NEW YEAR TAROT CARD SPREAD

Happy New Year, my msft party people!

It’s time to say hello to all the ~n3w year, n3w me~ posts because 2020 has officially arrived. 

((( as mind-blowingly WEIRD as that still feels to say )))

Now, it’s not like we ~don’t~ have just as corny yet super relevant resolutions as the next guy; but in addition to vowing to schlep to the gym a little more often & maybe make one less mimosa every now & again, another always-fun way to kickstart a brand-new year is with a good ol’ fashioned tarot spread. 

IDK about you, but after jotting down all the fresh, fierce goals in mind for the shiny year, it only feels natural to then flip perspective on its head. Sure, you’ve set sights on what you’d like to come of the next 12 lunar cycles, but what about what the cosmos has up its own sleeve?

That’s where our New Year-specific spread comes into play. 

Before the low-key panic starts to set in – breathe easy. This is not one of those crazy complicated, sometimes intimidating, how-the-hell-am-I-ever-going-to-remember-all-of-this kind of spreads. Oh no. This one, in all reality, couldn’t GET any simpler. So wipe those beads of sweat off your furrowed brow & let’s dive right in!

First off – as always – you want to clear out your cards (AKA knock on them three times) & give them a good, thorough shuffle. And if you can’t shuffle, cue splattering them around the ground to move around & restack because seriously, we can’t all be Vegas Black Jack dealers, right?

Next, neatly fan them out in a line or circle across a table, the floor or whatever else that works best for you.

While concentrating on the question “what does this next year have in store for me?”, say the phrase out loud & pick out 13 cards, one at a time. As you select them, place each one in order along the pattern below, with the final card placed by itself at the bottom.

Hooray – you did it! Now…what is it supposed to mean???

Each of the cards represents a different month of the year. As you can guess, the first one is January, the second is February, following the shape to finally end in December. 

One of my personal fave elements of tarot is how it speaks to one big narrative. So as you study your own reading, just think of it like the cosmos’ very own Insta story for your coming year.

Especially in a spread like this, I also like to pay special attention to major versus minor cards, which differentiate between the potentially more significant/thematic life events & menial day-to-day happenings; as well as reversed/upside down cards, which represent lesser, opposite, impending or sometimes even blocked energies – as opposed to the more straightforward  interpretations as represented by their normal, upright counterparts.

But before you get ~too far~ down that rabbit hole, don’t forget that lone, little guy at the bottom! Twelve cards later, this last card is supposed to encompass our overall, personal theme for the year. And for as tempting as it might be to take it all in one card at a time, it can be extremely insightful to use that final card as a master lens to assess all the rest.

So take notes! Take a pic! Pin it on your wall & buy a brand new deck! Do whatever you have to do to keep your own spread in mind & have fun seeing how it plays out throughout the year.

Rumor has it 2020 is bound to be a wild one. So what’s on tap for you?

xxAA

WHY MINDSET IS EVERYTHING (SO LET’S GET IT IN CHECK!)

IDK about y’all, but the hibernation feels are REAL. Which means soup, snuggling & getting back into the swing of settling down with a good book. 

This week’s being High Magick by the one & only Damien Echols.

I actually started this one a few months back after we returned home from a dreamy desert weekend learning about meditation from the incredible dude himself. But as you know, we all get distracted – so the only thing that matters is eventually getting back on track. So here we are!

Now, a lot of this book primarily covers the core art & exercises surrounding what’s known as (spoiler alert) “high magick”. These are the very practices that Damien credits with manifesting his freedom from wrongfully spending almost 20 years on death row — so think less velvet capes & pulling rabbits out of hats, & more channelling/harnessing energy to cast back into the world charged with your own intent. 

Naturally there’s a lot of breath work, visualization & protection practices that go along with it too, but at its core all we’re really talking about is doing things to “shape reality & create better environments for ourselves”. Which also got me thinking about the true power of mindset. 

Especially when it comes to our everyday lives. You know, as pats of butter on this giant piece of toast we call Earth.

I think we can agree that none of us are perfect. So of COURSE we all know those moments of debilitating stress, anxiety & nights where you need to just come home for a good cry (& bottle of rosé).

Venting is good. We’re all about it. But the difference to keep in mind between blowing off steam with a good vent & heading down a potentially more detrimental path is your mindset.

Hear me out!

We are humans – not vials of arsenic or cyanide that are best kept bottled up. So because of that, it’s important to know how to process & get things off our chests. You doing you to let it all out? Great! But just make sure to alongside that, not lose sight of the bigger mental picture at hand. 

As in, getting the negativity OUT in order to make room for the ~overall~ positive mindset you aim to uphold the rest of the time.

Because if you don’t, that low energy WILL consume you.

Seriously – the mind is a crazy powerful thing. And while we are human & can’t practice stoicism around the clock like a regular Marcus Aurelius, striving to maintain a positive-forward mentality truly makes a real-deal difference. Think about it, would you want to sit around & stew in a hot tub full of gunk? NO. Gross. Of course not.

So that’s the same thing as choosing to stay in a low-vibe mental state! It doesn’t do any good – & for some, can be the very thing that breaks them.

Everyone has bad days. Especially when it involves making a trip to Trader Joe’s only to find they’re only out of the four exact ingredients you need for what feels like the tenth time in a row (!!!). But if in the big scheme of things you’re keeping your energy in check, recognizing the power of attention & making efforts to lead an overall positive-inspired existence, then you’ll know that everything – in the long run – is going to be just fine.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go charge all of our water.

