April 22, 2012
Protection reloaded
I decided to reload an old post, I was reminded important it is to be protected in your daily life yesterday. I was sat out in a cafe trying to write whilst powered by caffine, when I started to feel just a bit down, this seem to last for a long time, but was only about 30 minutes.
I don’t usually read for myself now, but decided to pull a few cards out since I had done myself a reading earlier. The cards I kept pulling seemed in contrast to the ones I had earlier, so I started to try and understand what was going on, why were these so different? In the midst of this it was getting hard to concentrate when a woman who was meeting her dad, started to cry, she subsided in a while, but it was hard to go back to what I was doing. After awhile I decided to go home, I was feeling confused and upset now so I left and made my way back.
On the way back I was feeling better, but still confused, not sure what to make of the reading, but I didn’t feel upset anymore. It wasn’t until this morning when I was writing in my journal, I realised that the confusion came around because I had ‘picked up’ the emotional state of the young woman, if I was doing a reading for someone else I would have noticed it very quickly because of the suddenness of the change in mood, but even though I sensed something wrong I didn’t take a moment to work out why that had changed. I also because the reading was for me and the new moon earlier in the day had left me feeling a bit spaced, I didn’t ground myself when I felt myself needing it. I was opened up spiritually because of the work I was doing, and I didn’t take enough care of my energy. I would never have done this if working on something for someone else, and usually I am much more aware…I am blaming the moon!
So when checking my blog this morning I thought the article on protection seemed very relevant, it’s a nice reminder to look after your energy, and also to take the same care working on yourself, that you do for others.
Protection has 3 main aims:
1) Protecting your energy, keeping it clean.
2) Keeping yourself physically safe.
3) To keep yourself hidden from undesirable energies/entities.
This is achieved with a multi-layered approach, and again this is not a ‘one hat fits all’ job, you need to find a way that works for you.
1) Protecting your energy, keeping it clean.
A prerequisite to this step, is that you need to be aware of your own energy field. If you don’t know ‘what is yours’ and ‘what is not yours’ it would be difficult to know if your energy is clean or not. Most people have heard of an Aura, also known as an Auric field. This is the energy field around us, it comprises of 7 Subtle bodies. Subtle bodies are our energetic doubles.
7- The Causal Body links to your Crown chakra and is purple
6- The Spiritual Body-Brow/3rd eye chakra and colour is indigo
5- The Etheric-The Throat chakra and is blue
4- The Astral Body-Heart chakra and is green with a hint of pink
3- The Mental body—Solar Plexis and is yellow
2- The Emotional Body-Sacral chakra and is orange
1- Physical body- Root/Base chakra and is red
The Causal body is the outermost layer of your Auric field, with the Physical body being the closest one to you. Each body corresponds to a chakra as listed above. The size of peoples aura’s varies, there is no standard size that your aura should be, it depends on you, and what you’re doing at the time. The main way you will be aware you have a large aura, is by how much of other peoples ‘garbage’ you pick up.
Have you ever been on a bus or a tube, feeling fairly fine, and the next moment your on the verge of tears? Ruling out any mental health issues, this is usually because you have picked up feelings from someone who is sat in the emotional layer of your aura. The same can apply with different layers, showing up in different ways, even physically (however they would have to be sitting extremely close to you, like on a packed tube/subway).
So basically the bigger your Auric field, the higher likely hood of picking up other peoples moods or other baggage, simply because the surface space is bigger. However, I must say that, there is always a risk of this happening, however small your aura is, its just a smaller risk. Some people who are very aware of their energy chose not to reign in their aura, they know when they pick up something that’s not theirs, and they discard it.
There are a number of ways to find out how big your aura is, you can ask spirit, you can look clairvoyantly, or you can ask someone to measure it for you (ask someone to walk towards you, until they ‘feel’ the energy change).
Its not an exact science, there are no measurements that are correct for your auric field, its up to the individual to find out what is comfortable. The best way to pull in or expand your aura is simply by your intention, you think you are pulling it in, or expanding it, and you will do so. In the beginning its always good to have a visualisation to make it easier, you can see it as a balloon that you blow into to expand, or you let air out to contract the aura. The visualisation is personal to you, play with different visualisations and see which one is effective for you.
