Embrace The Magical

Last year I decided to join in #embracethemagical for the first time and loved it. Despite living in the southern hemisphere where we are moving into Spring while it seems everyone else is getting excited for Samhain and Halloween, I still felt able to embrace the magic that is found in every season.

For several years now the month of October has been #embracethemagical month, thanks to Kelly from The Truth In Story, who has provided a daily keyword or prompt and/or weekly spread to celebrate this magical time of year.

Still being fairly new to tarot myself, when I joined last year I found these daily keywords a great way to dive into a single card. Previously I had been pulling a card a day and finding the meaning for that card, but it was very general as meaning can be broad and relate to any number of things. However, I found the daily keywords were a wonderful way of looking into each card with a fresh perspective and purpose.

For this year I am starting week one with the Pagan Otherworlds Tarot, this is a new deck for me and  actually the first time I have used this deck which is quite exciting. I don't have the big book so I will just be going with the meanings as I know them. For day one I pulled the Ace of Cups, to follow along with my card pulls for the prompts visit my instagram.

Oracle Card Of The Week - Healing With The Fairies Oracle Cards

For the past couple of weeks I have been pulling a card of the week from the Healing with the Fairies Oracle Cards deck. This is actually a deck that I have been carrying around for many years but had not given too much thought to until recently. I actually almost sold this deck a few months back when I was moving because it was a deck I basically never used. Now, however, I am glad I held onto it.

This deck was a gift from my sister who knew I had a love of faeries and I suppose that was partly the reason I didn't end up selling it. But I think part of why I never really reached for this deck in the past was because it always felt a little too cute with all its sweet meanings, that and the artwork being totally inconsistent due to having nine artists threw me a bit.

But I have actually come to really enjoy using this deck as a card of the week, now that I am actually paying attention to the meanings for these cards, and although the fairies depicted with their butterfly wings are not my usual aesthetic, the messages they convey are nurturing and healing and I suppose something I need to be hearing right now.

This Family Harmony card talks of healing, acceptance and love, and along with the cards meanings in the guidebook is practical advice and an affirmation that for this card reads: I see the goodness within each member of my family. My family life is harmonious and filled with love and joy.

Tarot Year Card 2022 - Wheel of Fortune

At the end of last year Benebell Wen posted about her Tarot Year Card and that got me inspired to find out my own Tarot Year Card. In the book Archetypal Tarot by Mary K. Greer the formula for discovering your Tarot Year Card is to add your birth day, birth month and current year together, then to add the numbers from that sum together until you end up with the highest number under 23, with the number 22 representing The Fool.

Hopefully this example given should help to clarify this.
    month of birth            8
    day of birth       +     26
    current year       + 2014
    total                      2048

The total number is then added together to give your year card, 2 + 0 + 4 + 8 = 14 (Temperance)

After completing this with my own details I found that 2022 for me is a Wheel of Fortune year. After reading about what this may mean for the coming year in Archetypal Tarot I was a bit apprehensive. Like a lot of people, I don't like change, but as a Wheel of Fortune year, I'm about to experience it whether I'm ready for it or not.

To find out more insight I started to pull the Wheel of Fortune card from a few different decks I own to see what else their meanings may offer. The Wheel cards from DruidCraft Tarot and Wildwood Tarot both spoke of the changing of seasons, of the passing of time and the natural cycles in nature. The Wildwood card with its eight spoked wheel for the turning of the seasons, the presence of both the sun and moon and the three herons as the three fates was beautiful. However, I was particularly draw to the DruidCraft card with its depiction of Arianrhod on the liminal place of the beach, between land and sea, with the cave representing both womb and tomb behind her.

Other cards I looked at speak more to the Wheel of Fortune as being related to luck and fortune, with the Halloween Tarot depicting a man on a roulette wheel being spun by an elephant who is being spooked by a mouse. The Vacchetta Tarot, on the other hand, depicts the classic "wheel" and features the goddess Fortuna herself at the top where she is able to see all, and at the bottom a misfortunate woman is being crushed by life's circumstances. Hopefully that woman does not turn out to be me.

Being tarot key 10, The Wheel of Fortune is numerologically related to the Aces and 10's of the minor arcana, meaning this will be a year of beginnings and completions. Basically from all these cards there is the sense that there is no fighting change and what is to come. So as a wise person once said "No good sittin' worryin' abou' it," ... "What's comin' will come, an' we'll meet it when it does."- J. K. Rowling

Wheel of the Year - Litha

This is a tricky time of year for those of us in the southern hemisphere who are trying to follow the Wheel of the Year. While the weather is telling us it is most definitely midsummer, most of those around us are celebrating Christmas, a traditionally winter celebration. Although by now here in the southern hemisphere we are used to Christmas being associated with warmer weather and not the wintry Yule as it is based on.

