The ancestors' call became a siren scream

How we were

A small settlement hunches by the edge of the sea. The huts are made of driftwood, branches of knotted pine, some stone maybe, probably hides. The people are tall and fair with faces roughened by wind, brine and the pale northern sun.

They fish in the icy sea with spears and nets. They hunt the great shaggy, horned ruminants of the harsh rocky north. The reindeer and elk devour the tough wild vegetation and possess several stomaches to digest it. The people cannot.

They sometimes eat red algae collected from the sea or seeds or berries or sprigs of green herbs. These are good for health as any village healer knows. But they fill no bellies. That is the role of the great whales driven ashore by the first rough boats or wild bore brought down at great risk in the darkest parts of the pine forest.

After some time—a long span of centuries or even millennia—they find that if caught the deer and its relatives can be kept and that they will give good nourishing milk that the people can eat and that will usually go sour in a way that is good. They find the eggs of wild birds at first and eventually they keep these at home as well.

And that is what they eat. For thousands upon thousands of years.

How we changed

The new ways of tilling soil and growing crops came late to the shores of the North Sea, the Baltic and the North Atlantic. They came because the stuff that grew out of the soil was sweet and oddly addictive and because the new ways were good for chieftains.

The little settlements moved as needed for food or protection. But growing crops required control of land and for the first time there was food that would last more than a few months, food that could be stockpiled and given out to warriors and followers.

In the settlements there were people of greater or lesser strength, but strength was measured in mind as well as body. There were strong hunters, skilled gatherers, good cooks and experienced healers. Some of those of importance were men and some were women. Some were even very old, weak in body but strong in experience. No one ruled absolutely. Surviving alone, without a clan, in that harsh land wasn’t feasible. No one could have all the necessary skills.

But when the time of tilling and planting came, there were lords who fed the warriors and at first the lord had to be among the strongest. But later a lord might be sickly and idle, but still own the land by the social contract and structure of society, still own the stores of food given in rent, still control the might of men. And it was about men then. Women’s work was degraded and devalued.

Image by Diana Robinson

Still the women gathered the plants and berries, and the forgetting of the old ways was slow. But over the generations the people of the north, though they thought of themselves as fierce and free, became surfs. Not so much slaves to this lord or that. Those were overthrown on a regular basis, but slaves to the grain and later the potatoes and sugar beets.

Then there came famine, when crops failed and that was all they had to eat anymore. In Ireland, fifteen percent of the people died of starvation and a similar number were forced to leave their homeland, when crop disasters and overlords conspired to calamity.

And today the descendants of those who lived on those northern shores are still among the relatively few people on earth who can process lactose, the sugar found in unsoured milk. They are also a bit taller. They get fat easily on the modern diet of starchy vegetables, beans, lean meat, skimmed dairy and processed grains.

But this isn’t a healthy kind of fat stored for the lean times. It is concentrated near our middles. Arms and legs remain relatively slender until the last stages of obesity, heart disease and diabetes set in. It is not the well-proportioned fat of some more southerly peoples and the sad statistics of northern Europeans are mirrored among many indigenous communities of northern latitudes as well.

Allergic to sugar

I was always one who fancied that I listened to the call of my ancestors… and ate healthy. I ate whole grains and beans and veggies. I kept meat to a portion or two a week and dairy to low-fat and limited amounts. That was how I was taught. I did have a hard time resisting the siren’s call of sweet tastes. Maybe the cells of my body remembered a time when the hard-won taste of honey was the only way to get such sweet on the tongue and it was exceedingly rare.

And ever since I grew to adulthood, I grew a bit heavier every year with most of that weight around my middle, despite being known as a “health nut” with my pot of legume soup for every occasion and a moderately active lifestyle growing a lot of veggies in my garden. So, it was a shock when I registered with a new doctor in a new country and got a diagnosis with it.

BG 190….A1C 6.9…. Numbers I had no reference for. But a disease my eye doctors had taught me to fear above all others: Diabetes.

It’s a danger to anyone’s eyes because of the way high blood sugar destroys nerves and sensitive tissues. But with my eyes as fragile as they have been since I was born, it is a screaming emergency.

“It’s well controlled,” the conventional nutritionist tells me. “You could eat less sugar or a plant-based diet. But yes, it will get worse, just more slowly. There’s no cure.”

I read their brochures, which advised me to carry jellybeans in my pocket to ward off extreme blood sugar dips and told me to expect blindness, amputations and heart attacks sooner rather than later. I was told I could put off the inevitable by dieting, even though my metabolism would inevitably slow down and require ever more restriction and hunger to maintain even an moderatey elevated weight.

For a few days, I felt truly hopeless.

I’m still considered “young” for this. Most everyone in my diabetes support group is over sixty. I’m only forty-five. I’ve heard that the descendants of people who lived through famine are more likely to get diabetes, even if they eat a healthy diet. Older family members always said I inherited my looks and build from my grandma Janet (of the Irish wing of the family). Maybe that was to blame, I do wonder.

