Leaves Fall — a Divine Blueprint tarot spread for Autumn

Last week on the blog, I talked a lit­tle bit about con­tem­pla­tive tarot. I’d like to be clear: this is not my spe­cialty. I don’t believe I am a very con­tem­pla­tive per­son at the core. I am able to think deeply — on an intel­lec­tual level — about any sit­u­a­tion, of course, and I can reach a state of empa­thy when I’m read­ing for another, but I’ve always had a bit of cog­ni­tive dis­so­nance when it comes to really feel­ing & sort­ing through my own bull­shit (avoid­ance is much eas­ier for me — which is prob­a­bly why I’ll die of an inop­er­a­ble brain tumor some­day). Also, I don’t like to cry. Just think­ing about cry­ing makes me feel nau­seous. And damned if not every time I agree to go there — whether I’m read­ing for myself or am hav­ing my cards read by another pro­fes­sional, I end up all weepy and wet-faced.

So I’ve only just recently tried this shift in my self-care (jour­nal, yoga, hot baths) that is inwardly focused and I must say, it’s scary! It’s really unpleas­ant to face some of what you might expe­ri­ence when you begin to seek these kinds of answers from The Uni­verse. What you find within your­self may be ugly or need cor­ralling. You may linger over a read­ing for sev­eral days or a week. I am not a psy­chol­o­gist, but I think that’s ok. In fact, I think it’s healthy to ask big ques­tions and then feel dis­turbed when  you get the answers. It means you’re human. It means you’re vul­ner­a­ble. It means your heart hasn’t gone com­pletely cold, despite your­self .

So I want you to take the fol­low­ing read­ing blue­prints and advice from a posi­tion of shar­ing what I’m work­ing with. And we can go through this together.

Ooh, I said blue­print. I don’t like the phrase “tarot spread” because I don’t think it’s very good descrip­tion of the actual usage. I also find the word spread kind of ugly — purely aes­thetic. I’ve con­sid­ered other words that might bet­ter con­vey the pur­pose — lay­outs, maps, posi­tions, etc. I like “blue­print” because it also sug­gests that we’re build­ing some­thing. We are. We’re build­ing a base of under­stand­ing of the Self.

The other aspect of the fol­low­ing blue­prints (this is the first of a series that will run through the end of Octo­ber) is that they’re all Halloween-themed. This adds a layer of spook, for sure. We’re going to be using scary themes — mon­sters, ghosts, death, after­life, etc., as the back­drop for our read­ings. In work­ing with these spreads, I’ve noticed that the themes add seri­ous depth to my expe­ri­ence. In a way, it’s like enjoy­ing a scary movie — thrilling — because we’re actu­ally safe the entire time.

Of course, I’m actu­ally kind of creepy and morose and I prob­a­bly have hid­den goth ten­den­cies… so your mileage on these spreads may vary.

The first spread we’re going to exam­ine is about the chang­ing sea­sons. The equinox was a few days ago. In the North­ern Hemi­sphere, it’s fall. This means cool­ing weather, first frosts, leaves chang­ing color and the onset of the har­vest sea­son. I’ve called this blue­print “Leaves Fall” and I think it’s very appro­pri­ate for this time of year (you know, if you’re enter­ing the fall sea­son, like I am — every­one else can just wait six months!).

You must under­stand this if you want to get the most mileage out of your readings:

1. The blue­print is the metaphor.
2. A tarot read­ing is a narrative.
3. We use the metaphor to add lay­ers of under­stand­ing to our narratives.

In this case, the metaphor is a tree in the fall. The leaves are falling — being shed to con­serve energy while the tree hiber­nates for the win­ter. After the leaves fall, they become com­post to nour­ish next Spring’s new growth. This is not a spread to use if you are begin­ning an out­ward explo­ration of the world, but is rather suited for the times in our lives when we need to become self-reflective, con­cerned with our own energy usage and regroup while we wait for a re-emergence with the arrival of brighter sea­sons. This spread looks at our his­to­ries, our growth, our gifts and then exam­ines what is ready to fall. This spread answers the ques­tion, “What can I let go of to bet­ter pre­serve the self? What hap­pens to the leaves of self I’ve let fall?”

The first thing we do when we begin any act of div­ina­tion is to get grounded. I’ve recorded this short ground­ing med­i­ta­tion that you can use if you are hav­ing trou­ble or feel­ing off balance/out of focus. Get your cards and your read­ing place ready. Light can­dles, make an offer­ing to your internal/external Spirit, etc. Lis­ten to/download the ground­ing guided med­i­ta­tion by click­ing here.

So you are grounded and safe. Before I do a read­ing, after I have grounded, I shuf­fle until I reach this place that is close to trance — and then I find know­ing. I know the cards are in order to reveal what­ever The Uni­verse might reveal. I don’t ques­tion this, I just know it. This is basi­cally how div­ina­tion works, in case you were won­der­ing

Place seven cards so the arrange­ment approx­i­mates the blue­print. I start at the bot­tom of the tree and work up, then lay the two cards on the right. I am not con­cerned with ordered num­bers with this blue­print. The tree should grow organ­i­cally, so trust your hands to put the cards in the cor­rect order, how­ever you find your hands working.

Let’s talk about the metaphors in this blue­print and how you might use them to add a layer of mean­ing to your nar­ra­tive. The fol­low­ing are just ideas you might imple­ment. Use them as sug­ges­tions, not hard and fast guidelines:

• What roots me — The tree’s roots. Where were you planted? Where did you grow? What is your con­nec­tion to your past? To your per­sonal, fam­ily, ances­tral his­tory? To the his­tory of the Universe?
• How I grew — The tree trunk. What sum­ma­rizes your expe­ri­ence of growth? What describes your inner rings of growth? What is at your core? What is ingrained (as in, wood grain)?
• What sus­tains — (two cards) The tree leaves. What do you use to sus­tain your­self in the present? As the leaves turn sun­light into energy, where do you find your source of energy? What have you used (a skill? a tal­ent? a gift? a per­son?) to live in the way you do/am/have been?
• What I’ve brought to fruition — The fruit of the tree. What has come into being as a result of what sus­tains? What is your high­est poten­tial for growth? What is the ulti­mate gift you cul­ti­vate? Is it sweet? Bit­ter? Use­ful? Poisonous?
• What falls — The falling leaf. What is the part of self you need to let go of? Which part of self no longer serves? In order to sur­vive another sea­son, what must be shed?
• Where it rests — The fallen leaf. What is your expe­ri­ence as you let go? Where do you move away from? What grows from your tran­si­tion? How do you cope with what’s left behind?

And finally, how might a read­ing go with this spread? Since this entry is top­pling a cool grand in word count any­way, I’ll post my read­ing on Tues­day morn­ing, along with the mod­i­fi­ca­tions for using the Lenor­mand or another ora­cle instead of tarot. But in the mean­while, if you’d like to try this and post about it, be sure to leave a com­ment here so I can pop over to your blog and check it out!

Oh, and because I’m just super-fantastic like that, I’ve made you a handy PDF you can down­load with the com­plete dia­gram and sug­ges­tions for usage, so you can turn off the damn glow­ing screen and get some good old fash­ioned div­ina­tion done. Right click and save here!

Until tomor­row, gen­tle readers!