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March 4 through March 10, 2024

Monday's Sagittarius Moon is ideal for doing research, reaching out for help, or putting together an itinerary for an upcoming vacation or celebration. Assembling more information will give any project we are working on a solid foundation. Speaking of solid foundations, Tuesday and Wednesday's Capricorn Moon carries a productive note, as well as encouraging us to set new boundaries with others so we can move more effectively in the world. Don't be afraid to speak up if someone tries to steal your energy or block your movements; it's time you were heard! Expect changes in schedule or direction under Thursday and Friday's Aquarius Moon, as even the best laid plans are subject to change when this sign's in charge! Flexibility and patience will be vital to getting through the day in a calm and serene manner, and who knows? The changes might actually work in your favor! Mercury will move into Aries on Saturday, and it's best we take care with our words over the weekend, as this combination can make us talk before we think and be more aggressive in our requests. Sunday's Pisces new Moon will mark the start of a two-week cycles of new experiences, most of them spiritual in nature.

The Power of Using Playing Cards for Divination, by Stephen Ball

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

Playing cards have been with us for centuries, but they're less popular in divination today than more famous systems such as the tarot. This is partly because the few definitions we have for reading poker-style decks are very old-fashioned: nearly all of them focus only on work, illness, and marriage (the most important topics at the time!) and their attitudes to women are...well, two or three hundred years out of date. Traditional playing cards are an exciting, unbroken link to our past, but those meanings are just not satisfying to readers who are used to oracles that reflect all of life's situations while containing deep symbolism and wisdom in each image. By contrast, a book of "Kentucky Superstitions" in the 1920s lists the court cards as, "A blond man, A rather dark-haired man, An extremely dark-haired man..." and so on, and the number cards aren't much more developed. I decided to write about the beautiful playing card pack—full of the glamour of the old west, spies in casinos, and fortunes read on kitchen tables—and to make modern answers available for those who want them. It was a nice plan, but I hadn't counted on one thing: that with a deck this full of history, the stories and characters within the cards themselves would have their own ideas!

I've been creating divination systems for many years (I published Elemental Divination: A Dice Oracle with Llewellyn in 2018) and knew that there were great ways in which the romance and danger of playing cards could be conjured. There are good reasons for adding them to your toolkit because (like dice) these decks are easily available, cheap to buy, come in hundreds of beautiful styles, and don't raise any eyebrows if you carry them in public. Most importantly, they have a long tradition of serious use in divination that deserves a revival.

It's not too heretical to apply newer meanings to the cards, as they've already changed greatly over time. For example, the King of Clubs once represented a man "with both friends and enemies," and then only as an evil man, but is often seen today as a wise authority figure. (No system is immune to this gradual change, not even the tarot). Many people who write about using playing cards for divination comment that they originally learned it from one person who had already changed the definitions a little, and they now include their own differences, too. Going back to the oldest sources we can find (including the wonderfully named Dr. Flamstead's and Mr. Patridge's New Fortune-Book containing their newly invented method of knowing one's fortune by using a pack of cards, and which published in 1729) we see definitions that were later updated in the 1800s and 1900s, and doing so again today is entirely in the spirit of the deck.

Most importantly, playing cards are perfect at encouraging a crucial skill that any divination reader should have, whether you're using an established system or creating a new one—the skill of visualisation. If your answer is "A tree," for example, you can gain insight into its nature by imagining a painting of the tree that belongs in that situation and describing it in words. You can start very simply by writing, "A tree with a brown trunk and green leaves." By exploring the image and connecting with your inspiration, you can then develop this for more powerful readings. After seeing it in your mind, the description might change to, "A strong tree with a full crown of green leaves, standing in a clearing while rain falls in the dark night behind it." These words create pictures for anyone who reads them. You don't need advanced writing skills for this; the key is to be able to think of the image and then give it more detail. There is a tradition of using tarot cards or paintings as "doorways" to unleash your imagination and intuition, but it can be also be done with simple words.

This inspiration is useful during readings, but is absolutely essential when creating or updating a system. It's difficult enough to know what a single symbol such as a tree will finally look like, but some oracles have more than one moving part. In Elemental Divination, for example, each reading is made up of two of the magical elements meeting to give, "Greater Water over Fire" or "Lesser Air over Earth." In those cases, each element is easy enough to picture, but what relationship do they have when they come crashing together? Or when one retreats gently? Oracles don't only exist in card form; they can be objects drawn from a bag, or dropped onto a surface, and your imagination is even more important then. Some formats help, and some make it more difficult. Luckily, playing cards turned out to be perfect for encouraging this exploration.

There is a type of playing card deck that has always fascinated me, called a "transformation" deck. Artists took the pips on a card (such as four red hearts) and drew a picture, which made them into the helmets or angry faces of fighting soldiers or flying birds. The plain pips of poker cards are not as evocative as the fully illustrated minor arcana in some tarot, so this was a way for the artist to create a scenario packed with emotion and flavour. I loved this "transformation" idea, and decided to do it—not with art, but with words. Moving from the simple sentence saying "a tree," to the more developed lines of detailed description, there is a third and final stage we can use to communicate a deep and full scene without needing to be an artist: short stories. I'd had no intention of writing fifty-two stories when I started, but the cards didn't care about that. They're wild, serious, and full of history, and the result is Playing Card Divination: Every Card Tells a Story.

