The Care and Feeding of Tarot Cards - Practical Advise For People New to Tarot

“These are my Tarot cards.

There are many others like them,

but these are mine.”

                                Apologizes to “Full Metal Jacket”

It’s thrilling when a new Tarot deck comes your way.  There’s that moment of flirtation when you first spot each other across a crowded card display, (“Hello, good-looking! Do you come here often?”) or when you pull them from their shipping box and your new deck sees you for the first time.  In either case, you pick them up and feel that lurch in your chest that tells you there’s a connection between the two of you.  Maybe your hands start to burn, maybe you get lightheaded, but in some way the energy of a new card deck makes itself known to you.  

Clearing and waking a new card deck is pretty simple.  Place your cards in your writing hand.  You write with your dominate hand and it’s also this hand that receives energy from the universe and senses changes in the energy fields around you.  For example, when you’re testing a crystal’s vibration, you place it in the palm of your dominate hand.  You do the same thing with your deck.  Your other hand sends energy.  Focus for a moment and imagine white light gathering in your sending hand.  Now pull your hand into a fist and rap it sharply on the deck in your opposite hand.  

Turn your deck face up so you can see the images in each card.  This is the best part.  Your cards are in order and they may never be in order again - unless you’re OCD, that is.  Starting with The Fool, pass each card from one hand to the other as you study the images.  As you review the cards, imagine a beam of white light coming from your third eye going directly into each card.  Think, or even speak the word, ‘clear’ as you go through the deck.  Your deck is now clear of residual energy from idle handling in transit to you.  

There are many ways to establish a connection with your new deck.  The methods are as many and as varied as the decks themselves.  Some people like to sleep with their new decks, or carry them on their person for a while until they feel a bond has formed with their deck.  If that works for you great.  I like to show my new decks my reading table, introduce them to the crystal balls and the other decks.  Then I build them a nest.  

I usually have a bag handy, if I don’t, I make one, or wrap the cards up in a cloth.  I like to think of a card bag as a comfy chair for decks - somewhere they can put there feet up and forget a hard day’s work.  Weird, maybe, but I like knowing they can relax and sigh contentedly in their nests as they let go of the day’s events and come back into their own energy.  Don’t we all feel better doing that?  I put sprigs of lavender and a small piece of black tourmaline in each card bag to calm them and clear away negative energy.  I sometimes also include a clear, quartz crystal or a piece of labradorite to assist in raising the vibration level around the cards and make it easier for them and me to reach a higher state of consciousness during a reading.  

After a public event, where I’ve read multiple people, I pass the decks and bags (I always take two to three decks with me) through smoke from either a sweetgrass or sage smudge and run the crystals under cold water.  I place the decks on my reading table with my selenite tower.  Once they are cleared and contented, I tuck the decks away for a day of two.  I never use the same decks for consultations two days in a row.  

When you teach, students often bring decks to you that they can’t connect with, or don’t feel are a proper fit for them.   It’s sad to see orphaned decks, particularly if you, yourself have enjoyed working with the deck in question.  Many people don’t like reading from a used deck and I would never endorse purchasing second-hand cards from an unknown source.  However, if you know the person giving you the cards and, more importantly, know and like their energy, there are good methods for clearing and balancing slightly used cards. Once properly cleared, you can reclaim an orphaned deck and pass them along to someone who is able bond with the cards.  The deck is no longer an orphan and both cards and their new reader go on to live happy and productive lives together.  I use the same method to clear orphaned decks as I do for ones I use at a public reading.  I also take the extra step of misting their bag with Dragon’s Blood oil.   The deck will be less likely to pick up your energy that way and will stay clear until you present it to its new owner.  One important clarification:  Clear means clear of all outside energy not natural to the cards themselves.  Repeat clearing steps until you feel nothing but the energy of the cards themselves.

Cards are sensitive to moods and atmosphere.  Even though we know this as readers, it’s very easy to forget.  If you take the time to regularly work with your decks and keep them clear, you not only deepen their connection to you, but also maintain their flexibility  for working with friends or clients.  Together, you and your deck will accomplish amazing things.

