Tarot basics 5: How and why to shuffle your Tarot cards

There are few joys I relish so much as holding a new Tarot deck in my hands. It’s like with a new book—the crisp feel of unblemished paper and the lovely smell. Only this is a “book” with infinite possibilities (and really nice pictures).

If you’re following along with my posts on Tarot and you have a new or new-to-you deck of Tarot cards and you have cleansed it (see this post for that step), you now have in your hands a unified language to access your inner voice, your gods, your ancestors and other wisdom besides.

But as long as it just sits there, it is just another nice book. Shuffling is the way we breathe life into it and allow it to speak with a dynamic and living voice.

Before you shuffle

But there is one thing you should do BEFORE you shuffle a new deck of Tarot cards.

If you bought or received a brand new deck from a store, you will find that the cards are organized in a specific manner. All the Higher Arcana cards will be together and in order. Each suit will be in order from Ace to King (or whatever your deck calls these roles).

If you aren’t yet experienced with the cards, it might be good to look through them in this order You will, for instance, likely notice that different colors dominate in each suit, unless the deck your have chosen has a color scheme that covers the entire deck. You will notice that the visual aesthetic of the Higher Arcana is more grand, lavish and detailed than that of the Lower Arcana. You may find that the lower numbered cards in each suit have a lighter, simpler feel to them, while the higher numbered cards tend to get more complicated.

Take a moment, while the cards are so handily organized for you to look through the suits and observe how your deck feels and what aesthetic sense the various parts convey. If your deck is used and not in this order, it is well worth your time to organize it and make these observations as well.

However, when you are ready to do a reading, the deck needs to be shuffled. Even if you have been given a used deck, you will need to shuffle the deck well before using it. This is also an extension of the energetic cleansing.

Forging the connection

The animist and universalist theories of energy say that Tarot cards work because they have their own inherent energy (i.e. vibration or soul, depending on how you look at it), which interacts with the reader’s energy and with that of anyone the reader asks about specifically. Many readers visualize energy, usually imagined as light, going from themselves and into the cards as they shuffle. This is because while the cards provide a language for communication, its nuance comes from connection to the specific individual reader.

There are two types of shuffling in my view: 1. Deep, thorough shuffling for new decks or for times when your cards have been handled by others or for periodic reordering, usually after a cleansing, and 2. Standard daily shuffling before each reading.

You can shuffle by holding the deck in one hand and taking out a few cards from the middle to move to one end or the other of the deck. Do this over and over again. For every day readings that is usually how I shuffle.

Image by Arie Farnam

I don’t recommend bending the cards as you do when shuffling playing cards. Tarot cards are made with slicker, usually more rigid material. In order to bend them sufficiently, you would have to damage the deck.

But it is a good idea to give your cards a more thorough shuffle the first time you use them or before a major reading or significant holiday, such as the Winter Solstice. The best method for a deep, complete shuffle is to place a cloth on a clean flat surface and scatter the cards on it face down. Then run your hands through the cards in circles, making sure to move every card around thoroughly.

The motion is like that of a toddler finger painting and it can make some people uneasy because it seems unsophisticated and childlike. There is actually something to be said for that though. The Fool is the classic symbol of the querent, the person who is seeking answers from the Tarot.

While the figure is called “the Fool” as if they are silly or frivolous, that isn’t really the core meaning of this historical term. The meaning is much more about playful openness, like that of a child. So, this childlike form of shuffling is well suited to the Tarot.

Beyond that, this is simply the best method to thoroughly mix the cards and reverse some of them randomly with a minimum of wear and tear to the deck. I have decks I have done this with for twenty years, and they are still in fine shape.

The swirling of the cards on a flat surface allows your intuitive energy to be the main influence on the cards, rather than the physical constraints of the shuffling process or random static electricity.

I always have a tendency to close my eyes for part of the shuffling process. You may also call upon (either out loud or in your mind, depending on circumstances) any powers or spirits that may aid you in your search for answers. Some people will call on a deity or deities, which is perfectly appropriate with Tarot. Others will call on ancestors, angels, elements, nature spirits or the energy of the solar or lunar phase of the moment.

All of these energies are present regardless and will almost certainly have an influence on the reading, whether or not they are explicitly called. For best communication, it seems advisable to acknowledge them and welcome their influence positively.

The method can be simplified like this:

1. Write down or record your question or intension.

2. Place the cards face down on a cloth over a clean, flat surface.

3. Mix the cards thoroughly by pushing them around the cloth with spiraling motions of your hands. Allow every card to be separated from its neighbor and turned around multiple times.

4. Visualize the light of your energy entering the cards and swirling around with them through your hands.

5. Call on your spiritual allies, gods, ancestors, guardians and the like to aid in your search for answers.

6. State your intention or question out loud.

While this method ends with a question or intention, it also works as an initial shuffle to familiarize your new cards with your energy. The intention then might well be simply to open communication with these new cards and ask them to become your allies.

The importance of recording your intention at the outset

Notice that the first step is actually writing down your intention or question. When you do a reading it is essential that you write down your question in advance. There are very few rules that I will say you must abide by in Tarot, but this is one. I will discuss it and the layout of basic readings in the next post.

This rule will save you endless confusion, doubts, arguments and mistakes. Write your question down in your journal, datebook or on a scrap of napkin. It doesn’t really matter where. Even if you don’t want to or can’t stop to take notes on this reading, write down the question at least.

It is astounding how your memory will trick you and bargain with hard truths by subtly changing your question if you don’t do this. If you want the Tarot to do more than tell you soft, fuzzy affirmations of what you want to hear, then this is an essential step.

How does it work?

Once you have thoroughly shuffled the cards, you can do simple readings by shuffling the cards gently in your hands. They are already connected to your energy.

I shuffle more intensely if I’m reading for someone else. I either have to focus my mind entirely on the other person during the shuffling (such as when doing a long-distance reading) or allow the other person to shuffle using the thorough method above.

Why shuffle once the cards are mixed up? And how can a randomly drawn card have any specific message for you anyway?

I’ll cover these topics in depth next time, but for now remember that Tarot comes out of an animist or universalist view of nature with the assumption that there is an energetic level of reality in which everything is interconnected and thus there are energetic connections to everything and everyone else living now and even at different points throughout time.

It is through these connections, as unseen as radio waves or gravity and yet no less real, that Tarot works by reflecting things you know in your subconscious, things other people know, things the land and other entities know and possibly things known in other times and places. How much knowledge the Tarot can access for you, is likely to correspond with the permission you give it. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you must believe firmly that the Tarot will work for it to work, but a hard disbelief would tend to create a hard barrier against knowledge.

Parenting a child of another god

There was a time when my kids went along with my earth-centered holidays joyfully. They even spoke with vibrant interest about the ancient gods I taught them and showed gratitude for the gifts of the earth.

But as they have grown past toddlerhood and seen the values promoted by the rest of the world, their tone has changed.

My eldest, 11, recently asked me, “Mom, why can’t we be Christian?”

Photo by Arie Farnam

“You can be a Christian, if you want to,” I replied. Really. I’m so over it by now.

“But I don’t want to go to church. That’s boring,” she continued.

“Well, Christians go to church,” I explained. “And some churches are better than others. Grandma knows about a fun Christian summer camp you could go to, if you really want to know about being Christian.”

“No, I don’t want to go,” she says. “I just want to be a Christian because Eveleigh is a Christian.” Eveleigh is a seven-year-old YouTube celebrity with billionaire parents in the movie industry and her word is law to my daughter.

“You can believe whatever is right for you, but if you just say you believe something because of a celebrity, you will end up not knowing who you really are.” I caution her without much hope that she’ll pay any heed.

“I don’t believe in anything!” she states emphatically.

“I understand,” I reply. “You’re eleven. You don’t have to know what you believe yet. And when your life is easy and you have everything handed to you, you generally don’t feel the need to believe in something. That’s normal enough.”

“I mean I do believe in God. I just…” she trails off.

“Which one?” I.can’t help it. I’m a brat.

“I guess I believe in all the gods and goddesses,” she muses. “I just want to be normal and do what is popular.”

I’m silent for awhile thinking. Finally I admit, “Honey, in some places it’s very fashionable for teenagers to be Pagan and do energy magic like I do. I don’t do it because it’s popular, but it is in some places.”

“Only in your imagination,” she snarls.

A few days later, the issue of what to do with my husband’s inheritance from his mother who died four years ago is finally resolved. He managed to buy a small studio apartment in the city, which he can rent out. Someday it may be a starter home for one of our kids, if one of them gets a job in the city as a young adult.

My daughter rushes to me, eyes wide and aghast. “Mama, can’t you stop him! Don’t let Papa do that! He’s so silly. He doesn’t even think at all. He has this money and he could buy a Lamborghini with it, but instead he buys this stupid apartment that isn’t even fancy or big. Stop him before he wastes that money!”

Later the same day, she’s doing her homework. English is technically her second language, because her Czech is stronger, so she has to ask me the meanings of lots of words. “Greedy? Mama, what’s greedy?” she demands.

I explain, “It’s like when someone wants everything all to themselves and doesn’t want to share.”

Her eyes light up with excitement. “I’m greedy!” she declares with relish. It’s a new word for her, mind you. She doesn’t recall having heard it used negatively. It’s just the concept she likes.

We’re having homemade pizza for dinner, one of her favorite foods, so I laugh and give a timely example. “You can feel greedy, but you can’t actually have all the pizza for yourself.”

She screws up her mouth in disgust. “Eww! Disgusting! I’m not eating that. It has peppers on it!”

I’m momentarily boggled, even though I’ve been practicing rolling with the punches. “You always said you like our pizza better than restaurant pizza and you like peppers.”

“No, I don’t!” She insists. “The Norris Nuts don’t like peppers or any other vegetables. So, I’m not eating them anymore.” (The Norris Nuts are multi-millionaire Australian vloggers, in case you missed the memo.)

“I thought you did everything Eveleigh does and she likes vegetables,” I venture.

“Ewwww!” My daughter screams in a long drawn out paroxysm of disgust. “Eveleigh is a stupid baby! She’s only seven. I like the Norris Nuts.”

If your first thought is that she is just a weather vane and if I introduce her to Greta Thunberg’s wildly popular videos my woes will be erased, I’ve already tried that.

She quickly pointed out that Greta is not ostentatiously wealthy and she does not have all the cool stuff and she doesn't laugh at people who aren't as cool as her—all disqualifying sins for celebrity worship apparently. My daughter does change up her celebrity. obsessions every few months, but her values don’t change and they haven’t changed since she was two.

She is all about fashion, glamour, wealth, popularity, immediate gratification, luxury and leisure. Essentially her values are the exact opposite of mine.

Some parental critics will be quick to blame her somewhat self-serving values on me, as her parent. Either I must have indulged her a lot and not taught her healthy values. Or conversely I must have been too strict and tried to force my values on her too much. You can’t win with parental critics, no matter what the actual facts.

There was a time before she went to preschool and learned that not everyone is like me, that she morosely went along with my values. But even then, it was clear that it didn’t come naturally to her.

She welcomed earth-centered holidays as long as there were presents for her involved. When she got to an age where some sort of reciprocity is encouraged, she became defiant and then disgusted with holidays.

I continue to model and teach healthy and compassionate values. My kids never get in more trouble than if they are cruel to an animal or a vulnerable child. I insist that we recycle, conserve water and electricity, grow a vegetable garden, buy ethically and otherwise live as low on cruelty and consumption as possible, given the constraints of finances and the society we live in.

My kids and I snuggle in bed before sleep and discuss their experiences and conflicts between kids. I listen. I continue to celebrate earth-centered holidays and offer prayers of thanksgiving before meals, though sometimes I keep my practice silent to avoid family conflict and ridicule.

This morning as In engaged in my daily spiritual practice, which includes tending a symbolic flame and well for the goddess Brighid, I had a surprising insight.

I didn’t choose to follow my path of compassion, healing herbs and writing because of Brighid, but I did heed Brighid’s call to her service readily because she has particular interest in this kind of work.

Brighid’s virtues are my values and when I start feeling negative, I focus on Brighid and try to emulate her virtues of warm nurturing, acceptance of difference, healing and hearth keeping. And that is actually not that different from how my daughter treats her celebrities. She also studies their virtues, devotes time and energy to decorating her space with their images and symbols and tries to emulate them.

This led me to meditate on how modern celebrity culture may in some ways be a response to the deep need for spiritual connection that used to be filled by a variety of Pagan gods and goddesses that people could personally relate to.

Several things suddenly make more sense.

My daughter is not one of Brighid’s people. Not only is she adopted and not of Irish or even of broad Celtic background, she is not drawn to the values of Brighid. That is part of what has saddened me. We cannot help but have a little wish that our children will be like us at least in some spiritual way, if not in the outer trappings.

Instead my daughter’s genetic background is at least in large part from India. I have always tried to build a bit of a relationship with Hindu gods and goddesses, giving offerings and learning some traditional chants, in order to build a connection to my children’s genetic heritage. But it hasn’t been easy. I get along with Saraswati alright but the rest of the Hindu pantheon is… well, foreign to me.

I don’t feel them the way I do so many European and Native American goddesses and gods. I always wondered if this was partly because Hinduism is such a vibrant living tradition and I am reticent to step on any toes or be culturally appropriative even in private.

But I don’t feel exactly the same about Native American goddesses. I grew up on Native American land and was always keenly aware of how my ancestors had stolen that land. Native American spiritual traditions are in no way “my heritage” and yet I have always felt strongly drawn to some of them, pulled to study them and make offerings of symbolic restitution to them.

So, I could have as easily felt a connection to the Hindu goddesses. But I have had to struggle to feel any connection to them and have done so mainly out of a sense of need and duty.

As I thought on this, an intense, vivid and uncharacteristically live image of Lakshmi, Hindu goddess of wealth, luxury and beauty, invaded my mind with palpable force.

Aha! I think I get it now. My daughter is not Brighid’s. Perhaps she is Lakshmi’s. That would explain a lot!

I don’t know that I can teach my daughter about Lakshmi. I have tried at times but she has even less interest in Hindu spirituality than she has in mine. But at least I can see her values in a different light.

It is hard for me not to see my values as good and healthy and hers as bad and selfish. Compassion is good. Ridicule is bad, is it not? Hospitality is good. Greed is bad, is it not? Healing is good. Vanity is bad, is it not? Hard work is good. Luxury-seeking is bad, is it not? Endurance is good. Immediate gratification is at the very least weak, I feel sure.

And yet, all of these are in some way values associated with Lakshmi, a goddess widely viewed as the very heart and soul of joy and happiness.

I can’t in good conscience let my daughter indulge in things I know to be unhealthy or cruel, but I can see her being drawn to these things as just part of being one of Lakshmi’s humans. And I can hope Lakshmi will watch out for her.

There is another Hindu goddess I feel sure has some interest in my daughter, given that beyond glamour queen, her other common setting is one of destructive rage. On many days, she may demand to be treated like a pampered princess. But when she doesn’t get her way, she starts screaming and throwing things. Her face twists into a very good impression of Kali Ma.

I know it isn’t impossible to raise kids with healthy values. I’ve seen kids who grow up with a strong interest in environmental and social justice as well as day to day compassion. Sure, kids are morally immature but some of that often plays out as good-hearted idealism.

Yet as I become a more experienced parent, I am learning that while we can help by exposing kids to healthy values, it isn’t something parents have control over.

We as parents only get to plant seeds and weed gently. We don’t control the “soil” of DNA or the “weather” of the culture and media our kids grow up with. Some people homeschool in remote areas, keeping their kids in a “greenhouse” environment where that weather has little effect. I have often wished my circumstances and/or spouse offered me that choice, but there are no greenhouses that hold young adults. With parenting, there are no guarantees.

Kids have their own minds, their own paths and apparently also their own gods.

My daughter may decide to call herself Christian or she may decide to explore Hinduism or something else connected to her genetic heritage. But I tend to doubt she will do any of that. This isn’t really about her religion. On some level, I think gods may lay claim to us, whether we acknowledge them or not.