Add this to something you do daily, after your ground yourself. Keep a record of the visualisation, how effective you felt it was how you felt during the day. Try different sizes of aura until you find something that feels right, this will be personal to you, once you start doing the visualisations you will become more aware of your energy.
To clean your energy, again it’s a visualisation you need, and the intention. Here are some ideas :
-See yourself painting your aura with white paint.
-See yourself under a waterfall of white cleansing light
-See a Pac Man running round your aura eating anything that shouldn’t be there.
Tip: To clean your aura, why not clean it in the shower? Visualise water as white cleansing light, and when you wash yourself, think of this as also cleaning your aura…it saves time, and is very effective.
2) Keeping physically safe.
It goes without saying that you must carry some of the responsibility to keep physically safe, you can’t expect spirit to do everything for you. One part of this, is grounding, if you need further information on this, see the grounding article posted previously.
3) To keep yourself hidden from undesirable energies/entities.
When I first started out, I read everywhere that I needed to visualise a golden dome of protection to keep me safe, however I have since learnt that this tends to make you look like a Christmas tree to all the entities you don’t want to attract, you stand out more and makes you a bigger target. The trick is to be invisible to what you don’t want to see you, if they can’t see you, they won’t attach themselves to you, so camouflage is the key.
You need to find a visualisation that works for you, and something that feels real enough for you to be able to see it in your mind. I have nicked an idea from an old tutor, I see myself getting dressed in a space suit, which is like an adult baby grow so everything is covered, I put on the helmet, and then I wrap a dark cloak around me, putting the hood up. I find visualisation difficult, so when I started, I used to say to myself as I was getting dressed that I was putting on my space suit, seeing the actions of getting dressed made it easier for me.
The basic principals of this are:
-Remember to cover yourself completely; don’t forgot your hands ,you’re soles of your feet, and your head.
-Pick a dark colour to cloak yourself in.
-Select something that makes you feel safe, makes you feel protected. If you want to wear a suit of armour do it, because it will make you feel safe (just put a cloak over it), imagery is very important.
April 15, 2011
Yes…No…Maybe…
Always remember that the cards will tell you what you should know, not what you always exactly asked. Do the cards always answer the question asked? This is a question people often ask, this is usually one of the first things you start to think about when starting to read for others. Often you will have a spread that say is full of pentacles for a question about love, or perhaps cups for a work question.
Well the definitive answer is….yes, no, maybe, sometimes part of it.
There is no definitive answer really, Suits- in reality there are only guidelines to what the cards refer to, and even this is flexible/. Pentacles are mainly seen as financial cards, often people fail how this can apply to a reading that is outside of these subjects. In reality Pentacles/Coins are really about resources, and yes resources can be money, but they also can be about time spent, effort vs reward. Once you change your perspective of the card you can then apply it to many others types of situations, easy huh?
Well again, yes/no/maybe…
Sometimes we get a reading and the Pentacles/Coins in a reading that isn’t about finance, but really its asking you to look at the financial implications in the situation you are in, and the decisions you make relating to the subject asked about. Now it’s a piece of cake now isn’t it?
Again, yes/no/maybe….
You can have a reading with the same Pentacles/Coin cards, and the link is even more obscure, both examples so far have been relatively easy to link back to the essence of the card, but if the link is a few times removed it gets harder. What if your asking about a night out, a party your going to, and you get the 5 of pentacles, you start worrying that perhaps its too expensive, or that transport might not be easy to find on the way home, and you will literally be left out in the cold. So now you are rethinking going to the party, even though your bank account is fairly full.
If you do go, you might simply find that the card related to the fact you went out, it was in a converted church, it was cold outside, but once inside the place and the people were warm, so warm you didn’t pay for your drink s all night. On the way home you notice the two homeless people that you saw on the way in, you thought about giving them change, but didn’t, on the way out you realise that you saved money because of other peoples hospitality, you pull out the £20 (you would have spent on drinks), giving it to the people outside, sharing your gain with them. Ultimately you had a 5 of pentacles/coins moment, but the link to the question was obscure. And here is the kicker, sometimes it have nothing to do with the question/situation/issue enquired about., its drawing attention to a more urgent matter that needs to be dealt with.
