Reflecting a Little More

Last month, I described my experience with the Spirit Keeper’s Tarot, its initiation, and the magic that I felt with it. It presented a real shift for me, just as last year’s spirit guide work with the Fountain Tarot was.

But there’s been more than that, much more. There’s really been so much woo* that it’s hard to isolate any single variable, and I don’t feel the need to. I’m an intellectual magpie, so I’ll take it all in and use what I like the best anyway. And I always enjoy recommendations from fellow intuitives, such as the recently recommend book Where Two Worlds Meet by Janet Novahec (thanks, Cedar!). 

*For those unfamiliar with the term woo, it comes from skeptical outsiders’ use of the phrase “woo woo” to describe the irrational, supernatural, and inexplicable experiences and practices tied to things like divination and crystals and magic. For those uncomfortable with it, I like to look at it much as someone might look at queer or other derogatory terms that one can reclaim and empower for insiders. The strategy rankles some folks, and I think that’s healthy. I haven’t reclaimed all the derogatory terms used to identify me that I could.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I introduced a lot of ideas about mediumship to myself in a roundabout way through the Vessel Work of my Cancer-season Wave Skimmer Challenge. It was inspired by divinations into my Four Pillars and by my own natal chart’s areas for growth. But the next water sign intensified things, as Scorpio is wont to do. 

In that season’s Spirit Work exercises for the Safecracker Challenge, I started to face some fears that I have, both about spirits and about facing my own irrational desires and beliefs. The goal of the exercises was to actively connect to the other side of the Veil and better understand how that process works. Parts were a little scary, and I made some mistakes that thankfully I’ve been able to undo or correct along the way, but it was instructive in the long run. 

The occult is inherently unknown but not unknowable. And I’ve been letting myself explore it with much greater intensity than my adolescence, when I called myself a practicing witch/neopagan. But even though my relationship to woo has grown, I’ve still been hesitant to both accept it and expand it and publicize it. As a generally thoughtful and cautious person, I tend to qualify more of the extreme things that I say, even when it sounds direct and confident. But in case you didn’t get the message from my earlier posts, I believe in spirits and divine energy and magic. I might define those terms in a way that is different from others, but I genuinely believe that they are there / it exists, and that belief shapes the way that I do my work, even if I don’t expressly mention it in my readings and even if a client sees the tarot as nothing more than a mundane instrument for self-reflection. (You can read more about my practices and how I think tarot works on my About page.) But it took a while to admit that, to myself and to others. 

Along the way, I sought advice and instruction from others, no longer the solitary practitioner. I tried some of what others recommended; I rejected other ideas. I embraced some of what I did, and I said, “That’s enough of that nonsense,” to other activities and ideas. That said, I know that I will continue to evolve. 

So what has changed for me over the last year? I now am willing to spend multiple days analyzing larger readings for myself and to actually write down my interpretations for later review, something I never used to do when reading for myself, but gladly did for others. I meditate and visualize my chakra energies while holding hand mudras and either chant or imagine chanting in my head. I consider the day of the week and its planetary associations, along with other correspondences as I get ready in the morning, such as color of underwear (those days of the week underwear were onto something!). I occasionally drink certain types of tea or eat special types of food for esoteric reasons, or I infuse some intention into what I want to eat or drink by adding in a pinch of something with magical correspondences. I study astrology charts and read my daily transits; I learn new systems of cartomancy and divination; and I make talismans and mandalas. I have a few crystals and other elements of nature that I’ve gathered on trips that feel special and add to my overall sense of connectedness to the world and its energy. I’ve even finally created an altar space, although I don’t confine myself to it because it’s literally in the closet. I am now willing to believe that there is a place of Akashic Records and that they have something to tell me and that a kundalini awakening is a real thing with real-life consequences. After several rituals involving a black mirror, a candle, and a metal bowl of water, I am starting to feel connected to my literal and karmic ancestors, and I believe that there is power in that. I have seen into one of my past lives, and I am pretty sure that it’s more than just a useful exercise in imagination and creative storytelling. I created my own set of Futhark runes, following more ritual steps to create them than I’d probably done for anything up to that point.

So. Much. Woo.

And after all that? I can’t say that I know how things work, but I want to do this work. And I am willing to explore and learn and work hard and improve. I’m willing to branch out and connect to the spirit world and to the energies that surround us to affect our daily lives and karmic paths. And, if you’ve gotten this far, thank you for staying with me and for helping me on this journey. I don’t want to get in too deep too quickly, but if my Saturn in Libra has taught me anything, I probably can’t get there on my own, much as I may want to.