Does post-Halloween depression descend on you as quick as icy November wind?
Halloween roadkill breaks my heart. You’ve seen it. Discounted bat and skull decorations, neglected costumes, stale candy shoved onto back store shelves, making room for the green and red explosion of tinsel, elves, and Santas.
Doesn’t it seem like Halloween is cruelly ripped away? As if Halloween were a passing fancy, picked up, used and thrown aside like the crunchy leaves your dad used to rake into black garbage bags when you were done jumping in them.
But, I’m cheered by the fact that winter solstice and the longest nights of the year loom ahead. That the chilly nights of November and December are ripe for magic, meditation and reflection. That Charles Dickens’s best ghost stories are about Christmas.
Plus, it’s almost time to bring a live, living tree into the house. And what could be spookier than an evening visit from a mysterious man bearing gifts?
So, I ignore the crass commercialization and monetization of the season as the year winds down. I recall what ensuing holidays are really, truly and cross-culturally about. Darkness and rebirth.
And I reach for my cards … because the joy of reading tarot is that we peer behind the veil every time we flip a card. No matter the calendar date.
1. Trick or Treat with Your Cards
~Shuffle your deck randomly and select any number of cards you like, face down. ~Imagine these are doors you will knock on. ~Say, “Trick or treat!” and flip the card as if the door were opening. ~Let the card answer you with a message. ~The message is your treat!
2. Perform Victorian Parlor Tricks with a Card
~ An old Victorian divinatory game instructs a woman to walk upstairs, backwards, eating a boiled egg, without salt,and peer into a looking glass. There, she shall see the face of her true love. ~Do this very same thing but use a random tarot card instead of or in addition to a mirror.
3. Perform a Reading for a Dead Historical Figure
~ Have you ever given a reading to a ghost? You might try it. Perhaps you’d like to read cards for Washington Irving, Ed Wood or Bram Stoker. ~ Communicate with them through your cards.
4. Dress as a Card
~ You don’t have to wear an all out costume. ~ Wear a moon hair clip to connect to the High Priestess, a scythe necklace to connect with Death. A faux snakeskin belt to connect with the Magician. ~ Do so mindfully. Wear the symbol of the card, you also invoke the energy of the archetype.
5. Use a Tarot Card in a Magic Spell
~ Tarot cards are powerful visual tools. Archetypes contain energetic reserves. Use both in spell work. ~ And if you’ve never cast a spell, perhaps it is high time you try…