This may surprise you, but my major life decisions were not decided by using tarot. They were used by trusting my gut. I do mean that quite literally here. One of the most painful decisions I had to make was done using my souring gut alone one fateful morning in the summer of 2007.

This coming Saturday, February 2nd I am celebrating Imbolc. This year I believe our group is focusing more along the lines of the healing and water aspects of the goddess Brid (Brigid), but last year our sabbat used the dual aspects of Brid as the keeper of the well and forge (water and fire).

Respecting the dual aspects of the Well and the Forge, I have created a simple two-card tarot spread. Imbolc is an excellent time for divination, so I hope you use this spread during this time!

1st card: The Well: What situation do you need greater compassion in? Healing? Emotional empathy?

2nd card: The Forge: What situation do you need more drive in? Aggression? Force of will?

Let us not forget that the realm of fire can purify just as well as destroy, and water can destroy just as easily as heal. Please feel free to use this tarot spread as a jumping off point for your own personal tarot spread creations.

Blessings, and Happy Imbolc,
Hilary
www.tarotbyhilary.com

Our open Yule ritual run by my coven never usually falls on Yule (December 21st this past year). We had ours on December 8th, and it was a beautiful ritual but I didn’t truly see/feel that until afterward. As a member of the ritual team, I had my “eye of the prize” of helping to lead a ritual that would be beautiful and potent for the attendees, which led to me not recognizing the beauty of the actual ritual during it. My natural tendency is to go into extreme planning and practical mode when being a helper bee.

My card of the day pulls last week had a very similar theme. They related directly to the weather phenomena we were experiencing in New York. If you’ve been living under a rock, you are one of the few people that haven’t heard of Superstorm Sandy that tore through many places (including the Eastern Coast) a few weeks ago.

This direct correlation of card interpretations to the weather surprised me, because usually when I pull my card of the day, it corresponds to more intellectual or personal situations and not what Mother Nature is doing. Normally I select my card of the day when I’m sitting in front of the computer…

That’s when I realized the difference. Every day of the storm (and prior to it) I was standing at the large window in my living room overlooking my neighbor’s yard. Seeing the sky, clouds, trees, ground… And then in the days that followed, the destruction that was left in Sandy’s wake.