Tarot Thursday Three: Spellwork and Ritual

Here's another round of Tarot Thursday Three, hosted by Julia from Spiral Sea Tarot. Feel free to participate on your own blog, or answer the questions in the comments below!

1. Does spell work have a place in your practice and if so, how?

Sort of. I don't necessarily connect Tarot with it, and I don't do it as often as I used to, but it is something that I practice from time to time. In fact when I was first starting to read for others years ago I didn't know how to market myself (I still don't like it!), so for a handful of months as a new reader I didn't see any movement at all in terms of reading requests. One day I decided to do a candle spell to invite fresh business, and within the next few days I suddenly had three new clients! I was pretty surprised (happily so).

I have a bóveda, or ancestor/spiritist altar, which has become my central focus/tool for setting intentions on, or doing workings around, particular areas of my life, or to support people who are struggling.

When my kids were very sick a month or so ago I used galdr and traced runes onto their backs and tummies, and over their tea, to help support their healing. I found it startlingly helpful.

So perhaps I use "spell work" more than I thought ;)

Celtic Tree Oracle

2. What is the element you most identify with and/or enjoy working with and why?

I've always been an earthy woman - the kind to smear mud on my face, and sit for long hours watching the tree branches bend and sway in the wind. But then there is something deeply healing and soothing about water, and while I've always loved lakes and rivers, this past year I've become much more attached to the sea. I wrote this after a recent beachside stay:

I spent a lot of time visualizing, 

last weekend at the sea. 

As I gazed, 

I leapt into not the waves 

but the deep green depths, 

far beyond the fisherman's pier. 

I felt the water wash over me, 

I dove and soared and leapt and breathed. 

Then, in the early hours of morning, 

a quiet in and out of tides, 

a bird call, 

a hush, 

a dance of sunrise. 

Peace, it was.

And I've also been thoroughly enjoying working with fire. I love lighting candles, and do so almost daily, but last month's celebration of Biakendai/Biikebrennen was particularly beautiful and cathartic. 

3. Besides the cards, what are your favourite tools for divination and/or ritual?

I work with the runes daily, though I rarely post about it. I'm currently facilitating a slow-paced study of the Elder Futhark for a group of Heathen women on Facebook. I read Lenormand for almost two years, and studied it voraciously. I still enjoy it but find myself rarely pulling out a Lennie deck of late.

As for ritual: candles, altar space, cards, incense, and my thoughts.

Divinity Within Each Moment

There is divinity within each moment. Sometimes it calls to us like light from a vivid setting sun, vibrating through and over and around us. Other times it is subtle, elusive, hidden within the folds and bends of everyday life. We often overlook its presence; we swim like salmon against the current into the embrace of deeper meaning, even if our awareness there is fleeting.

Dark Goddess Tarot; Ellen Lorenzi-Prince

Ritual is a helpful tool for bringing our consciousness into divine awareness, and ritual can be found in everything, most especially the seemingly mundane facets of quotidian life.

There is a certain stability and sanctuary (literally, "holy place") that the present moment affords, and tea brewing is one way I seek to inhabit it more mindfully; a method to show appreciation for what is; brewing/drinking as a ritual of embracing the immediacy of the moment:

Now I am watching the steam curl upward. Now I am pouring water over leaves. Now I am seeing them unfold, release their essence, color their surroundings. Now I am waiting. Now I am sipping. Now it is scalding to the lips. Now it heats a path to my center. Now I release and sigh. Now it becomes warm, and now it becomes cool. Now I am here; not earlier, not soon, not tomorrow. Just here, just in this space, in this moment.

Tea time pauses everything. It keeps the pressures at bay. It reminds us that there is a holy light in each moment if we choose to find it.