I love watching videos of people sharing their deeply personal experiences with deities of different pantheons and what those experiences have meant to them, so now I’m sharing one of my own. =)
We’ve arrived at our final installment of the “Bell Chimes In” series for 2017. For those of you who’ve watched all 18 episodes, thank you so much for coming along on this journey with me. As I close out the year of venturing into the terrain of YouTube (I know I am no pioneer on this front, but it was for sure an unfamiliar and new adventure for me), I should probably share with you why I ventured out in the first place: the Lady of the Ninth Heaven.
Selecting a significator card. Deck pictured: Golden Universal by Lo Scarabeo.
For quite a while I offered a Year Ahead twelve-month forecast reading, but I received so many requests in 2017 that the reading type burned me out. So I won’t be offering it in 2018, but it’s an incredible tarot reading methodology and one you can absolutely do for yourself. So in this post I’ll show you how you can do my Year Ahead forecast reading all on your own.
The Year Ahead forecast reading consists of the following steps:
Imagine yourself at Point A and you need to get to Point B, which is several winding hallways away. You are focused with this one objective, to get to Point B. However, as you start your way through the halls, flanking both sides of the hall are television and radio sets, every one of them on full blast, images of compelling narratives blinking at you from the glaring bright screens, and you catch snippets of phrases from the radio that sound important, that you wish very much you could stop and listen to acknowledge, but you’ve got to get to Point B and none of what’s bombarding your senses in these hallways relate to your destination.
The practical maybe even all too obvious advice is to ignore the distractions, stay focused, and get yourself to Point B, stat.
Now what if all those television and radio sets buzzing at you also happen to represent sincere cries for help. What if those weren’t television and radio sets but telephones, each one ringing at you and every ring is someone calling for you, hoping you’ll answer and give just one minute of your time, just one little moment, so that you can use your know-how and skill sets to help them solve their life problems.
What do you do? Do you still ignore the “distractions,” stay focused, and get yourself to Point B, stat? Or do you stop and answer those calls? If you stop to answer every call, you’ll never arrive at Point B, which is a destination you really, really want to arrive at. Do you stop to answer only some of the calls but not others? How do you discern which to answer and which to ignore? Speaking of calls, what’s your calling? In the midst of this chaos, you start to wonder: what exactly is your calling anyway? Is it to stop and answer as many of these calls as you can and that in and of itself is your life purpose? Or is your life purpose still to try to arrive at that destination Point B?
That’s the irony, or maybe paradox, I don’t know which, of the empath (which, by the way, my digital device keeps telling me is not a word and keeps wanting me to change to “empathy”).
I opted to address this topic with a “Bell Chimes In” episode rather than a “Tinkering Bell” because it’s not going to be a practicum and there’s no substantive knowledge to be gained here. It’s more about my perspective and my thoughts as a practitioner of craft. So it’s just me chiming in.
If I could impart a few words to the new would-be seeker on an esoteric, occult, or mystery path, what would I say? This episode is of me giving my thoughts on where the new seeker might begin the journey…not the journey to attainment, but rather, the journey to finding your own path to attainment. (Then there’s the tough part to follow, where you have to walk it!)
Also, regrettably, after finishing and uploading the video, I realized there were points I should have clarified on (such as the “copy from the masters first” comment), so here’s the accompanying blog post to the video.
THE MONAD: DEITY
In Episode #1 of “Bell Chimes In,” I talked about my perspective on deity. That’s one place to start in your starting thoughts on deity. If you haven’t seen it, I’m linking it here.
I find that there is a lot of immediate power to be gained simply through knowledge, so for the new seeker, strive for a comprehensive education in world religions, in particular ancient religions. Go as broad as you can, exploring the most unfamiliar of cultures and terrain to you. Also learn about the esoteric and magical practices of different civilizations. Learn as many perspectives as you can on deity and this concept of a monad, or Unity. Perhaps you gravitate more toward the sciences and applying scientific principles to better understand the metaphor of the monad. Perhaps you’re interested in origins mythology of indigenous cultures and extracting core truths from those myths. Five hundred years ago, what would your ancestors have believed?
When you start to think about occultism and the mysteries of life, Western or Eastern in faith, you’re likely to start seeing something expressive of spirit in everything, whether it is a person, an animal, a tree, or even a rock. You start to intuit how everything might all be connected in some way and dialed into a oneness.
Begin turning your attention to considerations of that oneness. Before you read any spells or pick up tarot cards or try to read someone’s palm, parse through your feelings and thoughts about oneness and that concept of monad, compare it to how people from a variety of cultures and histories express that same concept, and start looking for patterns that light your way toward truth and knowledge.
Are you subscribed to The Cartomancer? If you’re a tarot or oracle card reader, then you’ve got to check out this independent magazine.
My review of the Asian American Tarot published by the Asian American Literary Review was first published in The Cartomancer magazine, Volume 3, Issue 3.
A dear friend gifted me with the Asian American Tarot thinking I’d love it and she should be right. I really wanted to love this deck. I would say that I am biased in favor of loving this deck for more reasons than I can list, from being Asian American myself to knowing most of the names of the artists and writers who worked on this project and knowing the literary journal that ran it. I want to shower this deck with praise and be ever so proud that this, this is the very first Asian American tarot deck. Instead, for me, it fell flat and, worse yet, this isn’t tarot. I’m not entirely clear what part of this deck is tarot other than a few shallow references interspersed throughout the cards and literally printing the word TAROT on the box.
