Tarot For Self Care Exercise 1 – Who’s Excited !?
Hi Musers. Last time I shared my favourite tarot creators and now I have officially dived into our book of the season, Tarot For Self Care by Minerva Siegel. (I get nothing if you buy the book, I’m just adding the link in case you want to try it). I’m keen to get started and share all my findings with you. I hope you’ll find it fun and at least a little bit helpful.
The Beginning
Siegel seems to have approached this book as if the reader were a complete beginner. I think this is a sensible approach as experienced readers can skim the bits they know and new readers won’t be put off by coming across concepts they don’t understand. She starts be explaining what tarot is and how to care for your cards. One thing I found when I started researching tarot online is that there is a WHOLE LOT of bs out there. Some people tend to trot out their own opinion as fact and almost gate keep tarot as if it were their job. (Hint, it isn’t!)
CAUTION. This bit discusses more mystical/spiritual practices and if it gets too woo-woo for you please move on. I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable so please, you do you. 😃 I do believe tarot cards can be affected by our energy and that of anyone who has held them so when I get a new deck the first thing I do is a smoke cleanse.
I’ve got a nice, ethically sourced bunch of sage from here in the UK and it lives in an abalone shell. I light it and let it burn for a few seconds before blowing it out and passing my cards through the smoke to cleanse them. Some people do this one card at a time, but seriously folks I have neither the time nor the patience! I usually say something like “I cleanse these cards of the energy of all those who have held them before. I cleanse them to remove all negativity.
I repeat this if my cards start giving weird readings or just don’t feel right. If you’re not happy with a smoke cleanse you can thoroughly shuffle them, knock on them, or leave them out in the light of the full moon. I put my cards on a windowsill each full moon anyway as it both cleanses and charges the decks and also my crystals. I would like to put them outside but no way am I risking that considering the unpredictability and general windiness of the British weather.
The Rules Are There Are No Rules!
As I said above, there’s a whole lotta bs out there about the “rules” concerning tarot. The truth is there is no rule book and so no rules! There are practices that might be considered unwise or unethical, but that is for you to decide on your own. I can truly say everyone’s practice is unique. So, here’s a list of tarot myths that you can and should ignore!
- You have to be gifted your first tarot deck. I bought my first tarot deck, in fact probably three-quarters of my decks. Decks vary so widely and have so many different art styles you’re probably best buying your own at first.
- You have to be psychic to use tarot cards. Nope! I am not psychic AT ALL and I can still use my cards.
- They are only for fortune telling. I almost never ask my cards about the future because the future is constantly changing depending on our actions. I use mine as a way of accessing my subconscious and working through issues.
- You shouldn’t read for yourself. There’s a TEENY nugget of truth in this. Sometimes, if you’re too close to an issue that might affect the way you read the cards, it’s better to go to a friend or tarot reader who can give you an impartial opinion. Otherwise go for it!
- You need to wrap your cards in silk when you’re not using them. 🙄🙄🙄. I taught myself to crochet to make tarot pouches. I am trying to sew a drawstring bag and my sister bought a set of velvet bags on Amazon. It’s all good!
Tarot For Self Care Categories
Siegel has split the exercises in Tarot For Self Care into three categories for the book; body, mind and spirit. Incidentally this is also a really common three card reading. I think the division as sensible as you need to take care of all the parts of you to be happy and heathy. However, the exercises are scattered through the book rather than in separate sections. It means that if you feel you need to focus on your health, for example, you have to flick through to try and find an exercise you want to do.
I also got the Tarot Spreads Yearbook by Chelsey Pippin Mizzi for Christmas. It has 52 spreads, that’s one a week for a whole year, It has four sections; Growth, Shadow, Change and Care so you can flip straight to the section you need to find a spread.
Exercise 1 – Where Am I At?
This exercise uses only the major arcana, the twenty-cards that signify major stages of everyone’s life. It goes from The Fool, an innocent, optimistic character anxious to start their journey, to The World when they triumphantly complete their journey. Throughout our lives we complete this journey over and over again. For exercise 1 in Tarot For Self Care I need to extract just the major arcana cards from my deck and shuffle them while thinking about where I am in my own journey. I then draw a card and reflect on it. At the moment I am LOVING the Creatures Tarot by Sara Kathleen so I am going to use it.
So the card I drew is….drum roll please…The Lovers
There are two ways to read this card. The first is the obvious one, a close, loving relationship. The second reading is that you have reached a fork in the road and are being called upon to make a choice, and often a commitment. I feel my reading here is somewhere between the two.
On the one hand, I have a very happy marriage and have been in a relationship with my husband for almost twenty years. I’m not saying it’s perfect and we never have rough times, of course we do. Day-to-day though we are happy and genuinely love being with one another. That is wonderful and I would never say otherwise. The problem is that it’s very comfortable. So comfortable that it’s easy for me not to develop or push myself. I stay stuck in my little rut even though I’m not happy.
I know that sounds strange, in one line I say how happy I am and in the next I say I’m not happy! The fact is I am very happy in my relationship with my husband, my relationship with my sister, my home and my hobbies. However, I still have a lot of past trauma to deal with and I feel unfulfilled intellectually. My warm, happy safety blanket with Mike and Jayne have stopped me making necessary changes and growing as a person. I have stalled at this part of the journey.
I hope there will be more exercises in Tarot For Self Care that help me move forward. The next card in the deck is The Chariot which is all about drive and moving forward quickly. I may need to meditate on that card and the lessons it has to teach me. Stay tunes for exercise 2.