Tarot basics 4: What to do with a new Tarot deck

If you’ve been reading my series on Tarot, you should now have a deck of Tarot cards, a Tarot book and someplace to read them. (If you don’t have a deck of cards or a book yet, take a look at this post on choosing a deck and this one on choosing a book.)

Finally, we’ve come to the real action.

If you’re new to Tarot, you are probably eager to dive in and lay out your first reading. Yet there is still a tiny bit of preparation to do. It’s lovely to look through your new cards and enjoy their amazing, magical imagery, but before you start the real work with them, it’s a good idea to decide exactly how and where they’ll be stored.

Image by Arie Farnam

Some decks will come with a little pouch made of plastic material that isn’t very pleasant. Many people suggest storing Tarot cards only in natural silk cloth or in a special wooden box of the right shape and size. Both of those options are delightful and may well lift your mood each time you touch your cards.

However, Tarot has travelled a long and humble road since its beginnings in Renaissance Italy and it is not snobby. If natural silk or a pretty wooden box are hard to come by—as they are for 80 percent of the world’s population—don’t stress about it. The perfect container will probably show up eventually.

Until then, keep your cards clean, dry and together in a safe place, wrapped in a nice cloth or tucked inside a small cloth bag. They are much harder to shuffle well when they get bent, wet, sticky or battered around the corners.

Another consideration before diving in is an energetic cleansing of your new cards. As I’ve explained in previous posts, most theories of Tarot are based on tapping into an energetic level of reality in which everything and everyone is connected by relationships that have various energies.

Every Tarot deck also has it’s own energetic signature, just as people have auras. This is not really because Tarot decks are extra special, magical objects. All objects have some degree of energy signature. But Tarot decks usually have particularly potent energy because of the artistic and scholarly work that goes into their creation.

Cleansing will not erase the innate energy of the cards. There will always be some amount of the energy of the author, who wrote the book you use, and the artist, who designed the cards. Older decks and decks whose makers have attracted the respect and attention of large numbers of people are likely to have extraordinarily potent auras.

For instance, I have always been magnetically drawn to my mother’s ancient Thoth deck and at the same time, that deck has an intense, even dark, energy. That has to do with the fact that the author Alister Crowley, who gave instructions to the painter Lady Frieda Harris to create the deck, had some issues with control, sex and human relationships that can carry over into the cards. The fact that his fame has outlived him by more than seventy years has only increased its potency.

No amount of cleansing is going to erase those energies from a Thoth deck, especially one with the age and experience of my mother’s. But there are many stagnant and unwelcome energies which can be cleared relatively easily. And fortunately, most Tarot decks come with innate energy that is helpful and supportive.

Most Tarot cards are made to be receptive to your energy or the energy of whoever comes into contact with them. That means they have likely been receptive since they were made and they might well have picked up the energies of people who handled them during the manufacturing, packaging and retail process or the energy of customers who considered buying this particular physical deck before you. Either way, they came through a commercial process fraught with global problems and individual stress, so they are unlikely to arrive in your hands without some less-than-wonderful energetic baggage.

For this reason, it is a good idea to do an energetic cleansing of some kind and then introduce your new deck and book to your energy in a positive and purposeful way.

Energetic cleansing is like clearing cobwebs out of the corners of your house. Stagnant and problematic energy can go almost unnoticed, like cobwebs in unused parts of a room, but it gives a certain dusty, unkempt feel to a place or object. Like cobwebs, this energy can be brushed away relatively easily, but it does tend to stick unless you make a specific effort.

Some methods of cleansing energy on a Tarot deck (or any other object really), which you can use when the deck is new or after someone else has handled your cards, include:

1. Use a bundle of cleansing herbs such as white sage, lavender, mugwort, kitchen sage or another natural incense to waft fragrant smoke all around your deck and book. At the same time visualize any dusty, tense or residual energies drifting away and being replaced by a clear light.

2. Place your deck of cards and book on a sunny windowsill for one day and ask the sun’s rays to cleanse their energy. Don’t leave them there longer because prolonged sunlight can warp paper and fade inks. If you can, leave the deck and book on a south-facing windowsill over night on the full moon for added cleansing and energizing benefits.

3. Place a clear quartz and/or smokey quartz stone on top of your book and deck and ask the stone or stones to cleanse the deck. Leave it there for at least 24 hours and up to a week.

4. If you have tried one of the other methods and still feel that there is negative, interfering or stagnant energy around your cards, place your cards in a shallow bowl and cover them with coarse sea salt for at least 24-hours or up to a week, depending on your sense of the need. Salt has strong purifying effects, but this is usually not necessary.

When your deck has been cleansed and you feel only a clear and bright energy from it, even if it may be distinctive in some way specific to the deck or its creator, you are ready to formally introduce yourself to the cards.

I love to look through each one, read about the specific deck and shuffle the cards without a specific reading in mind to get to know them and let them get to know me. You may conduct a small ritual to dedicate this deck to you, to your divination work for others or to any other specific task. It isn’t mandatory but can be helpful for focus.

A simple way to do this is to prepare symbols of the four elements: earth, water, fire and air. Prepare a bowl of salt and a bowl or cup of water. Light a candle and an energetic incense or herb bundle (mugwort, sandalwood or frankincense are particularly useful here).

Sprinkle the deck with salt and say, “By earth, I dedicate you…” You may finish the sentence with a specific dedication if you like or leave it as is.

Pass the cards through the smoke of your incense or herb bundle and say, “By air, I dedicate you…”

Pass the cards over the candle three times and say, “By fire, I dedicate you…”

Sprinkle a very few drops of water on the deck and say, “By water, I dedicate you…” Again you can finish the sentence, but also wipe the water so that it doesn’t damage the cards.

These four elemental powers are specifically needed in Tarot work and they can be a great aid in dedication. You may also dedicate the cards in the name of a deity. or honored ancestor with a particular interest in divination.

Hekate is a goddess often associated with divination and close enough to the origins of Tarot to be specifically interested. It is best if you do this once you already have a reciprocal relationship with Hekate. But this can also be a time to start such a relationship. Just be serious in your determination to study and learn from Hekate, to follow her teachings and give whatever thanks or offering she may require of you.

In the next post, I’ll go into all the issues about shuffling the cards, so that you can draw a card for information or meditation as well as begin the practice of Tarot readings.

A fragile spring

We so often hear about how fragile the earth’s ecosystems are that we tend to forget just how fragile humans are…

Until something like Coronavirus comes along.

It’s a bug that on the surface looks a lot like the seasonal flu. And we like to dismiss that as annoying but pretty much harmless. Yet that annoying flu bug kills 300,000 to 600,000 people every year.

So, far Covid-19 has only killed about 15,000 people worldwide.

But it’s categorized with the much more deadly SARS virus that killed 15 percent of its victims. That virus didn’t last long precisely because it killed its victims too well. And that may well be part of what makes epidemiologists so nervous about this new virus.

Image by Arie Farnam

It has caused a lot of people to horde supplies and hole up in their houses with vicious glares for anyone who gets close. Despite the fact that for most of us COVID-19 isn’t a major health threat, it has forced us to look too closely for comfort at how fragile we humans really are.

A Swedish study found that heart attack rates jump during the first three weekdays after spring Daylight Savings Time, which forces us to get up an hour earlier to continue the same schedule. Traffic accidents also increase during the same period.

That’s all it takes to tip the balance for fragile humans. An hour’s difference in getting up and it causes deaths. How then are we surprised that some fish die when their water changes by a degree or two or the acidity level rises just a tad. We are really no different.

That’s what makes something like climate change so scary. A couple of degrees doesn’t sound so bad on paper, but just like with this relatively mild virus or Daylight Savings Time, we are fragile. In modern industrialized society we like to forget it. We like to pretend that everyone has an inalienable right to live to a ripe old age without losing family members and loved ones. We get used to thinking that’s just “the way things are supposed to be.”

That’s why something like Coronavirus sends us into a panic or a shopping frenzy. We are desperate to keep that safe, entitled feeling. And yet, the truth is that we are fragile. This modern, convenient, relatively safe society may actually make us more fragile, while concealing it from us.

Spring has always been the time of this fragility. As beautiful as March and early April look in natural places, in northern latitudes this time was known as the time of the greatest threat of death in pre-industrial times. This was the period when humans were most fragile—weakened by poor diet, crowded conditions and a constant stream of viral and fungal infections throughout the winter.

In early spring, food was not abundant yet, supplies were at their lowest and weakened humans, often the very old and the very young, died in greater numbers at this time of year. It is no wonder that eggs are our symbol of spring rebirth and hope.

It isn’t just that an egg holds the potential of new life. Even more viscerally. Eggs were the first abundant fresh food after winter. Domesticated birds begin laying eggs in greater numbers in early spring before even dandelion greens are available to nibble. These early eggs, little packets of life force prepared specifically to give a new life a jump start, literally saved the lives of many fragile humans over the centuries.

If the people could keep their domesticated birds alive and refrain from eating them through the lean times, the first fresh eggs would save them. Dried egg yolk is still used in emergency food deliveries during famines in war-torn parts of the world because it is so nearly the perfect balance of nutrients to save a starving person.

Eggs are an incredible symbol of the survival of hard times and the return of much easier and safer times.

In the time of Coronavirus, we reconnect to the fragility that was so close and personal to our ancestors at this time of year. And that oddly enough, grants us access to the visceral hope embodied by this time of year as well. As we watch the season of spring grow, we know that our immune systems will grow stronger as well. Coronavirus will not have nearly so much of an advantage when June and July come round.

We are stuck now, so many of us in quarantine or in countries under twenty-four-hour lockdown that looking out at the budding beauty of spring may feel ironic or out of place. It is worth remembering that this dichotomy has always been with us—the beauty, the blessings and the terrible fragility of spring.

The spring equinox has just passed in the northern hemisphere and my egg, chick and flower decorations are already out, while most Christians are still waiting for Easter. It is unlikely that Coronavirus will be on its way out by then either. But when you look at an egg decoration this year, you might think of it not just as a fragile little symbol of rebirth but also a symbol of survival, the food that brought so many of our ancestors through the hardest spring famines and epidemics.

We need that endurance and vitality now.

The power of folklore: Accessing lost Pagan traditions in Central Europe

We know well that much of Pagan lore is hidden in folklore in many countries, especially those where major authoritarian religions stamped out Paganism many generations ago. I grew up listening to Norse and Greek myths as a child and this was a key element in the development of my spirituality.

But there are drawbacks too folklore. While someone long ago may have tried to preserve sacred knowledge through these stories, others may well have tried to obscure it and twist it.

Photo by Arie Farnam

There are few ancient Pagan religions that are more difficult to access in our modern world than that of the western Slavic tribes, who lived in my adopted country, the Czech Republic. A few of the names of deities have been preserved from the pantheon of the eastern Slavs—Peron, Mokosh, Morana, Zeme, Leto. Little more is known of them or their traditions than their names.

Scholars tend to assume the same or similar gods held sway among the western Slavs and it is possible, though there are known differences between southern and eastern Slavic pantheons. It is also equally likely, however, that western Slavs had their own stories, gods and traditions, almost entirely obliterated by genocide, war, migration, authoritarianism and a millennium of forgetting.

For a long time, I have guessed that the devils so popularly pictured in the Mikulaš parades in Czech villages have a history as a type of land spirits or even Fey. But whether they were Slavic, Celtic or Germanic in origin is debated, and further details are lost. How then can I come to know the Pagan gods and spirits of my adopted land that has been Christian for so long.

Recently, I ran across the names Libuše, Teta and Kazi in a children’s cartoon meant to help my kids memorize the key names and dates of the Czech state foundation myth for school. What caught my attention naturally was a half-sentence reference to one of them being “a witch.”

It reminded me of an off-hand comment I had once overheard about ancient Czech princesses doing real magic. So, I did some research.

The twelfth century scribe, Kosmas, wrote in the oldest surviving chronicle of the Czech nation that the chieftain known as Krok had three daughters and, “The eldest of them was named Kazi. Her knowledge of herbs, healing and divination was unsurpassed by Medea of Colchis or even Asclepius, given that she often stopped the Fates in their work or by magic changed destiny according to her will. And this is why the people of this land have a saying, when something goes wrong and all hope is lost, that ‘even Kazi couldn’t mend it.’”

That proverb, if it existed in the twelfth century, has long gone out of fashion and we are left with nothing but folklore and the bits that Kosmas and those who copied him jotted down. The comparisons to Greek mythical heroes in the text says more about the intellectual atmosphere of Central Europe in the twelfth century than it does about the tale itself.

Still it is another example of how folklore can help. By looking at the type of magic Medea did and the medical focus of Asclepius in Greek lore, we can have some inkling of what was implied about Kazi.

Kosmas and later chroniclers say that Kazi’s sisters were Libuše and Teta. According to the scribe, Libuše was a great female leader of the Czech nation after Krok’s death. She was also supposed to be a seer and prophetess.

Teta was the one referred to in the cartoon as “a witch,” though there is less recorded about her than her sisters, besides a vague implication that she posessed powers of the sea and storms, also by way of reference to Greek myths. Given that this is a landlocked country, I wonder if what was meant was magical abilities involving nature, elements and weather, which would have been crucial to the agricultural economy of the times. Or conversely whether some scholarly speculations might be true that the origins of the myth are far older than is commonly assumed and stem from Celtic, seafaring cultures.

Most estimates put the sisters living in the 9th century, but scholars debate whether or not they were real people at all or merely mythological characters, dating back to pre-Slavic, Celtic-majority times in the great valley of Bohemia.

Certainly, three magical sisters would not be out of place in Celtic stories and myths. Three is the quintessential magical number in Celtic cosmology. Some even speculate that the story of the sisters may give us clues about an ancient Central European triple goddess that morphed into a legend about powerful priestess-princesses.

There are later references to the three and quite a lot of discussion of Libuše among the chroniclers of Czech history, but much of it is either speculation, embellishment or repetition of Kosmas. Libuše was supposed to be a fair and just ruler and judge. She sided with those who were wronged, despite social convention, and men challenged her rule as a woman, though she held out until after her sisters died, the chronicles state.

Painting by Josef Mathauser, entitled “Chieftan Krok with his daughters”

Libuše prophesied the future location of the capital city Prague and instructed her people to build a castle there. She predicted where metal ores would be found for the early miners of Central Europe. On her death bed, she asked the clan chiefs to stand together and to accept the rule of her husband Přemysl.

The legend continues, however, saying that after her death, the women of Libuše’s court had their powerful positions usurped by men and they went to war against men, in a campaign known as the “Maidens’ War.” They were ostensibly fierce but they were finally brought down and killed and their stronghold burned, when their new leader Vlasta waged too far ahead of the others and was cut down.

For the modern Pagan located in Central Europe or with Central European Celtic or Slavic roots, these legends provide a wealth of information. If you take the women in the chronicles as real people, they become mighty ancestors. If you take them as mythological characters or goddesses, they give us powerful female deities, heroes and attributes that have been suppressed in this region for over a thousand years.

Of course, not knowing which it is can be a bit of an issue.

We don’t know much about the ancient Pagan culture of this part of the world. If finding Greek, Norse or British Celtic Pagan sources seems hard, Western Slavic traditions are buried even deeper by an even older Christian influence.

However, we do know that the Czech nation has Celtic anthropological and even genetic ties. Slavic tribes were a more recent intrusion. Thus a lot of what is known of Celtic Pagan practices can be loosely applied, if you are willing to go with a degree of uncertainty and guesswork.

Personal gnosis

The morning after I read about the three sisters, I had one of my most profound spiritual experiences to date. I was in the shower, covered in water and vulnerably naked. I felt a rush of presence and heard a forceful call ring in my ears. The shock of it left me dizzy.

I stumbled out of the shower and stood in awe, gazing at the morning light streaming in through my window as if it was the first such morning I had ever seen.