What I do praise about the endeavor is it was never about creating a tarot deck in the first place. It’s about fundraising for an arts-based self-care package to address mental health issues in the Asian American community. The money raised through this tarot deck went toward a non-profit for addressing mental health. Since I’m not reviewing the non-profit’s mission and am here to review the tarot deck on its merits, I can only talk about the deck. Otherwise, for its non-profit mission, it gets an immediate A+.
Chinese moon block (Jiao Bei, 筊杯) is a form of divination that you’ll often find at Taoist or Buddhist temples. There may be a dish of moon blocks by the altar and the purpose is for you to ask your question to the deity venerated at that site, then throw the moon blocks for a yes or no answer. They’re used to communicate directly with gods and spirits. The traditional perception here is unequivocally that of divine communion.
Predecessors to the moon blocks are covered in the video, from the tortoise shells to the clam shells. I also instruct on how to clean out two clam shells from your next seafood dinner and ritualize them in preparation for divination uses.
Priests, priestesses, shamans, and witches, in particular witches from those cultures who lived by the seas, would use clam shells (or small tortoise shells) for divination.
Eventually, the concept evolved into the red moon blocks that are commonplace today. They’re one of the oldest forms of Chinese divination, alongside the I Ching, though throughout history, have taken many forms.
This video practicum teaches you how to divine with moon blocks (or clam shells, tortoise shells, etc.) and how to consecrate and empower a set to become used exclusively for divinatory purposes.
Supplemental Handouts
The following ritual instruction is for charging and empowering your divinatory tool, specifically your moon blocks, to be used for spirit communications. The instructions can be followed for either clam shells or tortoise shells.
Your Divination Cheat Sheet is a quick reference guide for the meaning of each divinatory result from your moon blocks. Alternatively, if you opt to use clam shells or tortoise shells instead, an interpretation guide is provided for both as well.
If you’re feeling enthusiastic about traditional moon block divination, then you might be interested in buying your own set of moon blocks. You can often find international sales of these through E-Bay or Etsy.
My general personal recommendation, if you are buying it international, is to source from Taiwan. Broadly speaking the Taiwanese tend to be more superstitious and religious about these things, and so they are going to be more attentive, more thoughtful, and craft-wise, more serious about their moon block production. Culturally, mainland China is more atheistic and capitalist-oriented, so just in terms of probability, you’re not as likely to find a seller who is actually a practitioner of craft.
Homework: Your Practicum
Following each installment of the series will be a suggested practicum, or homework, for you to try out. Homework material presumes that you are an occult practitioner who is working on developing your craft.
Craft Your Own Moon Block Set: I say “moon block” for convenience of reference here. You can use clam shells (probably the easiest for most people to source) or empty tortoise shells (if that’s something you have access to). Even if you decide you really like the red wooden moon blocks and end up buying a set for yourself, I recommend crafting your own divination set because the process of crafting your own divination set from scratch is insightful on its own merits. You can even cut two cross-section slices of a thick branch for two disks to be used. Paint one side one color to represent yin, and the other side a contrasting color to represent yang. Or find two flat, rounded stones of about equal size and inscribe the two sides to symbolize yin and yang. Then follow the “Empowering Your Moon Blocks” reference guide provided above to consecrate and charge your divination set for divine communion.
Grimoire Reference Page: Before you memorialize this divination method in your personal grimoire, work with the method first. Take some time to try different approaches to the method first, such as crafting your own moon block set, trying different materials, from the clam shells to wood disks or stones, etc. Your creativity is your only limitation. If you really want to get your hands on the red moon blocks, then do so and work with that for a few moon cycles. Finally, once you’ve got a personalized hang of the process and how it operates for you as opposed to what I say in this tutorial, log your divination how-to in your grimoire. Be sure to take notes during the video lecture on the historical and cultural background of the divination method and include those in your grimoire as well for context.
This gift-giving season, get the Wizard’s Pets Tarot to teach a tot tarot or heck, gift it to a grown-up tarot reader. The deck came about when Pamela Steels’ granddaughter asked her to create a tarot deck for her. The Wizard’s Pets Tarot became just that deck, a Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck that’s bite-sized for smaller hands, bright and colorful to captivate attention, and all around an incredible teaching tool.
In fact, forget the kids. I’m keeping this deck for myself. It handles beautifully, shuffles beautifully, and I’ll talk about how much I appreciate the cardstock later. The vibrancy of the deck’s color palette lends well to keeping me awake and focused. There’s a lot of energy in this deck, much of it characterized as youthful, yet there’s something here for the grown-up tarot reader, too. If you’re currently working with your inner child or trying to tap in to that inner child, the Wizard’s Pets Tarot would be perfect for that.
Some of us like to divine or in some divinatory way generate a word to motivate us, keep us focused, and get us through the times to come. This can become your word of the year, or if you’re kind of the non-committal type, then your word of the month, or word of the day, whatever works for you.
Below is a list of 88 words I’ve generated for your divinatory fun. You can use a site like random.org and in the top right corner, input 1 for Min. and 88 for Max. Then click “Generate” and see what number you get. Cross-reference that number with the below listing and find the word corresponding with that number.
If you want to get mystical and fancy, before you hit “Generate,” whisper a petition, prayer, invocation, evocation, call upon your spirit guides, do what you got to do to feel like the moment is special, and then get your random number.
Kokeshi dolls are wood-crafted Japanese dolls that look not unlike the High Priestess kokeshi featured above on the box cover of the Kokeshi Tarot by Arlain. The Kokeshi Tarot stylizes traditional Rider-Waite-Smith tarot iconography into kokeshi dolls and the results are too cute to handle.
We’ve got reversible, symmetrical card backs, which are going to be relevant when we consider reversals and even–gasp!–reading with sideways cards. More on that later. Let’s talk about the Kokeshi Tarot.
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