“Help people. Give back. Do good shit for humanity.”
Can there even be a better card for a new year? Spark fire in yourself to help others and do what you can do to help others. Sometimes that’s just reblogging a post and other times it’s donating time or money to help others.
This year is stepping outside of yourself and into your community. This can be difficult, especially after so many of us had such monumental changes over the last few years.
This doesn’t mean you need to fork over your cash. Things are expensive right now everywhere, so don’t be afraid to hoard your coins like Smaug and instead focus on acts of compassion and love.
Embrace helping and loving others. Teach a skill to someone. Hold the door for a stranger. Distract a crying baby so a stressed parent can breathe. Give your pet an extra cuddle. Give something homemade, such as cookies or even a card, to someone who needs a bit of cheer.
Make new friends. Join a club or just pick a new place to frequent, like the library, park, or a coffee shop. Find someone new to talk to.
This is also the year to find love. Being in love often softens people so they are willing to help others and give more. Giving love means you’re granted more love. It seems like nonsense at first, but it really does work.
Bettering yourself also helps your community. Spend time focusing and loving yourself and you’ll find that you’re able to recognize more easily who is struggling and how you can help. By setting yourself up in a good place means that you’re more willing to give to others. Your cup isn’t empty, so you can offer some of your water to others.
So try to do more for others this year. We’ve been isolated and self-contained these last few years. Spend 2023 reaching out. Discover who and what reaches back. Open your heart.
Happy new year!
Featured decks: Rebel Deck (I drew several others, but this is the one that actually said “yes, me!”)
Everyone wants to get the gist of what the new year may offer them. I’m offering two different reading to do exactly this.
Year Ahead Reading
A 12 card reading predicting the future year for you. Delivered via PDF email.
$75.00
The Seasons in Mini
A 5 card reading, one standing for each season and the current season. Delivered via PDF email.
$32.00
Patreons have a lot of other readings available to them right now, all at incredible discounted prices. Like the year ahead reading? They get it for $55 USD as well as exclusive posts, monthly readings, energy castings, moon rituals, and so on each and every month. Sign up at patreon.com
Can’t dish out some money now? That’s okay, stick around and later this month I’ll share the 2023 Card of the Year. It’s a good one.
You can also try doing the Seasons in Mini reading yourself:
Hope you have a great year! Thank you so much for your support!
Increasing and honing your intuition isn’t a simple or quick task. It requires dedication and consistent practice. However, there are steps you can take to make things a bit easier to practice that intuition of yours.
Children tend to have very good intuitions but as they grow older, it tends to wane. The same is true for people who take a step back from practicing their intuition. It can stagnate and grow weak. It’s just like the physical body. As a child, you might not have thought anything about sprinting down the street or being particularly flexible. As an adult, it’s less likely that you’ll be able to do what you so easily could as a child without continuous practice.
Write your dreams down
Writing your dreams down can help boost intuition. Many times, premonitions or psychic impressions come to us via dreams. Dreams also provide insight into subconscious thinking and the self.
Try to also record your first thoughts when waking up. This is a difficult habit to get into for some and for others, it’s great to do alongside journaling.
Write down your predictions
Simply writing down things you think (or intuit) might happen is a great way of tracking how often you’re right on these things. It’s similar to testing your psychic awareness with ESP cards. This another journaling technique, but you can also just do it every-so-often and leave that document in a notebook to be discovered later. It’s definitely a long-term test, but it’s one I use often with great results.
Stretching the senses
Sit quietly and extend your senses, trying to hear and sense what’s going on in other rooms and beyond the confines of your home. This is remote viewing, when it’s practiced at a decent range, but mostly it’s just practicing extending your energy and psychic awareness. Think “spider sense”, if that reference is meaningful to you.
A test to see how accurate your sense is needs a second person or camera to record the direction you’re sensing in, so you can validate what happened.
Third-eye Opening Meditation
Meditation is often used for many things and there’s a lot you can get out of it. A third eye opening guided meditation or one that focuses on your intuition is a great and relatively easy way of practicing with a bit of guidance. Repeat your chosen meditation every day or at least consistently to get good results.
Herbal or Crystal Support
There are herbs, incense, scents, and crystals to support intuition. The following is a wide variety of ingredients and tools that can be used to assist, attune, or increase your psychic awareness or intuition. This is not a completed list, especially the crystals section.