Nightmares kept me tossing and turning two nights running, strange images of dark woods and crashing waves interspersed with jeering faces, hands holding cinnamon rolls and cheesy garlic bread and voices taunting: “Fat!” “Lazy!” “Your fault!” “Glutton!” “You deserve it!” “Everyone will be sure you just didn’t follow your diet and that’s why you’re blind!” “You’ll be totally blind soon enough!” “And you’ll die young!”

I was so tired I could barely think straight and every time I closed my eyes the shame and fear closed in. So, I did what I always do in the worst troubles. I made a big, healthy pot of beans—food to tide over hard times, food to share, hearth food.

Then I forced myself to eat almost nothing else but beans and veggies for the next four days. I got rid of all my crackers, cookies, chocolate, cereal and wholegrain bagels and kept the rice around only for my kids.

I sat at the kitchen table forcing in bites of the bland beans, fighting back tears and feeling ever more exhausted and then oddly dizzy. In fact, I found that every time I had a bowl of beans, I felt dizzy, tired and even a bit sick for several hours.

That was when they told me the beans were spiking my glucose. Beans! It is one thing to have to cut out ice cream and chocolate and bread. But beans?!?

Okay, the doctors didn’t actually tell me to cut out beans. They just nodded sympathetically. This is the disease. You can struggle and make it a little better. But you can’t win. You’ll never win until you’re dead. The dead don’t have to eat.

And every time I sat down at my altar to call to my gods and my ancestors I felt their disappointment, rather than support. I drew Tarot cards and got Death, three times in as many days. I rarely get the Death card, at least before now. Was that supposed to be literal? I felt so tired I thought I might as well just curl up and die.

But Death in the Tarot is almost never about actually dying. It’s about the urgent and unstoppable need for deep and irrevocable change, often a leap into darkness. It was the time of Samhain when Death is a presence and we draw our ancestors near. I tried to listen. I stayed watchful for signs.

Addiction can be broken

I ran across a link to a study… and another study and another. In a large controlled trial a group of obese adults was divided into two groups. One was given a low fat-diet and the other a low-carbohydrate diet. Both lost weight, but the low carbohydrate-dieters lost three times as much. And their blood glucose stabilized.

Not every study is like that. I found several big ones that claimed low-carbohydrate diets aren’t that great or come with health risks. But without fail these studies mysteriously excluded everyone with diabetes from their data and included, as “low-carb dieters,” those who eat massive amounts of fatty junk food as well as meat.

It seems that being “allergic to sugar,” which is what some doctors now call the disease, disqualifies you from being a good candidate for a diet that really does take all the sugar out, even the somewhat disguised sugar in beans and whole grains and carrots. And if you want to prove something is harmful, it is best to ensure a large proportion of those doing it wrong in your study.

My dreams changed. I saw the settlement by the sea, one, then another and another. Back that many generations each of us has thousands of ancestors. My ancestors came from all across northern Europe. I saw them by their fires, cooking and eating, and in the waves of the sea dragging a whale ashore.

I also saw my guide, whom I met two years ago during an intense week of ancestral journeying just before Covid hit. I thought I had a guide who was a fisherman with a spear because my ancestors have been such deluded colonialists in recent centuries that that was just how far one had to go back to find someone of good honor. Now I realize there may well have been another reason I got him.

OK, if that is what must be, I will listen.

I stopped eating sweets, grains, even whole grains, potatoes, beans… the lot. I made curry with coconut, yams, veggies and a little chicken and gave my kids all the rice. I ate a lot of salad and little bits of meat. I had only unsweetened applesauce and a bit of dried fruit. And after a few days that applesauce tasted so sweet I had to check three times that it was really unsweetened.

But my body crashed harder than ever before. For four days, I thought I either had the flu, breakout Covid or uncontrollable diabetes. Once I drank a few swallows of carrot juice and the dizzy, sick feeling I’d had with the beans came roaring back. I didn’t even crave sweets. The thought of sweet foods made me nauseous.

But I remembered how I used to eat a sweet or carbohydrate-heavy snack every time my energy flagged in the afternoons, like other people drink coffee. No wonder I was sick. This was withdrawal. Allergy? Maybe addiction is the better term.

Then, on the fifth day I got up out of bed, and I felt better than I’d felt in years. But I was also hungry all the time. I kept healthy snacks in my pockets and tried to eat small portions. I still chose low-fat options out of habit, even though some of my reading was telling me that wasn’t going to help.

Finally, I found studies showing that the changes I had made were still not enough. Yes, that would keep me hanging on a little longer. It had taken my BG down ten points. I’d lost five pounds in ten days. But it was hard, miserable, hungry and still a losing battle, if a slow one.

By now, I was beginning to see sense in my dreams. My body had rebelled against the sweet and starchy modern foods or had simply been beaten down by them. Looking back, I can see the chronic exhaustion and rising health crises of the past fifteen years in context. I always ate something a bit sweet to boost my energy temporarily, but it was like an addict taking a little hit of a deadly drug to stave off withdrawal.