So the answer is always yes/no/maybe
I know some readers do believe that the cards always answer the question, but I don’t believe that because I don’t believe we control the universe, so therefore we can’t control the message that’s needed for the client, or ourselves.
Reading cards is not a power trip, it’s an empowerment trip.
March 30, 2011
My Love Pack affair
I recently was going through some boxes I had in storage, and one such box was full of tarot books, and surprisingly a few tarot and oracle decks I had forgotten about, one of those decks was The Love Pack by Chuck Spezzano. When I first got this, I did a few testing spreads on myself to check that they work for me, and also to learn how to use them. The results were a bit hard to swallow at first, in fact I didn’t really want to acknowledge exactly how close to the bone it was at first, but it was spot on.
These cards different from many oracle or tarot cards in the fact they have suits, but these are not all the same quantity. These come from a psychological point of view, but encompass spirituality too.
There are 4 suits: Grace Healing Luck Problem Most of the spreads ask you to pull a card for each question area, if you pull a problem card, you accept the issue, you release it, letting go of that problem. You then pull another card, repeat the process until you get to a grace/luck/healing card which shows the gold at the end of the rainbow really, what releasing and letting go of those issues will result in.
Example: Q)How does the person think/feel about commitment?
A)Betrayal->Infidelity->Bad choices->Self-Worth
From this I can see that the sitter feels that commitment leads to betrayal, their trust is broken because the person the pick cheats on them so it’s a constant worry. Bad Choices here says that the person is caught in a cycle of picking the people that cheat on them, because of low self esteem, by realising this cycle they can choose to work on themselves to achieve the Self-Worth. This is a case of Law of Attraction, they believe they will always get cheated on, so the people that they do attract are exactly what they expect to get, this then reinforces what they believe. If this person works on their self worth, they will then expect more from a person, so the person they will attract will change.
The major joy with these cards are the simplicity, the pictures are illustrate clearly what the card is called, the card names are also simple. There is no ambiguity, it means what it says, and the picture drums it home. There is no escaping, or hiding from what these cards say, you know when you look at the card how it applies to you, there aren’t a 101 different meanings, you can’t make it fit what you want to hear. There lies its unpopularity within the tarot community, the lack of ambiguity allows things to be seen with clarity, all your issues are laid out there in black and white.
Many people including tarot readers do not want things spelled out for them, hiding behind the various meanings of a tarot card acts as their shield, they do not wish to be naked and vulnerable. If your asking about relationship potential, these will spell it out very clearly in black and white what baggage/issues are on both sides, which is good if you want the truth, but not good for deluding yourself, it breaks unrealistic dreams.
March 18, 2011
Pass me the sick bag
I have contracted a very rare illness, it only affects tarot readers, it’s called ‘Repetitive card syndrome’. Symptoms are very painful, they lead to bouts of rage and frustration, cards everywhere are quaking in their boots when they think of what you might do to them if you contract this illness. How do you know if you have RCS, you will find that all readings no matter what subject bring up the same cards over and over, you clarify and these cards show up again. In frustration you find yourself self medicating by removing offending cards from the deck, I caution you against such behaviour as this only leads to further confusion…and yet more cards that become repetitive.
The only thing that actually cures RCS is to work out what spirit are trying to say to you, until that time you will continue to be under the influence of this awful disease.
Be vigilant readers, if you think you have RCS symptoms please go to a fellow reader and ask for help!
On a separate note, if you do have a few mins in a day spare , please take a few moments to think about the horrors in Japan, anytime you do this, I am sure it helps, any healing to the planet or to the survivors you can send I am sure would be appreciated.
Thank you
Nikki
oops….my bad!
I didn’t realise I had been away for so long, has been a hectic month and I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel now. Sometimes the best intentions go out of the window when you have big changes in your life, and sadly the blog was the casualty, I am still having thoughts about how to move this forward, what direction I want this to go.
