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I read for a friend of mine last night. It was for her birthday, and I brought almost every deck I own with me to her house. It was dark when we sat outside with a clean white cloth on the table to keep my cards from getting wet or dirty. I unpacked all my boxes and she chose her deck, and she lit candles and a stick of incense as I did the reading. Because we were so close to the ocean, there was a cool mist in the air, and the wind kept snuffing out the candles and blowing smoke from the incense in wild patterns. Still, it was beautiful, and the cards were responsive.
Reading for her made me think about my reading "ceremony." Unless I've already lit incense for some other ritual purpose that accompanies my reading, I don't usually use it, and though I like to have a candle lit, I don't really need it. I do, however, like to have my two stones that I keep wrapped up in my reading cloth on either side of the spreads I lay out. One is a black tourmaline, and the other is a bit of clear quartz shaped like a kite with rounded corners. It's not as if I feel like I can't read without them, but they have acquired various meanings and associations since I picked them out, and I find that I'm more centered if I take a moment to carefully place them and think about their qualities before I begin to read. I suppose I'm flexible. I've read in coffee shops with my stones sitting on a shelf at home, and I've read in the center of a circle I've set up with symbols of the elements all around me. Both "work" for me, just for different purposes. I like the simplicity of just me and my deck and the person across from me, and I like the sacredness and the out-of-time quality that reading tarot in a more ritualized context brings.
On a completely unrelated note, I got a new deck yesterday. It's my first majors only deck, and it's absolutely stunning. It's called Affirmations for the Everyday Goddess, and the artist was at the Goddess Temple in O.C. when R. and I went yesterday. The artist was a lovely woman, and I was happy to be able to support her directly. The cards are a little bigger than normal tarot cards, but I'm glad to be able to see so much detail in the pictures. I am looking forward to using this deck more, and from what I can tell, the small book that came along with it is also quite nice. It's packed with a lot of information for such a small volume.
Reading for her made me think about my reading "ceremony." Unless I've already lit incense for some other ritual purpose that accompanies my reading, I don't usually use it, and though I like to have a candle lit, I don't really need it. I do, however, like to have my two stones that I keep wrapped up in my reading cloth on either side of the spreads I lay out. One is a black tourmaline, and the other is a bit of clear quartz shaped like a kite with rounded corners. It's not as if I feel like I can't read without them, but they have acquired various meanings and associations since I picked them out, and I find that I'm more centered if I take a moment to carefully place them and think about their qualities before I begin to read. I suppose I'm flexible. I've read in coffee shops with my stones sitting on a shelf at home, and I've read in the center of a circle I've set up with symbols of the elements all around me. Both "work" for me, just for different purposes. I like the simplicity of just me and my deck and the person across from me, and I like the sacredness and the out-of-time quality that reading tarot in a more ritualized context brings.
On a completely unrelated note, I got a new deck yesterday. It's my first majors only deck, and it's absolutely stunning. It's called Affirmations for the Everyday Goddess, and the artist was at the Goddess Temple in O.C. when R. and I went yesterday. The artist was a lovely woman, and I was happy to be able to support her directly. The cards are a little bigger than normal tarot cards, but I'm glad to be able to see so much detail in the pictures. I am looking forward to using this deck more, and from what I can tell, the small book that came along with it is also quite nice. It's packed with a lot of information for such a small volume.
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