And now I can’t handle even the smallest doses without consequences.

The internet being what it is today, I soon found out that I am far from the only one, and there are growing numbers of people realizing the incompatibility between our bodies and modern food.

I’m still not sure it is everyone’s body though. When I was in Nepal, living temporarily in small mountain villages, the people there seemed amazingly healthy—though very small and stocky in stature. They ate plates of brown rice and spiced lentils with a tiny dab of boiled greens and the occasional sliver of chicken meat or boiled egg. That was all. And they were powerhouses of energy and strength..

But after ten days of it, I was trembling and bloated. It may be that different genetic legacies call for different approaches to bodily fuel.

Rebirth of the fire

There is a spectrum of regimens out there for those who find themselves “allergic to sugar” like me—everywhere from the carnivore (nothing but meat, eggs and dairy) to keto to paleo and real low-carb diets. Three weeks ago, I started on a keto plan specifically designed to reverse diabetes and protect eyesight.

Keto is short for ketosis, a metabolic switch where the human body gives up relying on sugars (i.e. carbohydrates, all of them end up as sugar in the end) and switches over to burning fat for fuel. It’s such a fundamental biological shift, and yet it is something our bodies have adapted to do over hundreds of thousands of years. And it is likely the state most of my northern ancestors lived with most of the time.

I once scoffed at such “diets,” suspecting that they were merely fads like the fruitarian diet or being gluten-free without any medical reason. I had read and heard a hundred times that the only way to lose weight is to cut calories. “Calories in, calories out.” So, exercise helps some too. And oh yeah, eat low-fat everything, because fat is… well, fat.

But pushed to extremes (and sick enough days to actually lie on my back and do research), it turns out I will try anything to get my energy back. I had already been doing meditations and energy working every day for more than a year to regain the life force and strength I lost sometime in my thirties.

It’s been three weeks now, since I’ve limited net carbohydrates to 22 grams per day. That’s seriously not very much. Today it’s 7 grams from two small super-low-carb peanut butter/cocoa waffles made with almond flower, half a gram from a spoonful of greek yogurt on top, 2 grams from a third of an artichoke, 3.5 grams from a spinach and tomato salad, 5.5 grams from a small piece of sugar-free avocado cheesecake and 3.5 grams from a bowl of chicken broth with moderate amounts of pumpkin and coconut milk in it.

That doesn’t include all the butter, coconut oil, olive oil, hard cheese and hemp hearts I dump on whenever I reasonably can because they don’t have “carbs” in them and they do have the healthy fats my body is supposedly now burning for actual fuel. It also doesn’t mention a large portion of elk sausage my brother shot, dragged, hung, skinned, dismembered, ground, spiced and froze last year. Elk meat doesn’t have any carbs either.

People tend to give me pitying pats and murmurs when there are things like muffins, pumpkin pie and pizza around. But unlike the previous more traditional diet, I don’t feel too hungry, just “ready to eat” by the time meals come around. I often feel quite full, in fact. I don’t have to carry snacks around. I actually really like some of the food I get to eat. (The elk sausage is fantastic, as is the avocado cheesecake and spinach salad. The super-low-carb waffles still need some fine-tuning.)

But best of all, I feel better than I ever dreamed I would again. I’m losing all kinds of minor ailments I used to battle constantly, like digestive trouble, foot fungus, hangnails, canker sores and restless sleep. Most of all, I have energy. I’m only tired when I’ve been run ragged by kids, bureaucracy, cooking, cleaning and hiking, and then fall into bed at night.

By the way, my blood sugar is down in the normal range, after skipping right over the pre-diabetic range and my cholesterol is dipping back into the healthy range as well. I’ve also incidentally lost another ten pounds and look like I did about ten years ago.

The hard part isn’t feeling deprived or having to fight cravings really. I sometimes think about the foods I can’t eat and wonder if I will really never eat a piece of my mom’s delicious raw-honey baklava again… for the rest of my life. Ouch! It’s the finality that hurts, not so much wanting to have some right this minute.

I have to say that the hardest part is all the cooking. There are keto packaged foods out there, but half of them are scams and actually fairly high in carbs or terrible additives. And all of them are ridiculously expensive. The only way I’m eating waffles and cheesecake is that I studied them, scrambled for strange ingredients and mad them like kitchen science experiments, and it’s a whole different kind of cooking, not to mention shopping. Most of the necessary ingredients are either things I’ve never used before or full-fat varieties that are almost impossible to find today.

The food is also often a bit too “weird” for my kids, so I have to cook separate meals in smaller sizes. It’s all new and coupled with the onslaught of school, health care and bureaucratic demands, I’m frazzled… but in a generally good mood for the first time in a long time.

My ancestors and my gods seem to approve. I get Tarot cards for victory and fulfillment on a regular basis with a few of the stern masters of structure and rules, such as the Emperor and the King of Pentacles, thrown in to keep me on the straight and narrow. I can feel the presence of the ancients and with my regained health I can walk in the mountains again.

