The Wheel of the Year provides a framework for observing the connection (or sometimes disconnection) between my inner life and the world around me.
Why I follow the Wheel of the Year
Category: The Wildwood Tarot
Imbolc, awakening, Brigid, and an altar
This is the quickening of the year. I can feel something building, getting faster, as the sap rises in the bodies of trees.
A birthday reading with the Wildwood Tarot
Water and earth, gratitude and flow, creativity and vision, to mark the start of my 34th year.
Change itself is steadfast
Two cards - the Wheel for the inevitability of change, Steadfastness for finding an anchor, a place from which to observe.
Get your Wild Unknown Tarot 1st edition before they’re gone for ever!
When the second edition of the Wild Unknown Tarot comes out next month, the first edition will be no more. Fortunately I stocked up!
The dying of the light: An autumn equinox tarot reading
I had so much to ask about, so much that has swirled around inside me for the past six months, so much that I want to pin down, crystalise, make sense of. This five card spread felt just right.
Midsummer
Draw near to the hearth – Eight of Bows
What is a hearth, to you? Is it an image of the fireside, cats curled in the glow? A bonfire, a beach fire, a fireplace? Friends gathered around… or flickering solitude? Rubbing your hands to get warm, or curled in a blanket with a book and a whiskey? However you go fireside, now is the season …
A strange place: between The Mirror and The Guardian
Right now on the Wildwood's Wheel of the Year, The Mirror asks us to surrender our will and be led by our deeper, more mysterious urges. Across the lake, The Guardian awaits, beckoning us into her cave.
Seasonal shift – fire into water
We’re approaching my favourite time of year. When summer begins to fade…mornings are crisp and cold, I can see my breath, there’s mist on the canal but it’s bright. The air quality is changing and it’s just so beautiful. In the Wildwood Tarot (and in many other decks), each season has a corresponding suit. The accompanying Wildwood Tarot …
Princess Mononoke’s Forest Spirit and the Stag of the Wildwood Tarot
Sharing the spring equinox with The Archer is The Stag. As card eight in the major arcana, this replaces the traditional ‘Justice’ card. Reading the Wildwood Tarot guidebook, I am instantly struck by The Stag’s resemblance to the Forest Spirit in Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke. Like the Forest Spirit, The Stag is ‘forest king and guardian, …
Spring Equinox and The Archer
Focused, determined, strong and stunning, The Archer draws back her arrow to shoot right to the heart of her target. This is a card for the spring. Based on the Wheel of the Year, the Wildwood Tarot places The Archer (card number seven, or The Chariot in ‘regular’ decks) at the spring equinox – the …
Post-holiday blues reading
Okay, so it might seem a little odd to write about self-care just a few days after coming back from a (first ever!) beach holiday in Ibiza…but hey. Maybe I’ve got the post-holiday blues. Thinking about self-employment and how to get by in the big wide world right up until the moment of departure, then …
Magic wands
So! 2013. A year I've decided will be characterised by hard work, being even more broke and still having a lot of fun. Awesome. Without wanting to go into detail here and now, there's a big project brewing - perhaps not huge by other peoples' stan...
Snow and green shoots – an Imbolc tarot reading
Wheat from chaff – Seven of Bows
Daily draw - 21st September 2011 I'd resolved to bring a little Tarot routine into my life, by aiming to sit and write about one card each day when I got home. Suffice to say, that ain't happened! What with ceilings caving in and ongoing internet ...
Busy kicks and bending tricks – Two of Pentacles
Daily draw - 12th September 2011 D'ya know, I don't think I've *ever* had it come up in a reading, either for myself or for anyone else. What are the chances? I wonder if there are any other cards I've never drawn. Hmm! Anyway, as a result of this...
The Guardian of shadows – Wildwood Tarot
Daily draw - 6th June 2011 I've been missing my lovely Wildwood Tarot so decided to return to it today for a daily card. Today's is The Guardian - a terrifying skeleton figure, human in body-bones, but with the skull, teeth and claws of something ...
Page of Swords
Daily draw - 28th May 2011 The Page of Swords. Interesting card! I'm kinda in the middle of a mapping exercise to help me learn more about the personalities of the sixteen court cards, and thought I'd have a little moment with this character. Page...
A little more knitting..
Awww...I'm excited to say that the Wildwood Tarot now has its own little pouch. The basic pattern is here... And then Anna K got one too: A different pattern, cus her cards are smaller...I made it as a graph as I went along so hope it can be under...
O Wildwood – what can you teach me?
Okay - over on the lovely lovely TABI forum* is a new study group dedicated to the amazing new Wildwood Tarot - there are a few of us over there having a little love affair and learning together as we discuss different cards. As well as individual...
The Ancestor – the heart of the Wildwood
Daily draw - 3rd May 2011 The Ancestor. Wow. She's every bit as scary as her traditional equivalent - the Heirophant - and yet there's something spellbinding - something which draws you in to her open arms. (The Ancestor, from the Wildwood Tarot, ...
A forest menagerie – the court of the Wildwood Tarot
I think my favourite thing about the Wildwood Tarot is the court cards. Like many people it seems, I've always struggled a bit with the courts...and it's hard to say why. I've had my favourites - like friends, I feel I know them inside out - but w...
Alternative approaches to the Ten of Cups
Daily draw - 29th April 2011 Traditionally representing family as the ultimate achievement of emotional fulfillment, in the Waite-Smith Ten of Cups card, we see a 'husband and wife' couple, two kids and a cute li'l red-roofed cottage all under a g...
King of Stones (Wildwood Tarot)
Daily draw - 27th April 2011 The King of Pentacles. Rich-man, leader, businessman, boss. Head gardener. Paterfamilias. I drew him yesterday from the Waite-Smith...and thought...meh. I looked at his lovely rich robes, the vines, the gold, the abund...