Such experiences are notoriously difficult to describe, but I somehow understood that I was instructed to build a small stature of the three sisters and that I could call on Kazi specifically as a healer to guide me in my work with herbs.

Because I live in Central Bohemia, on the land of these sisters, and I have been formally made a Czech citizen, although I wasn’t born here and it isn’t even my genetic roots, I was honored and touched to the point of tears. Still if I believe anything spiritual is real, then this was real. The perception was that strong.

One of the few things we know about the Western Slavic Pagans from the writings of early Christians in the area is that they kept figures representing their mighty ancestors in their homes. So, if I had been called to make figures of Kazi, Libuše and Teta to honor them, it was a sign of acceptance or at least an invitation to emulate those Slavic Pagans in this part.

The only problem was, of course, that I’m not a sculptor. Still I remembered that one of the molds I bought, thinking it was for a female figure candle, turned out to be too small for candles but just right for something like this and there were three molds of women in the piece.

I got some clay and made my figures. I painted them in colors that correspond with the talents of the three sisters and stuck the dried figures into a crescent moon shaped base with an opening for a candle.

I was rewarded with a strong impression of a sigil to represent Kazi, the healer of the trio. But then later, in meditation on the sigil, I got a strong impression of disapproval when I addressed them as goddesses. I felt instructed to address them rather as mighty ancestors and teachers.

Of course, this is personal gnosis and I wouldn’t argue with someone who conceived of the sisters as a triple goddess. The idea has possibly more scholarly backing than the concept of them as once-living humans. However, my impression was strong enough, that I think it is better for me personally to act accordingly on this point.

Since then, despite repeated offerings, the sisters have been quiet in their place on the high shelf of my altar. As with many things I have encountered along the Pagan spiritual path, there appears to be a period for waiting, offerings and proving one’s commitment.

I am content for now to research and wait for any further strong impressions from the sisters. The experience has also renewed my interest in folklore and respect for what even very watered down stories may be able to bring us from the deep wells of ancient Pagan spirituality.

Tarot basics: Setting up your reading space

This could be a post on setting up any kind of spiritual and contemplative space. That’s what Tarot is at its best—spiritual contemplation.

That doesn’t mean that your space has to be an altar with incense, candles and no other distractions,, although it might well be. People—like yours truly—whose monkey brains are always going a mile a minute throughout the day, multitasking and absorbing some sort of media a good deal of the time, might well need such a space to settle down enough to focus on the Tarot.

But if you can focus at your kitchen table or on your bed, so much the better. There are some spiritual practices, I don’t recommend doing on your bed. I wouldn’t encourage you to do readings dealing with ancestors or highly distressing topics there because, whether you believe in energy residue or not, just the memory of the reading on your bed might interfere with your sleep.

I do encourage you to clean and wash off you table before laying out your cards. There is nothing worse than sticky or dirty Tarot cards. They can be quickly ruined and the language of the deck becomes incomplete even if only one is missing or damaged. Once a card has been warped by water, it will never shuffle equally with other cards again.

Beyond that, the clutter on a table may well exert a distracting energy on your reading, resulting in an answer that is more vague than it needed to be.

So clear off and wash at least a section of your table or smooth out a part of your bed. I have always lit a candle when I do Tarot, but that is a matter of personal taste. The candle flame provides me with focus. I also generally lay out some tokens representing the four cardinal directions.

Image by Arie Farnam

That is because I call in the energies of the four directions and the elements they correspond to as aids for me in a reading. I will generally also call a deity, either my matron goddess or a goddess who deals specifically with divination, like the Morrigan or Hekate. But that is specific to my tradition. I do recommend that you call in whatever entities you work with spiritually before beginning a reading and have a token to represent them if that is part of your tradition.

I usually smudge with white sage because of its cleansing, clarifying and spiritually enhancing properties and because I can get as much of it as I need from my mother’s backyard. But in many other places white sage is endangered, and you may well not have access to it. There are many other herbs you can use. Among the best are lavender, mugwort, wormwood, kitchen sage and sweetgrass. All of these have cleansing and spiritually enhancing properties.

But you can do without a smudge and I have on many occasions. Incense is also good for settling and calming an atmosphere although most stick incense doesn’t have the mildly mind-altering qualities of herbal smudges. Essential oil diffusers may be an even better option, especially for those who have allergies or respiratory problems with smoke. Be aware that synthetic oils may also be problematic for many people and try to find good-quality, natural essential oils.

Still, you may be in a place where no smoke of any kind is allowed or simply need to do a reading quickly. In that case, don’t let the lack of something smoking or steaming stop you from doing Tarot.

One other thing I suggest is a cup of something to drink that is calming and centering. This generally does not mean coffee. Coffee or other caffeinated drinks are fine right after the reading, but will tend to interfere with the contemplation, unless you have ADHD or a similar neurological imbalance—in which case, do whatever your experience tells you will allow you a contemplative moment or two.

I prefer tea, even in the summer. It’s just a thing. I won’t generally drink my favorite chai tea during a reading though. I’m much more likely to drink herbal tea. Thyme, mint and wild oregono are particularly good for readings.

As you can see, setting up a Tarot space has a lot of elements of calming each of our senses in turn. Clearing up clutter and lighting a candle, settles and comforts our visual and kinesthetic senses. Smudges, incense and diffusers both calm and focus our olfactory sense. Tea takes care of our sense of taste in a soothing way.

For that reason, a lot of people will put on some soothing, meditative music to do readings, covering the auditory sense as well. I usually skip that step, but it depends on what helps you to be fully focused and relaxed. Certainly, it is good to try to be at a temperature that isn’t distracting, if at all possible.

And speaking of distractions, there is the question of other people who may be in your space. Tarot, in my experience, is best done alone. I do it with a single friend sometimes, but it isn’t easy. Then again, I’m a certified introvert. It may be different for you.

The thing is that Tarot is a spiritual contemplative practice. I’m not saying that you can’t do it while someone is drumming and a room full of people are dancing as the spirit moves them right next to you. Particularly, if the gathering is spiritual in nature, it may work fine and the energy may be wonderful for the Tarot

However, if the energy is not focused. If other people are watching TV and just hanging out, it is likely that their energy will interfere with the Tarot. Like I said before, this can simply make the reading more vague than in needs to be. I have never met a public Tarot reader who did anything but vague readings at those booths you see at fairs and other events, though there may be someone somewhere with the focus to withstand any external energy.

So it makes sense that if someone is laying out a reading while several friends lean over the table and joke and make derogatory remarks about the Tarot, whether the reader is participating in the hilarity or not, the reading won’t work. This is why “testing” the Tarot in a social setting also tends to get readings so vague as to be useless.

In the end, a space to read Tarot should be a space were you can calm your mind and heart, focus clearly on a question and be receptive to other-than-logical connections. As herbalists say about herbal tea, part of the medicine is in the actual tea (or the Tarot, in this case) and part of the benefit is in the fact that you get to sit down in comfort for a moment. Don’t underestimate the power of these quiet moments and make the space as relaxing and pleasant as possible.

Tarot basics: Choosing a good Tarot book

In my first post on the Tarot, I made much of the fact that it is as good as the Bible or other ancient and revered religious texts.

Does this make Tarot books scripture? There are thousands after all. You might be thinking that they can’t possibly all be scripture (or even very good). And you would be right.

It is eminently possible to write a bad Tarot book and many of them are less than stellar. Even among the good ones, few people will agree on which are the best. When I said that the Tarot can be used the way people use the Bible to read a random bit of spiritual guidance, I was referring more specifically to the cards themselves.

There are 78 cards in the traditional Tarot deck developed over centuries of study. Each card is a symbol, an abstract concept—love, work, study, beginning, enthusiasm, conflict, death, rebirth, wholeness… But these words in any ordinary language are woefully insufficient to capture the full meaning of each concept.

However, the Tarot is a language that does possess the nuance and depth to capture the fullness of these concepts and to do so in the context of ever-changing life. And more importantly the Tarot provides a language for communication between you and your Self (or the Gods or your ancestors, depending on your goal).

That is the text of tremendous meaning I was talking about: the concepts of the 78 cards in an infinite variety of combinations. In many decks, symbols are used within the picture or a key word is printed on the card to help jog your intuition or memory of the key aspects that the card represents.

That is why it is fine to have many different decks of cards that appeal to many different individuals and communities. The original Tarot had a limited audience of western, European, esoteric intellectuals in a Judeo-Christian paradigm. The symbols in those cards necessarily speak to and are most useful to that demographic.

That’s why, in the previous post, I encouraged you to choose a deck that reflects your personal tastes and culture. Chances are the symbols in such a deck will be more comprehensible and useful to you.

Many people take just that—a deck with symbols they understand or key words—and read with it. They use the cards as a dictionary and start a kind of Pigeon conversation with their inner self, their gods or whatever entities they contact.

And there is nothing inherently wrong with doing it like that without a book. If it works for you, it can be valuable and a good way to leave space for your intuition.

However, for many of us, that way is too limited. The vocabulary is necessarily just about 78 words, or theoretically 156 if you count each reversal as an opposite. It’s still a more limited language than I would like to have for an in-depth conversation of complex practical and spiritual matters.

That is why I recommend using interpretation books. These are like translators to help you decode the more nuanced meanings in your Tarot conversation. Many of them are quite good and hopefully I can help you choose one (or a few) to start with.

The book that comes with your deck

Many Tarot decks have a specific book devoted to them. If you have chosen a very specific type of deck and it has a book that goes with it, it is a good idea to obtain and use this book at least for a while until you get used to that deck and its symbols.

However, there are conceivable reasons you may want a different book. Sometimes you’ll get a deck and there either is no book to go along with it or you can’t obtain the book for whatever reason.

Then, there are quite a few specialized decks that only come with a small booklet including a vague sentence or two about each card. Such decks may be designed by someone with greater talent in visual art and symbols than with words, or it may have been a decision by a publisher that the artist couldn’t necessarily control. Either way, that little booklet is unlikely to give you the kind of depth you need.

Finally, you may have already used the book that came with the deck for some time and found it lacking, though you may love the cards.

Any of these are legitimate reasons to be on the look-out for a new book. Sometimes I am also looking for a new book with its own cards and my decision on which deck to get will be based both on how the cards look and the contents of the book.

What to look for in a Tarot book

There are people who own a hundred or more Tarot books. While I’m an experienced reader, I’m not among the worst offenders, though this is partly due to lack of finances rather than self control. I own more than a dozen Tarot books. I variously inherited some of them, but others I sought out through a painstaking process of research and careful consideration of the options.

The most important consideration for a book is that it should address the same number of and structure of cards (Major and Minor arcana, suits, etc.) as the deck you are using, though it doesn’t necessarily have to call the cards the same thing. If your cards refer to the “Prince of Wands” and the book refers to the “Knight of fire” instead, this is not a big problem. Here are a few examples of the different kinds of terminology you may find:

Minor Arcana = Lesser mysteries

Wands = fire = will = spirit

Swords = air = mind = thought

Disks = pentacles = coins = earth = body

Cups = chalices = goblets = water = heart

Page = princess = child

Knight = prince = explorer

Queen = priestess = guardian

King = priest = elder

Major arcana = Greater mysteries

The Fool = the Seeker

The Magician = the Witch

The Empress = the Lady = the Mother

The Emperor = the Lord = the Father

The Hierophant = the High Priest = the Teacher

The Chariot = the Canoe = other vehicles

The Hermit = the Shaman = the Holly King

Temperance = The Fferyllt = The Healer

The Hanged Man = the Sacrifice

Death = Rebirth

Judgement = Rebirth (different decks)

The World = the World Tree = Wholeness = Enlightenment

Though these terms may vary and those I have listed are only examples, there should be a rough correspondence if the book refers to 78 cards including 22 major cards and the rest being divided in to four suits. You can certainly choose to work with other systems that have fewer (or possibly more) cards but you will need to have the book and the deck from the same system and if you find that one or the other isn’t ideal for you, you’ll be stuck. This is one reason I recommend starting out with a somewhat standard deck.

Be aware that while most systems place Strength as number eight among the Major Arcana and Justice as number eleven, some books (and some decks) switch their number correspondence for complex historical and numerological reasons. Just be sure to check these particular cards and their numbering in your book.

A discrepancy in the numbering between your book and your deck is not a terrible thing, but you’ll have to remember to read the correct card meaning, rather than the number.

Just as with Tarot decks, there are lot of other personal considerations in your choice of a book. Here is a general list of what to look out for:

1. The text should be legible and clearly written with a minimum of grammatical errors. This shows attention to detail, which will hopefully translate into accuracy in the card interpretations as well.

2. There should be a section explaining the philosophy and approach of the author.

3. There may or may not be specific layouts and readings described with sample interpretations. If you are just beginning and don’t have a teacher, you will find it helpful to have some sample layouts and examples of readings and how they can be interpreted. If you are more experienced, you may not be as interested in this section, which often comes at the end of the book.

4. There should be separate sections for Major and Minor Arcana. The major arcana section generally devotes more space to each card—at least a full page, if not multiple pages. The Major Arcana are complex symbols. Some books explain the major arcana not only in isolation but in relation to one another. I did not truly understand these more complex concepts until I read several books that perceived the major arcana as a depiction of the Hero’s Journey and divided them into three levels of initiation. I recommend looking for books that do this, particularly if you struggle with the Major Arcana, which many new readers do.

5. It should have a separate heading for each of the Minor Arcana—ace through ten and four court cards in each suit. In some books, there may be only a few lines explaining the card. Depending on your take on the Tarot, Minor Arcana can be viewed as simple representations of terms or practical concepts and as such they may only need a few words of explanation. But I prefer to have a page of explanation along with key words.

6. Some books list a somewhat different meaning if a card is reversed (upside down) in a reading. Others advise you to read them as the opposite or a subtler or subconscious version of the upright meaning or to read them the same as upright and to ignore the reversal. Your choice of book may depend on your feelings about this. My mother has always resisted reading reversals and her focus in the Tarot is on personal growth. She seeks out the positive messages in the Tarot and works to integrate the wisdom of the cards into her life. My focus is on a detailed and honest conversation, including conversation with my shadow. I prefer to have reverse definitions and generally will steer clear of books that don’t list at least a “shadow side.” You can hear difficult messages from the Tarot even without reading reversals. A number of cards have troubling or negative meanings when upright. But the majority of the cards are relatively positive in meaning when upright, so if you want to focus on the positive rather than delving into and solving problems, you may prefer to read without considering reversals.

7. Some books have a picture of the card next to its description. Because I don’t always use the deck that goes with the book, I prefer books that have such a picture but again it is not entirely necessary.

8. What I do find indispensable is a short list of key words along with a descriptive text. There are types of readings where I will use only the key words, and once I have read the same book several times, the key words provide helpful reminders.

9. Some books have only one block of descriptive text about each card. Others have a bit describing and explaining the symbols and then a second bit interpreting what the card means for you or even in specific contexts, such as a person, a process or an event. I personally prefer books that clearly mark meanings and contexts in separate subheadings from description. My way of reading is somewhat analytical, so this may be personal taste. Other books have affirmations or questions for meditation or journaling attached to each card. It is worth taking the time to skim through the descriptions for Major- and Minor-Arcana cards before deciding on a book.

10. Some books will rely heavily on esoteric symbols or astrology to explain and interpret the cards. If you also pursue these areas of study, you may wish to choose books which relate to the cards in this way. However, if you don’t have a solid background in astrology or esoteric symbols, I find that an over-reliance on them in a book can be a barrier to understanding. It is best to choose a book which speaks in terms that are familiar and relatively easy for you to understand. Straightforward, lay-person’s language does not necessarily mean less wisdom, just a different approach to it.

11. Similarly, some books will rely heavily on other fields, such as psychology, psychotherapy, art, religion, magick, herbal medicine or science to explain the cards. It is wonderful to have a book that interprets the Tarot in the context of a field you are well versed in. But if a book focuses on a field which you don’t know well and have little interest in, this will only complicate matters.