Some of these ingredients can be used as a tool, just held or kept nearby, while others might be used topically or even consumed. Everyone will tolerate these ingredients and tools differently, so be sure to check to see which ones are helpful to you.
NOTE! I’ve marked some of the more dangerous or potentially illegal ones with an asterisk *. DO YOUR RESEARCH BEFORE USING!!!
For some people, they can see or sense spirits easily but not other forms of energy – or vice versa. Someone might be particularly skilled at working with faeries but struggles to read the energy in an item. Or they might have no difficulties what-so-ever in reading the future, but they’re blind to spirits.
If you’re able to work with some sort of spirit, deity, or being, you may be able to ask for guidance in sensing other forms of energy. This will largely depend on your relationship, but it’s something to explore.
Familiars and Constructs
A Familiar, as I defined them, is a being who makes some sort of agreement or contract to work alongside or serve you. This is a spiritual bond and may feel destined.
A Construct, as I defined it, is a being whom you create to serve you. If handled poorly, Constructs may go rouge and become malicious spirits. Older Constructs may developed self-awareness and become spirits or familiars.
Now that the terminology is out of the way, these beings may be able to lend extra boost in power or assist in seeing or sensing what you cannot. They also can warn you, like your intuition would. By using their perceptions alongside your own intuition, you can verify what your intuition is saying. Assuming this sort of verification is meaningful to you.
Divination
Divination is a way of tapping into your intuition. By practicing your chosen divination techniques routinely, you’ll increase your intuition.
This is especially true for divination techniques like scrying, where your intuition and second sight is what’s showing you the future or what you want to see.
There’s a lot of different way to increase your intuition, but the most useful method is consistency and practice. Few people can master a new musical instrument or get a super-fit body in a single day and the same is true with intuition.
Learning a divination technique is not always easy. For some people, it can be a real struggle and it can become a mental mountain to overcome.
Even long-term diviners may find themselves challenged at times. Divination burnout is definitely a thing and there are times where you just feel disconnected from your intuition.
Here’s a few things that can help.
1 – Work in a darkened room
I’m not saying to work in the complete dark, but work in a room where your surroundings are in the shadows. Being in the dark lessens distractions. You can see that distracting thing (the laundry that needs folding or your Nintendo switch, for example) in your peripheral vision, so it no longer becomes a mental task or temptation. It’s out of sight and therefore (mostly) out of mind.
2 – Change up your surroundings
If you normally work in your bedroom, head into the kitchen or hunker down at your public library. Rather than your couch, try the backyard (make sure to have something to weigh down your cards!). You can even just switch up the surface your work on. Instead of a table, try the floor. While leaving your normal space to do a reading may feel really weird, the newness can shake things up for a while. It breaks you out of the “I have to do this” sort of routine.Â
Be aware of your confidence in your new space. You may feel really self-aware when working in public. Most of the time, people don’t care. They might look at you for a few minutes, but 90% of the time – if not more – people do not give a shit about what other people are doing. This is true for casting spells in public and anything else.
Divination is a bit weird though. People tend to approach tarot card readers and assume they’re always for hire or worse, ask for a free reading. If you want to do their reading, that’s fine, but don’t be afraid of saying no. Tell them no, you’re not taking readings at this time, offer them a business card if you have one you’d like to give out, then politely and firmly go back to what you were doing. Headphones are great for this because you can just literally tune them out. If they keep pestering you, then leave that space.
3 – Set the scene.
Light a candle, burn some incense, get your diffusing going, put on a fancy outfit, lay out the good reading cloth, softly play some music, and so on. Set up your space for success. If you already do this, try skipping parts of it them to see if that changes things for you. Or you can switch up the incense you burn, the music you play, or the scents you add to the air.Â
4 – Meditate, center, and ground.
Now, I am the first to say that meditation doesn’t always help and isn’t necessary. If meditation is something you struggle with, then doing it before you try something else you’re struggling with is only setting you up for failure. But if you like meditation, or at least don’t mind it, then give it a try before the reading. It can help organize your thoughts and raise some energy.
