February 10, 2010 at 6:45 pm (Uncategorized)
Hello readers,
I’ve renamed and revamped by blog . . .
For future posts, please visit:
http://tarotdiva.wordpress.com/
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Love,
Sasha
February 10, 2010 at 4:01 pm (tarot, Tarot Spread)
Tags: Bad Romance video, divination, intuition, Lady Gaga, tarot, tarot cards
Bad Romance Tarot Spread
Gaga-oh-la-la! A peek at Lady Gaga’s addictive song and video reveals obsessive love. Sigh, we’ve all been there . . .
Are you currently obsessed with a lover who is no good for you?
Are you obsessing over someone you can’t have?
Are you in a long term, commited relationship but harbor a dangerous crush on someone else?
If you answered yes, this spread is for you.
Shuffle your Tarot cards while thinking seriously about the situation at hand. When you feel the cards are mixed, select six cards and place in front of you. Look below to discover what each card stands for and glean some information about what you can do . . .
Card 1 – Your Bad Romance as It Stands.
Card 2 – What Should I Do?
Card 3 – How Long Will it Last?
Card 4 – What You are in Danger of Losing.
Card 5 – How to Temper Your Obsession.
Card 6 – What You Take Away from the Situation.
Good luck little monsters 🙂
January 24, 2010 at 4:09 am (tarot)
Tags: Haiti, tarot, The Star Card
January 19, 2010 at 6:57 pm (tarot)
Tags: Ace of Cups, divination, Forgiveness, intuition, tarot
“Can love travel back in time to heal a broken heart?” Alice Hoffman asks in her novel Practical Magic. Sitting with The Ace of Cups beside my laptop I say yes, you can.
Can you heal your own heart and simultaneously heal the wounds carried within your family for generations? Yes, you can.
I’ve been my family’s historian ever since I was old enough to care about the wild tales my grandmother told me. Like any family, there is a veritable “House of Spirits” from which I descend. A house full of extraordinary wealth, massive financial ruin, suicides, genius artistry, depression, incest, wonderful and horrible characters. Thanks to books and manuscripts my family has left behind, I’m well aware of issues that run deep from before the turn of the century.
I’d a terrible quarrel with my mother this past Christmas. Weeks later, looking up from a troubling email, I appealed to my husband, “What do I do?”
“You have to forgive her,” he said gently.
“Forgive her?? I’m the one that was wronged!!!” I nipped back angrily.
My husband suggested I forgive her the whole enchilada, for everything I’ve ever been angry about.
But how do we forgive our parents when we expect the world from them? How do you forgive someone and really, really mean it? How do we say the words, “I forgive you” and feel it in your heart and soul?
I turned, as always, to my deck of cards and my Tarot teacher Ruth Ann Amberstone. She told me the secret to forgiveness rests in the Ace of Cups.
I studied the openness of The Ace of Cups.
True forgiveness is a spiritual path, not just a phrase uttered from your lips. The same way one works on gratitude affirmations or positive visualizations is the way to your path of forgiveness.
You can close your eyes and imagine what your “Path of Forgiveness” looks like. Mine was lush like a Pentacles card. You can take a walk down your path, in your minds eye, as often as you like.
You can dedicate your yoga or exercise practice to forgiveness.
You can mentally forgive a person every morning and every night.
You may realize you have others to forgive. You can forgive people whether they are dead or alive. You can forgive someone even if you don’t have a relationship with him or her. You can forgive people who have committed unspeakable acts. This is because forgiveness does not depend on others.
Forgiveness rests inside you.
A stunning, unexpected thing is happening as a result of all this forgiveness. My relationship with my six-year-old daughter is totally changing. I always thought we’d been good together, but somehow, through forgiveness of my mother, my love for my own daughter is amplified, multiplied and intensified.
Something deep and irrevocable is changing within me. I believe you can heal your own wounds and the wounds of your “House of Spirits” though a journey of forgiveness.
I’ve only just started down this path but I am convinced that this is the strongest sort of magic any of us can weave.
Forgiveness opens up new and unexpected emotional pathways. It is exactly what The Ace of Cups Tarot card is all about. Because regardless of what your legacy is, you are living it this very moment. And you have the power to change it.
Pull out the Ace of Cups and think about if there is anyone you might want to forgive . . .