Tarot basics 5: How and why to shuffle your Tarot cards

There are few joys I relish so much as holding a new Tarot deck in my hands. It’s like with a new book—the crisp feel of unblemished paper and the lovely smell. Only this is a “book” with infinite possibilities (and really nice pictures).

If you’re following along with my posts on Tarot and you have a new or new-to-you deck of Tarot cards and you have cleansed it (see this post for that step), you now have in your hands a unified language to access your inner voice, your gods, your ancestors and other wisdom besides.

But as long as it just sits there, it is just another nice book. Shuffling is the way we breathe life into it and allow it to speak with a dynamic and living voice.

Before you shuffle

But there is one thing you should do BEFORE you shuffle a new deck of Tarot cards.

If you bought or received a brand new deck from a store, you will find that the cards are organized in a specific manner. All the Higher Arcana cards will be together and in order. Each suit will be in order from Ace to King (or whatever your deck calls these roles).

If you aren’t yet experienced with the cards, it might be good to look through them in this order You will, for instance, likely notice that different colors dominate in each suit, unless the deck your have chosen has a color scheme that covers the entire deck. You will notice that the visual aesthetic of the Higher Arcana is more grand, lavish and detailed than that of the Lower Arcana. You may find that the lower numbered cards in each suit have a lighter, simpler feel to them, while the higher numbered cards tend to get more complicated.

Take a moment, while the cards are so handily organized for you to look through the suits and observe how your deck feels and what aesthetic sense the various parts convey. If your deck is used and not in this order, it is well worth your time to organize it and make these observations as well.

However, when you are ready to do a reading, the deck needs to be shuffled. Even if you have been given a used deck, you will need to shuffle the deck well before using it. This is also an extension of the energetic cleansing.

Forging the connection

The animist and universalist theories of energy say that Tarot cards work because they have their own inherent energy (i.e. vibration or soul, depending on how you look at it), which interacts with the reader’s energy and with that of anyone the reader asks about specifically. Many readers visualize energy, usually imagined as light, going from themselves and into the cards as they shuffle. This is because while the cards provide a language for communication, its nuance comes from connection to the specific individual reader.

There are two types of shuffling in my view: 1. Deep, thorough shuffling for new decks or for times when your cards have been handled by others or for periodic reordering, usually after a cleansing, and 2. Standard daily shuffling before each reading.

You can shuffle by holding the deck in one hand and taking out a few cards from the middle to move to one end or the other of the deck. Do this over and over again. For every day readings that is usually how I shuffle.

Image by Arie Farnam

I don’t recommend bending the cards as you do when shuffling playing cards. Tarot cards are made with slicker, usually more rigid material. In order to bend them sufficiently, you would have to damage the deck.

But it is a good idea to give your cards a more thorough shuffle the first time you use them or before a major reading or significant holiday, such as the Winter Solstice. The best method for a deep, complete shuffle is to place a cloth on a clean flat surface and scatter the cards on it face down. Then run your hands through the cards in circles, making sure to move every card around thoroughly.

The motion is like that of a toddler finger painting and it can make some people uneasy because it seems unsophisticated and childlike. There is actually something to be said for that though. The Fool is the classic symbol of the querent, the person who is seeking answers from the Tarot.

While the figure is called “the Fool” as if they are silly or frivolous, that isn’t really the core meaning of this historical term. The meaning is much more about playful openness, like that of a child. So, this childlike form of shuffling is well suited to the Tarot.

Beyond that, this is simply the best method to thoroughly mix the cards and reverse some of them randomly with a minimum of wear and tear to the deck. I have decks I have done this with for twenty years, and they are still in fine shape.

The swirling of the cards on a flat surface allows your intuitive energy to be the main influence on the cards, rather than the physical constraints of the shuffling process or random static electricity.

I always have a tendency to close my eyes for part of the shuffling process. You may also call upon (either out loud or in your mind, depending on circumstances) any powers or spirits that may aid you in your search for answers. Some people will call on a deity or deities, which is perfectly appropriate with Tarot. Others will call on ancestors, angels, elements, nature spirits or the energy of the solar or lunar phase of the moment.

All of these energies are present regardless and will almost certainly have an influence on the reading, whether or not they are explicitly called. For best communication, it seems advisable to acknowledge them and welcome their influence positively.

The method can be simplified like this:

1. Write down or record your question or intension.

2. Place the cards face down on a cloth over a clean, flat surface.

3. Mix the cards thoroughly by pushing them around the cloth with spiraling motions of your hands. Allow every card to be separated from its neighbor and turned around multiple times.

4. Visualize the light of your energy entering the cards and swirling around with them through your hands.

5. Call on your spiritual allies, gods, ancestors, guardians and the like to aid in your search for answers.

6. State your intention or question out loud.

While this method ends with a question or intention, it also works as an initial shuffle to familiarize your new cards with your energy. The intention then might well be simply to open communication with these new cards and ask them to become your allies.

