Tag Archives: divination

Tarot for the New Year (2017)

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A tarot spread for the coming year, using the Tarot of Marseille (pub. Lo Scarabeo, 1996).

Many forms of divination were practiced by ancient and medieval societies. Most forms of divination were considered “science” originally but are labelled “magic” in current practice. We laugh at some nowadays while others are still enthusiastically embraced. Some have been long forgotten while others are being rediscovered. The most common forms of divination used today are reading stars and reading cards–astrology and tarot. Until only two or three hundred years ago, everyone agreed that the various aspects of the world were so interconnected that they could not help but influence each other. What early and medieval Christians condemned was using divination as a tool to know what MUST happen, denying the possibility of free will and human agency. (The one method of divination that was ALWAYS forbidden in absolute terms was to open the Bible and point to a random verse in order to discover the will of God!) But the Church used these tools of star-reading and card-reading, as did secular society, to anticipate likely outcomes of probable actions.

What does this 3-card spread reveal about the upcoming year (2017)? A quick and simple reading would be that the 5 of Swords indicates both material loss and loss of hope early in the year, followed by new determination to study and engage in personal growth (the Page of Pentacles/Coins), resulting in a renewed sense of personal integrity and strength to confront our difficulties (Strength). Another reader might see these cards indicating not a linear series of developments but a threefold series of interconnected attitudes that continue to revolve throughout the year.

A 5-card spread for the upcoming year using the Tarot of Marseille deck.

A 5-card spread reveals a slightly more complex reading for 2017. The year begins with the Knight of Wands (reversed), followed in the spring by the 8 of Pentacles/Coins, a summer dominated by the 5 of Pentacles, and concluded by The Chariot in the autumn; the 9 of Cups (reversed) is present throughout the year. The quick-and-easy explication of this spread would warn us against an immature person who is headstrong, bossy or a bully-and a risk-taker, who can do dangerous things and convince others to do dangerous things and who dominates the beginning months of the year. In reaction to this person, everyone else must work harder at self-improvement and personal growth (spring) which forces us to confront our own pride or humility in the summer and take appropriate action based on these realizations. In the autumn, this implies a struggle and an eventual, hard-won victory over enemies, obstacles, nature, the uncertainties inside each of us. But this will require confidence as well as unity of purpose and control (between each of the struggling aspects of our personalities as well as in society as a whole) and, most especially, motivation.

The 9 of Cups (reversed) in the center? The card associated with the fulfillment of all our wishes but in a quiet, muted fashion. This can serve as a motivation for all the struggles we engage in throughout the year as well as indicate the result of those struggles.

When I first dealt these two spreads, I was VERY surprised at how much they reinforce and support each other. Do any other tarot readers out there have additional interpretations to suggest?

Cherries

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A love spell from Japan involves tying a strand of hair to a cherry tree in blossom.

A love spell from Japan involves tying a strand of hair to a cherry tree in blossom.

Cherries are associated with Venus, water, love, divination, and death. One method to discover how many years of life remain for you is to stand beneath a cherry tree and shake it and count the number of cherries which fall around you, indicating the number of years that remain until your death. Perhaps because of this practice, cherry juice can be used as a substitute for blood in magical recipes.

Drawing of Mary and cherry tree

In the former Czechoslovakia it was customary to cut cherry branches on the Feast of St Barbara on 4 December and bring these into the warmth of the house to have blossom at Christmas. However, the tree of course flowers naturally at or around Easter, especially if Easter is late, and in England, in the Chilterns, some of the abundant blossoms were used to decorate churches at Easter.

A cherry orchard will be certain of having a rich crop if the first ripe cherry is eaten by a woman who has just given birth to her first child. However, another Bohemian tale which brings together the Virgin, cherries, birth and death goes: When a mother loses a child, she eats neither strawberries nor cherries until the day of St. John the Baptist (June 24, the traditional date of Midsummer). It is said that at that time the Virgin goes about heaven giving this fruit to the little children. If a mother has not been self-denying, and has eaten of this fruit, when the Virgin comes to the child of such a one, she says: “Poor child, there isn’t much left for you, your mother ate your share.” So mothers of deceased children abstain from fruit until the Midsummer following the child’s death.

Wild cherry folklore has unusual associations with the cuckoo, whereby the bird has to eat three good meals of cherries before it may stop singing. Another use of cherries in predicting death is a children’s oracular rhyme from Buckinghamshire:

‘Cuckoo, cherry tree,
Good bird tell me,
How many years before I die’,

with the answer being the next number of cuckoo calls the singer heard.

Rose, the flower of June

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Rose 02

Roses, the flower of June, are reputed to have many and varied magical uses. Modern uses associate roses most often with love but older uses include just as many practices that involve roses and death.

Falling rose petals may be an omen of death. One superstition like that is that if rose petals fall off roses a person is holding then that person will pass away soon. In more general terms, it is a sign of misfortune if a rose blooms in the autumn.

Romans decorated their tombs with roses. Roses can be planted near graves to protect the dead from evil. (Red roses were planted to mark the graves of lovers and white roses to mark the graves of virgins.)

If a young woman has more than one lover she can determine the one to marry by writing the men’s names on rose leaves and then throwing them into the wind. The name on the last leaf to touch the ground is the one she will marry. Or a girl has no prospective lovers, she can carefully wrap a rose away in a piece of clean white paper on Midsummer Eve and keep it until Christmas Day. If the rose is still intact, she has to wear it in her buttonhole. The first man who admires the rose will become her husband.