((& seriously, if you need a good book to cozy up with over the holidays, High Magick is IT!!))

xxAA

(((source of feature image background: @damienechols)))

OUIJA COOKIES & DIVINATION CHIC: HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, my spooky party people.

The day has at last arrived, so clearly that means we had to do some supremely spooky baking to go along with it!

This time starring: ouija planchettes & crystal balls

You know when you’re obsessed with something, but would never actually do it? That’s how I feel about ouija boards. Obviously it’s not in a ‘wears lululemon every day yet never sets foot in a gym’ kind of way. More just like loving the look and all the old-world vibes, yet knowing it’s always best to simply NOT MESS WITH THE REALM.

With it being the end of October we’re still plowing through the 31 for 31 horror movie marathon. Which means hours of watching naive casts of characters make the absolute WORST decisions possible – including haphazardly messing with ouija boards. 

((looking at you, showboating psychic Brock Davies))

But that aside, have you ever checked them out on Etsy?? Seriously, some of them are outright works of art. And because of that, I am all about having one as decor in the house! Especially considering the rich and crazy history of spirit boards in general, it always makes for a great conversation piece. But, whatever you do…

Hide. That. Planchette. 

Because when your friends get drunk at 2AM on a Saturday and decide it’d be a ~super cool~ and ~~hilarious~~ thing to play with for the ‘Gram – you’re going to regret it. The realm doesn’t mess around (!!!)

So with all of that said, we wanted to honor the ouija with a kitschy twist. Which made cookies seem the perfect answer! And since we’re rolling with the theme of divination tools that some people swear by, whereas others laugh in the face of, crystal balls felt like a totally worthy (& uber chic) pairing, too.

Check it out!

We used our same basic, no-spread sugar cookie recipe from a few weeks back…

Only this time, with slightly more jazzed up icing.

Sorry trick-or-treaters, you won’t be getting any of these gems tonight.

But to everyone nonetheless, Happy Halloween!!

xxAA

WHAT IS MICRO-MAGIC(K) & WHY WE SHOULD ALL BE DOING IT

Something SPOOKY this way comes. Hopefully it’s cooler temps & news that the pumpkin patches have landed.

So to go along with that, I wanted to talk about something that’s always been near and dear to my heart (& I’m sure many of yours too): magick!

Or the metaphysical, working with the universe, getting down with your spirit guides – whatever you want to call it.

For as long as I can remember I’ve always been super drawn to things of the metaphysical and supernatural nature. So much so that I even spent a solid month of my 8-year-old existence writing early forms of Charmed fan fiction (PRE-LiveJournal – crazy).

However, it wasn’t until I went off to college that I feel like a whole other chapter of it began. Mainly when tarot cards entered the picture.

And I know what you might be thinking: tarot cards! Easy fodder for people to roll their eyes and laugh at anyone who thinks they actually tell the future! Which, to be fair, I definitely don’t think they do that ~exactly~, either. 

In fact, I had an amazing tarot mentor for years who always said that at the end of the day, everyone has free will. So while the cards may provide some guidance or make you see things in a way you may have never thought about before, it’s most def NOT a set-in-stone prophecy. At all. And if you’re getting a reading by someone who says it is – r u n.

(Or just take it with the world’s largest grain of salt).

But here’s the deal. What they can do from a self-reflection standpoint is beyond unreal. And even better? They’re a fan-taastic way to practice a little thing we like to call micro-magick.

The Morgan-Greer Tarot Deck

Now, if you’ve ever read pretty much anything to do with magick, then it’s totally understandable to feel a bit (a lot) overwhelmed at first. All the steps, the colors, the visualizations, the names of Ancient Sumerian deities to remember- it’s enough to leave anyone wondering who has time for all of this?! 

BUT, here’s the thing! One of the main points of magick is to make your own experience of it. Which also means dedicating however much time and energy you can – NOT stressing out about rules as strict as security at Area 51. 

(Simple as that, right? – ha)

A couple of months ago for my birthday, Kevin & I went out to Joshua Tree for a two-day meditation retreat lead by the one and only Damien Echols (which is a whole other post I need to do some time). And as one of many crazy-amazing things we all talked about that weekend, he totally echoed this point. 

Whenever you’re, say, logging 18 years and 76 days on death row for a crime you never committed (you know, nbd), finding 8 hours a day to practice rituals and get your time in with the arch angels doesn’t sound like the most impossible thing. But for the average peeps who grind away 40, 50, 60 or more hours a week – it tends to be a little tougher.

Although with that said, there’s one other little (major) detail to keep in mind: you’re ALREADY doing magick, whether you know it or not!

((Wait, what?¿?))

GENIUS!

So my whole point ~really~ being, that even the smallest amount of time you set aside in a day can still make a huge difference in the long run of magick. And since short yet persistent is more productive than the occasional binge (hello, this isn’t Netflix), another key trick is to treat it like part of your daily routine. Not just a hobby or something you do in your free time, because let’s also be real – those are always the first to slip through the cracks.

Whether it’s taking five minutes in the morning to pull three cards for your day, or spending some time on your lunch break to meditate on a few mantras you’ve set for the week – it really can be that easy to start making a world of difference in your perspective. 

So go forth, have fun, learn lots & hone to own the magickal power that’s already inside you.

Be sure to let us know how it goes.

xxAA