Wheel of the Year (Southern Hemisphere)

Christmas is a big celebration in my family, but more so for the chance to get together rather then anything else. So with the combination of warm weather, feasting and outdoor fun it is not so hard to imagine celebrating the sun, in warmth and joy. So along with some of my other midsummer decorations I display are my Litha beads that sit with my Litha Oracle card. I actually made a set of 8 seasonal beads, one for each turn of the Wheel of the Year, if you want to see how I made these Litha beads you can visit HERE.

This Oracle card for Litha, seen below, is from the Witches' Wisdom Oracle deck. Although I do not tend to use this deck as an oracle, mostly just using the cards for display, I find it an enchanting deck to own. The deck includes 8 cards for the seasonal sabbaths in the Wheel of the Year, as well as directional cards, elemental cards, and many other people, place and object cards related to witches and magic.

Witches' Wisdom oracle cards - Litha

Wheel of the Year - Beltane

As the seasons change, the northern hemisphere is now experiencing Samhain, the gateway to winter, with all the fun of Halloween. However here in the southern hemisphere we are now entering Beltane, the gateway to summer, and summers here in the southern hemisphere get very hot.

Wheel of the Year (Southern Hemisphere)

Already there is a noticeable change in the weather with the days becoming warmer, though thankfully the nights are still cool and comfortable. Summer doesn't really hit here until the nights are about as hot as the days. Which is not a fun experience when you don't have air conditioning.

Above are all eight of my seasonal beads, you can read more about how I made these by visiting HERE. The beads for this season are pictured below with the Beltane card from my Witches' Wisdom Oracle deck. Although I tend not to use this deck for the oracle deck that it is, but more for display purposes, it is still a lovely deck that I enjoy using along with my seasonal beads.

Witches' Wisdom oracle cards - Beltane

Embrace The Magical

So in my last post I explained about living in the southern hemisphere and how here, October is not autumn and the lead up to Samhain or Halloween, but is instead the lead up to Beltane. I also mentioned how I prefer to celebrate the season as I experience them and not how the other side of the world may be experiencing them. And I stand my this, I do. But I just couldn't help but join in #embracethemagical.

Kelly from The Truth In Story started #embracethemagical on instagram, something she has done for a few years now to celebrate the magical and spooky month of October. Initially I wasn't going to join, as I said, I prefer to celebrate the seasons as I experience them, but then I thought that embracing the magical didn't have to mean October or Halloween. 'Embracing The Magical' was something that could be done any time of the year.

So for each week in October The Truth In Story will have weekly Tarot spreads available as well as daily keyword prompts for single card Tarot draws. These will be available on her instagram and also on her community tab on her youtube. If your interest in Tarot or other divination methods I recommend watching some of her videos. 

For this first week of #embracethemagical I am using the Deviant Moon Tarot, I know it leans more towards spooky Samhain then it does bright Beltane, but I only recently got the big book for this deck and really wanted to use it. To follow along with my 'Embracing the Magical' journey, visit my instagram.

The Tower card below from the Deviant Moon Tarot was the first card I pulled, a day before #embracethemagical officially began. A sign that, although I am experiencing Spring, it is fine to shake things up a bit with a dark and strange deck, for as surreal as the imagery might be, the insights found are quite positive and affirming.

Pocket Witch Dolls

So today is the 1st of October and for many people, mostly those in the northern hemisphere, it is a month of spooky and magical things in the lead up to Samhain or Halloween and the beginnings of Winter.

I however live in the southern hemisphere and here we are entering a month leading up to Beltane. It couldn't be more different and yet the weather here has been rainy and overcast of late and admittedly it does get lonely trying to follow the seasons when it feels like you are going against the whole world.

So as a sort of mash-up between what I am experiencing and what it feels like the whole rest of the world is experiencing, I made these pocket witch dolls. Little not so spooky but still very magical witchy dolls but with a spring floral twist.

These little pocket witch dolls are very small, the standing witch in her pointed hat is about 7cm tall and the witch on her broomstick is only about 5cm tall. Overall they feel like a good compromise to the season I am experiencing and the season most everyone expects it to be. To read more about how these were made you can visit my post here.