12. Look for a book that speaks directly to you. You should be able to relate the description of a random card to an experience or concept in your own life. The text should be interesting and accessibly written. The themes and philosophy of the book should be something you enjoy and feel comfortable with.

There are several books I have found to be invaluable for increasing my understanding of the Tarot but my list of favorites will not necessarily agree with that of other experienced readers.

I will provide the names of some of my favorite books here, because some of my readers may share my proclivities (given that you are odd enough to read my blog). Be forewarned, that I lean toward Celtic-flavored Paganism and an emotional, social and practical outlook on divination. I don’t mind some astrology and esoteric symbols in my Tarot, but it isn’t my primary focus. I demand that books be written in a conversational and accessible tone.

Here is my short list:

• The Complete Book of Tarot by Juliet Sharman-Burke was my introductory text some thirty years ago. It is a slim volume with very brief descriptions of the Minor Arcana cards. I had several other books and at the time few books were written in accessible language. This was the best of them for me. I don’t know if it is the best book for beginners today but it served me well.

• Spiritual Tarot by Sign E. Echols MS., Robert Mueller, Ph.D., and Sandra A. Thomson is a clearly and pleasantly written book with solid psychological underpinnings. If you are interested in the Tarot for personal development or emotional and spiritual growth this is an excellent choice. It includes user-friendly descriptions of the Major Arcana based on the Hero’s Journey.

• The DruidCraft Tarot by Philip and Stephanie Carr-Gomm is my favorite book (and my favorite deck going along with it) at the moment. The writing is never dull and the descriptions are clear, practical and personally interesting. Whereas many books put the Major Arcana first, this one recognizes that these cards are more difficult to master and puts what is easiest first. It groups the Minors according to number rather than suit, which makes them easier to look up quickly. Most importantly it not only follows a Hero’s Journey model of describing the Major Arcana but relates each part of the journey to specific scenes in Celtic mythology, which is something that personally speaks to me.

• Gaian Tarot by Joanna Powell Colbert was clearly a labor of love. This is another book that has a deck to go along with it. The artist photographed her friends to make the various characters in the cards. The photographs are manipulated to fit the meanings of the cards but they are based on real photos. Even if you don’t have (or want) the matching cards, the book is exceptionally well written and includes specific subheadings for personal reflection on each card. This book is particularly helpful for those with a social justice and ecological outlook.

Tarot boot camp: Where and how to get a Tarot deck

A lot of people will tell you that your first Tarot deck has to be given to you as a gift. It does often happen that way, so it’s “traditional.”

A friend, family member or mentor may decide you are ready to discover the Tarot or you may ask for a deck as a holiday gift. If so, you are one of the lucky ones. Even if that deck isn’t exactly the one you would have chosen, there is a specific magic to the first deck and it is bound up with the gift and with the giver.

In the days before the internet, it probably almost always happened that way. How else would a new initiate hear about Tarot, learn that they could use it effectively or gain access to a deck. Sure, there was the rare store where you could buy a deck, but without at least a little mentoring, it was unlikely that someone just curious enough to buy a deck would ever learn to use it well.

Today things are different. The internet is full of information about Tarot and a myriad of similar tools. A person interested in Tarot today has a completely different—though no less serious—problem. There is so much information and so many decks to choose from that it is bewildering.

And plenty of new Tarot readers hear about the old tradition requiring that one’s first deck should be a gift, and feel mildly guilty about buying one.

I have a solution if that bothers you. My initial posts on Tarot will be called “Tarot boot camp” partly because, if you do it right, the initial learning phase of Tarot can be grueling and because spiritual people and healers of all stripes are increasingly being called to take on the role of cultural warrior—either protecting the earth, fellow creatures, natural environments or those socially marginalized. Tarot is part of that.

I’m inviting you to this boot camp and it’s free. It’s a gift to you. It doesn’t necessarily include the deck of cards, but here is how you obtain one. The next time you have money that isn’t marked for bare survival—rent, food, heat, water, getting to work, childcare and the like—take a fourth of it and put it someplace separate. Mark it as a gift to yourself or the self-care fund.

Creative Commons image by Alan Morgan

Then use that money to buy things that nurture your soul—be that non-sensible shoes or a massage or a deck of Tarot cards. This is your gift. Whenever you spend it, remember that it is a gift. That will help remind you to be conscious of what you’re doing with it and will also make you feel less guilty about spending it on things that keep body and soul together.

For most people reading this blog, that will mean you’ll have money for a $20 Tarot deck in no time. But for some it may take months. There is some advantage to be found in this particular hardship. The time, focus and self-discipline required to get to Tarot will be directly proportionate to its power.

If getting several decks and books comes easy to you and you have plenty of time to peruse them and play with the cards, I am glad for you because it will be a lovely experience and I encourage you to undertake it with joy. However, be aware that it will likely take some time and work and study for you to discover the mysterious power of the Tarot. Fortunately, having all those shiny, new, good-smelling books to read will probably console you.

If on the other hand, all you can get is the smallest old-style deck of cards and a dusty, second-hand book from 1973 and the only time you can get to touch them is after a long day of work and chasing kids in the precious moments before you collapse into sleep, you will likely find that if you are open to it, the mystery will be burning through the thin wrapper and reading the Tarot will be like having a conversation with a long-lost friend.

Need and effort really do matter here. They matter more than the “gift” tradition, but even so the gift has been given. I give you permission to care for yourself. I give you this boot camp study guide, and as you will learn in the study of Tarot, you can give yourself a gift of knowledge and comfort.

After all, reading the Tarot is a conversation with a long-lost friend. That friend is your authentic self.

And that is likely the reason for the tradition of a gift of a Tarot deck anyway. Teachers, mentors and friends recognize that many of us need the Tarot in order to find this true friend. So they step in as a surrogate and give us that first deck. But they are merely a stand in.

So once you have filled your self-care jar with dimes and nickels or whatever the equivalent is, where do you actually find a good Tarot deck? Every major city in the world these days has a metaphysical shop with a shelf or an entire bookcase (or three depending on the city) devoted to Tarot.

If this is your first foray into Tarot, I highly recommend visiting such a shop in person and looking at the books and boxes of cards. The better shops will have posters showing what the cards look like in each deck, even if you can’t unwrap them, and you can choose according to your own aesthetic.

I will cover choosing a deck and a book in a future post in greater detail. But at this point, all you really need to know is that there is vast variety in Tarot decks today and they all have merit. It is important to choose a deck in which the colors, themes and aesthetic appeal to you, and even give you a feeling of calm and joy.

If you study Tarot in depth or if you want to spend the years it takes to become a Tarot master, you will need to look at these images for a long time. Make it as pleasant an experience as possible. There are Tarot decks for every taste—from spooky gothic, death-obsessed decks to Star Wars themes to Celtic druids to esoteric, astrological symbology. While I recommend taking it seriously and choosing something that will have lasting meaning to you, rather than a momentary silly whim, there is nothing inherently wrong with a superhero-inspired Tarot deck, if you are either a kid, a kid-at-heart, a graphic artist or someone otherwise deeply inspired by superhero imagery.

The one caveat that I—and most Tarot teachers—will add is that, for a first deck at least, I recommend sticking to something that generally reflects the traditional Rider-Waite format. What does that mean to a beginner exactly?

Check the book that comes with the cards or the description. Most importantly the deck should have 78 cards. There may be reasons eventually to use decks with fewer (or possibly even more) cards but in the beginning using the 78-card deck will connect you to others who practice Tarot and give you access to a lot more free and inexpensive information in much greater depth.

Secondly, the description should say that the deck is divided between higher and lower classes of cards, often called the Major Arcana and the Minor Arcana. “Arcana” just means “mysteries.” Twenty-two cards make up the Major Archana. The rest are divided into four suits—kind of like playing cards. These suits were traditionally disks, cups, swords and staves, but today they can be called just about anything.

Each suit may be associated with an object, a type of animal, an element or even an ethnicity. But in a standard deck there should be four of them with numbers from Ace to Ten and four “court cards.” These were traditionally page, knight, queen and king. But today, just like the suits themselves, they can be just about anything and sometimes they aren’t even people at all.

The closer your deck is to traditional, the easier access you’ll probably have to both Tarot books and community, but as long as the general format of the deck is standard you should be able to use my boot camp posts and similar free information on-line to get started.

If you really can’t get to a physical shop because you live outside western countries, like I do, or in some very remote place, ordering your first deck online is acceptable. There’s no mystical prohibition against it—at least not one I would put any stock in. But before buying, I recommend googling the name of the deck you think you might want to order along with the word “images.”

This will generally give you a lot more images of the various cards than the advertisement where you are purchasing. Look through the images and get to know them before you choose. It is worth some care and thought. You may eventually have a dozen or more decks, but you will always remember which one was your first. And it may even have a special kind of intensity long after you have adopted others as your favorites.

Next I will cover the specifics of choosing a Tarot book, since many decks you may choose either don’t have a specific book, have only a tiny booklet that is inadequate or have a book that is less wonderful than the artwork on the cards. After that, we’ll get into the really fun parts.

Until next time then…

The spiritual divide that matters

Are you spiritual, not religious? Are you a polytheist, not a monotheist? Are you traditional, not eclectic? Or the reverse?

Do any of these distinctions matter a great deal?

Not really. There are reasons to be “spiritual” and reasons to be “religious” (i.e. seeking spirituality in community). I am not particularly interested in whether or not a person believes in one god or many. I am not even particularly worried about how traditional or how eclectic someone else is, as long as they let others pursue their own path in peace.

Image by Jannis of flickr.com

There is essentially only one divide in spiritual paths I am really concerned about and that is how grounded in their everyday life their beliefs are.

Do you live your beliefs? Do you practice what you preach? Does your spiritual tradition focus mainly on an ethereal soul and reaching higher levels of enlightnement/grace or is it concerned with what you are doing today, what your voice speaks and what your hands create?

Those are the important questions

Why don’t I include open-mindedness in that? How tolerant and benevolent toward others a spiritual path is? Well, just about every path claims to be benevolent. So again, the important question is integrity of practice.

Some paths, such as mystical forms of Buddhism, may appear to focus exclusively on the ethereal level without regard to the here and now, yet when you look at how their most experienced practitioners move through the world, it is clear that living their beliefs moment by moment is of crucial importance.

On the other hand, there are many religious denominations today, particularly in wealthy, “advanced” countries, which encourage members to view spirituality as something you come to do once a week or once a day at a proscribed time and place. There are certain prohibitions for mundane life, usually involving gender, sex and/or eating to ensure personal purity, but beyond that there is little connection between spirituality and the rest of life.

Some define this as a difference between orthodoxy and orthopraxy. There are paths where it is primarily important that you believe the right things—orthodoxy—and paths where it is more important that you do the right things—orthopraxy.

A common phrase among Christian fundamentalists has it that “there are many good people in hell.” Doing right is not the key there. It is believing the right thing—orthodoxy.

By contrast, modern western Pagans are fond of bragging that our beliefs are about orthopraxy—i.e. doing right. But some of those boasters only mean doing right inside the ritual space.

Certainly, it is difficult to discuss integrity when a community claims—as modern western Pagans often do today—that there is no unified ethic or belief to bind them. But each practice does have its own implicit ethics, whether we want to acknowledge them or not.

If you venerate ancestors, that implies something that is sacred. It clearly implies an imperative to honor the elderly and render real aid at least within your family. If you call on the elements, that requires a respect for those elements. To do right would then be to actively protect against the trashing of the earth, the polluting of the water and the poisoning of the air.

Some will say that ethereal enlightenment somehow in the end circles back to take care of the material aspects of spirituality. But I would rather choose the motto of “fake it ‘til ya make it.”

I often sit in my morning meditation, distracted, emotional or even angry. The other day, instead of sitting and chanting spiritually uplifting sounds or being in the moment, I yelled at my matron goddess because the burden I have been given when it comes to family hardship, social prejudice and personal trauma had reached the point where it was more than I could bear.

Yup, not very enlightened.

And my orthodoxy is pretty messed up. I’m not sure if my goddess has any part in handing me the trials and lessons of my life or if she is my guide through them or if I am a pair of hands and a voice for her in the material world. Or all of the above. My theology goes through hesitant cycles.

But I do better with the practical part. I go out to feed the animals each morning, breaking the ice on the ducks’ trough with reverence. I give greetings to the chickens and the fir trees and the linden. I smile at the softly steaming compost and at the pink and cobalt sky of winter.

I light homemade candles and incense as offerings. I teach my children to look for what each season has to offer. I read stories and cook seasonally and as much as possible from what we grow or bargain for locally. I think of the earth and our non-human family with each decision to buy, work or recreate.

My matron goddess is Brigid, so for me anything regarding keeping the home and hearth, adoptive parenting, healing and working with medicinal herbs, writing and story-telling or even crafts of making things like soaps and candles is part of my relationship with her. And as such, I strive to do these things in line with her virtues.

Clearly I’m not perfect in that. I am not her, only one of hers.

My openness to others and the spiritual paths of others is broad and wide with this one criterion. I do care how grounded your beliefs are. How do you manifest them in your daily life? I have shared my home and hearth with many a Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Muslim and Pagan, and I have always found that if we see eye to eye on that, we have no quarrel, only interesting philosophical conversations.

And while I will admit that having a belief in something that makes ethics sacred is one reason I prefer spirituality to atheism, there is integrity for atheists too. It just isn’t simple and it tends to be truly individual. Whatever you believe is right in theory, should also be your practice. That is it at the core.

Coming out as a Tarot reader and a reading for a new year

It might seem strange that I consider Tarot reading something I’d have to “come out” about when I’ve been blogging about being a practicing spiritual Pagan for years. But that’s my honest reaction to the idea of talking publicly about Tarot.

It may have something to do with the fact that when I was a child I had no solid concept of Pagan spirituality—beyond the idea that my family didn’t attend the churches everyone else did—while at the same time Tarot was concrete and explicitly secret. I knew that Tarot was something one NEVER discussed with anyone who didn’t already know my mother and I did it.

I don’t remember a time before I knew what Tarot was. I do remember when my mother gave me my first deck of cards. I was thirteen and it was a simple black-and-white version of the Rider Waite deck meant to be colored in. I studiously read about each card and colored it with corresponding colors. The deck is well-travelled, but I still have it.

Photo by Arie Farnam

Clearly, I took Tarot seriously even as a young teen, but it was something I shared with a very select group of people who already knew I knew. The first time I let a stranger know I knew about Tarot was when I was 22 and traveling as an independent film maker in Kazakhstan. I met a professional Tarot reader and confided about my practices.

That meeting had a strong influence on me, and for ten years after that, I carried a tattered blue school notebook filled with hastily recorded notes about the Kazakh reader’s insights in my pack, even though some of her teachings were very different from my mother’s. To this day, I can’t get her admonition not to cross my feet while I do a reading out of my head, as superstitious as it sounded.

Superstitious? If you are reading this only because you enjoy my other writing and you think of me as practical, rational and down-to-earth, you may be confused. Isn’t everything about Tarot superstitious?

That is another reason I feel it is something to “come out” about. Not only did I have secrecy around Tarot engrained in me due to the isolated and traditionally religious nature of the community around where I grew up, Tarot also remains one of the least socially acceptable aspects of modern Pagan traditions.

On the surface of it, Tarot shares its roots with playing cards used in gambling, dating back to around the fifteenth century in northern Italy as best historians can guess. There were no doubt divination systems long before that in Italy and other parts of Europe. Every culture tends to come up with something. But Tarot likely began largely as a parlor game for the upper classes, perhaps combining the influences of mystical Christianity with “quaint” folk divination of the day.

Why would I place any stock in it then?

The simple answer and the one that matters most is that it helps. It is a structure for investigating complex problems, both emotional and practical. It gives comfort. It calms me and helps me think through difficulties rationally and deeply. If there were no other reason, this would be enough. The world today is chaotic and disturbing and therapy is really expensive.

A tongue-in-cheek adage has it that Tarot is “the poor woman’s therapist,” and there is something to that. However, I’ve seen some good (or at least high-priced and well-recommended) therapists in my day, and if forced to choose whether to never see Tarot again or never see a therapist again, there would be no contest.