The importance of recording your intention at the outset

Notice that the first step is actually writing down your intention or question. When you do a reading it is essential that you write down your question in advance. There are very few rules that I will say you must abide by in Tarot, but this is one. I will discuss it and the layout of basic readings in the next post.

This rule will save you endless confusion, doubts, arguments and mistakes. Write your question down in your journal, datebook or on a scrap of napkin. It doesn’t really matter where. Even if you don’t want to or can’t stop to take notes on this reading, write down the question at least.

It is astounding how your memory will trick you and bargain with hard truths by subtly changing your question if you don’t do this. If you want the Tarot to do more than tell you soft, fuzzy affirmations of what you want to hear, then this is an essential step.

How does it work?

Once you have thoroughly shuffled the cards, you can do simple readings by shuffling the cards gently in your hands. They are already connected to your energy.

I shuffle more intensely if I’m reading for someone else. I either have to focus my mind entirely on the other person during the shuffling (such as when doing a long-distance reading) or allow the other person to shuffle using the thorough method above.

Why shuffle once the cards are mixed up? And how can a randomly drawn card have any specific message for you anyway?

I’ll cover these topics in depth next time, but for now remember that Tarot comes out of an animist or universalist view of nature with the assumption that there is an energetic level of reality in which everything is interconnected and thus there are energetic connections to everything and everyone else living now and even at different points throughout time.

It is through these connections, as unseen as radio waves or gravity and yet no less real, that Tarot works by reflecting things you know in your subconscious, things other people know, things the land and other entities know and possibly things known in other times and places. How much knowledge the Tarot can access for you, is likely to correspond with the permission you give it. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you must believe firmly that the Tarot will work for it to work, but a hard disbelief would tend to create a hard barrier against knowledge.

Tarot basics 4: What to do with a new Tarot deck

If you’ve been reading my series on Tarot, you should now have a deck of Tarot cards, a Tarot book and someplace to read them. (If you don’t have a deck of cards or a book yet, take a look at this post on choosing a deck and this one on choosing a book.)

Finally, we’ve come to the real action.

If you’re new to Tarot, you are probably eager to dive in and lay out your first reading. Yet there is still a tiny bit of preparation to do. It’s lovely to look through your new cards and enjoy their amazing, magical imagery, but before you start the real work with them, it’s a good idea to decide exactly how and where they’ll be stored.

Image by Arie Farnam

Some decks will come with a little pouch made of plastic material that isn’t very pleasant. Many people suggest storing Tarot cards only in natural silk cloth or in a special wooden box of the right shape and size. Both of those options are delightful and may well lift your mood each time you touch your cards.

However, Tarot has travelled a long and humble road since its beginnings in Renaissance Italy and it is not snobby. If natural silk or a pretty wooden box are hard to come by—as they are for 80 percent of the world’s population—don’t stress about it. The perfect container will probably show up eventually.

Until then, keep your cards clean, dry and together in a safe place, wrapped in a nice cloth or tucked inside a small cloth bag. They are much harder to shuffle well when they get bent, wet, sticky or battered around the corners.

Another consideration before diving in is an energetic cleansing of your new cards. As I’ve explained in previous posts, most theories of Tarot are based on tapping into an energetic level of reality in which everything and everyone is connected by relationships that have various energies.

Every Tarot deck also has it’s own energetic signature, just as people have auras. This is not really because Tarot decks are extra special, magical objects. All objects have some degree of energy signature. But Tarot decks usually have particularly potent energy because of the artistic and scholarly work that goes into their creation.

Cleansing will not erase the innate energy of the cards. There will always be some amount of the energy of the author, who wrote the book you use, and the artist, who designed the cards. Older decks and decks whose makers have attracted the respect and attention of large numbers of people are likely to have extraordinarily potent auras.

For instance, I have always been magnetically drawn to my mother’s ancient Thoth deck and at the same time, that deck has an intense, even dark, energy. That has to do with the fact that the author Alister Crowley, who gave instructions to the painter Lady Frieda Harris to create the deck, had some issues with control, sex and human relationships that can carry over into the cards. The fact that his fame has outlived him by more than seventy years has only increased its potency.

No amount of cleansing is going to erase those energies from a Thoth deck, especially one with the age and experience of my mother’s. But there are many stagnant and unwelcome energies which can be cleared relatively easily. And fortunately, most Tarot decks come with innate energy that is helpful and supportive.

Most Tarot cards are made to be receptive to your energy or the energy of whoever comes into contact with them. That means they have likely been receptive since they were made and they might well have picked up the energies of people who handled them during the manufacturing, packaging and retail process or the energy of customers who considered buying this particular physical deck before you. Either way, they came through a commercial process fraught with global problems and individual stress, so they are unlikely to arrive in your hands without some less-than-wonderful energetic baggage.

For this reason, it is a good idea to do an energetic cleansing of some kind and then introduce your new deck and book to your energy in a positive and purposeful way.

