Sitting with Divination

I've been reading tarot for myself for a long time. Ever since I bought my first deck, the Llewellyn Tarot, on a whim in 2008 or so. Before I was even identifying as a Pagan, although looking back, I already was one. I'd already had my first very shocking experience of Pagan deity. If pressed, I might have admitted I was Pagan-curious. But reading Tarot for myself is a lot like looking in a mirror. The cards become markers in the personal language of my own soul. I know what each means to me, and I can read them clearly. It's a skill, I think, fitting the spread to the constellation of experience you're considering and then drawing out the meaning.

But it's a totally different experience than using tarot to communicate with another being. Totally different skill set.

Temperance, from the Llewellyn Tarot

Every time I read an omen at the end of my rituals I am baffled. Every single time it feels like the most unexpected, indecipherable nonsense imaginable. I shuffle the deck in the deep state of connectedness that has really taken hold by that point in a good ritual. But when I start pulling cards it's like being hit in the face with cold water. What the heck could these random bits of image and symbol possibly mean to me?

It's one reason I rarely write about rituals very soon after I complete them. Because just about every time, I need time and distance to even approach interpreting that omen. Sometimes I need a few days' distance to even tell you if I think the message was positive or negative!

I leave the three cards out on my shrine after I put the rest of the deck away and return the shrine to its pre-ritual state. I look at them every time I pass by. I let the images sort of soak into my subconsciousness, and then, three days... even a week later, when I sit down to write about the ritual, it's usually so easy to see what those cards mean.

Three of Cups, from the Llewellyn Tarot

Sometimes that means I have work to do. My most recent reading tells me that the nature spirits think I'm seriously missing the mark with my offerings since we moved in November. Every omen I've taken since we moved in has been dissatisfied. Once I pulled the Tower. Sometimes when the meaning of the omen hits five or six days later it means I go back to the altar and do more. More offerings, more prayers. Sometimes it's more divination because the answer I got just leads to more questions. Sometimes... like now...  I don't know how to make it right.

But at least I'm learning to read it. Communication is key to building relationships. Sometimes it feels like I'm learning to communicate all over again, like a baby speaking gobbledygook to her parents. I feel like I just said "mama" for the first time.

But at least I'm moving forward.