If you are feeling a little rudderless and wonder where to go from here or if you’re on the right track, then it can be helpful finding direction in your life with the Tarot.
Autumn is Hermit season (he’s linked to Virgo), and at this time of year questions about purpose, progress and direction often pop up in people’s minds.
First, contemplate the symbolism of the Hermit.
He’s reached the top of the mountain (the one that is in the background of the Fool), and with his lamp illuminating the way he is trying to find a path down the mountain on the other side.
The top of the mountain represents the current situation, a milestone, where he is right now in his life. What next?
In practical terms, this can relate to a job, relationship or lifestyle choice you are thinking about.
Try the following spread to explore your current path, a path that is open to you or the path you wish to take:
The Seven of Swords as the current Path suggests something being hidden, which needs to be revealed, or at one point the truth will come out. There’s a need to be open and honest, with yourself and the other person.
The Knight of Swords as the Obstacle suggests cruel words, accusations, quick judgement, but also brutal honesty, which can clear the air but can be hurtful.
Avoid nastiness and words you may regret later. Be kinder than you want to be.
The Three of Pentacles as Growth indicates the possibility of reconciliation and rebuilding of this relationship in a healthier and more sustainable way.
Lessons learned include a greater mutual understanding, building trust with honesty and supporting each other.
Support may also come from a third party, like a family member, friend or counsellor.
Here’s another spread to explore your current situation and new direction:
Where I am now – Where I want to be – Action to take
Here are some spreads that help you make choices:
Choice a – Choice B – What you need to know to decide
You may even have the choice between three options, so add Choice C if necessary.
Heart – Mind – Balance
Torn between head and heart? This can relate to a career change for example. How can you balance your conflicting thoughts and feelings?
Where do I need to be patient (or have been patient for too long)?
What do I need to release?
What do I want to walk away from?
Wait and See
Sometimes it is counter-productive to think too much or putting pressure on yourself.
It is actually okay to float for a while and let answers come to you while searching for some inspiration (another Hermit hobby ?)
Here are some cards that indicate the need to be still, to contemplate, to surrender to the present, to wait and see:
Tarot cards indicating contemplation, wait and see, a new direction ahead… Sharman-Caselli deck
The High Priestess: The mother of wait and see. Silence is golden. Be still and listen. Sit back and observe.
Two of Swords: Caught between a rock and a hard stone; trying to balance heart and mind. There is no harm taking your time. Procrastination can lead to a situation resolving itself or a decision is made for you.
Four of Swords: Take time out from over-thinking. Just rest. Before you can make any kind of decision or gain clarity about what to do next, you need to unplug from the overwhelm for a while.
The Hanged Man: my year card in 2012, and it took me a whole year to start moving again. At one point you just have to surrender, bend rather than break. It’s not always down to you, so go with the flow. In your own time.
Seven of Pentacles: a choice between something established and something new. The new is still a seed and needs more attention before you can see its true potential, so be patient and let it grow while you still nurture what you have. And that new seed may never grow into anything. Time will tell.
Seven of Cups: a castle in the sky, which needs a solid foundation. Daydreaming about beautiful possibilities is fun, sometimes it’s all you need. Sometimes you don’t need to turn a dream into reality, as long as it makes you feel happy and inspired.
Finding direction with the Tarot is a fun and insightful way to reorganise conflicting thoughts and gain some clarity before you take the next step on your journey.
Want to learn more? Need guidance and personal support? Then check out, how you can work with me.
It is surprisingly easy to create your own oracle deck. That’s because anything goes.
You don’t need to be artistically talented. You can choose your own artwork, but you can also use photography, your own or stock and public domain images.
It can be any theme, with or without keywords, phrases, size, any structure you like.
You can even choose how many cards your oracle deck contains. It’s all down to your imagination.
But you need to ensure that the deck you create actually works in a reading.
I used the Major Arcana from the Tarot to cover a universal range of life experiences, so the oracle would offer meaningful advice in readings.
For this purpose, choose an upright and reversed keyword for each of the 22 Major Arcana cards, and hey presto, you have the titles for 44 oracle cards.