I question if I want to write for readers, or sitters? There are many things that don’t really fall into tarot reading so I have stopped posting them under this banner. I am wondering if I can vary the content without losing the concept.
One of thing I have been tied up with is reading, i have been drawn to a few books lately, which is not amazing in itself, the most amazing thing has been that they are all about God!! Now a few weeks ago I couldn’t mention the name, it brought my out in hives, and if I had to say it, I spat it out. Now for some reason I keep reading books that might not say the big-g on the cover, but pass the first page and his name is all over it like a rash. So for now I have said goodbye to my god-block, and its fairly liberating (still not feeling religion though).
I have been working on using a number of spreads relating to romance, but they aren’t simply just about ‘the tall dark stranger’, the are about the process of removing blocks and conditioning to allow you to be free to love. Now this doesn’t just mean a romantic partner, its yourself and others too, love should not be restricted to lovers! Each spread will start the process of self-counselling, and will be repeated as a process until the cards show the old patterns have been broken.
So I haven’t been idle, I have simply not been visable, this will change now!
February 19, 2011
6 of Wands
I hate this card, honestly I do, this isn’t just me saying it….
If I could I would remove it from all my decks, light a bonfire, and burn the lot of them. That would knock the stupid man off his equally stupid horse, or in the Osho Zen deck its a Tiger, but it’s all the same to me..
Now I have to explain the cause of my rage against this innocent card, it’s following me, every reading I do for myself, it pops its stupid face up. I see this card as success, victory, but it was coming up incessantly when I haven’t been victorious, or won anything.
A few days ago, I got it…finally, I heard what it was saying to me.
In this card the man is not at his final destination yet, he is on his way, and people are supporting him. In the Osho he is on top of the world literally, and I get this, he KNOWS he is victorious, even if he hasn’t seen the material rewards yet, in his heart he truly KNOWS.
So when you know you have won, then you don’t need to worry about picking up the medal, it’s simply a lap of honour because you know that the battle has already been won. We have all had these times when we have yet to see the fruits of our labour, our hard slog, but we know without seeing the result. Its like coming out of an exam and knowing you have ace’d it, the smile on your face is because you know you ‘nailed it’.
This is what the card was saying to me, and me being dense, didn’t get it for a while…
January 10, 2011
This is commitment for you…
I am a bit excited, and nervous really too. I recently read about a woman who had been quotes in an article in the Guardian newspaper regarding racism and dating, the article was written by the author of the blog www.yorubagirldancing.com I found the article interesting, and after reviewing her blog The Single Filez , I sent her an email asking if she had ever had a Tarot reading to help her dating life.
I don’t know what possessed me really, perhaps I didn’t think that after the reading i would get to read about myself in glorious Technicolor! I think its like having a picture taken when your playing around, only for someone to put in Facebook at a later date, it usually doesn’t look good. I think the seeds were sown back when I published this article on ‘Dating -The TR way’ .After the reading i found myself dreading reading about the reading, this has nothing to do with the woman herself, she was very likable, it has everything to do with seeing your reading in blank and white.
Nikki offered me the chance to have my tarot cards read to see what my dating future would have in store for me. What an opportunity! I’d never thought much about tarot readings before. In fact, I’d go as far as to say I’m usually quite sceptical about those sorts of things but, scepticism aside, I was hella curious to see what the cards would say about my love life.
To read the full article, click here
After plucking up the courage I peaked through the fingers of my hand that were shielding my eyes…
Well the whole experience was very interesting, one of the things i like about it, is i have put myself on the line, i have given timings and its out into the wibbly wobbly web with my name all over it! Now this to me is exciting because I get to see what someone who is a tarot virgin really thinks of my reading, and also others who get to read the article can perhaps have a view of how Tarot can help you date.
I am a critical person by nature so I am also interested in a virgin sitters view of what I do, where can i improve? where are my strengths?
During this exercise I found the following points very interesting:
- We do need to be very clear when doing readings, we need to confirm that the sitter understands what we mean, we should also make sure we summarise at points in the reading. It can be information overload during the reading, and it needs to be digested so they can make full use of their time in the reading (ask the questions they want to etc).