Centering and grounding also are useful. Even more useful than meditation, even. While the three of them can be combined, centering is more about re-balancing yourself and bringing yourself back to neutral or centered within yourself – great when you’re all over the place. Grounding is about dispersing your excess energy. It can also be about rooting yourself down, building a foundation to stand on. Using which one when you need it can be helpful.Â
5 – Manage your phone and devices
Put your notifications on silent. There’s some phones and apps now that have a “focus” mode, allowing you to pick and choose what notifications can disturb you during your phone time. You can also get a focus timer app like Forest to use. I use focus mode when I do divinations plus Forest. This means I can’t access my social media, video games, or anything else like that while I work. Instead, what’s available to me are things like my camera, photo editing apps, related programs, and so on.
6 – Don’t take it so seriously
For some people, divination is a big deal for them and it’s very serious business. For others, it’s all fun and games. If you’re on the more serious or intense side and you find yourself struggling to do a reading, try loosening up. Put the reading you’re working on aside and do a fun one. Predict the outcome on what’s for dinner or ask what your cat’s thinking. Reduce the amount of pressure you’re putting on yourself by making it less serious.Â
7 – Mind your schedule
Schedule time to do readings. Pick a day or make time during the day the same way your would some other appointment and work on your divination. This doesn’t mean you need to solely do readings. You can read books on the subject instead, meditate with your cards, or plan spreads. Or you can just sit there and crank out readings. It’s up to you, but scheduling time makes it a priority for you and reminds your brain and this is something that you’re serious about. Practice is key to learning a skill, any skill.
You’ll also want to consider taking breaks while you’re doing readings. For example, I do all of my readings for the week on Sunday. It’s the one day of the week I devote entirely to divination. Why Sunday? Well, once upon a time it was the one day of the week I was guaranteed to be home alone except for the animals. It meant I knew I wouldn’t be disturbed and I could take up as much room and make as much noise as I want.
8 – Tell it to someone
If you’re having trouble getting your words out, try explaining the cards and reading to someone. This could be your pet, a crystal, a familiar, a guide, a friend, or so on. If you normally talk your readings out, then try writing them. Do something to express what the readings in a different way than you normally would do.Â
And those are some tips to give you a hand. Don’t be afraid to step outside your norm to shake up your divination routine. It can be really helpful and lead you down a new path of knowledge and divination.
This is a simple spread intended to reveal things like false idealizations, illusions, and so on. Sometimes we idealized people or put them on pedestals. This reveals what’s behind the curtain. This spread would also reveal what’s they’re fooling themselves with.
1 – What is the dream or (false) idealized version of the person or situation?
2 – What are the unintentional illusions of the situation or person? What falsehoods have been unintentionally perpetuated?
3 – What intentional illusions is this situation or person hiding behind?
February will be dominated by love readings – for future lovers, for confessions, for loving yourself, or even healing heartache.
As with all monthly readings, at the end of February, this set of readings will be unavailable until next year. (Some spreads might appear again, but not this whole set).Â
(My patreons got a week’s jump start, plus discounted price and an exclusive spread available just for them. That’s in addition to early access and exclusive posts, monthly readings and more. You can join for as little as $1 USD.)
To buy a reading, head over to the Oracle’s Shrine and take your pick!
A 5 card reading divining your dream lover and how to find them. This reading is not male specific – it can be used to predict a lover of any gender. A PDF delivered by email.
January’s almost over and this is your final chance to grab a “year ahead” reading for 2022.
“Year ahead” readings are divinations that predict the year ahead of you by some means, usually cartomancy. Often these readings will be large and go month by month, but some will go by seasons or tackle specific questions.
I’ve two reading available this month, with limited spots. Each reading is delivered in PDF form via email.
These two readings will go away at the end of the month and will be adding new readings for February. If interested in a year ahead reading, don’t hesitate to grab one here.
Ever try water divination? It’s possibly one of the most accessible forms of divination, but one of the hardest to master.
Water Divination: How to scry with water | thiscrookedcrown.com
It’s a form of scrying. Scrying is a type of divination using some sort of usually reflective medium to derive hidden secrets or future events. Crystal ball reading is the most famous form of scrying, but scrying can be done in water, glass, oil, crystal, shiny metal, mirrors, or other reflective surfaces.