For example:
The Fool – new beginnings, folly The Magician – potential, trickery The High Priestess – intuition, illusion The Empress – creativity, lethargy The Emperor – leadership, control The Hierophant – stability, dogma The Chariot – independence, struggle
Once you have completed your list of cards you want to create, you can decide whether to just use the keywords or turn them into a phrase.
For example:
New beginnings: A new journey bears risks but also great reward.
Trickery: Beware of deception. Not all is what it seems.
Stability: A solid foundation provides security.
You can also expand on these phrases. In fact, if you don’t have the artwork for your oracle deck yet, you can just print the oracle messages.
Next, print your cards. Insert them in a Word table (you can also do this in Google Docs) and convert the document to PDF:
Cards printed on 180g light blue card stock suitable for inkjet printers
For the artwork I have used my own photography.
Check out How to create your own Tarot Deck for more information on photo editing websites and where you can get your deck printed, if you want to sell it.
However, as a first step create your own oracle deck for personal use and try it out.
A handmade oracle deck would even make a great gift for a friend, who is into this kind of thing ?
Tip
Just in case you do decide at a later stage to have your deck printed by a printing company, make sure the size of the images complies with standard playing card sizes, otherwise you will have to reformat all your images, which would be a lot of unnecessary extra work.
You can find the sizes on printing companies’ websites, most of which will have templates for you to download.
You can choose from mini size (like mine) right through to tarot/large playing card sizes. Some companies even offer round and square card printing.
Try this…
An oracle deck with keywords can also be used as a random tarot spread generator, a technique I have already mentioned in my previous post.
Simply draw three cards to create your spread. Here’s an example:
You can either formulate a question around each keyword or just keep as it is to read intuitively with a tarot card drawn for each keyword.
Now it’s over to you to create your own magical oracle deck, or make a start by downloading the digital edition of the Cosmic Journaling Oracle (take advantage of 15% sharing discount during September!)
Combining tarot and oracle cards in a reading can offer you a fresh and innovative approach to divination.
There are no rules except experiment and use your imagination.
For that reason combining tarot and oracle cards can be confusing at first, so I’ve come up with some ideas on how to get started.
Take a look at the following image. How would you interpret the cards to answer the question?
While the tarot card in the centre offers you an overall theme or direction, the two cards of the oracle deck focus on specifics.
Sometimes it is the clarity and succinctness of the oracle that can help you pinpoint the true heart of the matter.
It can offer straightforward and immediate empowerment, something you can act upon straight away.
Instead of Help you could have drawn the Six of Pentacles from your tarot deck, or the King of Swords instead of Knowledge. Possibilities for interpretation would have increased but also become more vague.
What also works is the complementary artwork of both decks, which can make readings more fluid and coherent.
Here are more examples of tarot and oracle decks that work well together:
1. Rider Waite Smith Tarot – Pixie’s Astounding Lenormand
Can you combine Tarot and Lenormand cards in a reading even though they are totally different systems?
Yes, why not? If you want to learn more about the Lenormand system, check out Cafe Lenormand.
In the meantime, here is a 3-card reading I have done to address a possible career move using Tarot and Lenormand cards together:
Here, the focus is on the Tarot while the Lenormand indicates underlying influences / energies.
The centre card is the heart of the matter surrounded by two energy cards, whereby the card on the right offers an insight into future development / possibilities / direction of this situation.
Eight of Pentacles / Tower: Effort, mastery, a full schedule; being immersed in work. The Tower suggests that the working environment allows advancement, but bureaucracy can be stifling. Timing (Lenormand): 19 days or weeks, so this can be a long-term situation.
Three of Cups / Tree: The total opposite to hard work is having fun and joyful times with people. The need for work-life balance. Reaching out, being social. The Tree suggests that this will maintain health and keep me grounded.
The Star / Child: (Starchild!) Hope, optimism, the future looks bright. The child suggests new beginnings albeit on a small scale. Timing (Lenormand): soon, so there could be some short-term developments that may lead to new opportunities in the future.
Tree – Tower – Child: It is also interesting to look at the Lenormand row separately for additional information.
The combination of Tree and Tower suggests hospital, and funnily enough my part-time work is based in a health service/care environment.