Tarot works. Therapists are definitely a mixed bag. In this case, the poor people’s version isn’t necessarily inferior.

Why does Tarot work if it was developed from a parlor game?

I have done readings for friends over the years and recently I’ve taken a few paid clients on the same terms under which I tutor professionals in English as a second language. And here is what I and most other authentic Tarot readers tell people who ask how it works:

1. The interpretation books I use are well-written with a lot of spiritual and emotional wisdom. If you take any book written with spiritual and emotional wisdom and flip randomly to a page and read a passage for guidance, you will usually calm down, feel more centered and gain some insight. People do this all the time with the Bible and other religious texts The best Tarot books are on a similar level of sophistication today, though it has taken several hundred years to get there.

2. The images in Tarot cards are rich in symbolism, as are the texts. These symbols, through our subconscious associations with them, have powerful effects on our thinking. Looking at the images and reading or hearing a description of those symbols affects us on a subconscious level, providing spiritual connection and psychological benefits.

3. While Tarot may have initially come from something frivolous, several centuries of serious development has turned it into a kind of universal language for every part of human experience. One way or another it covers every eventuality and speaks to the universal needs and struggles we all face. There is real wisdom in the structure of the cards.

So, essentially those three points add up to a sort of pseudo-psychological, utterly non-mystical explanation that may or may not satisfy all psychological doctors, although it does satisfy quite a few. The bottom line is that the benefits are observable.

But astute friends and clients will still tend to ask, “Yes, but does it really work?” When pressed they reveal that what they mean by this is, “Does Tarot tell you things you don’t already know? Does it predict the future?”

The answer to that question is far more individual. My answer to those I do readings with is that it provides psychological and spiritual benefits, wise counsel and comfort. That is indisputable. It doesn’t really matter if you believe it predicts the future or mysteriously provides information you don’t already know. It will still be helpful.

My personal belief is that I have on occasion gained insight and information, which I can’t explain, from the Tarot. But I have also often been confused. Personally I think sometimes Tarot can give information in ways that the pseudo-scientific explanation doesn’t cover, but that is, at least for me, an unpredictable aspect.

I can usually tell if profound and unexpected information is there and if it is trustworthy, but that is a rare outcome. Most of the time, the cards reflect things we do already know at least subconsciously. Our conscious minds recognize the true parts of what the explanations of the cards say and because the structure allows for healthy and calm consideration, we come away more clear-headed.

And when we don’t recognize the truth there, which also happens, usually it is just not a great reading and we don’t understand. Only occasionally do I get the sense that something important and previously unknown has been revealed.

My Kazakh mentor claimed that the only time Tarot should actually be used to predict the future is on the winter solstice. I have always done predictive readings on the solstice ever since, but it is more for the tradition than anything else. The predictions aren’t really anything one could act on anyway, just a vague sense of the year ahead.

And although for awhile I followed her stricture and did not do predictive readings at other times of the year, I no longer follow that religiously. The rule I do adhere to is that I never make decisions based solely on predictive Tarot readings and I advise clients and friends not to either.

I have certainly used a predictive reading to help me make a difficult decision. If the reading indicates a positive outcome associated with a direction I am already intuitively inclined to go, it gives me some peace of mind and it is then easier to bite the bullet and make a decision when I have to take a shot in the dark.

On the other hand, I revisit my reasoning and check and recheck my decision-making on those occasions when the reading does not support the direction I intuitively feel like going. Sometimes that does change my eventual decision, not directly due to the reading, but rather due to that cautious reappraisal.

Most often I think Tarot affects my decision making for the better on those occasions when my intuitive sense of the best decision conflicts with what I selfishly or lazily want to do. The Tarot overwhelmingly tends to support my intuitive sense of right and wrong over my personal desires and it has a way of talking me (and my friends and clients) into healthier decisions that require self-regulation.

I do personally find that the Tarot gives good predictive advice. But I am not set in a fixed belief about it’s predictive or mystical powers. I could be convinced by evidence to change my stance on that aspect of the Tarot, and it wouldn’t have a significant impact on my use of it, since most of the Tarot work I do isn’t predictive, but much more self-reflective and analytical.

Whether that satisfies skeptics and ridiculers is debatable, but this is my declaration as a Tarot reader. I plan on posting about Tarot, including useful readings for various full or new moons, in 2020, so if you do enjoy this type of self-care, stay tuned.

To get started here is a reading for the new year, which I developed and found particularly helpful. It can be adapted to any topic or area of your life that you have concerns about and it is well suited to tomorrow’s first full moon of the new year.

Reading for setting hopes and goals

A lot of New Year’s readings either attempt to predict what is going to happen in the new year or encourage you to set whatever goal you want. This one is a healthy compromise between the two. The philosophy of the Tarot is not predetermination. Even those who believe Tarot does literally predict the future insist that the prediction is valid only “if you persist on the same path.”

In short, we have free will and Tarot only reflects the consequences of our choices. This reading frees us a little to consider possible positive outcomes, results that we could gain this year, if we are willing to change paths or persist as the case may be. The goal here is to help us find possible and achievable hopes for the new year.

To begin, identify one or more areas of your life in which you would like to see improvement. This can be general or specific. For instance, I tried out the categories of “physical health and well-being,” “emotional well-being and healing,” “my writing profession,” “my family,” and “my social and community relationships.”

Write these down in your journal or other record book in a numbered list, leaving a few inches of space in which to record your results.

Next, it is good to set up your Tarot spot in a way that is supportive of calm and reflection. For most of us that means a place where you won’t be disturbed, possibly with a candle or a special cloth to lay your cards out on.

Many readers have very strict rules about how and where and when Tarot may be done. I have my own, which I will write about in other posts, but the bottom line is that what matters is your frame of mind, and if laying out your cards at a night club or among the tea things on your kitchen table or on a log in the woods or on your messy bed gives you a sense of being grounded and centered, then that’s fine for now.

For each topic you want to set goals for, you will have three cards. Shuffle the deck well, cut the deck (i.e. divide it into two or three piles, depending on your tradition, and restack it) and draw three cards off the top.

This is a sample reading about a young person’s aspiration to develop as an actress. Reading from the left, card one indicates some conservatism or stinginess in the situation. Possibly the young person is overly reticent or she encounters stinginess in opportunities to practice acting. Card 2 indicates that the young person could gain intellectual understanding or make a firm decision about her path during this year. Card 3 indicates that something regarding attraction or passion is the main challenge, possibly meaning either over-enthusiasm or balancing this aspiration with a romantic relationship. Image by Arie Farnam

Card 1 (placed to the left) represents the status quo or your current situation with that topic.

Card 2 (placed to the right) represents what is the most favorable outcome you can achieve during the year. In some readings this is called “the aspiration.” It is something you can work toward.

Card 3 (placed perpendicular to Card 2 further to the right) represents the challlenge or what will cross your path as you try to reach your aspiration.

This is a quick, clear reading that can be done separately for a number of topics. The only tricky part comes when you may A. receive a card in the first position that seems opposed to what you think your current situation is, B. receive a somewhat negative card in the second position, or C. receive a positive card in the third position.

People sometimes claim that Tarot is intentionally vague so that you can read just about anything into any card. But that is far from true. In fact, the cards can be very specific. However, there are multiple meanings to each card in order to cover all of the myriad archetypal aspects of human existence. That means you always have a positive or a negative aspect to choose from in each card.

And given the positions of the cards here, it is clear which interpretation of the card you are meant to choose. Card 1 may be mystifying to you if your situation is very difficult and you get a very cheerful card. Consider that the good cheer may be what is going on around you, while you suffer, or it may be pointing to a silver lining to your situation that you are not paying enough attention to.

Card 2 will have some positive aspect that you should focus on. Classically, Death can be read as an ending but it also necessitates a deep transformation and a new beginning. The Hermit may mean loneliness and isolation in some contexts but it also may mean simply standing out from the crowd and carrying a light for others to follow. The Five of Swords may look grim and unpleasant but it can mean that you’ll simply win a hard fought battle one way or another.

Card 3 on the other hand has to be read for it’s difficult sides. Just as every card has a positive aspect, there is always an inherent difficulty. The Ten of Disks may be lovely to look at but it’s focus on family legacy and togetherness can imply that family, as positive as it may be at the time, is somehow limiting or complicating your development in another area. This is natural and does not mean we should abandon our families. It simply points to what will give challenge to that aspiration in the year ahead.

Experiment, keep a record of this reading and look back at it in a few months to see if anything that didn’t make sense initially makes more sense later on. Good luck!

There is certainly more to write about Tarot and I will be posting on a number of connected topics, including how I set up a Tarot space, how to shuffle, whether and how to read reversals and more. For now, explore, pay attention to your intuition and be well.

Guided meditation for a ecologically equitable future

I recently led a discussion at Anglo-American University in Prague during their devoted Eco-week. First, I was asked to talk about local interconnection and food sustainability because of my urban homesteading experience, which is still quite modest compared to many. Later the request was broadened to include “guided meditation.”

Image by Arie Farnam

How, I wondered, was I going to combine these two topics into one experience for the students. In the end, I gave a short presentation about renewing the World-War-Two era effort of Victory Gardens as a constructive response to the climate crisis. The gist of it is that some forty percent of British food was produced in small private gardens during the war, given much less productive practices than we have available today.

Producing 40 to 50 percent of our food supply extremely locally, in sub-urban and even urban environments is possible and highly desirable, since this type of production can use very few resources and be carbon neutral, resulting in huge savings in the carbon-intensive agricultural sector.

Then, I expanded the discussion to include local interconnection and the wide variety of possibilities for mitigating and adapting to the climate crisis. Because this requires creative and innovative thinking en mass, I developed this guided meditation to use with the students.

I will copy it here for you to use in your activities. It is a share-and-share-alike text, which requires only that you make reference to the fact that I wrote it and allowed it to be shared, with a link provided to www.ariefarnam.com in any materials.

Guided meditation:

Find a comfortable way to sit. You can sit on the floor or rest your head. It is usually helpful to close your eyes. This is a journey of imagination and sensory exploration. Seeing and hearing too much may interfere.

As you relax into your position, pay attention to your breath. Consciously inhale slowly. Feel the air moving over your nasal passages and down into your lungs. Slowly breathe out.

Can you imagine your breath as a color, cool air going in and warming up, then flowing back out?

Now you start to build a picture in your mind of a place you would like to be sitting. This is a place outdoors. You may be with other people or alone. This may be a human-inspired place or a wild place, but it is in a time when humans have turned serious attention to tackling ecological crises in a way that allows nature to heal and humans to live with integrity.

Relax your expectations. Put out your intention for a picture of such a time and place. Don’t try too hard to force it.

The place is growing up around you, a place with signs of humans living well with nature.

Notice each of your senses. What does it smell like outdoors in this time? Inhale. Keep breathing deeply.

What do you feel under you. What are you sitting on in this dream place? Feel it with your fingers. Is there a grain to it or is it grass or earth or stone. Feel the solidness supporting you.

Is it warm or cool where you are? What does the air feel like on your skin?

What do you hear? Are you alone or with other people? What sound does the wind or breeze make? Are there sounds of animals or people?

Now let images come. What do you see in a time and place where people live well with nature? What do you see around you? What does the sky look like? Are their big trees? What other plants do you see?

In this place, you can stand and walk around, even while you’re still sitting here. Feel the ground beneath you. You may be walking a little slowly, since this world is new to you.

Do you see animals or people? What are they doing? Are there homes? Are there fences? Is there a road nearby? How do people live? How do other animals live?

Greet people you see? Do you know them? Are they in a hurry? Are they content? Do any of them stop to talk to you?

Take a moment to be with them. Does anyone want to take your hand or hug you? Is there anything you would like to ask them about life in this time when people live well with nature? Think on it and ask. Listen to see if they answer.

You can continue walking around in this world and asking questions. Feel the sunlight on your face. Feel the air. Smell it. Listen to the sounds. Taste some of the food people offer you. Look into their faces and see what their expressions tell you. Look at what they do, how they move and how they live.

Slowly draw away from the image. See it as two-dimensional. It is a picture. You are not inside it anymore. Take the picture and fold it gently and put it in your pocket. This world you have seen, a time when people live well with nature is something you can pull out when you need to remember what you want to move toward.

Why me? Why not?

It’s a question that comes across whiny. But how many of us haven’t asked it—at least silently.

Why me?

Why was I born into this family? Why was I born in these circumstances? Why did this accident or misfortune (or even this good fortune) happen to me? Why should I be the one to speak up when injustice is going down? Why should I be the one to take the lead?

Of all the others it could have been… why me?

Some people think gods or astrology or fate or karma is responsible for such things. And I can’t say for sure that they’re wrong or claim that I haven’t wrestled with these ideas myself.

Image via Pixabay

We also look at someone else, whether in misfortune or good fortune and ask ourselves why it is that person. It is comforting when misfortune happens to those we see making poor choices and when good fortune comes to those we see working diligently toward it. That seems to confirm our wish that life should be “fair.”

But far too often the opposite is what actually happens. People who deserve it least do have accidents or other misfortune, and there are plenty of lazy and uncouth people among the wealthy.

But this isn’t just a question about the fickle nature of chance. We ask this question at least as often when it comes to why someone should take up a responsibility or step into a role. This is not chance, but rather an active decision—one that many people could make but most choose not to. If you have never seen a great need for action and asked, “Why should I be the one to handle this?" you probably aren’t paying enough attention?

I wonder if Greta Thunberg asked herself why she of all people should go out and protest alone, since no one else was doing it at the time. I don’t know if she questioned. It needed to be done, so she did it. But maybe she wrestled with doubts too.

Three years ago, I had an intense spiritual year in which I was called to follow in the footsteps of the Irish goddess Brighid. I continue to do so as best I can.

I didn’t ask “why me” at the time. It seemed reasonable. She is a goddess of making crafts, poetry and healing, and in a more ancient sense, she is a goddess of social justice. She is generally seen as a nurturing hearth goddess, but she has been known to ride out to do battle with greed or tyranny when no one else is available. And that is much the way I am, so it seemed natural that I might be called to her.

But now there is often an answer to my “why me”. thoughts. The answer is often, “because you are mine and you agreed to this path.” And so I did.

While Brighid doesn’t have the harsh reputation of the Morrigan or Hekate or Kali, this path isn’t easy. It entails a lot of quietly tending a hearth, providing for and nurturing while others go out and do things with great purpose. It doesn’t get a lot of thanks or recognition.

And when I finally am called to some great purpose—to take a stand for justice—it is always a lonely stand, usually standing up for those who can’t speak for themselves or signaling a need for healing, which is not always welcome.

In such times, I do sometimes want to whine, “Why me?” Why should I be the one to serve others? Why should I be the only one to stand up for an unpopular truth or put out this or that fire. So, here it is.

Why not?

That is the question I should ask, not just in my decisions but also in those matters of chance. Why was I born legally blind? Well, why exactly not? Things happen.

Why was I born in a country whose language has taken over the world, mostly through unjust colonization, while my ESL students have to spend years learning that language in order to have a professional career? Why not?

Sometimes there is an answer to that question, such as “Because no one should be so automatically privileged.” And that gives us the reason that the question. “Why me?” is rarely helpful, but “Why not?” is sometimes a useful question to ponder.

When I found the ecological justice movement Extinction Rebellion, I know it was Brighid’s answer to my prayers for purpose and some call beyond the endless hearth-tending. And so, I went with it and gladly took the roles in the local group which are marked on Brighid’s path. I organized the healers, both by putting together first aid kits and training medics but also by working with crisis psychologists to set up a team for psychological support. I brought lots of cake, and when necessary, learned to make vegan food. I helped the writers and press spokespeople get set up.

But when the most vulnerable are denied a voice and no one else stands up, I want to yell, “Why me?” and I hear it… a warm chuckle, “Why not?”

This is how I get into these messes.

