Tarot  

My deck is a Rider-Smith, which is the most common and what a lot of other decks are based off so they’re good for beginners. I bought my own, which you’re not meant to do for your first deck but I didn’t know anyone who’d buy one for me. If you’re starting, I recommend it and getting someone to buy one for you as a gift.

For storage, I rest a “rose quartz” and “clear quartz” on top of my deck as they are crystal that are supposed to be for protection. However, I got them in one of those gem buckets at a museum so they’re probably just coloured glass. Still, it looks nice on my unit.

Decks have personality, which is often reflective of the owner. For instance, mine has a dark sense of humour. I recommend doing a “getting-to-know-your-deck” reading when you’ve gotten a new deck as it helps you both understand what you’re gonna get out the relationship. I do a biannual one, so it clears things up between us.

Now for a reading! Firstly, I knock thrice on my unopened deck as the way of first cleansing or resetting the deck’s intention. Once the deck is out, I’ll place it face down and shuffle as my second act of cleansing. I shuffle for between ten to thirty minutes as I find it soothing and meditative. If I get stressed, I’ll shuffle my deck.

I announce the key question or theme I am asking about and spread the cards in an arc. For each smaller, minor question I’ll ask aloud again. I close my eyes and hover my hand over the cards and wherever I feel the most energy pull me, I’ll select that card and place down as a part of the reading. I don’t do long readings often but those are usually between three and fifteen cards long and relatively informative. Mostly it is just a one to three card reading to check in with myself.

Once all the cards are in the reading, it’s time to do the interpriatation. Everyone does it a bit differently. Some just use the booklet, some go purely off how their gut sees it. I’m a mixture. I look at the card and how it makes me feel and jot it down in my notebook. Then, I use the booklet or look up the card online and see how they differ. Sometimes my interpriation and the “intended” one are completely different and, in that case, I always go with my gut as it is more accurate at telling where your head is at.

I think favourite cards are quite telling. My favourite is the Tower. I love the artwork of it and I do tend to pull it all the time. It is technically more unfortunate then Death but, to me, it is exciting as it means you get to look forward to the flowers that grow from the ash of the fallout. Something good always comes from the Tower.

  Astragalomancy  

Dice Divination (or Astragalomancy) seems more debated than Tarot. When I started, I couldn’t find a lot of concrete stuff on it so this is more or less all my own way of reading die.

I have two sets I use (as well as a pot of spares for when I need further clarification). My main set, which I’ve used since I was ten, are ted and black marbled resin and were made for DnD and the other, which I got for my birthday just gone, are a green-to-purple-chromatic metal which I too believe were made with tabletop games in mind.

Astrogalmoncy is like tarot in that they are shuffled to be cleansed, are unable to answer yes-or-no questions and are abled to used in spreads or by themselves. (Of course, they don’t tend to work with spreads that ask for cards to be stacked as dice when rolled cannot be.)

Unlike tarot, the dice are “rolled” - thrown down one at a time - or “cast” – all dice thrown at once and there is freedom to choose as many dice or as many sides on the dice as the divincer wants. Traditionally it was 6-sided die but dice with more sides allow for more nuance.

To read, you look at the number of the die facing the sky. Each number has it’s own association that the diviner has come up with and tend to be fixed. These associations are broader than the meaning of tarot so thinking outside the box so they apply to your situation is necessary. However, it’s pretty straightforward once you’re used to it.

I do recommend coming up with your own associations as it helps you develop your practive but if you’re just starting up, using someone else’s can help as you get a feel for it.

Here’s mine the numbers 1-6 (as most households have a 6-sided die and is the most accessible):

No.1 – Loneliness, power, singularity, justice, success, focus, single-mindedness
No.2 – Duality, hatred, unity, love, ease, hearth, hope
No.3 – Decisions, clarity, home, achievement, hard questions, determination, squandered
No.4 – Innocence, grounded, strength, feebleminded, family, simplicity, fear
No.5 – Death, occult, wrongness, calm, wisdom, innate, magic
No.6 – Wealth, business, void, public, cruelty, angels, logic