Yawn. Hello! I’m writing this at 6am whilst listening to Stef and DeAnne Smith being hilarious and lovely and telling me about the Four Standard Lesbian Looks and it’s that week before Christmas and there is so much to do and my long-lost-love is returning tomorrow and I need to deck out her boat with stars and angels and tinsel and post like a million parcels and build a social network and do about twenty thousand tarot readings and I’d really like to get everything ticked off so we can spend three solid days in bed together because I think I’ve actually forgotten what kissing feels like.
Meanwhile, I’m just gonna round up a whole big bunch of my favourite ‘tarot things to do’ from my own blog so you can keep yourself busy with your cards over the holiday period!
Knit your own tarot bag
Maybe this could even be a last-minute home-made Christmas gift!
It’s super simple (though if you’re a fancy-pants knitter you can totes jazz this up with patterns with intarsia and so on) and you can probably make it in a couple of evenings if you have a good (non-subtitled) box-set to curl up with.
Make a tarot mixtape
You know that feeling when you’re listening to a song and suddenly you’re like ‘OMFG IT’S THE TOWER!’? Yep, me too. So how about going through your music collection and matching a song to each of the tarot cards? (If that sounds a bit much, just do the major arcana.)
I started doing this recently — just one song a week. Here’s what I’ve got so far. Add your own suggetions!
Gear up for Christmas dinner
Here’s a spread I created recently for Straddlers who don’t always love every single person around the family dinner table.
Learn a little basic astrology
Because why not? Amazing beautiful pink-haired LGBT youth rights activist Tabby Besley just started a ‘learn astrology’ column called Astro DIY and it’s brilliant.
Try this new year tarot spread
I created this spread to do at a turning point in your life — for many people, that’s new year! This spread is all about assessing 2014 as it draws to a close, and figuring out your focus for next year.
Play Twitter tarot games
Theresa Reed Tweets a tarot card twice daily with the tags #AMTarot and #PMTarot — it’s super simple. She tells you the card, and you tweet back your interpretation. Such fun!
Even more fun (IMO) is #TarotToo – where there are two cards and you tweet your interpretations of them as a pair. This is such a good teeny tiny way of practicing reading cards together and getting your head around how two cards interact with each other.
Interview your tarot decks
Maybe you’ve just got a new deck, or maybe you’ve dug an old one out from the back of a cupboard. You can use this super-simple six-card tarot spread to find out all about your journey together.
Make your own tarot deck
Seriously though. Look! Amazing DIY Straddler Juliet is doing just that.
Make plans to start a tarot group in your area
If there isn’t a tarot meet-up in your town or city, how about starting one? I did that in Todmorden a few years ago and it’s still going — here’s a short post about what we get up to.
Do a little business/project planning
Here’s a spread about the four elements of your business. It’s designed to look at the earth, air, fire and water of your business, so you can figure out which are stronger and which need more attention. Or try this SWOT Analysis spread to help you figure out the pros and cons of an upcoming project.
Make this delicious drink
Bring in a tray of steaming mugs on Boxing Day night and then offer everyone a one card reading. COSY.
And if that’s not enough…
Here are 15 more exercises for your tarot journal.
Okay, that really is enough!! The podcast is over, the sun is actually finally coming up and I’m off to tackle this ridiculous to-do list. Have an amazing festive time, whatever you get up to (and if you knit that tarot bag bear in mind it is mandatory to post a photo in the comments so we can all see how awesome and crafty you are!)
Thank you for this! I have been getting back into tarot lately (my poor Steampunk deck is quite neglected) and some of these are the perfect exercises to jumpstart the all that energy. Awesome! *toasts you w/morning coffee*
Great!! Aw, I love the Steampunk deck :)
Yeah, I can imagine getting up early (before the whole family rises) and doing a few of these with toast and coffee (okay, that’s actually what I’m doing right now…)
Have fun getting back into your cards!
Love it! Beth, I totally did knit my own Tarot bag using your pattern, and then I realized that I have no idea how to sew the seams together. YouTube how-tos didn’t help, so I’m going to go to my Local Yarn Shop and ask for help, then I promise I will post a picture! It will happen! All of these ideas seem really great and fun.
I found this video helpful as I was learning to sew together pieces of garter stitch. It all hinges on finding the smiles and frowns in your stitches, which is comfortingly elementary (I was like “OK, this is scary, but surely I can recognise smiles and frowns, right? Right?!”). But yeah, if videos and diagrams ain’t helping, good luck at the LYS! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsQsJZtNN_s
Thank you for the links to the spreads, I’ve been meaning to get to know my new tarot deck.
All of these are so awesome!!!
And people, don’t forget about our poor, neglectedTarot School group over here!
I made a playlist last week, HOW WYRD IS THAT.
knitting a bag sounds perfect tho. Pics to come!
http://open.spotify.com/user/1232979410/playlist/7wN2LPRTO8t7AFwLiUtOkB
I LOVE THIS @petra!! Which song is which though? Or do we have to work it out?
Genius.
Also good luck with yr knitting, can’t wait to see photos! x
A TAROT PLAYLIST?! Genius. Why had I not yet thought of this??
Also also, I just bought my second deck a couple days ago (I only had my great-grandmother’s Rider-Waite deck,) and it’s the Navigator’s Tarot of the Mystic Sea. I fell immediately in love with the art style, and only later did it occur to me how perfectly appropriate it was seeing as how I will soon be moving to Alaska and living on the water. I already did a mini-interview, and now I’ve bookmarked your deck interview as well.
Thanks for this compilation, and I hope you succeed in your goal of spending three days in bed with your love; you deserve it! <3
@tttango “I only had my great-grandmother’s Rider-Waite deck”
Erm…. WOW! I would *love* to see this deck. I have so much envy of the people who were gifted tarot decks by mums, aunties, grandmothers…. great-grandmothers…
This makes me want to go searching eBay and stuff for old tarot decks. There’s never enough free time to waste on the internet, darn-it!
Aw man, tell me about it. In another life I’d be a tarot archivist with a library of every tarot deck ever created. IMAGINE THAT! Someone really needs to do that.
YES! Can we get a grant?! We deserve a grant to make this happen!
Grants for everything please!! Sigh, I’m still looking for that funding body which values tarot and funds projects like this…
Now I’m curious about your experience with this. Tarot is an important part of culture and history. I made reference to Tarot in my Art History II class last summer and the prof. was like, yeah, this is a part of art history!