The mother and her dreaming children

Once when the morning sun shone bright on the forest in the spring just as the trees started to bud and the early flowers were waking, a woman stepped out onto the doorstep of her little cottage and saw a basket lying there in the shade of a juniper bush that still had it’s gray needles.

Her heart quickened and she knelt to pull back a fold of cloth in the basket to reveal the sleeping face of a human infant. The woman was overjoyed and also quite puzzled. No one lived nearby. Indeed, her cottage was set off far away from any other cozy place in all the wild, resplendent woods.

Creative Commons image via Pixabay

So, it was that the woman called Gaia took in the first child. She grew to be a girl with long brown hair and a tricksy smile. After a few years the girl and the woman were awakened in the dark hours of the night by the frantic, terrified cries of a baby. The woman rushed to the door of the cottage as the girl sat up in bed, eyes wide and startled.

There on the doorstep was another basket. Where the first one had been neat and tidy with a pretty cloth to wrap the baby in, this one was a frayed and sagging basket and the baby was wrapped in a rough feed sack. The woman peered into the forest, wondering if whoever had left the baby might still be near. But the baby was hungry and cold from the night air, so she picked him up and took him inside.

For several years the woman and the two children lived happily in the forest. The forest provided all they needed. The woman caught and picked their wild food. She grew a little garden at the back of the cottage. And she kept chickens and a few goats. The children helped and learned to live in the shadow of the forest.

Year turned on year and though each turn was different and brought both joys and small disasters, there was also a rhythm of time. The children took this rhythm into themselves even though they did not know it.

But one change came that did not ebb and flow with the turning of the years. Other cottages sprang up in the forest. Roads were cut through the trees and a town sprouted off to the west on the banks of the river where the woman fished in the summer.

The two children met other children when they were out picking berries and mushrooms. They heard about the world and began to long for things beyond the cottage. Other people also heard about the woman in the forest who took in children that needed a home. And soon enough someone, somewhere heard the tales who had a child they couldn’t feed and clothe.

And so there were more cries in the night. The woman and her children found another basket on the doorstep and then another… and another. Each basket was different. Some were tightly woven, white willow bows. Some were loose grass baskets with holes showing through. Some were made of hard knobbly vines that left the babies sore and others were padded with blankets as soft as thistledown.

But they all had babies in them. Quiet, babies with troubled eyes. Loud, crying babies with red faces. Coughing sick babies with rashes.

The woman took them into her house because she couldn’t leave a baby crying alone outside. She fed them and treated their sicknesses. She took them to the new town and asked whose babies they were. The town councilmen said they did not know and the woman could send the babies to the orphan home if she didn’t want them.

The woman went to the orphan home and saw the listless children there, the harried nurses, the little rooms with neatly made beds and the rows of benches in the cafeteria. She took the babies home again. Somehow she would manage.

The seasons passed and the children grew taller. Soon the first girl and the first boy who had come to Gaia were tall and strong. She asked them to dig up the garden beds, chop wood for the fire and feed the chickens and goats. She asked them to care for the smaller children, to cook dinner and read them stories. The work had no end.

The children met children from other cabins in the woods and from the town. They heard about television and video games. They saw bright plastic toys and fast cars and every manner of candy.

The children tried to please Gaia, their mother. They worked in the garden, chopped the wood, cooked dinner for the little ones, gathered berries in the forest and a hundred other things. They wondered why their mother Gaia kept accepting more children. They were grateful, but… after awhile, they began to resent the new arrivals and all the work.

Gaia had taught them the rhythms of the earth but the growth of people all around them did not follow that rhythm. The settlement just grew and grew. And with it their work grew.

Finally, the first girl and the first boy put on their nicest clothes and took their best tools and left Gaia’s house, hoping to find an easier life. Soon more of the children left. Some left when they were still far too young, before they even knew much about the rhythms of the earth.

There were still plenty of little children who couldn’t leave and Gaia had endless work to do, taking care of them. She grew bent and haggard. The beauty she once had was weathered and worn. Her moods were quick and her discipline was hard and not always fair. She was broken down in both body and spirit.

All around the cottage, broken things piled up. Dirty diapers weren’t washed. Dirty dishes sat for a long time. The children who left, more often than not left big messes because it was the filth and squalor that made them leave.

The children who left fared little better. Some of them found jobs helping out shopkeepers or tradesmen in the town. Some went to work in the new factories or superstores. Some tried to study or make their own crafts.

Some of the runaways had enough to eat and a roof over their heads after a few years and they felt that they deserved all that they had achieved. It had been incredibly hard work after all. They were sure they owed no one.

Many did not have enough to eat or a home though, no matter how hard they worked. They became angry and demanded that those who had better luck should help them. They were brothers and sisters after all. But those who had more insisted that they had worked harder. The eldest boy felt sorry for many of the younger children and he gave them food when he could spare it and felt that he was doing more than his share. He was sure he was honorable and good.

But as time went by some of the children saw that the whole forest was dying. The trees were drying out and the animals became scarce. Year after year the people of the town had to go further and further away for wood and water and hunting. The land was turning gray and barren. The sky was filled with toxic fumes.

At first, some of the children protested and insisted that people had to change, that if they each did their part, as they had done back at Gaia’s cottage that all would be well again. But those who had snug houses and enough to eat mostly felt that if they did a little thing to help, planted a tree or used recycled paper, that they had done their part. And those who had no houses or only broken down shacks were sure that they would do their part, just as soon as they had what they needed.

So the years passed until finally, the eldest girl and several of the other children who were now grown decided that they must do more than these small things. They left their homes, small or large, and went back to that part of the forest that was still hanging on around Gaia’s cottage. They went up to the rough wooden door and they knocked softly.

“Gaia! Mother!” they cried. “We want to come home. We are sorry! we want to work in the garden and feed the goats and take care of the little ones.”

Gaia came to the door, worn and stooped with work and worry. She stood their looking at them.

And now, dear reader, I ask you to decide if she took them in and gave them bowls of soup and useful work to do. And would that make everything right and pure again? Would it turn the tide against the destruction of the forest? Would it make other people start treating each other and their home well?

Your answer likely tells much about your life philosophy and about your faith in humanity or at least about the image you want to project.

And each of you will probably have someone you are ready to blame for the troubles in this story. Conservatives are likely to blame Gaia herself. She took in too many children after all. She should have known that was going to be a problem. She over-extended herself and essentially deserved what she got.

Liberals might well blame the grown-up children for being ungrateful and not looking out for each other, for forgetting that they did in fact owe someone something for what they had. Radicals are likely to blame the whole system, the influx of people, the construction of the town, the existence of factories and those who cut down trees and showed the children bright toys.

And yet when you make this story human. When Gaia too is a person, we can see that each of these blamable characters did only what seemed entirely reasonable and ethical at the time. Even those who built factories and cut down trees were children looking for a better life and believing they owed nothing for their life.

And Gaia? She gave and gave and gave until she lashed out at her children with harsh and unfair discipline. But you must realize that this Gaia does not live only in a nice safe country with a foster-care system. She lives in the slums of Bangladesh and the streets of Syria. She lives where children are truly hungry. She gives and gives because without her, the children really would die.

Here is the thing. We are all the children of Gaia. We all take and take from the earth. And the earth gives and gives until she is worn out and broken, just like an old self-sacrificing mother. And now she lashes out, usually unfairly with storms and drought and wild fires. And some of us want to come back, knocking on her door and promising to be good and feed the goats and tend the little ones, while the human world goes on grinding up the forest and the ecosystem that keeps us all alive.

And the question is what happens next in this story.

Honoring names and their stories

I find the rituals and traditions around names in different cultures fascinating. I have two countries and as a result two very different cultures concerning names.

In the Czech Republic, where I live and where my children were named, there is a deeply ingrained tradition governing first names. Each day of the calendar year is associated with a different first name and thus each person has a “name day.”

In the days before Facebook, it was assumed that most of your friends and acquaintances wouldn’t know your birthday, so people gave you small gifts on your name day instead. Birthdays were primarily a family affair or something for small children.

Creative Commons image via Pixabay

It sounds nice. But there is always a catch to seemingly quaint cultural rituals. In order to keep this system functional, there is a very limited number of names one can give to one’s child. You see, over time many of the names on the calendar went out of style (Bonifac, for instance) but a day (May 14, in that case) still belongs to that name because of historical honor and tradition. In actual fact there are scarcely two dozen reasonably possible modern names in the calendar for each gender.

And if you think kids have to endure names like Suzy G. and Suzy H. in classrooms in the English speaking world, you should see the Czech classrooms where six little girls are named Eliška and five little boys are named Honza.

In the United States on the other hand, the current trend is toward the most creative names possible. Often a celebrity will name their child some mixed up combo that sounds catchy and the next few years will see hordes of little Kiaras and Blazes emerging from maternity wards.

When I was a kid it was mostly only hippies who engaged in this creative art of naming children. Each sub-culture had their standbys, often no more diverse than the Czechs. And one could tell a lot about a person’s background by their name, and that most definitely included us flowery-named hippie kids.

But now half the kids in America have names that would have indicated hippie parents a generation ago and some kids have truly bizarre names, such as little Abcde, who had an unfortunate encounter with airline personnel last year.

I’ll admit that I err on the side of freedom and creativity in the Great Name Debate. Sure, I got teased for my name as a kid. (Hint: I was called “air-head” a lot.) But that was definitely the least of my bullying worries, even though my name was distinctly strange for the conservative, small-town milieu of the 1980s. My name was not the biggest problem by a long shot. My clothes, my disability, my family, my homemade lunch, my glasses, my opinions, my big mouth, my grades… in short, everything else was a much bigger problem.

So, I proffer my own criteria for a good baby name—it should have a story.

That simple. It is great if that story is that you are named after Great Aunt Elizabeth who traveled the world and helped people. It’s fine if you are named John, because a whole string of your ancestors were. It’s also fine if you’re named Michael because none of your ancestors were and your parents were rebellious and loved a hard rock singer named Mike-something. But a name should have a story—good, bad or ugly,

Stories are important. And if that story hurts, you should be allowed to choose a new name and a new story.

My given name is Arie Anna Meadowlark. No kidding. Arie was for an old lady in the Foxfire books which my parents liked. Anna was my undercover, fool-the-muggles (i.e. non-hippies, no we didn’t really have muggles back then but might as well have) name. And Meadowlark was my mandatory family nature name, reflecting the mountain meadows around the place where I was born.

I love this. I don’t go around touting Meadowlark as my name in all contexts, and I have spent my entire life either correcting people’s pronunciation of “Arie” or more recently explaining abashedly that I answer to about six different variants with no hard feelings. Complicated names can be a bit irritating, but the fact of having a story makes up for it.

Creative Commons image via Pixabay

Do I like the story my parents laid on me this way? Well, I’ve never actually read the Foxfire books. I never really used Anna as my name on job applications as envisioned by my parents. And Meadowlark doesn’t fit on the vast majority of bureaucratic forms the world over, leaving me with many complicated discussions in far flung offices with grumpy officials. But yeah, I like that my name has a story and I don’t mind the one I got.

My children’s names have stories. They each mean something. And moreover they each had to be fought for because in the Czech system neither of them fit neatly enough into the calendar. I had to appeal, pay heavy fees and go head to head with the national linguist and name czar of the Czech Republic to get only mildly creative names that sound both vaguely Czech and moderately American, while being meaningful to their Romani heritage.

In case I didn’t have enough name troubles, now that I am setting out on another trans-Atlantic voyage with my children after three years on one continent, I find myself assembling the papers to prove that they are in fact my children, given that we don’t have the same last name.

Why not?

I am very much still married to their father. But back when I was 24 and making the decision about what to put on my marriage certificate, I was two things a lot more than I was a wife. I was a feminist and a journalist.

The feminist in me was outraged by the injustice that women are supposed to change their names and carry around documentation proving they have a right to their birth certificate and educational qualifications for the rest of their lives while men don’t have to. I also thought my family history and pride was every bit as important as his.

I magnanimously offered him my last name, which frankly would have been a more practical option, since Blažková (the ový ending is mandatory for women in Czech) is not an easy last name to be saddled with in the English speaking world, whereas Farnam would have been fine for a man in Czechia or America. But of course, he refused.

In the end, it was my journalism and writing career that made changing my name most difficult. Certainly, plenty of writers use pen names but it is more of a hassle than most people think. I did not want to change my name just as I was earning “a name for myself” as an international stringer. And I didn’t even want to clue colleagues in to the fact that I was married or even a woman on some long-distance jobs. There were (and still are) reasons, especially in a profession like international journalism to keep these details to one’s self.

So, I kept my name, which means that when I go through customs with my kids, we’ll each have different last names from the American perspective, because Czech male and female last names are different, so not even my kids entirely share a last name. My son is a Blažek and my daughter is a Blažková.

And again, I don’t entirely mind. There are some prickly practical issues with all of this naming confusion. But they also give us a story. If a person who did not know us looked at our names, there would be many mysteries but also some things that would give clues about who we truly are—a cross-cultural, bilingual, nature-loving family. And that is how it should be. Our names give clues to our souls.

Plenty of people today change their names, either officially or unofficially to take on a particular image. I find that this happens a lot in Pagan circles and in activism. Pagans take on spiritual or magical names which are all designed to be mystical, powerful and glorious. In the end, they fall into highly predictable patterns and give any experienced person some insight into which tradition the owner of the name might belong to and what their interests are.

The same goes with activist or artist names. They tell a chosen story, something we want to portray about ourselves. Just as my family’s names hint at things crucial to our identities, the names chosen for a particular path offer clues to the soul.

Although I am very active both as a Pagan and as an activist, I have never even really been tempted to choose a magical, spiritual or activist name. I’ve been asked why not on quite a few occasions. Maybe it is that I feel my name already has a story. It already has power through that story.

If people either don’t know or don’t care for the story their given name tells, then that might be a good reason to choose a new one. Like the affirmations of new age psychology (which does work surprisingly well on most people, like it or not) a new name with a new story can really change a person’s life.

I won’t ever make fun of anyone’s name. I don’t care how corny or contrived it may sound. If you chose it, you had reasons. If you didn’t choose it, you certainly shouldn’t be mocked for it.

I know many people will point out some extraordinarily silly examples of modern names to try to tempt me to laughter. My conviction still stands. Those strange names particularly have a story, even if it is just a story about immature and unprepared parents. Stories matter and their people matter. I honor names, their stories and their people.

The modern-day hearth IS the kitchen table

When my husband and I realized the dream of owning our own home 15 years ago, the first thing I did was get a kitchen table.

And this wasn’t just any old table. It had to be THE table. I felt that in my bones.

I grew up in two houses. The first one was little more than a shack. The kitchen table was in the living room and it was makeshift, a piece of plywood on round logs stood up on end. But everything happened at that table. It was the only writing surface in the cabin. It was the place we made things, ate, celebrated holidays, had important talks…

When my father finally finished building “the big house” after ten years, we had a real table in a nook between three big windows next to the kitchen. The table itself was made from the heart of an ancient pie-cherry tree, loving known as “Grandmother cherry tree” to the local children. It is solid enough to dance on and continues to be the beating heart of the Farnam clan, the point to which everyone returns from distant travels and other homes, and the place friends come back to. When you sit at the old cherry-wood table, you know you’re home.

So, I knew the table had to be special. Fortunately, I had the perfect solution. An Egyptian carpenter in Prague was a friend. I commissioned him to build a table to my specifications—eight feet long and four feet wide, and yes, strong enough to dance on if the occasion should ever demand it.

Creative Commons image by Peter Miller

My carpenter friend fell sick and struggled to finish the table and the cabinets I had commissioned before leaving the country for a long convalescence. The result was that the table legs don’t exactly match the floor tiles underneath and the table rocks. So, for fifteen years, I’ve put folded up newspapers under one corner to keep it steady.

But otherwise it is one excellent table. I do actually stand on it regularly—to hang bundles of herbs from the ceiling. And it feels as steady as the floor, thanks to those newspapers and its massive wooden slab.

