Tarot in ritual. I hope they entice you to experiment and create rituals of your own with the Tarot. As a creative and flexible tool – just shuffle when you need fresh ideas and images! – the Tarot can create just the right bridge in any moment for you to travel between the realms. About Carolyn: Carolyn Cushing loves to work with people to make positive life transitions, grow spiritually, and develop creatively. Through Soul Path Sanctuary, Carolyn offers monthly missives to support practice and soul tending in everyday life as well as cyber and in-person retreat experiences. She has taught and facilitated Tarot classes groups, and rituals from Western Massachusetts to Portland, Oregon as well as on-line. Her Tarot processes and spread are included in the Gaian Tarot companion book and Tarot for Troubled Times. She is a co-founder of the Massachusetts Tarot Society and contributes a regular column on Tarot for Practice to the Cartomancer. Carolyn Cushing Shape shifting from Art of Change Tarot to Soul Path Sanctuary Find her online at soulpathsanctuary.com. [email protected] 413-529-9759 (text/call) Tarot School Aphorism ![]() Diviner's Corner PENDULUM DIVINATION ![]() Pendulum divination, also called pendulum dowsing, is a simple technique used for hundreds of years as a divination art. It is an easy to use tool that can help anyone quickly tap into their intuition. In its most popular use, a pendulum is used to answer yes-or-no questions through moving in a direction in response to an inquiry, and is commonly paired with other tools such as tarot cards. A pendulum is a balanced, weighted object, attached to a string, cord or chain. It can be a crystal, bead, or favorite small bauble. It can be used with or without a pendulum circle that is drawn on a cloth or sheet of paper. The pendulum circle will depict yes, no, or maybe as possible answers and may include “do not answer” as a choice. To start a pendulum divination, center yourself and focus on a question. Hold the pendulum in between your thumb and forefinger, allowing it to be as steady as possible about 1-2 inches above the pendulum circle. For best results, you should rest your elbow on the table, and preferably be in a seated position. It is highly recommended, as with most divination inquiries, to ask a clear question that can be answer by a yes or no. You can predetermine which direction would answer yes, and which direction means a no for your inquiry. As with the Ouija board, it is often a question whether the pendulum is moving independently or due to the user’s own motions. It takes practice to perfect this art and lots of patience to see it work. As the saying goes, the proof is in the pudding. Additional Resource: This guest blog post includes suggestions on how to use a pendulum with tarot! Pendulums and the Language of Divination by Desmond Stern http://blog.littleredtarot.com/how-to-use-pendulums-divination/ 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]. Best Practices for Professional Readers SNEAKY PEEKS: CLIENTS WHO ASK FOR FREE PSYCHIC ADVICE ON THE SLY By Gina Thies www.tarotadvisor.com / www.facebook.com/tarotreaders www.tarotcoupling.com / www.oraclesoup.org One of the best compliments you can receive as a reader is to gain repeat clientele. It’s a shoo-in when you have your regulars and when they send your referrals because they know, love and trust you. Often, the hard work it takes to become a trusted source may be taken for granted, especially when clients become comfortable with you and they began to blur the line between professional and friends. I don’t think any of us who are professional readers are immune from crossing some boundaries. It happens, and it is best to nip it in the bud at the first signs or occurrences. One type in particular may be hard to detect at first because if you are like me, you want to help. You place yourself in a position that is par for the course in terms of being helpful, but there are always one or two who just need to ask you something. It may come in the form of a phone call or email, and may sound something like, “Give me a call when you have a moment” or “I have an update about your reading” or they may send you an image or picture and ask your “opinion”. When you respond to see what they want or if they want to schedule an appointment, lo and behold it’s “No, I was just curious and had a question” or it may be in reference to something or someone that came up in a previous reading and they want to know “Is this who you were talking about?” or any other question that ends up really being about wanting further information without paying for your services. The thing to do is to clarify and if necessary, reinforce boundaries. For some of us this may be difficult. On the one hand, you may be the only support they have but on the other, you need to not be taken advantage of by your client. I find it helpful to let them know when they are on the clock and will be charged. People need to understand that it is not just the reading they are paying you for but your TIME. Paying for your time will also keep that necessary boundary in place. Forest Hills, New York
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