• Divination Articles

    Tarot with Lady Saoirse

    Yule 2023 Bright Blessings! As Yule approaches, you might be thinking of which decks you would like to buy to give to loved ones as gifts- and you might be thinking of which decks you hope to get as Yule gifts yourself! Instead of focusing on cards this time, let’s set them aside and discuss the runes. Yule, is after all, named after Odin, and Odin was the one who gave mankind the runes. Some people say the runes are just letters of the alphabet some smart Heathen incorporated into a new form of divination at some point. Others say that Odin intended the runes for people to use to…

  • Divination Articles

    Tarot with Lady Saoirse

    Tarot with Lady Saoirse Litha 2023     Bright Blessings! In the last article, I had some tips for reading tarot, and how talent is required. No matter how much you read and how many classes you take, if you are not intuitive, doing psychic readings is not something you will excel at. So that brings us to a question then. How do you get a tarot reading from somebody else? You would think all you had to do is pick a random reader, then pay them, and everything else would be perfect. Sometimes, it works out that way, but sometimes it doesn’t. There are a lot of reasons that…

  • Divination Articles

    Tarot with Lady Saoirse

    Tarot with Lady Saoirse Beltane 2023   (Photo by Viva Luna Studios on Unsplash)   Bright Blessings! Some of you may have read my previous column Celebrating the Old Ways in New Times or my film and tv show reviews on Witch & Popcorn. I decided it was time for something new, and at PaganPages.org we are blessed with plenty of people who do Sabbat articles so I don’t have to do another one. I am beginning a Tarot column this issue. Various different topics will be covered, and there are just so many wonderful things to explore about Tarot and card divination in general. I thought for the first…

  • Divination Articles

    Road to Runes

    Road to Runes: Ehwaz – A Journey in Trust   I finally got a new set of runes. In fact, it’s one I’ve had for a long time that I was going to sell, years ago, but for some reason have clung onto. Now I know why! It’s a set of carnelian tumble stones (rocks shaken in a tumbling machine until they are smooth) each inscribed with one of the Elder Futhark. I don’t go in for a whole lot of crystal magic as mining crystals has a lot of negative impacts on the Earth and the people involved. However, I also don’t waste what I have, and these are…

  • Divination Articles

    Road to Runes

    Nauthiz – Need and Sacrifice   As part of my ongoing journey to understand more about the runes, I’ve decided to go totally random and use a rune generator rather than my physical set of runes. I’ve fallen out with these runes for personal reasons, and I do have another set but I don’t feel like I’m attuned to them yet. As frustrating as this purgatory-like stage is for divination purposes, it’s the ideal opportunity for getting some straight up learning in without questioning my own abilities or biases. The rune generator I’m using is ifate.com which I also chose at random after a quick Google search. This month I’ve…

  • Divination Articles

    Tarot Talk

    Comparing The 9 of Pentacles & The Empress     This month, we will examine two cards that seem to have similar messages, with the intention of discovering more subtle meanings. We will mix the Major Arcana and the Minor Arcana as we compare The Empress and the 9 of Pentacles. First, let’s review some terms. If you’ve read my column before, you can skip the next two paragraphs. There are 22 Major Arcana cards in a Tarot deck, with numbers from 0 to 21; the Majors usually deal with broader and more far-reaching life experience issues, archetypes that are easy for us to identify with and connect with at…

  • Divination Articles

    Tarot Talk

    Comparing The Hierophant & The Devil     Let’s look at an interesting pairing this month, and compare The Hierophant with The Devil. Not everyone is comfortable examining at The Devil, but there are interesting similarities between these two cards. First, let’s review some terms. If you’ve read my column before, you can skip the next two paragraphs. There are 22 Major Arcana cards in a Tarot deck, with numbers from 0 to 21; the Majors usually deal with broader and more far-reaching life experience issues, archetypes that are easy for us to identify with and connect with at some point in our lives. An archetype (pronounced “ark eh type”)…

  • Divination Articles

    Tarot Talk

    Comparing The Emperor & The Hierophant     We have already compared The Empress and The High Priestess. This month, we will return to the Major Arcana, and compare The Emperor and The Hierophant. Before we begin breaking them down, let’s define and remind ourselves of some terms. There are 22 Major Arcana cards in a Tarot deck, with numbers from 0 to 21; the Majors usually deal with broader and more far-reaching life experience issues, archetypes that are easy for us to identify with and connect with at some point in our lives. An archetype (pronounced “ark eh type”) is a generic, idealized model of a person, an object,…

  • Reviews

    Tarot Deck Review – The Wayfarer Tarot by Stacy Salpietro-Babb and Margaret Shipman

    Tarot Deck Review The Wayfarer Tarot Guidebook by Stacy Salpietro-Babb Artwork & Design by Margaret Shipman Publisher: Self Published via Kickstarter Publication Date: 2018     The Wayfarer Tarot is created by Stacy Salpietro-Babb (guidebook) and Margaret Shipman (artwork and design), first edition 2018 ISBN: 978-0-578-42920-5. This beautiful deck was self-published via a Kickstarter campaign that ran during 2018. Stacy and Margaret began working together to create The Wayfarer Tarot during 2013, forming the ideas that would become the deck, and combining Stacy’s vision for the meaning of the card and Margaret’s visual interpretation. The Wayfarer Tarot comes in a 3 inch by 5 inch cardboard box with a matte…

  • Reviews

    Video Book Review – Doctoring the Devil: Notebooks of an Appalachian Conjure Man by Jake Richards

    Video Book Reviewed Doctoring the Devil Notebooks of an Appalachian Conjure Man by Jake Richards Publisher: Weiser Books 288 Pages Publication Date: 4/01/2021   Bright Blessings, The Appalachian Mountains stretch from Canada, through New York, and into the South, clear down to the Cumberland region and cover over 200,000 square miles. This includes 420 counties in 13 different States and are home to more than 25 million people. It’s where tons of European settlers from mostly Germany, Scotland, Ireland, and parts of Eastern Europe set down roots to call home when they immigrated to The Americas. Many Indigenous Native Americans, and people of African descent made the Appalachias home as…