Are Tarot Cards Safe?

Every year I get countless emails from people who feel drawn to Tarot, yet are simultaneously afraid of it.

“I am so fascinated by Tarot but I don’t want to open a can of worms.”

“My husband says that Tarot cards are evil, but I don’t know – do I need to be careful?”

“Is there any danger of bad spirits entering my home if I use Tarot cards?”

So why is this? Why all this fear surrounding Tarot?

When you dabble in the psychic arts with things like mediumship, channeling, Tarot, psychic development and meditation, you are indeed entering another world.

Many fear that by lifting the veil between the physical and the spiritual, you may be opening the door to not just helpful spirits and energies but negative ones as well.

But is there really a risk of inviting negative energy into your life when you dabble with Tarot cards? Or is this just something that religious relatives harp on about?

Well, there IS a real danger in using Tarot cards, but it’s not what you think. No demonic force is going to descend on you if you crack open a deck of Tarot cards, but that doesn’t mean Tarot doesn’t have it’s dark side….more on this in bit.

Often, the purpose of Tarot is misconstrued and it gets lumped in with things like Ouiji boards, seances and stuff like that.

But Tarot isn’t a tool for speaking with the dead or summoning spirits – it’s a tool for self exploration. While a Ouiji board is used to communicate with spirits, Tarot is used to communicate with your higher self or deeper wisdom. And really, how could that be dangerous?

Here’s an analogy that you won’t forget: Using a Ouiji board is kind of like going to an orgy where you don’t know anyone and not using condoms. Using Tarot cards is like staying home and masturbating. It’s pretty safe.

The Purpose of Tarot

Tarot is a wonderful tool for self exploration – it can be used to find solutions to problems, get fresh ideas and creative insights and to understand what’s really going on in a situation.

Tarot cards are full of symbols, images, scenes, colors, landscapes and numbers and these act as a trigger for intuition and imagination, coaxing you to hear the whispers of your soul!

Personally, I use Tarot when I’m in a bind and feel like I need to look at my situation with a fresh perspective. I use Tarot when I need inspiration for something I’m writing or a project I’m working on. I use Tarot to help others get new insights and ideas about their life. And I use Tarot when I want to connect with my higher self/soul.

Think of Tarot cards like a really great life coach or friend. They don’t tell you what to do – they help you ask the right questions so you can find your own epiphanies and solutions!

I am just going to come out and say something controversial:

Tarot is a really crappy tool for predicting the future.

I know, I know. This is why you may have been drawn to Tarot in the first place. And you can get a real sense of the future with a Tarot reading – hell, I’ve been doing weekly Tarot forecast readings on my youtube channel for years now!

So yeah, Tarot can give you a good sense of the energies around the bend, but as far as specific, major predictions – like who your going to marry ten years from now or how many kids you’ll have over your lifetime – Tarot is about as useful as a stiletto shoe for making long distance calls.

So let’s recap: Tarot is NOT a tool for summoning or communicating with spirits. It is a tool for connecting and communicating with your higher self, boosting your creativity and inspiring your life.

Taking Cautionary Measures

Despite what I just said, it’s still important to cleanse and protect yourself energetically before you really dive into doing a Tarot reading. But it’s not so much to ward off those pesky evil spirits, but to ensure your own negative energy and expectations don’t taint your reading.

Lots of Tarot readers put a lot of importance into clearing their deck before a reading, but I think it’s more important to cleanse yourself beforehand.

If you come to a Tarot reading feeling tired, down or anxious, it can effect the cards you choose and the way you interpret them. Imagine you’re getting ready for a super hot date – would you show up all smelly, bedraggled and cranky? I hope not. Think of your next Tarot reading as a date with someone special. Show up as your best self!

Here are some of my favorite ways to cleanse myself energetically:

Take a long, hot epsom salt bath or shower with some essential oils like lavender, rosemary and sage. And think of ABSOLUTELY NOTHING….bliss!!!!
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Spend 5-10 minutes sitting and observing my breath. Imagine exhaling any stress or expectations and inhaling pure, white light that cleanses every cell in my body!
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My favorite energy clearing tools
Exercise/dance!!!!! This is a very powerful way to move energy in your body and rid yourself of accumulated stress.
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Listening to some gregorian chants or soft, rhythmic drums, lighting a few candles and burning some incense
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Lighting a big stick of dried sage and wafting the smoke all over my body

You can do one or all of the above suggestions or make up your own cleansing practices.

Cleansing Your Deck

Of course, cleansing your deck is an option too. Some readers believe that the cards can absorb surrounding energy and that if it’s not cleansed before each reading, your readings will be “dirty” …or something like that! I don’t know. I used to think that too, but I feel like my deck cleansing rituals are really just a way to get into the reading groove and set myself up for a good reading.

You can cleanse your cards by:

knocking once on the deck and then wafting your hand over it, as if to waft away a bad smell or something.
Just shuffling the cards breaks up any stagnant energy – this is the easiest way, in my opinion!
Place your deck in the moonlight overnight
Put your deck in a bag of quartz crystals
Waft sage smoke over your cards – it’s very smoky and smelly, but oh so satisfying!

incense — Incense and quartz are fabulous deck cleansers!

