I'm Sorry!

So sorry it's been so long since I've posted!! :( Unfortunately I've been sick this whole past month. Not really sure with what, but I'm finally starting to feel better. Very exciting news in the tarot world--I finally got up the courage to offer readings for free to people on my favorite forum! (Spiritual Forums) I'm really excited. I've only done a few since I've been sick, but they seem to be realy helping! I'm so excited to finally really be able to spread the tarot love. I haven't done a reading for myself in a while though. It's weird. My boyfriend and I got in kind of a big fight this past week, but I just couldn't bring myself to ask the cards about it. I'm not sure why. It was rather curious. Things are better between the two of us now, and I almost want to try a reading on the conflict now that it's over....kind of weird.

I also got a new reading cloth that I'm really excited about! Before I was reading on one of my scarves because it was the only thing I had. But I'm really excited about it! I couldn't fit the whole thing in the picture because it's too big, but here it is! Isn't it pretty?Big Picture    Close Up

In other news, I've been trying to get back in touch with my Rider-Waite deck. I really do love it. I just forget sometimes cuz the Shadowscapes is purty. :P

Going Back!

Tomorrow morning we're heading for the beach! I'm very excited and, of course, taking my cards. :) Just wanted to pop on here and say that I'll be gone for 12ish days, on the off chance that someone actually reads this. Til then. ♥

The Romantic Knight

A couple days ago, I took a look at The Knight of Swords. Today I'm going to take a look at his opposite, The Knight of Cups.

The Knight of Cups is one my favorite cards. (And this isn't just because it's my boyfriend's card. :P) Stephanie's art in this card is just....breathtaking. We see a man, or perhaps more of a boy, riding through the crashing waves on a unicorn, heading towards a glowing goblet, surrounded by little creatures, almost fairy like. The same creatures weave in and out of the waves. The Knight of Cups is a romantic, somewhat of a hopeless romantic in fact. He's an artist, a musician, a poet, and a lover. He is locked in a constant journey towards everything the goblet has to offer, everything that the suit of cups stands for. It is always on his mind, almost like an obsession. He is chasing his dreams. The creature he rides stands for power and energy. He is white, representing purity and a sense of spirit. The Knight of Cups is sensitive and imaginative, usually an introvert.. However, he is also often moody, temperamental, and unrealistic. He is the opposite of the Knight of Swords, who doesn't let emotions in his way, by sometimes letting his emotions consume him. But as a lover, he is the deepest and most loyal you'll ever have.

 I always associate The Knight of Cups with the Chariot, though this is not necessarily "right" or always the case. The Chariot is associated with the astrological sign Cancer. My boyfriend, Tyler, is a Cancer. When I first got into tarot, I spent hours reading the different descriptions of the Court Cards, trying to match them with people I know. The minute I read The Knight of Cups, I knew it was him. At the time, I only had my Rider-Waite deck, and while I enjoy those pictures, they've never been as compelling to me as the Shadowscapes. When he gave me the deck as a present, I immediately started looking through the deck. I was shocked to see the similarities between the two cards. They're both surrounded by crashing waves, riding with or on unicorns, cards of power and energy, purity and spirit. The two cards are connected in my mind, bound to him, and they both appear in readings for him frequently. As a side note, I also find it interesting that there are turtles around the crab, almost as if they're watching over it. They're reminiscent of the turtles in The Queen of Cups, which just happens to be my card.

Bookstore

I had the chance to buy the Gilded Tarot deck for pretty cheap today, and I turned it down. Hopefully I'm not going to regret that decision. I just couldn't get with the picture on the front...it kind of creeped me out. But I wasn't allowed to open the seal to look at the whole deck, so who knows if the rest of it would've spoken to me. I would've ran home to look it up online but the store is all the way across town from where I live. I almost bought it because I thought I might as well, but I already have two decks and it's been a little overwhelming at times for me to try and learn the two...I was afraid adding a third would make it all the worse. I don't know. I don't regret it yet, but I don't exactly not regret it either. I guess we'll see!

In other news, I did readings for my sister's birthday party Friday night. It was the first time I've ever done readings for other people 1) with my Rider-Waite deck and 2) for people that I don't know really well/at all. It was...interesting. Some of them went really well. There were two girls who I know definitely got something out of their readings. But the others....they were just okay. There was nothing wrong with them really, there just weren't any big aha! oh my gosh moments. But I suppose I can't always have those. I'm not sure if it was me not being a good reader or their lack of enthusiasm. Probably a little of both, honestly. But I'm just going to chalk it up to being a good experience, and move on. It did make me realize that I really need to study the Pentacles suit more. I don't draw Pentacles that often, so I don't know those cards NEAR as well as I do, say, the suit of cups. Silly me, thinking because I don't, that other people wouldn't draw them! :P

To end, I'm going to do a discussion on The Knight of Swords. Three of the six girls I read for Friday night drew this card (the cards were shuffled really good, I promise! They also weren't back to back...). I thought this was very interesting. So, The Knight of Swords. 

 The picture on the right is from the Shadowscapes deck and the one on the left is the Rider-Waite. (I thought I'd include both decks, since I did the readings that night with the Rider-Waite.) The Knight of Swords is the only knight in the R-W who's on a horse that is running. The knight is forward, blunt, and commanding. He is logical and does not let emotions stand in his way. He is very intelligent, and not afraid to tell you so. If he feels you are being illogical or "emotional," he'll tell you, and not all too gently. The Knight of Swords is described as the hero who rushes into battle. He doesn't often "look before he leaps," so to speak. Instead he just says what he thinks (or as he would put it, what he knows), slicing his sword through anyone who dares say otherwise. He knows what he wants and will do anything to attain that, even if that means being hard as stone and closing his mind to everything else. In the book that came with my Shadowscapes deck, this poem is given with the knight.

