In Tarot the archetypal Mother card is the Empress. She is nearly always represented as a heavily pregnant woman reclining in a fertile field. She represents fertility, marriage, motherhood, and creativity. She is the embodiment of what it means to be a mother. Now that I am a mother, I find myself reexamining the meaning of this card in light of my (limited) experience with motherhood. As any mother will tell you, even a brand new mother like me, being pregnant is the easiest part of motherhood. The job doesn’t really become difficult until the baby is born. Being a…
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Wicca is generally viewed as a Celtic-inspired faith. The names most Wiccans use for the Sabbats come from Celtic culture, as to some of the most common names used for the Lord and Lady. In actuality, Wicca has very little in common with the religious practices of the Celtic people. But this doesn’t stop people of Irish/Scottish/British ancestry from saying that they are drawn to Wicca because it reflects the ways of their ancestors. I am of Scotch-Irish stock, and I am a practitioner of Wicca. However, my path isn’t that of Traditional Wicca, the path most heavily influenced by…
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There are many myths that surround the use of the Tarot. Some of the most common include: Your first deck must be given to you as a gift–if this were true, I’d never have started reading Tarot Your deck must be wrapped in black silk to keep out any “bad vibes”–I’ve never done this, although I did wrap one deck in faux-silk, and still do. It seemed to suit the deck’s temperament. No one should ever touch you deck–While I do keep a few decks just for my use, when I read for another person, I feel the reading works…
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The other weekend I read The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs. On the surface, it seems like this would be an odd choice for a Pagan, but I found it very interesting. Maybe that was because I am fascinated by all religious practises, or maybe because A.J. Jacobs is a very funny writer. The book deals with Mr. Jacobs attempt to live by all, as in 700 some odd, rules in the Bible for a year. Some of them he tackles only once, like living in a hut in his living room, and others he tries to follow…
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When I first discovered the Tarot it seemed like a mysterious tool just waiting to have its secrets unlocked by me, a slightly nerdy young teenage girl with a passion for video games. Truly, I knew that the secrets of the Ancient Egyptians were locked in those cards just waiting for me. Never mind, of course, that my first deck was the Aquarian Tarot, a psychedelic mix of art deco style and the 1970s, with nary a Pharaoh in sight. Back then, somewhere around 18 years ago(!), Tarot decks and books were still relatively rare. I struggled along with Eden…
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A few days ago someone wrote to me about their difficulty blending religion and reality. This person asked questions (rhetorically) that most thinking religious people do: If the gods made the universe, who made them? How did they create the universe? Etc. I responded to this person very honestly, writing that I often wonder the same things myself. I come from a background heavy with math and science, and questions about the reality of my beliefs have often kept me thinking about how a rational person can believe in super beings who know and can do all. It sounds pretty…
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I have to admit that I am, generally, from the school of thought that believes a Tarot deck should only have 78 cards. In cases where there are extra Major Arcana cards, like the Daughters of the Moon (extra Lovers and Pan) or the Osho Zen (the Master), I remove them from the deck. I think, though, that the extra Major Arcana cards in the Steele Wizard Tarot are exceptionally well thought out and add a great deal to the standard Tarot archetypes. I laid out all the Major Arcana and arranged them in four rows of seven cards, placing…
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Generally speaking, I am fascinated by people who choose to follow their religion in a very fundamentalist way. That’s not to say that I agree with them, but I am always curious as to why they choose to follow the rules, often ancient and unsuited to the modern world, so closely. A. J. Jacobs, an author from New York, decided to live by all 700 rules outlined in the Christian Bible for a year. The result is the book The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible. The book is due…
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This afternoon I spent some time looking around on eBay at items listed using the keyword “Wicca”. There was the usual assortment of stones, jewelery, herbs and candles. There were also some handmade Books of Shadows, and quite a few pages for them available, something that I feel isn’t quite right, but not offensive. (I’m of the opinion that one should create all the pages within one’s own Book, rather then just slap in some pages bought off of eBay.) I was, however, offended by a series of listings from a lady calling herself “Canada’s most powerful psychic and Wiccan…
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About a month ago, I began offering free Tarot readings through my website. About two weeks after that, I started doing free readings for the Free Tarot Network. The questions I have received range from someone asked advice on how to handle a difficult situation in her life, to a woman wondering if her lover will leave his wife, to someone wondering if they will win the lottery. Each of these, in their own way, are all difficult questions. I’m not a stranger to doing reading for others. When I first began reading Tarot, back in middle school, I read…