The combination of Tower and Child suggests child welfare, adoption services and teenagers. I’m blown away how much this relates to my work and life (my teenage son lol).
The bigger picture is slowly emerging from this Tarot/Lenormand combination.
2. Morgan Greer Tarot – Chakra Wisdom Oracle
If you would like to combine tarot with chakras, then the Chakra Wisdom Oracle offers a great introduction to chakra balancing and healing.
The spread in the above image is taken from the Chakra Wisdom guidebook and about removing blocks:
What do you perceive as a problem: Empress – Instinct (trusting inner guidance, solitary journey, self-reliance, moving into sovereignty) What is blocking you: Three of Pentacles – Impatience (wishing for quick results, being exhausted by efforts, forcing something, uncooperative people) What would create a breakthrough: Six of Swords – Impartiality (take a step back, detach from emotions, take a break, distraction can offer new perspective) What you must do to create what you desire: Knight of Wands – Insecurity (tackle insecurity by being bold and taking risks; be more confident about your abilities / opportunities)
The tarot cards (Morgan Greer) in this reading point to the how,why and where.
In order to get used to combining tarot and oracle cards, you can try this reading using both decks seperately and see what information would be missing by only using one deck.
3. The Wild Unknown Tarot – Connected & Free Oracle
Surrender: Son of Wands (Knight) Beginnings: Daughter of Swords (Page) Be You: Six of Pentacles
I love how you can create new intuitive spreads with the Connected and Free Oracle. Here’s another one:
Sun’s Rays (what is becoming clear) Flying High (what will accelerate creativity / raise your vibes) Slow down (where do you need to take it easy / rest / slow down)
For this tarot and oracle combination, I have chosen a 3-card spread from the Cosmic Faery Guidebook:
Reflect: The World – The Sphinx (Choose your words carefully) Illuminate: The Sun – The Harlequin (True feelings are masked) Discover: Knight of Cups – Fire (Reckless actions lead to conflict)
Again, explore the difference if only one of these decks was used for this reading.
If you are new to combining tarot and oracle cards, you can start off by drawing an oracle card at the end of a tarot reading as a special message or overall advice.
For this purpose, use an oracle deck with phrases or complete message rather than just keywords such as the Spirit Oracle:
On the other hand, when you do an oracle reading, you can begin by drawing a tarot card to determine the theme or situation.
As you can see, possibilities are endless, and I have only scratched the surface with this article.
Hopefully, my suggestions offer you inspiration to start combining tarot and oracle cards. You will find that this technique will open up a new dimension in your readings and uncover new insights.
At one point in our lives, we will all encounter a major crisis point – bereavement, divorce, relationship breakdown, unemployment, ill health, financial hardship, mental breakdown…
When you experience a significant Tower moment, the initial shock and feeling of numbness usually develops into a variety of painful emotions, from anger to depression.
What will keep you going is your focus on moving towards acceptance of the situation to allow for subsequent recovery and healing.
Each person deals with pitfalls and setbacks in their own way and in their own time.
While some people quickly get back on their feet, others take much longer to come to terms with their situation.
The Tarot is an excellent tool to help you on your way to recovery and renewal. A simple healing spread used regularly can help you improve the way you feel and transform your life over time.
Turning a crisis into a transformational journey is an 8-card spread that can assist you on your way towards healing.
You can use as little or as many cards as you like.
Choose from the following prompts, which are most relevant to you, or use all of them as a powerful healing meditation:
1. Where I am on my healing journey at this moment in time
2. A strength of mine that will help me today
3. A weakness I need to overcome
4. What is blocking me
5. What I need from others to help me heal (you don’t need to do this on your own)
6. What I can do today that would make me feel better
7. Spiritual Lesson
8. Affirmation
As you can see, there are eight positional meanings for this spread. Eight is the number of regeneration and rebirth.
The Star, numbered 17 (1 + 7 = 8), usually depicts an eight-pointed central star.
There is so much more to Tarot than just simple fortune-telling, and if you are looking for an empowering companion on your life journey, then choose the Tarot for self-development, healing and personal growth.
Here are five ways you can use the Tarot to increase awareness, perception, knowledge and understanding – qualities and skills you need to make the most of all aspects of life:
1. Setting Goals and turning them into Reality
Many people float through life without any clear direction where they want to be.