Energetic cleansing is like clearing cobwebs out of the corners of your house. Stagnant and problematic energy can go almost unnoticed, like cobwebs in unused parts of a room, but it gives a certain dusty, unkempt feel to a place or object. Like cobwebs, this energy can be brushed away relatively easily, but it does tend to stick unless you make a specific effort.

Some methods of cleansing energy on a Tarot deck (or any other object really), which you can use when the deck is new or after someone else has handled your cards, include:

1. Use a bundle of cleansing herbs such as white sage, lavender, mugwort, kitchen sage or another natural incense to waft fragrant smoke all around your deck and book. At the same time visualize any dusty, tense or residual energies drifting away and being replaced by a clear light.

2. Place your deck of cards and book on a sunny windowsill for one day and ask the sun’s rays to cleanse their energy. Don’t leave them there longer because prolonged sunlight can warp paper and fade inks. If you can, leave the deck and book on a south-facing windowsill over night on the full moon for added cleansing and energizing benefits.

3. Place a clear quartz and/or smokey quartz stone on top of your book and deck and ask the stone or stones to cleanse the deck. Leave it there for at least 24 hours and up to a week.

4. If you have tried one of the other methods and still feel that there is negative, interfering or stagnant energy around your cards, place your cards in a shallow bowl and cover them with coarse sea salt for at least 24-hours or up to a week, depending on your sense of the need. Salt has strong purifying effects, but this is usually not necessary.

When your deck has been cleansed and you feel only a clear and bright energy from it, even if it may be distinctive in some way specific to the deck or its creator, you are ready to formally introduce yourself to the cards.

I love to look through each one, read about the specific deck and shuffle the cards without a specific reading in mind to get to know them and let them get to know me. You may conduct a small ritual to dedicate this deck to you, to your divination work for others or to any other specific task. It isn’t mandatory but can be helpful for focus.

A simple way to do this is to prepare symbols of the four elements: earth, water, fire and air. Prepare a bowl of salt and a bowl or cup of water. Light a candle and an energetic incense or herb bundle (mugwort, sandalwood or frankincense are particularly useful here).

Sprinkle the deck with salt and say, “By earth, I dedicate you…” You may finish the sentence with a specific dedication if you like or leave it as is.

Pass the cards through the smoke of your incense or herb bundle and say, “By air, I dedicate you…”

Pass the cards over the candle three times and say, “By fire, I dedicate you…”

Sprinkle a very few drops of water on the deck and say, “By water, I dedicate you…” Again you can finish the sentence, but also wipe the water so that it doesn’t damage the cards.

These four elemental powers are specifically needed in Tarot work and they can be a great aid in dedication. You may also dedicate the cards in the name of a deity. or honored ancestor with a particular interest in divination.

Hekate is a goddess often associated with divination and close enough to the origins of Tarot to be specifically interested. It is best if you do this once you already have a reciprocal relationship with Hekate. But this can also be a time to start such a relationship. Just be serious in your determination to study and learn from Hekate, to follow her teachings and give whatever thanks or offering she may require of you.

In the next post, I’ll go into all the issues about shuffling the cards, so that you can draw a card for information or meditation as well as begin the practice of Tarot readings.

Tarot basics: Setting up your reading space

This could be a post on setting up any kind of spiritual and contemplative space. That’s what Tarot is at its best—spiritual contemplation.

That doesn’t mean that your space has to be an altar with incense, candles and no other distractions,, although it might well be. People—like yours truly—whose monkey brains are always going a mile a minute throughout the day, multitasking and absorbing some sort of media a good deal of the time, might well need such a space to settle down enough to focus on the Tarot.

But if you can focus at your kitchen table or on your bed, so much the better. There are some spiritual practices, I don’t recommend doing on your bed. I wouldn’t encourage you to do readings dealing with ancestors or highly distressing topics there because, whether you believe in energy residue or not, just the memory of the reading on your bed might interfere with your sleep.

I do encourage you to clean and wash off you table before laying out your cards. There is nothing worse than sticky or dirty Tarot cards. They can be quickly ruined and the language of the deck becomes incomplete even if only one is missing or damaged. Once a card has been warped by water, it will never shuffle equally with other cards again.

Beyond that, the clutter on a table may well exert a distracting energy on your reading, resulting in an answer that is more vague than it needed to be.

So clear off and wash at least a section of your table or smooth out a part of your bed. I have always lit a candle when I do Tarot, but that is a matter of personal taste. The candle flame provides me with focus. I also generally lay out some tokens representing the four cardinal directions.

Image by Arie Farnam

That is because I call in the energies of the four directions and the elements they correspond to as aids for me in a reading. I will generally also call a deity, either my matron goddess or a goddess who deals specifically with divination, like the Morrigan or Hekate. But that is specific to my tradition. I do recommend that you call in whatever entities you work with spiritually before beginning a reading and have a token to represent them if that is part of your tradition.

I usually smudge with white sage because of its cleansing, clarifying and spiritually enhancing properties and because I can get as much of it as I need from my mother’s backyard. But in many other places white sage is endangered, and you may well not have access to it. There are many other herbs you can use. Among the best are lavender, mugwort, wormwood, kitchen sage and sweetgrass. All of these have cleansing and spiritually enhancing properties.