Intention, Intention, Intention!

Intention is the most important aspect of doing any metaphysical and spiritual work. Your intention will dictate the kind of vibe or energy that you put out there and this will effect the kind of experience you have.

Set a clear intention before doing a reading. Why are you doing this reading? What would you like to gain from it? Keep your intentions pure and non-creepy.

An example of an impure/creepy intention is this: “I intend to use my tarot cards to read my ex-boyfriends mind and find out if he was banging that waitress.” A more positive intention might be “I intend to get some new ideas for how I can move on from my past relationship.”

The REAL Danger of Tarot Cards…

Tarot can pose a risk to you if you misunderstand your Tarot cards and if you take your readings way too seriously. Let me explain that a bit.

If you’re a beginner and you don’t quite fully understand that every card has multiple meanings, you might get the Death card and think it literally means Death. Or you might get The Tower and assume it spells disaster. This can be frightening and it can taint your Tarot experience.

This can be even more frightening if you take your reading very seriously! Tarot readings can be illuminating and they can tell you all kinds of fascinating things, but they are not the last word. A Tarot reading is meant to be contemplated, not obsessively believed.

One of the things that made me really uncomfortable when I was doing professional Tarot reading was the number of people who seemed to believe every word I was saying as if it were THE TRUTH. Question your Tarot readings – or better yet, use the cards to ask the right questions.

Think of your Tarot cards as a good friend. I have some great friends who give me all kinds of advice (whether I ask for it or not) and I don’t always take it. Especially if it’s really shitty. Often I see that their advice is coming from their own biases, fears and opinions and for this reason I take it with a grain of salt. Take any Tarot reading you get with a grain of salt and remember there are many ways to see a Tarot card.

**What has YOUR experience been?**

Have you struggled with preconceived negative beliefs and fears about Tarot? How did you get over them? You are invited to share your experiences and ideas in the comments below 🙂

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The Empress in the Kitchen….the laziest cook ever!

Blending food and Tarot, this blog series takes a look at each Major Arcana and asks the question “what would this card be like in the kitchen and what food would they make?”
The usual Friday’s with Veronica posts will return in October.

Crystal Visions Tarot

The Empress is one laid back lady. She doesn’t fret or fuss, she just lets things unfold as they may while she sits back and enjoys the show.

In the kitchen, she’s low effort all the way. She enjoys the fruit of her fertile garden and prefers raw veggie snacks not because shes a raw foodist but so she doesn’t have to piss around cooking things.

The simpler, the better!

But make no mistake, The Empress isn’t into scrounging or lite snacking. Nourishment is important to her and so everything she makes is deeply satisfying.

Fresh fruit fanned out beautifully, carrots, snap peas, kale, radishes and cucumber, served with a tahini rich hummus and green olives. This is a divine snack that should be enjoyed regularly.

Veggies and Hummus (Empress style)

So I know this sounds boring, but trust me, it’s more lavish than it sounds….

1 can cannellini or butter beans (or any kind of soft, white bean)
splash or two of olive oil1/2 lemon, juiced
1 heaping Tbsp tahini
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 clove garlic, crushed

Serve with carrot sticks, cucumber rounds, green olives, rice crackers, tomatoes and kale or collard leaves. You can dob some on a big kale leaf then fill with olives and cherry tomatoes and roll up to eat it. Fun stuff!

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Tarot in the Kitchen: Fermenting with the High Priestess

September 2016, Tarot in the Kitchen / Kate (Daily Tarot Girl) / September 16, 2016

Blending food and Tarot, this blog series takes a look at each Major Arcana and asks the question “what would this card be like in the kitchen and what food would they make?”

The High Priestess is mysterious, powerful and wise. In the kitchen she gravitates toward making things that not just any joe schmo could make.

Like fermented foods!

Fermentation has a fascinating, internal process – also known as rotting – that transforms ordinary food like cabbage into complex and sophisticated condiments like sauerkraut and kimchi.

Intuition, dreams, the unconscious – these are the realms of the High Priestess and she guides you on making this trip down into your underworld, to meet with your inner knowing.

And just as the human psyche has much bubbling and brewing underneath it, fermentation is a process during which food just appears to sit there and do nothing, yet wild microbes and bacteria are doing all kinds of crazy shit!

Can’t you just imagine the High Priestess’s kitchen? It would be filled with bottles of herbal tinctures and jars of fermenting foods – secret recipes that have been passed down through the generations.

So here is my absolute favorite fermented foods recipe:

Fermented Lemons!

5-7 organic lemons
2.5 Tbsp sea salt (either coarse or fine – but if you use fine, you can use a bit less)

1. Halve 5 lemons and juice them, pouring juice in a medium sized mason jar or large sized jam jar. Add 1 Tbsp of salt to lemon juice and stir to dissolve.