I was once again faced with two pieces coming together to make an answer. Each number represents a Mythic Role such as The Hunter, The Healer, The Noble, or The Singer (these form a path of wisdom much like the Fool's Journey through the Major Arcana). The suits also gain an extra meaning, giving the Promise, Gambit, Folly, and Triumph of each role. The Two of Hearts is therefore "Lover's Triumph," and the Jack of Diamonds is "Trickster's Gambit." There are also unique spreads, with cards drawn the way they are in classic poker games, and the sparkle of chance and the unknown that the deck always brings.

The process of creating a story for each answer in an oracle is often the same. The result has a primary meaning, such as "love," "intellect," or "security." You must then think about what "security" means in the system you are using. Are there are symbols that you feel fit this idea strongly? If you are making an oracle yourself and can set the theme, are there any that you have always loved and want to include? The story will also need at least one character in it, and a location. If the theme is security, which walls are making it secure? If it is conflict, what are the two forces that are opposing each other? If it is knowledge, what is the superior source of it in the story and who is learning? The answers can be anything. You can have your character be a human, or animal, or the spirits of a warm sunlit forest. You can have the time period be today, or a century ago, or five, or set it in a magical or mythological past or otherworld. When you are free to create the theme, every answer starts as a blank page and becomes a colourfully detailed story. If you are writing for yourself, then even a few quick lines can be enough to remind you of the rest.

The stories that naturally arise from playing cards almost write themselves. They are not the only versions possible, only suggestions to help the reader understand exactly what is happening in the Hermit's Folly, Hunter's Promise, and Noble's Gambit. When the forces at play in those combinations are understood, the reader can write their own story if they wish, but the best way to convey it to others for the first time turns out to be in a tale. Those in the book include scenes of tense card games, gleeful taverns, a nature goddess speaking to a queen, and even a phoenix made of stars. Like a gambler, I thought I could take on the cards and walk away with less effort than writing a new adventure for the lesson of each one, but they promptly reminded me of how immersive divination can be.

When I tested this with friends, it was an immediate hit, and the Jacks in particular wouldn't stop living up to their Role. Tricksters are powerful figures in myth—they always know something that you don't (or they wouldn't be able to trick you) and they think that their odd way is better than the straight route from A to B that anyone could use. When you take up the cards, you invite chance and luck to play their games...and some of the time the masterful Magician and compassionate Healer will be fooled by the crafty Trickster. I certainly was.

In this deck two or more cards can be read together, in a similar way to Lenormand cards. Tarot readers, if they are drawing just one, may be used to seeing "The Star" and knowing the deep and detailed meaning of that in isolation, but with a Lenormand deck several cards are always drawn together and read depending on their relationship with others. A Rider bringing news might be neutral, but directly next to a bad-luck card such as The Clouds the news itself becomes bad. The playing cards in my system can be read this way, too: the Healer's Gambit is a gift or good deed that you could receive, but the Trickster's Promise is a lie. When these two are together, the gift becomes a danger that you mustn't trust—one that looks nice, but is false. These unexpected twists arise in all card games, gambling and fortune-telling. Many of the other readings are stable, romantic, and fun, but the skills of visualisation and inspiration still apply whenever several cards meet and that new mix must be understood.

I'd been concerned about imposing my own ideas on the cards, but this deck has been loved and treasured by too many people over centuries to sit still for me now. Again and again the shining diamonds and grinning Jacks showed that they had their own character and a sense of humor. On one occasion I was reading for an important client; they were worried and wanted advice, and I was hoping for an answer that would really tackle their concerns and give them serious ideas for moving forward. It might sound strange to turn to fortune-telling when matters are that complex, but talking about a situation with another person while being prompted to look at it from different angles by the cards can be very helpful. The first to be drawn, Smith's Triumph, is positive. It signifies the end of a long-term project where the rewards finally come in, a harvest or the completion of a masterpiece. The client was confused; he couldn't think of a project to which that could be referring. The next card was the Warrior's Promise, which indicates conflict and resistance. Again, he didn't have any idea of what this could apply to—people are usually happy when work finishes and they can sit back with satisfaction. Read together, the two cards meant that this usually good ending would instead cause anger and resentment. In an unexpected twist, it turned out to be referring to…the recent end of his favourite long-running television series. (Which also had unexpected twists that he hadn't liked.) Sometimes the cards just pick up on a person's biggest concerns on that day!

There are incredibly beautiful playing card packs available to buy now, in far greater numbers than in the past. Designs with gold leaf, art, figures from legends and modern fiction, the range is as exciting and different as the art we expect from tarot decks. The cards can help us improve skills that aid any divination, but they're also unique. The thrill of Aces, the power of Queens and Kings, in teamwork and in conflict is one that has been constantly felt by people around the world for years. They are worth investigating for anyone who collects divination objects, dives into new mysteries, or feels the excitement of luck and chance as each new card turns.

