“Meditations on the Path of Knowledge”
I was having a hard time figuring out where to start this discussion. Maybe the best place to start is what I think divination is not. I use runes and tarot for my divination work and I do not think I am psychic, I do not think I can see or predict the future, and I don’t think I can glean anything I didn’t already know. What I think I am doing is changing the context of my question.
Your brain and my brain are wonderful problem solving machines. However, sometimes they get stuck on a problem, and need a jump start to start churning away again. For me, this is where divination comes in. When I am feeling like I am thinking in circles I will pull out the cards or runes and do some readings. Usually the subjects of the cards and runes will start me thinking from another direction. In this way, divination helps change the context of my problem by adding other elements or ideas I hadn’t considered. Another way I use divination is to break the “haze”. I write code/scripts for work and after a day of nothing but trying to communicate with computers sometimes I feel like my whole brain is frozen. The act of casting runes and then trying to make sense of them wakes my brain up a bit.
Tarot is a tool I have used for many years. I am a fan of the Celtic cross layout. Usually I start with my problem or the general “context” in my head but unclear. Either I don’t know what to do next, or I have a problem and I am stuck on it, or just this area of my life has been causing a lot of stress. Normally the cross section of the spread helps bring my problem more into focus for me. The addition of the meaning of the cards as a parameter in the problem equation generally serves to clarify my thinking. Those last 4 cards generally leave me with a more firm understanding of my issue. All this new information helps my epic problem solving machine chug away. Sometimes by the time I get to the end of the reading, I know the solution. The cards didn’t tell me. The cards helped guide my own natural problem solving ability.
This doesn’t mean that there is no “magic” when I read cards. I think on the contrary, the fact that the cards always seem to tell me exactly what I need to know is magic. It is uncanny, too how one deck is always positive and the other always negative (like having an optimistic and pessimistic friend to talk your problems through). Because I “know” I am just using cards with different meanings to help clear my brain and solve my own problems, and I don’t “believe” there is a guiding hand, I am always left with a feeling of awe. What controls how the cards fall is the shuffle, and I control the shuffle. What always astonishes me is how no matter how stuck I am, the cards have a way of clarifying my thinking.
I guess what you could say is that the runes and cards don’t tell me anything I don’t already know… its just finding where it is hiding in my brain, and that is magic.
I am reading a book on traditional runes, which I will need to make a new set of. My old set I made in high school with pebbles and a sharpie. I have a set of “witches runes” that were made when I first moved to Hawaii. I like them. Simple. These because they are so simple have far less instruction on how to interpret them and work best when my brain is not all muddy.
I am out of writing time for today, so I guess I will have to revisit this topic! I am already enjoying sharing my views and exploring them myself. I think this blog series will be good for me!
Just remember, my views are my own, subject to change at any time and without notice and in no way an attack on your own.