December 29, 2009 at 8:33 pm (tarot, Tarot Spread)
Tags: divination, New Decade Tarot, New Years Tarot, tarot, tarot cards
Icy December wind is shaking this old farmhouse to its foundations, the weather matching my mood . . . one minute sun peeks from behind a cloud, next minute, the sky spits snow. Mountain weather is as unpredictable as the emotions that play across my six-year old daughter’s face. The bizarre week suspending between Christmas and New Years Eve always makes me edgy and nervous, like the Death Tarot card. This week feels like a vague netherworld, stop motion animation, a moment’s pause before the wheels of time continue their relentless chugging and churning.
To combat my restlessness, or perhaps in a desperate act of self-preservation, I’ve created this New Years Tarot Spread/Exercise/Contemplation.
You will need:
The Wheel of Fortune
The Ten of Swords, Pentacles, Wands and Cups
The Four Aces
Eight Post It Notes or Small Pieces of Paper
Your Remaining Tarot Deck
In this spread you will be looking back at your last decade, picking four new goals for the approaching decade, and flipping cards on how to achieve those goals.
The Wheel of Fortune card comes to mind as the calendar flies to 2010, The Wheel of Fortune being the 10th Major Arcana card.
Stop and become very still. You may just hear the whirring and spinning of the wheel of time. Is that the Wheel of Fortune ball dropping amongst the revelers in Times Square at midnight? The Wheel reminds us of the trajectory of physical time upon our bodies and lives. Wasn’t it only yesterday you eagerly ripped and tore open the Christmas presents? Now, you calmly sip coffee while watching little ones tear through gifts. Thanks to the Wheel of Fortune, our souls remain eternal but the face reflected in the mirror changes . . . with the wrinkles, hopefully, comes wisdom.
1. Put The Wheel of Fortune in the center of your spread.
Let it remind you that there is a constant energy moving your life forward. Let the Wheel energy bring you luck and good things.
2. Place each Ten card at the corner of the Wheel of Fortune.
Tens in Tarot, on a very basic level, represent the end of a cycle.Think back to the beginning of this decade. Recall where you celebrated the Millennium. I was at a bonfire in Vermont and certain every computer would crash, plunging the modern world into chaos and darkness. What were you doing? Who you were at the turn of the Millennium? Were you you but I a little different? Were you a student? Working a different job? Living in a different place?
3. Write your decade’s accomplishments.
Take a moment to think of the events and accomplishments of the past ten years in the context of the four Tarot suits. Gazing at the Ten of Cups think about the events that have occurred in your emotional, artistic, romantic and family life. Write them on a post it and place on the card. Do the same with the rest of the Tens.
Gazing at the Ten of Pentacles think of the financial issues you have overcome, properties and things bought, changes within your body. Write these and place on top of a card.
Gazing at the Ten of Wands and think of where the passions, fire and energy of the last ten years have brought you. Ponder your career, your evolving sensuality, your increase or decrease of spirituality.
Gazing at the Ten of Swords and think of the hard decisions you’ve made, strong actions you’ve taken. You may even ponder some things you are sorry you have done. Write them down and place on card.
4. Take out the four Aces and place each Ace on the outer edge of the Tens.
5. New Goals:
On each Ace make a Post It note of something new or a goal you would like to invite into your life in the context of the suit. For instance, upon the Ace of Pentacles you may place a specific financial goal. Upon the Ace of Swords you may write the resolution to an issue that has been troubling you. Upon the Ace of Cups you may write the goal of a trip you expect would bring great happiness. Upon the Ace of Wands you may write an idea for your business. Sky is the limit here.
6. Shuffle your remaining cards.
7. Pull one random card for each Ace.
This is your advice card. The card you pull will help successfully bring this goal into your life in the new decade. Write down the first piece of advice this card evokes in you. Carry this advice with you into the New Year.
Good luck, a happy, cozy New Year to you all and always remember, the magic of the future rests in your hands!
December 9, 2009 at 4:31 pm (tarot)
Tags: divination, If on a Winter's Night, St. John the Divine, Sting, tarot, The Tower tarot card
The Tower is a card often met with trepidation and fear. The unexpected happens and rattles you to your bones. Destruction and upheaval is experienced and then tempered by the serenity of The Star. Never fear The Tower card. Its beauty resides in the fact that The Tower card wakes you up!
The genius of working with Tarot and a Card a Day practice on a consistent basis is, at times, you know exactly what the card foretells . . . I wanted a ticket to see a rare Sting concert last night. I drew The Tower. I knew I would get my ticket. A few hours later, I did.