But you can do without a smudge and I have on many occasions. Incense is also good for settling and calming an atmosphere although most stick incense doesn’t have the mildly mind-altering qualities of herbal smudges. Essential oil diffusers may be an even better option, especially for those who have allergies or respiratory problems with smoke. Be aware that synthetic oils may also be problematic for many people and try to find good-quality, natural essential oils.

Still, you may be in a place where no smoke of any kind is allowed or simply need to do a reading quickly. In that case, don’t let the lack of something smoking or steaming stop you from doing Tarot.

One other thing I suggest is a cup of something to drink that is calming and centering. This generally does not mean coffee. Coffee or other caffeinated drinks are fine right after the reading, but will tend to interfere with the contemplation, unless you have ADHD or a similar neurological imbalance—in which case, do whatever your experience tells you will allow you a contemplative moment or two.

I prefer tea, even in the summer. It’s just a thing. I won’t generally drink my favorite chai tea during a reading though. I’m much more likely to drink herbal tea. Thyme, mint and wild oregono are particularly good for readings.

As you can see, setting up a Tarot space has a lot of elements of calming each of our senses in turn. Clearing up clutter and lighting a candle, settles and comforts our visual and kinesthetic senses. Smudges, incense and diffusers both calm and focus our olfactory sense. Tea takes care of our sense of taste in a soothing way.

For that reason, a lot of people will put on some soothing, meditative music to do readings, covering the auditory sense as well. I usually skip that step, but it depends on what helps you to be fully focused and relaxed. Certainly, it is good to try to be at a temperature that isn’t distracting, if at all possible.

And speaking of distractions, there is the question of other people who may be in your space. Tarot, in my experience, is best done alone. I do it with a single friend sometimes, but it isn’t easy. Then again, I’m a certified introvert. It may be different for you.

The thing is that Tarot is a spiritual contemplative practice. I’m not saying that you can’t do it while someone is drumming and a room full of people are dancing as the spirit moves them right next to you. Particularly, if the gathering is spiritual in nature, it may work fine and the energy may be wonderful for the Tarot

However, if the energy is not focused. If other people are watching TV and just hanging out, it is likely that their energy will interfere with the Tarot. Like I said before, this can simply make the reading more vague than in needs to be. I have never met a public Tarot reader who did anything but vague readings at those booths you see at fairs and other events, though there may be someone somewhere with the focus to withstand any external energy.

So it makes sense that if someone is laying out a reading while several friends lean over the table and joke and make derogatory remarks about the Tarot, whether the reader is participating in the hilarity or not, the reading won’t work. This is why “testing” the Tarot in a social setting also tends to get readings so vague as to be useless.

In the end, a space to read Tarot should be a space were you can calm your mind and heart, focus clearly on a question and be receptive to other-than-logical connections. As herbalists say about herbal tea, part of the medicine is in the actual tea (or the Tarot, in this case) and part of the benefit is in the fact that you get to sit down in comfort for a moment. Don’t underestimate the power of these quiet moments and make the space as relaxing and pleasant as possible.

Tarot boot camp: Where and how to get a Tarot deck

A lot of people will tell you that your first Tarot deck has to be given to you as a gift. It does often happen that way, so it’s “traditional.”

A friend, family member or mentor may decide you are ready to discover the Tarot or you may ask for a deck as a holiday gift. If so, you are one of the lucky ones. Even if that deck isn’t exactly the one you would have chosen, there is a specific magic to the first deck and it is bound up with the gift and with the giver.

In the days before the internet, it probably almost always happened that way. How else would a new initiate hear about Tarot, learn that they could use it effectively or gain access to a deck. Sure, there was the rare store where you could buy a deck, but without at least a little mentoring, it was unlikely that someone just curious enough to buy a deck would ever learn to use it well.

Today things are different. The internet is full of information about Tarot and a myriad of similar tools. A person interested in Tarot today has a completely different—though no less serious—problem. There is so much information and so many decks to choose from that it is bewildering.

And plenty of new Tarot readers hear about the old tradition requiring that one’s first deck should be a gift, and feel mildly guilty about buying one.

I have a solution if that bothers you. My initial posts on Tarot will be called “Tarot boot camp” partly because, if you do it right, the initial learning phase of Tarot can be grueling and because spiritual people and healers of all stripes are increasingly being called to take on the role of cultural warrior—either protecting the earth, fellow creatures, natural environments or those socially marginalized. Tarot is part of that.

I’m inviting you to this boot camp and it’s free. It’s a gift to you. It doesn’t necessarily include the deck of cards, but here is how you obtain one. The next time you have money that isn’t marked for bare survival—rent, food, heat, water, getting to work, childcare and the like—take a fourth of it and put it someplace separate. Mark it as a gift to yourself or the self-care fund.