And if they do know where they want to be, they often don’t have a clear plan about how to get there.
This powerful monthly manifestation spread can help you focus on turning your dreams into reality:
2. Increase Confidence and Self-Esteem
The first step you need to take to raise your confidence and self-esteem is getting to know yourself better and start believing in yourself.
Many people are doubtful and insecure about their talents and abilities, their worth in terms of personality and looks.
Chances are high that you are much better and stronger than you think.
Learn more about your strengths and weaknesses by checking out your personality and persona cards.
You can also use tarot spreads to explore and give your confidence a boost, such as the Magick Monday Confidence:
3. Problem-Solving
Virtually every day we ask ourselves how to resolve specific problems, so why not ask the Tarot for some guidance:
How to resolve a conflict in a relationship or at work?
How to overcome an obstacle?
Why can I not reach my goal and what can I do about it?
What can I do to bring new love into my life?
Unblock yourself with the Get Unstuck Spread:
4. Healing from Heartache
“Breaking up is never easy, I know, but I have to go. Knowing me, knowing you it’s the best I can do.” – Abba
Recovering from a breakup isn’t easy, and nobody will blame you for temporarily self-medicating with bottles of wine and tubs of ice-cream.
But there are also healthier and more therapeutic options. Combine Tarot with journaling to make sense of the whole thing, so you can get closure and move on with your life.
There are so many spreads about overcoming heartache. You may be asking yourself if he’s coming back or will you ever find new love again, but exploring what will grow from your loss can help you shift your focus to new opportunities:
Other questions you can ask:
What can I do today that makes me feel better?
What can I do today that will help me heal?
What will make me happy today?
What can I do today that will help me let go and start afresh?
5. Explore your Options
We have to make decisions every day, most of which are made quickly and without fuss, others are major choices that need a little bit of thought and consideration before you decide what to do.
Questions you might be asking yourself are:
Which job / career will offer me better prospects?
Is s/he the right one? My soul mate?
Shall I go ahead with the business launch or should I delay as not everything is in place yet?
Shall I spend my savings on the holiday or the training course? I have to make a choice as I can’t afford both.
Again, there are numerous spreads and explorations that can help you make decisions and work out what is best for you.
As you can see, you can have oodles of fun with the Tarot and start sorting out your pressing life issues along the way.
If you want to learn more about how to use the Tarot for self-development, then please check out my Discovery Tarot Course.
After a dark and gloomy January here in the UK, February has finally arrived.
I can sense a sudden exhilarating shift in my mood as if a button has been pressed in my brain.
The days are getting longer, the snowdrops are blooming, the crocuses are on their way, I’m looking out for buds on shrubs and trees…. on our tarot journey, it’s the return from darkness into the light. Yay!
The return to the light is symbolised by the Sun in the Major Arcana. Before we embrace this positive energy of joy and enlightenment, we can put closure on the darkness with this little spread:
Now that we have put the darkness to rest (at least for a while), we can focus on the lighter side of life – creation, success, clarity, simple abundance, vitality.
In the Tarot, when the Fool reaches the Sun, he has reached his goal. He is exactly where he wants to be.
In the RWS deck, his achievement is symbolised by the red feather on his head on both cards and the sun in the sky, which has turned from white (beginning) to golden (completion):
In the Cosmic Faery Tarot, I have illustrated the Fool’s milestone as a seedling growing into a beautiful sunflower:
Cosmic Faery Tarot
Working with the Sun, ask the following questions:
What has come to fruition?
What commitments have I made?
What do I now understand?
What can I celebrate today?
What is making me happy right now?
The Sun is very much about living in the moment, the here and now.
Just for a change, there is no need to make plans or think about the future.
What is most important is to savour the present and just be.
The Sun’s energy is linked to various cards in the tarot, most notably the Ten of Swords (Sun in Gemini), which depicts quite profoundly the emergence from darkness into the light.
It is surprisingly easy to create your own oracle deck. That’s because anything goes.
For example:
Combining tarot and oracle cards in a reading can offer you a fresh and innovative approach to divination.
After a dark and gloomy January here in the UK, February has finally arrived.