 

Lift me up spirits of Sky
grant me keen sight of Hawk
swiftness of Sparrow
grant me insight of Raven
brave heartbeat of Hummingbird
bear me up with grace on wings of Swan
guide me with visions of wisdom from Owl

Ocean Waves

So sorry I haven't posted in so long! Things got very hectic with the end of school and start of vacation! I just got back from the beach with a very close friend of mine, Max. We had a truly wonderful time. Of course, I brought my cards with me. I did several readings for the two of us over the course of the week, but one sticks out in my mind in particular. I can't remember the exact cards, but I do remember that it was a spread about the relationship between he and his father. We went through the process, he shuffled and chose his cards, and I laid them out in their positions, and began to read them. But from the very beginning, something just didn't feel "right". He felt the same way. There were no aha! moments, no light bulbs clicking in his head. It was almost as if they weren't the right cards...we moved from card to card, but none of them seemed to fit correctly. And then it hit me. What if I had a laid them out in the wrong order...what if the card I started with was supposed to be the card that I ended with?
"Just go with me here for a second," I said, as I began to look at the cards in the reversed order. Suddenly they all seemed to snap right into place! The reading seemed to come to life, and things just started spilling out of me. I kept talking and watched as his eyes grew wider and he began to nod, giving me more confidence that my thoughts were correct. I've never had that happen before, where the cards were laid out backwards! But that was definitely the case here. The only reason I even thought of it was because I vaguely remembered Sarah mentioning it to me once. It was really interesting though that it really happened!

The other reading that sticks out in my mind was a dream spread that I did on myself one night, after Max and everyone else had already gone to bed. A couple nights before we left, I had a dream that I was on the beach and suddenly a huge tornado came and we had to run for our lives. We managed to survive, but everyone else died. I have a huge fear of tornadoes, almost to the point of impractical, and the dream really shook me up. I woke up trembling and couldn't get back to sleep for a little bit, until I finally calmed myself down, telling myself that it was just a nightmare and not a big deal. I thought I would forget about it, but for some reason I just couldn't get the dream out of my head. Unfortunately I was so busy cleaning and packing, I hadn't found a spare moment to do a spread about it until that night. As I was shuffling, I said a little prayer to God. "Please, just give me insight on this...why did I have this dream?" The first card I drew was supposed to signify what I already understood about the dream. I don't know why I'm still so shocked when tarot is accurate, but I found myself staring at this card in disbelief. I had drawn the Five of Cups. A girl stands all alone by the shores of the sea, staring out at the water, the exact kind of place where I had been standing in my dream. The swirls behind her head don't look like a tornado, but in the context of my dream, I knew that's what it stood for. The card itself stands for sorrow, loss, and rejection; a very sad card. Despite my past success, I had seriously been doubting the tarot about this one. What could it possibly tell me about some dream I had like a week ago? In all honesty, I was really only doing the spread as a desperate attempt to get some answers. Kind of a "oh hell, I'll just see what it says" sort of thing. But the first card definitely changed all of that. I was definitely hooked now. I began to turn over my other cards.

The Two of Cups. A card I often draw. It symbolizes two things to me. The first is obviously relationships, and growth within them. But I love the Shadowscapes deck because this card means something more to me than it does in any other deck. At the bottom of the card is the Pisces symbol, the two fish swimming in different directions. I'm a Pisces, so I've always felt a connection to this card. This card position symbolized the hidden and deeper meaning behind my dream. I immediately knew that the tornado was symbolizing my inner conflict that supposedly every Pisces faces...the choice between swimming away and escaping inside one's self, or stepping forth and facing reality. I don't know if this is true of all Pisceans, but it is definitely true of me. It's something that's been on my mind a lot lately as well, so it makes sense for it to come up in my dream. I also love that this is another "water card". Cups are my suit and Pisces is my sign and Water is my element so this card really speaks to me. 

The final card I drew was supposed to stand for why I had the dream. I drew the Five of Swords. I pretty much got the same thing out of that one that I did the Two of Cups. The Five of Swords is another conflict card, just strengthening my "Pisces issue," if you will. I also find it very interesting that I drew two fives in this spread....Fives stand for conflict, uncertainty, and instability, all of which not only make sense, but pretty much describe exactly how I've been feeling for the past few months or so. The reading was really insightful for me and put my mind at peace about the dream. (I was secretly afraid it was telling me I was going to die in a tornado...)

The trip overall was very relaxing, and exactly what I needed. Unfortunately, it's now back to reality again. (There's that Pisces thing again...) I promise to keep up with my blogging better now! Sorry again for the long wait!

Parentals: Part Two

I told my parents about my tarot cards the other night. And they actually took it REALLY well. I'm so relieved! My Dad was just kinda like whatever, I don't really care lol. But my Mom asked me a few questions, kinda nodded, and said she thought she remembered somebody doing that in high school. Then she asked me if someone got the death card if I thought they were really going to die. Hahaha she was so cool about it, I'm so incredibly happy right now:)

Spreads Spreads Spreads

I finally started a spreads notebook!! :) I currently have 36 spreads in my notebook, and I'm really excited about them! Of course, I'm always looking for more, so if anyone reads this and has some favorite spreads, I would love to hear them!

This past weekend I spent the night with two of my friends and I brought my notebook of spreads and my two decks with me. I ended up doing four readings over the course of the night, two for each of them. I let them pick spreads from my notebook and they went really well! They were both freaking out because of how accurate the readings were, and I think they both really got a lot out of the readings I did both for them. SUCCESS!! I was really excited :)