Creative Commons image by Alan Morgan

Then use that money to buy things that nurture your soul—be that non-sensible shoes or a massage or a deck of Tarot cards. This is your gift. Whenever you spend it, remember that it is a gift. That will help remind you to be conscious of what you’re doing with it and will also make you feel less guilty about spending it on things that keep body and soul together.

For most people reading this blog, that will mean you’ll have money for a $20 Tarot deck in no time. But for some it may take months. There is some advantage to be found in this particular hardship. The time, focus and self-discipline required to get to Tarot will be directly proportionate to its power.

If getting several decks and books comes easy to you and you have plenty of time to peruse them and play with the cards, I am glad for you because it will be a lovely experience and I encourage you to undertake it with joy. However, be aware that it will likely take some time and work and study for you to discover the mysterious power of the Tarot. Fortunately, having all those shiny, new, good-smelling books to read will probably console you.

If on the other hand, all you can get is the smallest old-style deck of cards and a dusty, second-hand book from 1973 and the only time you can get to touch them is after a long day of work and chasing kids in the precious moments before you collapse into sleep, you will likely find that if you are open to it, the mystery will be burning through the thin wrapper and reading the Tarot will be like having a conversation with a long-lost friend.

Need and effort really do matter here. They matter more than the “gift” tradition, but even so the gift has been given. I give you permission to care for yourself. I give you this boot camp study guide, and as you will learn in the study of Tarot, you can give yourself a gift of knowledge and comfort.

After all, reading the Tarot is a conversation with a long-lost friend. That friend is your authentic self.

And that is likely the reason for the tradition of a gift of a Tarot deck anyway. Teachers, mentors and friends recognize that many of us need the Tarot in order to find this true friend. So they step in as a surrogate and give us that first deck. But they are merely a stand in.

So once you have filled your self-care jar with dimes and nickels or whatever the equivalent is, where do you actually find a good Tarot deck? Every major city in the world these days has a metaphysical shop with a shelf or an entire bookcase (or three depending on the city) devoted to Tarot.

If this is your first foray into Tarot, I highly recommend visiting such a shop in person and looking at the books and boxes of cards. The better shops will have posters showing what the cards look like in each deck, even if you can’t unwrap them, and you can choose according to your own aesthetic.

I will cover choosing a deck and a book in a future post in greater detail. But at this point, all you really need to know is that there is vast variety in Tarot decks today and they all have merit. It is important to choose a deck in which the colors, themes and aesthetic appeal to you, and even give you a feeling of calm and joy.

If you study Tarot in depth or if you want to spend the years it takes to become a Tarot master, you will need to look at these images for a long time. Make it as pleasant an experience as possible. There are Tarot decks for every taste—from spooky gothic, death-obsessed decks to Star Wars themes to Celtic druids to esoteric, astrological symbology. While I recommend taking it seriously and choosing something that will have lasting meaning to you, rather than a momentary silly whim, there is nothing inherently wrong with a superhero-inspired Tarot deck, if you are either a kid, a kid-at-heart, a graphic artist or someone otherwise deeply inspired by superhero imagery.

The one caveat that I—and most Tarot teachers—will add is that, for a first deck at least, I recommend sticking to something that generally reflects the traditional Rider-Waite format. What does that mean to a beginner exactly?

Check the book that comes with the cards or the description. Most importantly the deck should have 78 cards. There may be reasons eventually to use decks with fewer (or possibly even more) cards but in the beginning using the 78-card deck will connect you to others who practice Tarot and give you access to a lot more free and inexpensive information in much greater depth.

Secondly, the description should say that the deck is divided between higher and lower classes of cards, often called the Major Arcana and the Minor Arcana. “Arcana” just means “mysteries.” Twenty-two cards make up the Major Archana. The rest are divided into four suits—kind of like playing cards. These suits were traditionally disks, cups, swords and staves, but today they can be called just about anything.

Each suit may be associated with an object, a type of animal, an element or even an ethnicity. But in a standard deck there should be four of them with numbers from Ace to Ten and four “court cards.” These were traditionally page, knight, queen and king. But today, just like the suits themselves, they can be just about anything and sometimes they aren’t even people at all.

The closer your deck is to traditional, the easier access you’ll probably have to both Tarot books and community, but as long as the general format of the deck is standard you should be able to use my boot camp posts and similar free information on-line to get started.

If you really can’t get to a physical shop because you live outside western countries, like I do, or in some very remote place, ordering your first deck online is acceptable. There’s no mystical prohibition against it—at least not one I would put any stock in. But before buying, I recommend googling the name of the deck you think you might want to order along with the word “images.”

This will generally give you a lot more images of the various cards than the advertisement where you are purchasing. Look through the images and get to know them before you choose. It is worth some care and thought. You may eventually have a dozen or more decks, but you will always remember which one was your first. And it may even have a special kind of intensity long after you have adopted others as your favorites.

Next I will cover the specifics of choosing a Tarot book, since many decks you may choose either don’t have a specific book, have only a tiny booklet that is inadequate or have a book that is less wonderful than the artwork on the cards. After that, we’ll get into the really fun parts.

Until next time then…