Give yourself the gift of waking up this holiday season. There are moments of heightened reality we can all experience in life. Heightened reality stops you in your tracks and time, as we know ceases. It is your right, in fact, your obligation to seek out these moments . . .
You can experience heightened reality via travel . . . a moment basking in the Italian sunlight on cobble stone streets of a medieval city, a walk down a misty Scottish lane en route to a crumbling castle looming in the distance. You may find these moments via nature . . . the deafening quiet of a fresh fallen snowscape, an electrical storm off the coast of a sandy beach, a valley dappled with the burning colors of autumn. You may experience this via art . . . Rembrandt’s powerful brush strokes gleaning at you from a canvas hung in a robber baron’s mansion, dancers leaping and spinning before you, operas with heroines gasping their last breath or seeking out your favorite musician in an extraordinary venu
Moments of heightened reality shake you out of your humdrum, day-to-day life we attach ourselves to. You walk amidst the intricate tapestry of the material world for a very short time. I implore you to experience as much of it as you can. Plan a trip abroad, visit a museum, take a walk, and listen to your favorite music. Wake up to the beauty that surrounds you. Let it fill you, flow through you. Because when you emerge from the dream state, humbled, the world looks different. And that, after all, is what the Tower card is all about.
Court the unexpected and let the Tower shake you to your core. The Tower helped me I wake up last night. If you’d like to hear about my experience, keep on reading . . .
Sting is only performing four concerts to promote his If on a Winter’s Night album. The shows are all set in Cathedrals, two in NYC, one in Paris and one in Durham, England.
Grasping my ticket and I made my way through the twinkling holiday streets of Manhattan. St John the Divine, the largest Gothic style Cathedral in the world and the fourth largest Christian church ever built loomed before me as I approached. I entered the Cathedral and gasped at how small the gathering was. A few hundred well-dressed New Yorkers were taking their seats. Impossibly skinny, terrifically blond women sat and nuzzling their husbands. A smart man knows Sting is a wonderful aphrodisiac for women of a certain age.
I took my seat, shockingly close to the stage. Hardly believing my luck, my eyes scanned the crowd and happened upon Sting’s wife, Trudie. Trudie, another impossibly skinny blond woman, looked amazing in a black dress with a dazzling diamond necklace strewn around her neck. A gift from her husband perhaps? I watched her for a few moments, wondering how it felt to walk in her stilettos. The mother of four, owner of multiple homes around the world and married to a musical genius. I’d met her twice years ago. We once had a conversation about yoga before yoga studios popped up on every other block. She proved to be lovely then and last night, she looked more beautiful than ever.
Alan Rickman, the actor from Harry Potter, Sense and Sensibility, Love Actually and countless other films walked passed me to take his seat. I struggled to remain composed while giggling madly in my head.
Sting took the stage. Handsome and charming, his voice was stunning as was each wintery, haunting song. He sang every song from If on a Winter’s Night. A thirty five-piece orchestra, the Newark Boys Choir and Chris Botti on trumpet, accompanied him. Sting introduced each song with a story of how each song evolved creating an intimate experience.
Sting’s voice reverberating between the Gothic arches, softened by the tapestries adorning the walls was pure perfection. It was a sacred experience and one that I’ll never, ever forget. They say that gratitude is one of the greatest feelings you experience. Sting . . . thank you, thank you, and thank you!
I left the cathedral humbled, happy and moved. I didn’t need to find Sting as he exited the back door or weasel my way into any after party. The night had been pure perfection. I was reminded of my Tower card. My world looked different. I was shaken to my core with the intoxication of music and architecture that was mine for the taking. And it is yours too . . . now go out and find it!
November 5, 2009 at 3:18 pm (tarot)
Tags: divination, lost deck, tarot, tarot cards
What to do when you lose your deck . . .
Halloween night. There I was draped in my Venetian Masquerade Costume, feather eyelashes, stiletto boots and black sparkling lips. I was off to read Tarot for fans at a Weezer concert in Hammerstein Ballroom and couldn’t have been more excited.
I reached for my Tarot bag only to find . . . I couldn’t find it. Panicking, I raced to my bookshelf for a suitable deck but not much of a deck collector, I had little to choose from. I settled for the Universal Tarot and made the best of my evening.
Still, I feel as if part of me is missing . . .