2. Cut each lemon halve into four pieces. Place some of the lemon bits into the jar and add some more salt, then add more pieces and more salt until all the lemon bits are in the jar and there’s no salt left. Place a heavy rock or paper weight in the jar to press the lemons below the liquid. If there isn’t enough liquid to do this, juice the other two lemons and add that.

3. loosely screw the lid on – you don’t want it airtight though! Sit it on your counter and let it ferment for about 3-4 weeks. Mold may grow on the top, but don’t get all squeamish – just skim it off and get on with life.

4. After 3 or 4 weeks, taste a bit of lemon. It should taste like lemon preserves but without the sweetness. Like candied lemons that are salty instead of sweet. If they still taste more like raw lemons and not magical enough, let them sit a few more days. But if they are satisfactory to you, transfer them to the fridge where they will probably keep for a very long time.

But what the f*ck am I going to do with fermented lemons? I hear you whine. Put them in tabbouleh salads, pasta salads, moroccan Tagines or even tomato-based pasta sauces and soups! I sometimes put a bit of fermented lemon on goat cheese and crackers or skewer a bit of lemon along with a green olive and dunk it in my kombucha or Ceasar. The sky’s the limit!

Oh, and if you have sugar cravings, just a bit of fermented lemon will kill it. You’re welcome 😉

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Tarot in the Kitchen: The Magician

2 Comments / September 2016, Tarot in the Kitchen / Kate (Daily Tarot Girl) / September 9, 2016

Blending food and Tarot, this blog series takes a look at each Major Arcana and asks the question “what would this card be like in the kitchen and what food would they make?”

The Magician is part trickster, part seducer, part alchemist and nothing is more magical and seductive than delicious baking! Well, unless your gluten intolerant.

The fact that you can put a bunch of gross, globby dough or batter in a pan and then have the oven transform it into some puffy, buttery goodness is a thrilling concept.

All good cooks are magicians. And all good cookbooks are like magic books with spell-like recipes inside!

I have this one cookbook, called Let Them Eat Vegan and some of the recipes look like they would be super crappy – for example, walnuts, almond milk, rice pasta and broccoli were the main ingredients in the casserole I made last night. But guess what? That recipe turned out to be awesome! True alchemy!

So in the kitchen, The Magician chops, kneads and whisks with sexy confidence and mischievous charm. The sword is his knife, the wand his stir stick, the cup is his measuring cup and the pentacle is like a cookie cutter….or maybe one of those weird things people put in sugar jars to stop it clumping.

What does the Magician love to make? Mmmmmuffins! And here is a recipe that I’ve adapted from my Best of Bridge cookbook and have been making for years. Everyone is always really impressed when I make these and then I kind of feel guilty because they are so easy:

Magic Muffins

1 orange
1/2 cup orange juice
1 egg
1/4 cup oil (I like grapeseed)
1.5 cups whole spelt flour (but you could just use crappy white flour if you wanted to)
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
handful of dried fruit of choice, chopped into bits (I like dried apricots or cherries)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1. cut orange into 8 bits and blend in blender with orange juice, egg and oil until its smooth.

2. Add all other ingredients except dried fruit and nuts. Blend.

3. Now, add fruit and nuts and blend only a little – until it’s mixed.

4. Pour dough into a lined muffin tin (makes 12 muffins) and bake at 375F for 15-20 minutes.

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Tarot in the Kitchen: The Fool

September 2016, Tarot in the Kitchen / Kate (Daily Tarot Girl) / September 2, 2016

If you’re wondering where the hell is Veronica? don’t worry – she’s on vacation for the entire month of September, sipping chocolate martinis and slapping man butts in some exotic locale. She will return in October, the month of black cats, falling leaves and slutty costumes.

For September I bring you a new series of blog posts in an attempt to meld my two loves – food and Tarot! I just finished a one year program to become a Holistic Nutritionist and I’ve been itching to work my way through the Major Arcana, putting a culinary twist on each card….

The Fool

In the kitchen, The Fool is bold, daring and free. He doesn’t bother with recipes, preferring to freestyle it instead.

The Fool is about trust – trusting that your recipe will work out, even if you kind of winged it. And knowing that if it sucks, it doesn’t really matter because you can always just try it again.

In search of excitement and adventure, The Fool shuns bland food but resists finicky bullshitty recipes like making ravioli from scratch or anything that takes more than 15 minutes, really.

So here’s a smoothie recipe, inspired by The Fool. It has no measurements because The Fool doesn’t waste his time dicking around with teaspoons and measuring cups:

Tropical Green Goddess Smoothie
Drunken by Mayan warlords for thousands of years during worship rituals for the fertility goddess Ixchel (well, if they’d had blenders that is)

1 banana
some frozen pineapple chunks
a bit of coconut milk, coconut water or watersome greens (whatever you have on hand – kale, spinach, chard)
nut butter (peanut, cashew, whatever)- this gives it a rich, decadent flavour, so skip it if you want more of a light smoothie

Put all ingredients in a blender and blend the living crap out of it!
Drink and enjoy 🙂

XOXO
Kate
Daily Tarot Girl

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