LADY ORACLE

The Crystals Every Person Needs - Part 1 Claiming Your Space

It's Spring, the traditional season for cleaning.  And nothing needs cleaning more after a long, closed up Winter than your energy field and the space around it.  We've just completed a retrograde cycle that a lot of people found particularly disruptive.  So break out the vacuum cleaner, mop, dust rags and sage smudges.  If you're lucky enough to live where there is actually some form of sunshine in the spring, run your crystals under cold water (only if appropriate) and put them out in the sunshine.

If you are new to crystal use there are basics you need to know.  I'll go over some of them here, but I recommend that you invest in a good crystal book.  There are several out there.  Among my favorites are, Melody's, "Love Is In The Earth," and Judy Hall's books, "The Crystal Bible" and "The Crystal Encyclopedia."  Melody's book is very in-depth, discussing factors of hardness, vibrational frequency and formations.  The information is excellent, but the only draw back is that there are no pictures to use as guidelines for identifying crystals.  Hall's books are great from the perspective of not only giving you good, scientific information, but also it has color pictures of each crystal for easy identification.

So how do you determine what crystals are right for you?  One

Peach selenite tower - wonderful source of white light

simple rule.  They will find you.  No, seriously, you ask, how?  I repeat, they will find you.  I have an enormous Pink Quartz that I found at an estate sale.  I'd been looking for one like that for months and there it was, shoved in a cardboard box, overlooked by fifty other people, just waiting for me.  I picked it up and as weird as it may sound to some of you who've never experienced the phenomena, we recognized each other immediately.  It now happily resides in the middle of my kitchen table activating my heart chakra and sending beautiful, calming energy throughout the room.

Spring cleaning, or clearing as I call it, should start with the space around you.  If you can't smudge due to allergies, I suggest gridding rooms by placing four, cleared Black Tourmaline and four Selenite stones in each corner of the room.  Black Tourmaline, repels and transmutes negative energy and also acts as a protector against the the ill-wishes of others.  It's also excellent to keep you from being drained by energy vampires, people who we may love, but who tend to syphon off our energy to keep their lives in balance.  though they are not nearly as sexy as Twilight's Cullen family,  we all know people who feed off us, leaving us weary and wary of dealing with them.  Black Tourmaline will stop the suction in its tracks.

A milky crystal cluster and my old friend, Ametrine

Keep in mind that Tourmaline does not clear itself and must be cleaned regularly.  It will store negativity.  Let me give you this cautionary tale.  I'd loaned a particularly nice piece of Russian Black Tourmaline to my daughter who planned to visit an extremely haunted location for EPV work.  (Yes, we're all like this in my household) She had other items with her as well and although she remembered to smudge herself and them when she got home, she neglected to clear the crystal.  I figured it out two days later when the car started acting up, the washing machine  jammed in mid-cycle and our cell phones began picking up static in the house.  Chaos isn't just a theory as it turns out.  When I asked my daughter about the tourmaline, she remembered it hadn't been cleaned.  I located the offensive little rascal on her vanity table and when I reached for it, I could feel its energy vibrating before I even picked it up.  Not a good sign in this case.  I cleared the stone and the washer cycle re-engaged (hasn't malfunctioned since) and the cell phones returned to normal.  The car however, needed oil.  My bad.  Clear Black Tourmaline by running it under cold water, or smudging.

Selenite holds high vibrational, white light.  Unlike Black Tourmaline, it never needs clearing and can actually clear other stones around it.  That's why I like to use it in conjunction with other crystals.  Selenite brings great mental clarity, enhances telepathic communications and will deepen you mediations.  Holding a large piece is a wonderful experience.  You immediately feel lighter in both mind and spirit.  Just one caution - do not clean this stone with water.  Selenite is a soft stone and is not meant for immersion.  And as I said before, it does not need to be cleared.

The two most common forms of Selenite are tall, white to peach colored pillars or rods and the incredible Desert Rose structure.  The crystal actually forms like the petals of a flower.  They are both beautiful and useful.  These stones work wonders in clearing your space and keeping other stones clear as well.  I keep mine off the floor because I have pets and if your stones are small, they can present a choking hazard to small children and animals.

Once you've cleared your room, think about what other crystals you'd like to introduce to that space as well.  In the second part of this blog we'll discuss crystal additions and what crystals can help clear and balance you.


Lady Oracle