In that time my table has become a bit battered. I loved it when it glowed with a fine even finish. But since then it has been chopped by knives, hammered on by nutcrackers, drawn on and carved by children, burned by ritual candles reaching the ends of their wicks and scorched by many a hot pan. There are marks I can run my fingers over and bring back a family dinner or incident as clear as day. It has become the heart of my home as well, maybe not as heavy a draw as the great cherry-wood table far away in Oregon, but still worthy.

When we built our house, I was also adamant that we must have a wood stove of some kind, even if we planned to heat mostly through environmentally friendly electrical systems. I thought that the wood stove was the heart of a home, after all. Both of my childhood homes had stoves and in the case of the “big house” even a real stone hearth with broad lava rocks and a curved wooden mantle.

I absorbed from the culture, stories and lore the idea of the hearth as the place of greatest importance in the home, even though experience didn’t bear it out. In my first childhood home, the wood stove was an ugly brown monstrosity that lurked near the door. We never sat around it and the only time it was of primary importance was the few times that a major winter storm knocked out the power and we couldn’t pump water out of the well. We then had to cut chunks of ice and heat them in a metal laundry tub on the wood stove, because the kitchen propane stove was too small.

Even the massive and beautiful hearth in the big house of my childhood is not the heart of the family. It is technically in the center of the house and it takes up an inordinate amount of room. It is where various things are displayed and on some winter evenings people do sit in front of it. But most of the year it just gathers dust.

I see many Pagan blogs and books encouraging modern Pagans to treat their electric or propane kitchen stoves or their radiators like a hearth. We are encouraged to make a small altar near them to the hearth goddess, house spirits or ancestors and to approach work at the stove with reverence. While I don’t see any harm in that I find the comparison to the ancient symbol of the hearth to be a mismatch.

The radiators that carry central heating to the rooms of a house today are so far from the concept of a hearth that trying to treat them as such is often depressing. I’ve done so in hotel rooms and while there was nothing better to do, the concept just wasn’t there. They heat the room. For part of the year, they have a purpose. The rest of the year, they are inert. In warmer areas there is no heating system at all and more likely to be an air-conditioner.

The kitchen stove is a closer concept. At least we cook there. That is where we prepare the food to nurture our families. For many people who are the primary cook in a household, the kitchen stove can take on great importance. But the fact is that it is primarily that person who feels it. It is not actually the center of the home or family. It is part of how we process food. It isn’t meaningless, but it doesn’t have the central importance that the hearth once had.

The ancient hearth was the source of warmth. It was also the place where food was prepared. But its key importance was as the magnet that drew the family or clan together. Certainly it drew them because of the warmth and the food. But it’s most important function was as that beating heart of the basic social unit.

The Pagan concept of hospitality grows out of that. When we talk about giving weary travelers or those in need a place by the hearth, we don’t mean just that we should give them food and shelter. In so far as that practice is crucial to many cultures, it is more about taking someone into the family or community, offering them not just the physical but the social, emotional and spiritual sanctuary of the group.

To be banished from the hearth is to be truly outcast. There is an element of physical loss of sustenance and warmth but it is much more the feeling of rejection and social ostracism that make that such a terrible concept.

And that is why I say that today, the kitchen table is much more the equivalent of the hearth. That is where most people gather. It is a place connected to food and family, home and unity. In some homes the television may play a close second, if the family mostly gathers there. Still with a television, the focus is never on the family. There is never a circle around it by definition. And so, I argue that the table is the best modern equivalent we have.

The sad truth is that far too many homes don’t even have a kitchen table or any other gathering and eating place anymore. Far too many people, particularly those who find themselves trapped in poverty, lack the basic equipment and spaces to cook or eat food at home. They are forced to eat ultra-processed food and this brings with it a whole host of negative health effects. It also generally means that these same people have no place that is the equivalent of the ancient hearth, a symbol shared by every human community on earth with crucial ancestral importance.

That fact may have deep psychological and cultural results, as we not only grow further from nature but also further from the deepest roots of our sense of community and hospitality. For that reason, the hearth as a symbol gains even greater importance. Those of us who do have a kitchen table or another equivalent gathering place do well to honor that place and recognize the great privilege and fortune that having it reflects.

The next time you give thanks for a meal and thank the cooks, the farmers, the animals, the plants, the land and the ancestors, spare a thought for the table itself, the tree it is made of and the hearth it has become.

Not all giants are ancient

There is something in Pagan cyberspace that has been niggling at me for awhile like one of those little parasitic worms that got under my kid’s skin a couple of summers ago after she went dipping in a scummy pond.

That is the fad of dissing hippies.

OK, I’m ready to duck already .But this has got to be said. Gerald Gardener may or may not have started a modern witchcraft tradition and a lot of other big names contributed to the nice wave of Pagan-friendly public sentiment and popular trendiness we now enjoy, but without the counterculture movement, the New Age, and yes, the hippies, we would not be experiencing a western world in which Pagan spirituality and culture are both widespread and generally well-accepted.

Image via Pixabay

Without the cultural developments of these movements that are so widely ridiculed among Pagans, Wicca would most likely have remained a tiny fringe interest of a few wealthy eccentrics. Traditional witchcraft would have stayed where it was for centuries, losing ground and scrambling to preserve shreds of knowledge. And non-Hindu, non-indigenous Paganism would have remained in the history books.

Don’t get me wrong. I am as irritated by “fluffy bunny” New Age platitudes as any hard polytheist.. Yes, we intersect with the New Age sometimes and it can cause a bit of friction and some eye-rolling on both sides. But let’s face it. Other movements have impacts on the social environment we live in and even on us.

The New Age not only sheltered a lot of early Pagan, Wiccan and witchcraft books and tools in bookstores for several decades. It is only in the past twenty years that a meaningful line could be drawn between modern Paganism and the New Age.

I will grant that New Age spirituality has little directly in common with modern Paganism outside of a few visual trappings. But many people came to Paganism through contact with New Age authors, stores, publications and events.

Beyond the New Age movement, the wider counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s had an even deeper impact on society, opening up the possibility of acceptance and widespread information on small and growing spiritual movements of all kinds, including ours.

That brings me to my own background. My parents and most of the adults I grew up around were on the rural, financially poor fringes of both the counterculture and the New Age. They didn’t have the connections, wealth or geographic positioning to be part of early Wicca and other more recognized Neopagan groups. Instead they were what are today (usually disparagingly) called hippies.

Specifically, my father and mother arrived on a rocky piece of land in Northeastern Oregon shortly before I was born with little more than a broken down old truck to their name. There was a weathered one-room school house on the property, which they shared with another family—until it burned to the ground one November night, while they were out, due to a faulty DYI woodstove.

My folks were left in the snow with my two-year-old brother and my mom pregnant with me. My dad built our first house—often referred to as a “shack” by outsiders—around and over the old truck, which no longer ran. That’s where I grew up, learning to grow food, pay attention to natural cycles and call the quarters on important occasions.

We weren’t Pagan in the ways most widely recognized today, but we were in the ways that actually matter. And we were not alone.

As I traveled around the world as a journalist, I met countless adult children of the hippies—some better adjusted than others. Some adopted their parents’ values and some rejected them outright. But they all share a new kind of cultural assumption of fluidity and diversity—whether they like it or not—that has fostered the modern Pagan and witchcraft movements.

Why do I care if Pagans make fun of hippie names or other symbols? Can’t I just take a joke? Lighten up?

It bothers me. Maybe it is because it is part of my own roots. Maybe I’m not pure enough in my rejection of all things New Age. But there is something here Pagans should pay attention to. These too are our ancestors. They are the ones on whose shoulders we stand. Not all giants are ancient or even very tall. They sometimes just muddled through harsher times so that we can have what we have today.

Think on it the next time you laugh at a hippie name or a fluffy bunny chant.

Why do daily spiritual practice?

It has been some time since I wrote about my daily spiritual practice. And I think it’s time I fully admitted that I have become a solitary Pagan, though I didn’t set out with this end in mind.

Those of my family and kin who practice a similar path are five thousand miles away. I was rejected by the only coven I ever actually managed to meet in person (supposedly because I wasn’t interested in angels). I tried to join several local Pagan groups and had to opt out of all of them because of either latent white supremacy or heavy-handed ego trips within the leadership.

There are no more publicly contactable groups to try within reasonable transportation distance. I tried to start a local group three times and was laughed off of forums and left alone with my circle of boulders that I had moved to my yard for this purpose.

And so here I am. Just me, my garden, my chickens, my big rocks and my emphatically disinterested husband and children.

I once hoped that my spirituality might bring me community, mutual support, friendship, family unity and even possibly a livelihood. Spiritual traditions and communities sometimes do bring these things and many of us want them. Some go into a religion or tradition specifically for the social standing, the image or a career.

I didn’t go in with a conscious agenda, but subconsciously I now think I did hope for at least the community part when I took up serious spiritual practice.

In a way, it might be a good thing in the end that my subconscious desires didn’t pan out. My spirituality has been stripped of all accouterments and fringe benefits.

It is what it is and what I get out of it will be only that which comes directly from the spirituality itself.

Do I really believe there are gods? Does my matron goddess really watch over me? Are the spirits of the land there and if so do they give a flying crap about my offerings? Does magic work in any shape or form? Does my spirituality matter at all? Does my life matter?

A solitary Pagan has to face the questions of the soul full on.

There are no pep talks and theory doesn’t matter much. From where I stand, what matters most is practice. And for me that means daily practice.

I have technically been a practicing Pagan since I was a kid, but for much of my life it was pretty sporadic. As a young adult, I was focused on my journalism career and traveling adventures. I had a tiny kit with a few stones and a traveling-spirit doll that I carried everywhere with me and propped up on window sills and against tree trunks from Ecuador to Nepal.

But in those years I didn’t ask the tough questions. Life was chaotic. But in one important way, it was easier. I had only myself to look out for.

Now times are harder in general and I have kids, a husband, students, animals, a garden and a house to look out for. I can’t avoid the tough questions any longer.

I’m in my third year of intensive daily practice. It has changed a little since I started but only in the details. And as a solitary Pagan it is the real heart of my practice, even if I occasionally do rituals with family members or friends as well as specific spiritual work elsewhere.

I do my main spiritual work in the morning, if possible before the rest of the family is awake. I light a candle on the altar by the hearth, say a quick greeting to the light of the new day and to the goddesses of light, burn a bit of a cleansing herb bundle and do a brief visualization for grounding, protection and blessings for ancestors and home guardians.

Then I get down the daily cards from the kitchen altar (a Tarot card drawn the day before and a card showing the exact moon phase) and take them (and a cup of green tea) to the main altar in my office. There I do a longer meditation focused on connection with my matron goddess. I make offerings, light candles and sip tea while reciting a chant.

I have been studying the goddesses of many cultures over the past two years. I study and make offerings to a different goddess each week. Then I renew the moon card and draw a new Tarot card for the day, which depending on how positive or negative it is I take as either a blessing or as guidance about potential pitfalls to be aware of during the day ahead. Then I write notes, noting down any divination or working I have done, making note of my daily Tarot card and physical and emotional state of being. I also write down the weather and outside temperature as well as whatever work I have done in the garden in my almanac and moon calendar.

These studies and notes keep me consciously aware of natural cycles and help to slowly improve my abilities in herbalism, gardening and divination.

When there is time I may follow up with a working for prosperity, artistic inspiration, healing, binding of threats or protection of my family, animals or garden or to celebrate the turn of the seasons. Occasionally I’ll do divination on a pressing question through Tarot, i-Ching, Runes or Ogham.

On good days, this practice leaves me feeling cleansed and invigorated, ready to take on anything. Not every day is a good day though. There are plenty of days when I have to hurry through my practice with little time for anything but jotted notes and rote recitation. On other days I’m slow to wake up, sick or nursing psychic wounds from the harsh social environment I live in.

On the hurried days, I go through the motions easily enough, now after so much recitation. Very rarely I devote just a few seconds and cut back most of my practice if I have to leave the house before six in the morning.

On the emotionally hard days, I muddle through, stopping and starting, spending overly long periods staring blankly at the wall or into a candle flame. Sometimes I cry or argue with my gods or question or rage in anger.

Not every day is good. In fact, the hard days seem to come ever more often. But I am rarely tempted to shirk my daily practice. The calming effect is clear, and beyond that, I like the warm glow of candles and the smell of herbs and incense. For those few moments, I feel that all is right in my world and that I can be who and what I have always wanted to be. The failures and disappointments of life fall away. The chaos is temporarily quiet.

Is that enough? Is that a good reason to spend 15 to 30 minutes in front of an altar every morning? My atheist husband sounds irritated and dismissive when he does mention my practice, which only happens in the context of arguments over who is more stressed and who should take on some new household task or problem.

If one truly believes there is nothing beyond the physical world and the zapping neurons in our brains, then we must rely only on the calming effects of this meditative practice to give it purpose. Supposedly it has health benefits, but it’s unlikely that I’m doing it to the specifications of whoever studies such things.

My thealogy is pretty shaky. I do believe there is more to the world than the physical realm. I have had bits and pieces of evidence of something beyond. But while I love and revere my goddess and enjoy studying goddesses of the world, I’m not exactly sure what I think a god or goddess is. I have theories—mostly pretty unorthodox theories. I want to believe in the Otherworld and the Good Neighbors or spirits of the land or both. I study on them but there are so many different perspectives and without a group to hold me to one line, it is easy to get lost.

I want to care for my ancestors, even though my personal ancestry is uninspiring. I still stand on their shoulders, whatever the price. And there are ancestors of my craft and of social justice movements that I honor.

Beyond all that, I have never managed to believe in a purely materialist reality. I don’t know for sure if my spiritual practice really brings me much more than some added calming, grounding and centering. I just know that when most of my life feels like I am carrying a backpack loaded with rocks, my spiritual practice lets me set it down briefly and it sometimes feels lighter when I pick it up again to go on with the day.

Before I committed to doing spiritual practice every day, the practice I did often felt like part of the load of rocks. It was hard to get to. It was one more task that I felt like I should do but often put off behind other more urgent practical tasks because it could technically wait. I’d go far too long without visiting my altar at all. My tools and books would get misplaced and it would then be much harder to return to it.

I made a commitment to do daily practice partly because the signals were that it was asked of me by my matron goddess and partly as an experiment. I am not certain how much it is a requirement from a goddess. I have missed a rare day or two in the past two years. Once I was truly too sick with an extreme flu that killed my mother-in-law and left my children severely dehydrated. And I didn’t get any irritation from my goddess.

It’s more the experiment part of the commitment that turned out to be important. Sure, it was hard at first. There were days I didn’t want to. I was tired and too busy. But I did it and after a while the struggle eased. Now this is one thing I don’t have to struggle over.

I feel incomplete without my spiritual practice and I enjoy it. In the end, that’s the bottom line. Why do daily spiritual practice? What is the purpose of spirituality?

It is good. It fills a need. It helps when things are hard and uplifts when things are good.

The turf wars

TERFs, trans women, imperfect bodies and girl-power messaging

I have a daughter with special needs, who sees all the advertising and messages about women’s bodies in the media that I can’t entirely filter for her and takes it in without even the usual mild resistance most kids have.

It’s all literal to her. She believes every word: There is only one way to be pretty. You must have this accessory to be OK. You must have this shade of hair to be popular. Ditsy, smart friends are OK to have, but beauty standards and charisma are most crucial for the person at the center of the story. You are loved if you get a pile of presents that fills your entire living room on your birthday. Anything less is not love.

We’ve had many conversations on these topics to no effect. She has difficulty with auditory processing and memory. Conversations don’t mean much. Videos and ads designed by psychologists to get at the deepest parts of the brain have much more power. The media world is more real to her than reality.

Now she has budding breasts and she hates them. I found her using scissors to cut off her first bits of body hair. I take her on my lap and try to gently explain. I read her stories about girl power and great women of history. I try to be a counter-weight but I’m just one drop against a tsunami of images and messages at school and on every device that she gets her hands on when I’m not looking.

