No New Year’s Resolutions!
I’ve read that most New Year’s Resolutions are history by January 10. Many people who teach others how to achieve goals advise not making resolutions but rather setting clear, measurable goals (including a timeframe) and making step-by-step plans for achieving them.
Tarot-Related Goals
Do you make any tarot-related resolutions…or set any short- or long-term goals related to your tarot practice? I’d love to hear about them in the comments. Here are some ideas that I like:
Plan on adding a new system (such as numerology, astrology, elemental dignities, or Kabalah) to your card interpretation.
Or master a completely new deck.
Or create a series of spreads.
Non-Tarot Goals
Or do you use the tarot to help you set and achieve your goals? This spread might prove useful:
1. go through your deck and pick a card that you think represents the area of your life that you seek to improve or the goal you wish to achieve.
Now shuffle the deck (without the card you selected for position 1) and lay out the rest of the cards as you would for any reading.
3. Strength: this is what you already have and can use as you move forward.
4. Challenge: this is what you will face and by facing it create the change you seek.
5. Help: this is where you can find help; it can be a person, a technique, an area of study, an activity or action, etc.
6. Next Step: this is what to do next in facing the challenge.
2. Outcome: this is the goal or outcome; what this area of your life will look like at the end of this phase of the journey.
It is important to remember that this spread will take you through your journey to achieving your goal in steps one step at a time. As your year progresses and you achieve this particular leg of the journey, do the spread over to plan for the next phase. Repeat as needed until you’ve reached the goal you sought.
I resolved to learn more about hermetic Qaballah this year to enhance my tarot reading. I picked it because it involves aspects of alchecmy, which i am also interested in, and was popularized by many Golden Dawn members that I am already familar with. My wife got me a great new deck ‘The Initiatory Tarot of the Golden Dawn’ and my best friend got me Dion Fortune’s ‘Mystic Qaballah’ for Yule, so once I get my Imbolc planning done, I’ll be diving in!
Ty, guess what? I’m showcasing images from The Initiatory Tarot of the Golden Dawn this month! I love that deck. However, I am sure I’m missing a lot simply because I am not that brilliant with Golden Dawn material. One of the things I’ll be posting is an interesting surprise about the cards. I imagine you’ll have noticed by the time I post. But keep it a secret! I want to surprise people. You’re planning Imbolc already! Ugh! It’s not on my calendar for a few weeks yet. But then, my activities are usually solitary, so that makes it simpler.
I have a beginer’s question regarding how to schuffel the deck. Suppose I needed to select just one card for a day, to meditate uopn. Since the cards have two meanings reversed and otherwise & depends on placement and assuming they are turned over left to right. (?)
Do I start with all the cards aligned the same direction? Is it allowed, required to riff schuffel, creating altenate directions, thus mixing from the “up ” side? Or is the shuffell accomplished in some other fashion.
I really would like some guidance .
Barbara,I know TWO secrets about the cards that make them stand out from most other decks, not just other Golden Dawn themed-decks. And I won’t blab either one!
Tom, there are so many ways to shuffle and none are more right than any others. As for me, I riff shuffle. When I want to include reversals (and I don’t always), I turn some of the cards around and shuffle until I am done. That incorporates random reversed cards. Then when I deal or select the card, I take it off the top as if I were opening a book.
I hope that makes sense and helps.
Ty, oh, excellent! You can share them when I post (I think the 28th of January is the date for it).
My usual resolution is to pull 50 readings in the coming year. I don’t usually count any readings I do for myself in that time. While this number would be very small for a professional, it makes me a very active Amateur and I very often double my goal in a given year.
Personally I feel reading is really something that you only learn by reading, by seeing the cards in the context of a reading. So my advise to all readers is practice, practice, practice.
Tarot has become something of a solitary practice for me in the last year. In an effort to broaden that scope, a friend and I have resolved to start a little in-depth study group to maintain throughout the year. Not terribly forward, but it’s pretty easy to branch out from there.
I really liked Blackbird’s resolution for the year. “A very active Amateur” is exactly what I’d want to be this year!
My goal is to work on my Tarot journaling more. It’s a great practice and really helps me to continue to “live” the tarot rather than just read it!
Joli,
If your comfortable with email readings; and they do work out well IMHO; making yourself available to on places like Yahoo groups helps. 3 or 4 times a year I will put out my Shingle at Witch Essentials, and generally draw a half dozen reading each time, now WE is a very large group and I would not recommend that to someone starting out. Posting a few business cards at your local Metaphysical store is also a good idea.
I do agree with Theres’s comment about journalling, I pull 6 cards every few days and turn them over one per day, and reflect on how that card played out in my day. I often post those thoughts to a blog in a seperate smaller online group; that blog does help me see the rythems playing out in my life. Blessings, BB.