One of the ideas I tossed around when I was looking at challenges to create for myself for the #100DaysOfTarot, one of the ideas I tossed around was a deck bonding challenge; to take my “Start Here” material and organize it into small chunks that someone could do daily while still using their deck for regular readings. I initially scrapped the idea since I don’t have a new deck I’m working with at the moment but my girlfriend asked me to write the challenge out for her to do with her deck.
If you want to see someone doing this challenge in June, I’d recommend checking out @petrosophia, she’s kickass. I’m biased of course but she’s also just objectively a very reflective person, which is helpful if you want someone to follow along with.
The important concepts here are the narrative approach to the Major Arcana/the suits and, well, reading vertically – taking all of the 1′s then all of the 2′s and so on.
What to Do Each Day
On days the prompt says to ask the deck a question, shuffle and draw three cards. Use the book to look up the meanings if you need to. Make any notes you might want to keep or make a post about it.
On the other days, select the cards listed and start with your first impressions. What story do you think is being told? What’s the emotion of each card? What’s the action? After you’ve made notes of your first impressions, make notes of the book’s definitions for each card as well. When you’ve completed a suit – say all of the pentacles – write a brief one or two sentence summary of the story being told. When working vertically, jot down three keywords after you’ve finished taking notes.
For the two signifier questions, feel free to either select one and reflect on it or shuffle and draw one then reflect on it. Or hell do both. See how closely your pick matches you deck.
The benefit I see with this challenge is that it allows you to develop a framework understanding of your deck over the course of several weeks which I think is more approachable for a lot of folks. I’m also just a firm believer that a little structure goes a long way.
But feel free to play with this structure. Do all the Pentacles at once if you please. Maybe you need to break down the Vertical Reading into smaller chunks. Maybe you’re using a playing card deck so you just omit all of the Major Arcana. This is just a starting point.
And I’m excited to see what y’all do with it!
The Prompts
1 Ask the Deck: What are your
Strengths? (Draw 3 Cards)
2 Ask the Deck: What are your
Weaknesses? (Draw 3 Cards)
3 Pentacles 1-4
4 Pentacles 5-7
5 Pentacles 8-10
6 Pentacles Page & Knight
7 Pentacles Queen &
King
8 Swords 1-4
9 Swords 5-7
10 Swords 8-10
11 Swords Page &
Knight
12 Swords Queen &
King
13 Wands 1-4
14 Wands 5-7
15 Wands 8-10
16 Wands Page & Knight
17 Wands Queen & King
18 Cups 1-4
19 Cups 5-7
20 Cups 8-10
21 Cups P&K
22 Cups Q&K
23 Major Arcana 0
& 21
24 Major Arcana 1-5
25 Major Arcana 6-10
26 Major Arcana 11-15
27 Major Arcana 16-20
28 Vertical Reading –
The 1’s
29 Vertical Reading –
The 2’s
30 Vertical Reading –
The 3’s
31 Vertical Reading –
The 4’s
32 Vertical Reading –
The 5’s
33 Vertical Reading –
The 6’s
34 Vertical Reading –
The 7’s
35 Vertical Reading –
The 8’s
36 Vertical Reading –
The 9’s
37 Vertical Reading –
The 10’s
38 Internal Signifier – Who am I Internally (Select or Draw
a Card)
39 External Signifier – Who am I Externally (Select or Draw a
Card)
40 Ask the Deck: What do you want me to know? (Draw 3)
It’s been a hot minute since I posted a spell or craft. Here’s one that’s both.
This is budget friendly and super low energy. It’s based on the Hearthstone in World of Warcraft (because you know me, I love my pop culture witchery). In Warcraft, your Hearthstone allows you to teleport back to one ‘home’ location anywhere in the game. You find an innkeeper, tell him to set that location as ‘home’, and then after that, you can return to that spot any time you choose no matter how far away you are.
That’s the idea we’re harnessing here. “There’s no place like home”, if you will. Sometimes I’m out in a public place and I get overloaded and really need to go home, or I’m having a really difficult day at work and I don’t want to be there anymore. I keep this stone in my pocket and then just hold it when I need a breather. I use my stone to get myself to a ‘home’ mindset, giving me a feeling of safety and calm. (If you want to go to the extra effort, you could enchant your stone to be a ‘go home early’ charm if you want to physically go home, but that’s up to you.)
You will need:
A rock from your chosen home location
Paint or a marker (light blue if you’re sticking with the Warcraft theme, but as usual, you do you, boo)
That’s it. That’s literally all the materials you need.
Now, I say “chosen home location”. My rock is from my yard at my house. For some people, their house is where they want to escape from, not return to, and that’s okay. You can also choose a rock from your school, your friend’s house, a park you love, or wherever you feel the most safe.
Here’s the beauty of the spell: The rock is already charged and cleansed because it’s been hanging out in the ground like rocks do, absorbing all that ‘home’ energy.
Give the rock a clean, but NOT a cleanse. You don’t want to clear out the energy your rock already has, but you do want to make sure you’re not carrying around any gross bacteria in your pocket. Soap, water, maybe some rubbing alcohol or something, but leave the salt and incense smoke out of it.
Paint or draw on the swirl symbol you see above. (If warcraft isn’t your jam and you have a different symbol you associate with home, or you want to make a sigil, go right ahead.)
That’s it. You’re done. The ground already did all the work for you, so you don’t need to expend any of your own energy.
@urbanspellcraft 😉 this is perfect since I started playing recently and you love wow too
i swear i read a post on here once that said you could stick an incense cone in a pile of herbs and light it so that it burns the adjacent herbs (in a fire safe metal dish, of course) but i cannot find it. anyway, turns out that works really well.
may the bridges I burn light the way 