A Tarot deck is to a reader what the instrument is to the musician. The archetypes, themes and structure of Tarot is universal, can be found in any deck, yet the deck I lost was the one I learned to read with.
The Halloween deck, with its quirky ghosts and plump pumpkins, captured my imagination while honing my Tarot craft. Years ago, late into the night, I’d read for the girls I worked with after our shifts ended. Practice makes perfect and an army of waitresses and bartenders made for a lovely audience while I learned the art of Tarot. Tears shed, laughter shared, wishes, dreams foretold, as well as my own meditation and study cast upon these cards.
My friend, Sean Smith, suggested the cards were not lost. He said the cards left me because they held nothing left to teach me. He’s right.
I’m searching for a new deck and although it feels uncomfortable, I suppose growth and change is never very comfy cozy. If it were, none of us would have a problem adapting to the curveballs life tosses at us.
The weeks suspended between Halloween and Christmas hold the darkest hours of the year. I’ll light some candles and perform a ritual to thank my departed cards. Then, I’ll welcome the unknown deck coming my way. I’ll remember this whole experience is a greater metaphor for life. When we are able to let go of the things that feel so comfortable, so known, we are more capable of letting change in. And, like you, there is so much more I want to experience, manifest and create.
A wicked pack of cards is heading my way though I can’t quite see it. When it arrives, I’ll be waiting . . . with open arms.
Have you ever lost your deck? What did you do?
October 16, 2009 at 2:17 pm (tarot, Tarot Spread)
Tags: divination, tarot, Tarot and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tarot History, Tarot Spread
On October 14th, I organized a very special Tarot event. A small group of Tarotists, scholar Robert Place and I were swept behind the scenes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to glimpse at their Tarot collection.
Robert Place, creator of the newly released, “Vampire Tarot” http://thealchemicalegg.com/VampTarot.html led us through the Met’s collection. The collection included three sheets of Italian woodcut cards. These sheets are, essentially, uncut sheets of Tarot cards made for widespread distribution in the 16th Century. We looked at a deck of the Tarot of Marseilles from the 18th Century and a 16th Century deck of Minchiate cards. The Minchiate cards are a close relative of Tarot, which contains 40 trump cards! They include Trumps for every sign of the zodiac, the elements and additional virtues. After Robert’s lecture and close inspection of these items, the curators let us look through a box of random cards, including fantastic fortune telling cards from the 18th Century. Sadly, photos were not permitted but it was a glorious afternoon!
I gave each attendee a gift bag that included a Tarot activity and Tarot spread I’d created based on our day. I would like to share this with you, dear Tarot lover . . .
Tarot Treasures at The Met
On this blustery, windswept October month we venture into The Metropolitan Museum, one of the world’s great institutions, to peek at Tarot’s past. Art collections, more than artifacts, paint on canvas, sculpted clay . . . are treasures bestowed on us from those who have gone before. More than a mere psychic impression, the artist leaves behind a tangible piece of psyche, point of view, lesson, and experience. Don’t believe me? Wander through an echoing gallery near closing time. Feel the energy reverberating from the canvases.
Message from the Artist Activity
Armed with this knowledge, we may freely converse with Van Gogh, Matisse or Picasso. I challenge you to take your Tarot deck and pick a painting. Sit before it, quietly observing, for at least fifteen minutes. Focus only on the painting. When you feel ready, randomly pick a Tarot card. This card holds a message for you from the artist. What are they whispering to you?
Secrets and Passages Spread
The Print Study room at the Met is a hidden space, not available to the general public. Today you were whisked behind the scenes. Secret passages are available to Tarot readers on a daily basis because a Tarotist is constantly piercing the veil into their subconscious, into other worlds, into murkiness, so we can illuminate what was once muddled and dark.
Secrets lie scattered around us like crunchy autumn leaves. A secret, after all, is only something hidden from knowledge or view. We need only acknowledge them. Once you recognize a fact or thing, it is a secret no longer . . .
Let’s use the metaphor of today’s museum trip to discover a hidden passage, a secret hiding within our own psyche. The secret you uncover may be predictive or it may be a new way of experiencing your reality.
Shuffle your deck while acknowledging there are worlds of possibility you are not yet aware of.
Select five cards to answer the following questions.
Place the cards face down, turning them over as you answer each question.