And in any system, the creation of your own images doesn't need to be in the form of art on the card itself, or the rune, or the coloured stones that form an oracle. You can use simple words to reach into a deep place of intuition and connection. Try this yourself and see what it adds to your practice, whether you feel most comfortable writing one line, two sentences, or the transforming power of a whole story.

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2020. All rights reserved.

My grandmother (father's mother) cursed my parents when they married, saying that their marriage would bring them great unhappiness, that they would not prosper together, and that their issue would wither and die. Most of what she said has happened. I am still alive at 49, but I have had to overcome many illnesses (including cancer) and am unable to have children. Since my grandmother died, I have seen her continue to act through my father. I have no relationship directly with my grandmother, as I never met her while she was alive. I understand the need to raise my vibration by forgiving her and have worked on this throughout my life. I now feel only pity for this women who has caused the death of her own line (none of her other children had children either.) I want to resolve this and be released from the effects of her curse, as my parents' misery affects me because I love them. It is very sad, as they loved each other so very much. Here's my question: Is there any way as a "third party" to the curse that I can lift it? If so, how should I go about it? I would really appreciate any advice you may have.

- Robyn

Dreamchaser:

I imagine the answer to your question will vary depending on who answers it. I personally don't feel that anyone can be cursed, so I also don't feel that a third party can lift an apparent curse. I think that the power of a "curse" lies in whether or not someone believes that they can be cursed.

Quantum physics explains that what we think is what we create. As Maharishi Mahesh Yogi said, "All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think, we become."

If a family thinks it is cursed, then when bad things happen, the family will see them as proof that the curse is real and believe in it even more. The problem with your family stems from some DNA issues. For example, you have hereditary problems with procreation. Your family also carries over FEAR and ANGER issues from generation to generation. Your family has always blamed these problems on this curse idea; it's an excuse that makes sense to everyone.

Your parents are, by your own admission, miserable people. They had a miserable marriage, and your father is a mean, cranky, angry old man. He acts much like your grandmother did, but that is NOT a curse Robyn ñ it's a choice. He could choose to be nice to people if he wanted to. His bad behavior is being excused by everyone who blames your grandmother and "the curse" for it.

No outside person can remove an apparent curse. Period. I do not care what this psychic, that gypsy woman, or that holy man says. No one can remove a curse.

Please do not pay any more money to anyone in an attempt to remove this curse, for there was no curse to begin with. Your grandmother just hated the thought of your father and mother marrying, and she knew that they would be miserable. Instead of "making" this happen, maybe she just predicted it.

She wanted your father to stay and take care of her. She did not want to give up your father to your mother, for she did not like your mother. Their unhappiness was not a result of her curse, however - it was a result of them making a bad choice in marrying each other.

Your grandmother said she cursed the marriage because she was a real Drama Queen. She would be THRILLED to know that her words have held so much power. She did not have the ability to put a curse on anyone, anyway. Cursing someone is what people do when they feel powerless to control or manipulate others.

If you want to be "free of this curse," I think you should say the following words out loud three times every morning before your feet even hit the floor:

"Today I create a happy, prosperous, abundant day."

I wish you FREEDOM at last.

*****

Astrea:

Kiddo, your grandmother didn't curse your family. It seems that she didn't need to, because those of you who have believed in that curse have done a bang-up job of cursing YOURSELVES.

Since you're alive, apparently you have overcome most of what she SUGGESTED would happen to your family. Since your parents are still alive, they've broken the supposed curse too. I'm sorry that you've had a series of illnesses in your life, but you survived them - even CANCER. If Grandmother's curse was so powerful, you wouldn't be here! How can you believe she cursed all of you when you're still a loving and giving person?

What she was doing when she "cursed" your parents at their wedding was trying to CONTROL them. She couldn't even do that when she was alive, much less from Spirit, because they got married in spite of her. Her curse had no power then, and it has no power now, except for the POWER YOU GIVE IT.

Illness is not something that is planned or destined, and it's not something that one person can inflict on another. That would go against nature. Bad luck stems from making foolish choices. Instead of taking responsibility for anything that goes wrong in your lives, you lay it all on grandmother's curse!

You have all drawn comfort from this idea, because the alternative is to accept that you might be the own cause of your "bad luck." "I didn't get the job because of grandmother's curse" or "If Granny hadn't cursed me, the Coke machine wouldn't have taken my dollar."

Another extreme idea with the same result is when someone says, "It's God's will that this happened," or "God didn't mean for me to be happy." If you continue to believe something like this, it can ruin your whole life.

When someone has done a wrong to you or your family, forgiveness is essential to truly moving on. Since she only SAID she cursed your family, and nothing ever happened as a direct result of what she said, raising your vibration by forgiving her should be fairly easy, and it certainly would be wise.

I don't know why the rest of her children never had children of their own, but from what you've told me, it would seem that she was the kind of overbearing, controlling individual who could manipulate people into doing almost EVERYTHING she wanted.

Spiritually, she has come a long way since she died, and she feels just awful about what she said to your folks when they got married. She is telling me that she is embarrassed and ashamed of herself for saying anything of the kind, and she wants you all to stop buying into this superstitious garbage so that you can get on with your lives and be HAPPY!

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.