- Some parts of the reading will always come across as slightly general, the one point that in print doesn’t come over very well, is that you don’t know the person, so therefore you don’t know their personality. If your consistent in your reading regarding personality, then it will show that you didn’t try every personality trait there is.
- I gave a few more bits of specific information, but this was lost in the noise of the reading. Remember that the sitter will often find that parts of the reading pop up in their minds after the reading at various times, that they had not remembered just after the reading finished.
- Give the sitter a few minutes to digest the reading, and ask any questions they might have, time to breathe the information in.
I know that after reading the article i will make a few changes, or rather tweaks to how i read. Sitting in the sitters seat has reminded me that we often forget about how to be one, we forget how sometimes we get caught up and forget to clarify.
The joy of reading for a skeptic is they ask lots of questions about the process, they clarify things they don’t understand, they don’t just nodd their head. The biggest bonus is that they don’t come just wanting to know when Prince charming will get off his horse and sweep her off her feet, they want to go through the whole process.
This article might be the biggest commitment I have made for a long time!!
The next post will be about the structure of a reading…..
December 28, 2010
All the wands
I have not posted in awhile, the festive seasons tends to get into the way, before you know it your swept up with lots of things that basically involve spending money. In the middle of the excitement of xmas and the new year, we have the stagnant days, the ohso days.
So i thought, why not pull a card or two? I pulled 3 cards:
What would be good to embrace tomorrow: 7 of wands
7 of wands is about showing your strength, its a very in your face card, the man is showing strength in a very visible manner, he is strong and can take the onslaught that is coming towards him.
What would be good to leave behind/ignore tomorrow: 9 of wands
This card shows a contrast, this man in this card is weary, he looks weaker, and he is not as confident as the card above, he has seen alot more. The phrase “Love like you have not been hurt..” comes to mind, this person is tired of the battle, but the card before shows he is enjoying the battle.
What is the best i can expect from tomorrow: 3 of wands
The man is waiting, he can see his ship coming in, but he needs to wait for it to come to shore, he has the things for the a new start.
I was surprised that i got 3 wands cards that add up to 19 -The Sun, these three cards are all of the same suit which is very confusing, but the sun is also fire.
The cards here I think are telling me to go forth into tomorrow with a fighting spirit and not to feel down trodden, know your ship is about to come in.
November 21, 2010
Venus Direct & The Full Moon
Venus Direct
Anyone that knows astrology, knows that Venus has finally gone direct again, we all are relieved, well most of us (who look at transits) have been hit in some way by this retrograde. Venus turned direct on the 18th of November, it often takes a few days to feel the effects, I was being impatient so asked the cards ‘how will Venus going direct effect me’.
I pulled 6 of pentacles, since this is astrology related I used to the Celestial Tarot. In this card the 6 pentacles are sitting at the bottom of the card like a cradle, and supporting the person who is holding onto goats. I personally see this as me getting more support, tangible, physical and monetary, it will be a cushion that stops me falling.
The Full Moon
Again using the Celestial I pulled for the effect of the full moon in Taurus on me, 4 of wands came out. On this card it shows Hydra, when I looked up the mythology around this card I understood that the full moon was showing me I had defeated my own beasts. I had put Hydra behind me, my inner fears were put behind me and this full moon shows the rewards I get for this, the stability that follows will show that I have moved along way forward.
October 24, 2010
The Full Moon and The Emperor
Over the past few days, I have been feeling tired, getting out of the bed seems an effort. I usually have masses of energy, and rush round like a mad lady, however since this full moon my duvet has been way too comfy. I was curious about the sudden energy change and pulled The Emperor, this seemed appropriate because the full moon was in Aries.
The Emperor sits on his throne, tired from his day at work, he needs to rest, hang up his armour and take a break before his next thing he has to deal with. Its a reminder he isn’t as young as he used to be, he has the wisdom of his age, but not the agility and energy, neither is he ‘over the hill’.
I pulled another card, I got the 9 of cups reversed, this sums me up, I need rest because my emotional resourses are depleted and need to recharge and step back for a bit.
Diary of Tarot Reader 