1. What secret must be revealed to me?
2. How do I integrate this secret into my life?
3. What can I do now that I know this?
4. How will this secret help me resolve conflicts?
5. What will happen know that I know this?
August 25, 2009 at 4:02 pm (tarot, Tarot Spread)
Breaking Into Haunted Castle Spread
This past weekend, during the height of summer, I planned a Tarot Slumber Party Weekend for some Tarot friends. The highlight of our gathering was a visit an abandoned old castle, pictured above. The stone mansion, built around the turn of the century, is nestled into the Catskill Mountains and is currently owned by a group of rogue Freemasons.
Our trip was a success! It was exciting, a bit scary and fascinating. The only ghosts we encountered were spirits of teenagers past who’d used the castle as a party spot. Exploring the turrets, peeling rooms with great ornate fireplaces and old hallways we made a pact to stick together. After all, the first rule of a horror movie – don’t split up.
We ended the day by venturing to an old Catskill resort that was abandoned about 11 years ago. There it stood, room keys scattered, hotel rooms left in tact, swimming pools full of old lounge chairs. To stand amidst the shattered glass one could faintly hear the echo of summers past, the clinking of champagne flutes, laughter, dancing . . .
What haunted all of us was the fact that the castle and the resort, once so beautiful, were now abandoned. Left for nature, left for vandals and left for dead. It was no accident when I pulled a Tarot card at the castle, I pulled the Death card. Then again, Tarot cards are never accidental.
It stands as a greater metaphor for our lives. We can look at ourselves to see what we have abandoned. Say, we loved writing poetry as a teenager and can’t find the time to write as an adult. Perhaps, we got angry at a friend and decided to abandon the relationship. A quick survey of our lives shows there are many things we’ve let slip by the wayside. The structures are still lingering, still waiting. Will we put our attention to them again? What is worth resurrecting?
I created this Tarot spread, so we could use our excursion as a metaphor for something greater. You can play around with this spread any time. Don’t feel the need to plan a madcap adventure to do this spread. Then again, maybe it’s time you created a little devilish fun for yourself . . .
Haunted Castle Spread
Pull one card to answer each question below:
1. What sort of adventures should I embrace?
2. What authority issues do I struggle against?
3. What ghosts am I haunted by?
4. What is to be discovered in my darkness?
5. What lessons lie within my castle?
6. What is worth dusting off and resurrecting in my life?
August 10, 2009 at 3:47 pm (tarot)
Tags: divination, Inspiration, intuition, tarot, The Star Card
The Star card offers us renewal, inspiration and above all hope. The Star card offers the feeling or desire for something with the confidence in the possibility of its fulfillment. Look at the tumultuous cards that come before The Star -The Tower, The Devil, Death. You’ve plodded through tough experiences only to emerge on the other side, stronger, different, somewhat changed. And change . . . deep, lingering internal change is what Tarot and our life’s journey is all about.
Van Gogh understood, as he painted Starry Night, that stars are distant, burning, reverberating suns. In the run of the majors in Tarot we have not reached The Sun card yet. The Star reminds us The Sun and the growth and manifestation we yearn for is rapidly approaching.
When we turn our gaze upward to the night sky, it is a shocking reminder that this vast darkness is the actual state of the universe. Our cheery daytime blue skies only a product of the tiny bubble of atmosphere that blankets our world. We spin and whirl on our own axis the same way the earth barrels through a vacuum of darkness.
Stars beckon us in the evening sky, the way a flickering fire or lights in the distance of a darkened wood does. Stars offer hope that something good awaits us. Stars pierce the darkness and tell us something like us; something known and understood lies out there. This is why The Star card offers hope and inspiration.
What will you make of the moments that inspire you? Will you be brave? Will you paint? Will you write? Will you mend a broken relationship? Will you declare your love? Will you allow yourself to believe in infinite possibility?
The ball is in your court. When you open yourself to inspiration (and sometimes opening up is the hardest part) and move this forth into something tangible, you embody The Star. You become the beautiful creature on the card channeling water, hope and inspiration to others.
If you’ve an eye for fancy glittery stars – and I’d bet you do, this week in August marks the biggest meteor shower of the year, the Perseid Shower. On Tuesday, August 12th, set your alarm to wake up between 4 – 5 am (EST). Watch the sky blaze with as many as 200 shooting stars per hour!
If you can’t drag yourself out of bed, set The Star card on your night table or slip it under your pillow as a reminder that hundreds of shooting stars will be raining down over your snuggly, sleeping head.
Make a wish and expect it will come true.
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