My words are unscripted and analog. The videos are photoshopped and tailored by experts to addict. I’m losing ground every day.

The other day I posted a meme about the spiritual power of women, about creativity and the miracle of women’s fertility bringing new souls into the world. It featured a woman of color, breathtakingly beautiful in my view but not in line with Youtube standards. My daughter struggles with skin color a lot, being a trans-racially adopted child. I listen to her. I try to give her hope. This meme is a bit beyond her still, but it is a tiny shard of the mosaic of positive womanhood I am trying to build.

This is my world. I shared the image because this is what I want to support in the world.

What happened next is what has been happening a lot in my spiritual community in the past two years with girl-positive or woman-positive messages and images. I was rebuked by someone I respect in the Pagan community.

The image celebrated fertility and birth as a spiritual contribution of women. It did not include a caveat about how not all women have children. It did not backtrack to explain that trans-women don’t even have uteruses. Shame. Shame. Shame.

I was shocked at how deep the anger goes in me. I never could understand the TERF (Trans-exclusive Radical Feminists) concept before that moment. Why would anyone try to tell trans-women they weren’t “real women?” Why would anyone insist on a strict biological, limited concept of womanhood?

Ah, but to never be allowed to speak positively of women’s bodies? To relegate fertility and birth to a gross bodily function like farting, something a bit shameful that we should get over as quickly as possible and not talk about in public? Is this the price for including trans-women? Are you either TERF or anti-body.?

Until now, TERFs were mythical creatures I have never actually encountered in the wild, outside a few books from the 1970 and 1980s. I still haven’t met a real live TERF—a person who is a feminist AND is trans-phonic and/or homophobic. But the issue and the ostensible choice was being shoved in my face:

Choose! Your sense of ethical integrity and your trans friends or your relationship to your female body! Now! Choose! Shame on you for even hesitating!

I have a uterus. Little good it has done me. I have had extremely painful menstrual cramps since I was a young teen with no medical explanation and repeated anemia due to heavy bleeding. In addition, I had unexplained infertility. I spent six years fighting with my body with every technological weapon available in high-tech European universal health care, and no one could ever tell me why I couldn’t carry a child to term.

Do the TERFs think I’m a real woman?

I don’t really care if they do or not. TERF philosophy may have been briefly trendy in about 1993 but any remaining TERFs have clearly been pushed so far back into the underbrush that we’ll find them around the time we find the unicorns. They don’t appear to be a current threat to me or to my trans friends. Patriarchal images and messages degrading our bodies and souls most definitely are still a threat.

Additionally, when a friend puts out a post about the beauty of color or anything else visually amazing or spiritual, do I come along and slap them with a rebuke about the fact that there are blind people in the world, so somehow they should not mention such things? 

No, I don’t. I don’t even think it. And it isn’t that disability doesn’t carry as much social stigma as being trans.

I get flack every single day for being a blind person and almost no support or even tolerance in the Pagan community. I am excluded, talked down to, accused of faking or making it up, ignored, dismissed and socially marginalized. I don’t think I have ever seen a abled Pagan come to the defense of disabled Pagans and insist we must be included when we have been excluded all too often. Every little bit of adaptation or mere tolerance of presence that disabled Pagans have received was won through our own hard work and quiet—and even so resented—hand-raising.

On the other hand, trans awareness has grown exponentially in the Pagan community in the past several years, and that is a good thing. It will help all of us. I have been part of it, writing in defense of trans rights in the wider world and in Pagan communities.  The vast majority of people with disabilities are with you on this one. We know bodies don’t always do with they were supposed to.

I also have two close trans friends. But the fact is that I didn’t know one of them was trans for five years, because it isn’t actually something he has to deal with socially every single day if he doesn’t choose to, which he usually doesn’t. His transition was 20 years ago.

It affects him, certainly. Part of the reason the issue came up between us was that my husband and I as well as he and his wife were going through IVF at the same time, and everyone who goes through IVF asks other IVFers “What are you in for?” like prison inmates.

“Unexplained.”

“Aw, man. That’s a raw deal. Me, it’s being trans.”

“ Well, shucks.. I wish I at least had a reason. I didn’t even get a jury trial.”

That’s not a direct transcription of the conversation, but you get the point.

Nature plays chaotic and diverse with bodies. You don’t always get what you bargained for at birth. That does not make you “less than” anyone else. It does not mean you should not celebrate your body or that others shouldn’t celebrate theirs.

There are many ways to be a woman. Just because many women give birth and it is a big part of being among women does not mean that those who don’t have children, for whatever reason, are less women. I couldn’t biologically have children no matter how hard I tried, even though I do have a uterus. That meme about women’s spiritual power of birth doesn’t offend me. Since I needed to have children and I was clearly meant to be a mother, I adopted them.

It does not make me feel any less of a woman because I didn’t give birth. It does not make me less in awe of birth and the creative power of women.

I did participate in birth. I was born. I was born from a uterus. We all share that.

And there is nothing wrong with it. It doesn’t make trans people “wrong” or veneration of women’s fertility “wrong.“ When talk of women and birth stings trans women or infertile women, are those who discuss it to blame? Are those who describe a beautiful piece of music as a spiritual treasure of all humanity to blame if a deaf person can’t relate?

I say no. Don’t rub it in when your body has some great power that another body may not have. There is no superiority and inferiority here. There is only primal awe. We are. Look at the amazing diversity of life! Isn’t it dazzling and infinitely discoverable?

The pain comes more from internalized, socially abusive doubt creeping in from a culture that has been divorced from nature and from our bodies. If you are a trans woman, there is a reason you are a woman. It may not be to give birth. But it is still woman-ness.  

There is something definable about being a woman. That’s why trans people care whether they are perceived as their true gender. If there was nothing that defined a woman, there would be no trans people. Fertility and birth are part of who we are, even if only a fractional part. It is not our whole but it is there. It is in our consciousness and in our ancestry. We don’t have to each fulfill every part of it personally to be a valid part of the whole.

So please stop the berating of people who say positive things about women.  We still live in a society where the biggest and loudest messages about women are very negative. And then along comes this undercurrent saying we can’t even say something positive about women because we aren’t all the same.

We are all different. The fact that I can’t see does not make me resent people who can.

As a person with a physical difference, I want to sit at the table, not dictate what is said at the table.  Yes, living in a sighted world is always going to be difficult for blind people. But I don’t insist that the whole world be adapted for blind people. That wouldn’t work out very well for my deaf friends.

Trans people are here. We accept them and love them. We can’t help that nature has made a world in which they are not the average, and in which giving birth is a gendered thing. 

My spirituality is tied to nature. Rather than ask that we ignore the gendered basis of human fertility, I would ask, as many Native Americans traditionally have, what spiritual lessons we can learn from the fact that gender is not a simple binary. Trans people should not feel excluded from Pagan fertility talk. They should be considered an integral part, those who carry and embody a deep mystery.

The nature of sunrise is to be unrealistically bright, full of promise and always recurring

Gray light seeps into the darkness. Ice glistens at the coldest hour of the day.

A breath--too cold but bringing a whisper of freedom.

Then a ribbon of brilliance along the horizon.

Creative Commons image by Nicolas Gent

A quickened heartbeat.

Finally color--first pink, then peach and gold, spilling ever more rapidly, like cascading joyful music, like the chatter of children and birds, like waterfalls. The sky lights up.

Ice crystals glitter and sparkle. Every branch is outlined in light, the earth bright and crackling. Frozen mist curls in the low places, painting pictures of another world. The first footprints are precious but also a desecration. There's an urge to dance but cold muscles refuse.

This is sunrise in winter. The night is long and the sun is unnaturally, painfully bright. The nature of sunrise is to be too bright.

It is also its nature to be full of promise. There is a sense at the hour of daybreak that all things are possible. Goodwill and hope come swiftly, especially if there's coffee. 

We promise ourselves that things will go well today. We plan work and play, eager to cram in more than can possibly be accomplished in the hours ahead. Like New Year's resolutions, the plans of dawn are full of conviction and vigor before the lazy slug-a-beds of duties and troubles reawaken a little later.

This moment of fresh enthusiasm is necessary to the day, just as it is necessary to the year.

In some circles, it has become fashionable to ridicule New Year's resolutions. "We're all adults here after all. We know that people don't really improve their habits. They start but they don't last." 

It's the nature of sunrise to be too bright, too enthusiastic and ultimately illusive. 

And yet, there is one thing that "us grown-ups" tend to forget. It is also the nature of sunrise to be endlessly recurring. Sunrise may be just one moment and it's hope may be fleeting.

But it always comes back. And that is not fleeting.

That endures.

People don't improve their habits in one sunrise or one New Year's resolution. But they do in a hundred sunrises or a thousand. 

Five years ago, I started to change my habits. I got up early to do spiritual practice and meditation. At first it only happened sometimes. I tried to get up too early and greedily get many other things done before the children woke up and the lack of sleep brought me to my knees. 

I sprinted and faltered--for months at a time. I started again and again.

Now I have been getting up just a half hour early for three years. I've missed a few days due to acute illnesses but I can count those on my fingers.

These past three years have been among the hardest I've lived through, due to circumstances beyond my control. I don't know how I would have made it this far without those early morning moments of peace. 

I am deeply thankful for sunrises, particularly that they reliably return and never abandon me. 

Why do we strive to live morally and ethically?

“Why can’t I have all the presents?” one of my kids shrieks.

The tone isn’t joking the way you might think. She is demanding, furious, her face red and sweaty. For a moment, she is overcome with that primitive urge that seems to defy all ethics. I call it the “me-want-now” urge. We all know it, though we don’t always admit it and some of us bury it deeper than others.

“I want everything! They’re mine, not his!” She kicks toward her brother but I pull her away. He is often ready with sibling comebacks, but this one of those moments when his older sister shocks him into silence.

Some kids seem to be born with a moral compass on the most basic level. They have the urge too. but they also get that other people have it and that we’ve got to meet somewhere in the middle. Fair is fair. They can be persuaded to see the logic of “How would you feel if someone did that to you?”

But this is by no means a universal trait. And unfortunately, my kids aren’t among the budding saints of the world.

Creative Commons image via Pixabay

I not only have kids myself, I also teach preschool and early elementary ESL students. Two sisters ages 5 and 8, who I teach, are always cuddling. The older one looks out for the younger one—making sure she gets the colors of crayon she needs and that she’s dressed warmly to go out—but then insists on winning all the games in recompense. And most kids aren’t even that nice.

Between the current wave of right-wing, anti-compassion politics and my struggles with my own little humans, I have been thinking a lot on ethics lately..

We blithely talk about teaching children to know “right from wrong,” but increasingly it seems like adults in our world don’t know or at least wildly disagree on the subject. OK, most people—at least publicly—get behind the rules of not killing or physically harming people or stealing.

But every week I come across at least one online post declaiming on how wimps who are hurt by verbal bullying should grow a thicker skin—i.e. exclusionist opinions in direct opposition to what I know of as ethics. And clearly, while most of us think it isn’t okay to kill or steal, we go on buying products the production of which requires killing and stealing from the poorest people in the world.

What is it we really believe? And why would we strive to live morally and ethically even if we could agree on what it would entail?

Abrahamic religions have an answer that is so widely disseminated in the world today that I doubt there is a fluent English speaker who isn’t well versed in it, regardless of whether or not you follow one of those faiths. There is the carrot of Heaven and the stick of Hell. And each particular religion or specific sect has its set of commandments or moral rules saying what will be grounds for sentencing you to Hell or rewarding you with Heaven.

For those who believe literally in this Heaven and Hell thing, the ethical life may seem relatively simple. Follow the rules or you will suffer. It’s a fear doctrine with a bit of a possible reward held out—not unlike my methods with my children. “Stop kicking your brother or you will lose your video privileges and be banished to extra chores-ville!” I’m less eternal about it, but only because I—unlike the Abrahamic God—can’t manage to hold grudges and don’t have guards to enforce my Hell while I am otherwise occupied.

Another popular method is the Hindu concept of Karma. Some more sophisticated versions perceive Karma as primarily about providing specific lessons that one needs to learn. But there is always an element of “If you behave unethically, you will suffer as a result, possibly in another life, but eventually you will suffer.”

This may be conceived of as learning a necessary lesson in order to be more enlightened in a future incarnation or as straight-up karmic punishment, depending on who you listen to, but either way, it’s a method of enforcement.

My parenting often has a Karma-like element too. “If you break your toys, you won’t have them. If you use up all your time fighting, you won’t have time to play. If you break someone else’s toy, you’ll have to work it off.”

In parenting circles, we like to call this “natural consequences” rather than punishment. Just like we like to call the Heaven and Hell version, “reward-based discipline.”

Every reward entails the possibility of its denial. And every natural consequence that a parent enforces is only one step removed from punishment.

It may be that immaturity leads many of us to require this kind of external moral compass. As children we almost all need it to some degree. Many adults still appear to need it. Without constraints, most humans don’t act particularly ethically. This is why we have law enforcement after all.

Some people will argue that morality and ethics are nothing but social constructs, and thus somehow suspect and questionable. Many animals don’t appear to have ethics, these ethics deniers argue.

But that is a belief primarily espoused by those humans who spend very little time with animals or in nature. In fact, very few animals kill beyond self-defense, the need for food or competition for procreation, i.e. beyond absolute necessity. Some do but most do not. Many animals respect the territorial rights of others with only exceptional outbreaks of violent struggle. And recent research is showing a remarkable number of animal species that are capable of compassion, loyalty, empathy, revenge, community cooperation, communication and occasionally even heroism.

So it isn’t really possible to say that ethics is a merely human conceit.

A secular, humanist perspective acknowledging this science often simply claims that we want to do “what is right” without any basis for it. And perhaps those young children and animals who act ethically—seemingly without threat or reward—may be proof that this principle has some traction. This reason for ethics is pleasingly uncomplicated, but often there are hidden reasons.

My extraordinarily well-behaved eight-year-old student wants the approval of adults. She is highly motivated for approval and enjoys being praised more than most kids. She also enjoys winning though, which is why she insists on winning every game over her younger sister.

There is a reward being sought and a consequence being avoided. The reward of praise and approval and the consequence of disapproval. The fact that her reward and consequence equation is a bit less tangible and forceful than that required by some kids does not negate the fact that it is still there. She glows under adult praise and so pursues it.

It is still an external reward but perhaps it is easier to transition from such a non-tangible reward to an internal reward and thus to ethical independence. That is why parents often try to motivate children through praise alone, hoping that our children will not always need a carrot or a stick.

As a follower of Pagan gods and a seeker for spiritual insight in ancient traditions, I am often fascinated by the ethical systems of ancient cultures. Many do not appear particularly moral to us today. The concepts of ethics were different and some ancient cultures were quite hierarchical and ruthless. But the deeper you go into tribal, hunter-gatherer traditions, the less hierarchical and the less external reward-consequence thinking you find.

It is not that there is no possible reward for ethical acts but in these ancient cultures there is a heavier reliance on internal rewards, those we give only to ourselves in the form of self-respect and s healthy self image.

This is what I am interested in. Whether we call it enlightenment, awakening or honor, it all comes down to one thing—self-respect.

Within reason, children need consequences and rewards. And in law enforcement, these mechanisms seem necessary as well. But when it comes to most ethics and my own deepest beliefs, I want to live my life ethically based not on a hoped-for reward or a feared consequence from outside, but rather because my self-respect demands it.

Unless I am within a specific tradition that uses a different term to mean the same thing, I use the more universal term ‘self-respect” because that most clearly gets at the meaning. My goal is to live well, ethically and morally in such a way that I can feel unreserved self-respect.

This is one reason I follow an earth-centered spiritual path with ties to ancient cultures. This spiritual approach lends itself to the ethics of self-respect. I strive to teach my children these values as well. It is not easy in a world filled with instant, external gratification from consumerism and passive entertainment. But when they do well, my first response is not a material reward or even my approval, but a comment to notice how they feel inside.