If you’re a good hand at scrying, then water divination is probably in reach. If you’re new to scrying, it’s a very intuitive based divination practice. It’s not for everyone (lots of people find it blurry or frustrating), but if you enjoy it, it can be fun.
There’s a lot of different ways to perform water divination. This one is mine.
Find an ideal vessel.
I prefer to use a flattish bowl or a plate with large edges. A tea cup saucer is usually pretty good for this, but a salad or spaghetti bowl are also good. Any bowl, plate, or cup can be used, but I find having a bowl that have a wide surface for the water is ideal.
I find it’s more important to have the bottom of the vessel to be clean. A bowl with writing on the bottom isn’t really ideal when you first get started. Vessels with scraps or scratches from silverware also aren’t ideal in the very beginning. They can be distracting.
Of course, once you get more adept, you may find that those scratches or writing may help.
You don’t need to have a dedicated vessel. I often use my morning cup of tea or the water in my water bottles. But I also have a dedicated black tea cup saucer and a copper bowl I use for more dedicated readings.
Choose your water source
I often use filtered water, either from a filtering pitcher or some other means. I often use tap water / well water as well, because that’s easiest. It’s totally fine to use tap.
I may also pour out some sort of enchanted water, like moon water. Or I might infuse herbs to make a tisane and use that.
Coffee, tea, juice, oil, blood, soda, and any other liquid you can think of can be used in the exact same manner as water. Or you can drip some of these liquids into a vessel filled with water and see what patterns form. (Oil scrying is often done in this manner.)
This means that yes, you can totally scry in your morning cup of coffee.
I do find there’s some variation on the results depending on the water source. Purified water tends to give me clearer results for most questions, but if I’m doing shadow work or some sort of soul-searching, I use ocean water or blood because that’s best for me. Juices and teas tend to edge the results in certain directions. The same results, but from a slightly different perspective.
Again, none of that is bad. Experimenting may give you different results, but I will tailor what I’m working with depending on the results I want. If I’m doing a reading regarding a business decision, I’ll use a cup of coffee for the divination, but if I want to know if I should date someone, then I might use a tea made with herbs related to love.
Bodies of water
You can also use bodies of water for divination. The water source should be calm or have a little movement in it. A river, lake, ocean, swimming pool, koi pond, or even a fish tank can be used in the above described manner.
You can use an active source of water, even a waterfall, but it’s the churning of the water or the sound that water source makes that will be used for the divination. It’s a somewhat different form of divination.
Divining in your water
Whatever mediums you’re using, the actual divination method is simple enough.
Look into the water, but do it in a way that doesn’t reflect your face or head. I find being able to stare into your own face can be very distracting.
Stare until your eyes become unfocused and your mind starts to drift. Pay attention to what you’re seeing in your mind’s eye and thinking. What thoughts appear? What mental images?
It can be completely random. Maybe a song pops into your head. Or you hear multiple conversation snippets. Or there’s a total Hollywood style vision playing out in the surface of the water.
While doing this, pay attention to what’s happening around you. Are there ripples in the water? Did something fall in it or move in it? Did the wind change direction or did a passerby’s conversation suddenly become clear? Did you cat change position or your dog suddenly start to whine.
All of those things need to be gathered together to form an entire reading. At first, it’s not going to make a lot of sense. With practice and time, you’ll start to see how the water scrying can give you results and information.
I find that have a voice recorder going helps me describe what I’m seeing as I’m seeing it. Later, I’ll transcribe the recorded session onto paper. Paper is also ideal as you can sketch out what you’re seeing or describe it.
And that’s it. It really is that easy. Divination with water may be easy to do, but since it’s a form of scrying, it can be difficult to master. Give it a try and see if you like it.
There aren’t many spots available, so grab one if you can.
I’m also still available for spell casting. I’m also starting a trial run on custom spell writing. You can check out what’s in my cauldron here.
Where have the updates been?
In a moving box. Along with 95% of my library and most of my magical tools and items. I know I’ve been living here for a few months now, but time had flown. My current living situation is temporary and there’s a LOT of stuff going on behind the scenes here that eats up a lot of time emotionally and physically. And then there’s this whole pandemic thing happening.
To indicate how weird my current set up is… Last week I found a stack of cauldrons under a pile of floor pillows and I had to scale over the couch and through a pothos plant just to get a jar of moon water.
Don’t even get me started about the faeries. The one during my evening walk last night tried to take me out via rabbit.
But hey, at least I’ve got a stack of pumpkins to carve. It’s the little things that keep us going right now, right?
A no muss, no fuss divination book. It covers the most common forms of divination (tarot, scrying crystal balls, tea leaf reading, and so on) and does it in a easy to understand and thorough way. I knocked it down from a 5 to a 4.5 because I question the inclusion of a chakra pendulum chart. Like, I can see it’s usage, but it’s literally the only inclusion of this sort of thing in the book.
This book is small but mighty.
Filled with images, it’s something akin to a quick starter guide you get when you buy some sort of new electronic. If you already know what you’re doing, then this info won’t be a revelation. If you’re new, it’ll give you all the information to get started and clue you in to what you might want to research next.
Each section covers a new form of divination with all the info you need to get started and includes basic spreads or charts for each divination form.
The book covers crystal tossing (as in tossing crystals on a mat and determing meaning depending on the stone, the nearby stones, and position on a mat). This book includes basic divination meanings for commonly used stones, which is very helpful if you’re just getting started. It doesn’t cover crystal grids, which I kind of expected it too, since it mentioned them in the opening pages, but I’m ok with that info not being present.
Pendulum’s are also covered. I’ve don’t remember seeing a pendulum chart using chakra before and I’m very meh about it. Like, I could see the usage for it, especially if you’re very into Western chakra work or maybe helpful even in Eastern chakra work, but… eh. I have feels about it that are a tangent for another time. Anyway, color coding or simply having the meanings written on the chart wouldn’t have changed much, but maybe I’m just being too picky.
Runes, specifically the Elder Futhark, are also covered. I have personal spiritual history with runes that kept me from using them for the last 20 or so years, so my knowledge is from the first five or so years where that connection wasn’t present. (Maybe one day I’ll tell that story, but not today.)
Anyway, the book covers the three aetts (sets) and then goes into the runes individual meanings (including inverted). I am not a fan of inversion with any kind of divination, traditional or not, unless under specific circumstances and conditions, but to each their own. The book does have a note about inversion and not using them if you choose, which is always nice to see.
The instructions for tea leaf reading are simple (a little elaborate compared to how I do it, but you do you). Honestly, reading tea leaves (or coffee grounds) doesn’t need to be complicated. The little dictionary of symbols is more elaborate than other divination books like this.
I know some things about a palmistry, but not enough to put together a reading, so I paid attention to this chapter. This gives you enough information to get started. It even discusses the difference between chirognomy (the shape of the hand) versus chiromancy (the lines on the palm). It’s a good beginner’s primer. It’s one of the larger chapters in the book.
Chapter six is about tarot cards. Like the rest of the book, it’s a great guide for those who want to try their hand at it. It includes a few basic spreads then the usual card descriptions with both the upright and the reversed. The card descriptions also include images of the card, which is handy for beginners, The cleansing methods for the deck are unusual ones that I’m actually a fan of. It’s another longer chapter, about thirty pages.
Numerology is not my thing – I’ve a learning disorder involving math. I’m aware of sacred numbers and how to calculate various personal numbers and so on. But since math isn’t my thing, it’s been decades since I really dug deep into numerology.
This numerology chapter is actually pretty good (from what I can tell) including auspicious numbers, compatibility, and a breakdown for each basic number and talks a bit about the master numbers.
Scrying with crystals was the first type of divination I taught myself. It’s my jam. This final chapter talks about recording and planning your scrying sessions. How to connect to the scrying crystal and how to choose a crystal. This chapter refers to a crystal ball, but I’ve used raw pieces of crystals and it works just fine. It’s unusual to run into crystals like amethyst in basic scrying divination instructions, but I’m totally cool with this. Of course it goes into how to scry and variations thereof. It also talks about the symbols and colors that might appear during a scrying session, which is always nice.
And that’s the end of the book. It’s a good little book for someone who wants to get into divination, but they’re not sure what kind and they want just one pretty book on the subject on their self.
Would I recommend it? Yes. It’s not going to be show anything new to people who’ve been divining for a long time, but beginners will enjoy the book. Would I buy it for my own library? Yes. I like having various divination books to compare and contrast. Plus, it’s a good little book.
This Crooked Crown 