I’ve updated the list of decks on my Divination Services page to reflect some new acquisitions. You can now choose to receive readings from any of the following, or let me choose which one is best suited for your inquiry:

• Tarot of the Sweet Twilight
• Rider-Waite-Smith tarot
• Dame Darcy’s Mermaid Tarot
• The Ostara Tarot
• Fenestra Tarot
• Welcome to Night Vale Tarot
• The Slutist Tarot
• Ceccoli Oracle
• The Earthbound Oracle
• Arcane Bullshit Oracle

Tarot and oracle card readings are $40 and take typically 45 – 60 minutes to complete. You receive a report with a detailed analysis of your reading along with photographs of the spread so you can reflect on the reading for additional meaning.

I’ve been reading tarot professionally for 18 years and enjoy helping people dig deeply into complex spiritual concerns. I read frequently for spirit workers, witches, and others who interact with spirits on a regular basis; I’m equally comfortable reading about matters of love, career, relationships, and personal development. FOR JULY ONLY I’m offering a $10 reading special for confirmations and other small questions. You get a report and photos, and the satisfaction of helping me travel to Many Gods West. 🙂 My turn around time is usually less than three days; if more than 72 hours is required to complete your reading I’ll let you know.

 

Hey, I forgot to announce this here! I’m finally dipping my toes into the world of online divination videos and I’m starting with deck walkthroughs and mini reviews. Truth be told, I own relatively few cartomancy decks; my collection has nearly doubled in the few weeks since I took a position as house reader at a local metaphysical shop (more about that in a second). I realized that my collection was rather inadequate to the needs of a professional so the number of decks owned has risen where for many years it had stayed nearly static.

I’m reviewing the Slutist Tarot first of all, a brightly colored deck celebrating sex-positivity, love, and lust. It’s a deck that goes right to my sweet spot – colorful, dynamic, and novel. Although I have some minor critiques regarding things like layout and shortcomings in the achievement of the deck’s diversity goals, overall I feel very positively about the deck. In many ways it takes tarot somewhere it hasn’t comfortably gone before – the Manara Erotic Tarot, beautiful as it is, is a very different animal – and for that reason alone it deserves attention. I hope that other people are inspired to use this project as a springboard towards even greater inclusion and diversity.

**

As I was saying: I’ve got a gig as a house reader! This isn’t the first time I’ve been a house reader (someone who reads primarily in a storefront rather than in their own shop, their own home, just at parties, etc.) but it’s been more than a decade since I did this kind of work; the last time I read with a store was in…2006? Maybe even 2005. Anyway, it’s been a while. All the professional reading I’ve done in the meantime has been for parties, one-time gigs, via email, for friends, that kind of thing. This has been fun and I’ve learned a lot about who I am as a reader and about how this work, well, works but it’s time to make a change. I want to get better, which means that more practice is needed and specifically I need practice that is different from what I’ve been doing – it seemed natural to go back to house reading.

Instead of focusing on tarot or even oracle cards (both of which are thoroughly represented in the market) I decided to emphasize my tea leaf reading. Scrying was a skill I fell backwards into. I never thought I had the knack until I started working with coffee grounds and tea leaves. Tasseomancy, it seems, is something that works for me. So I’m marketing myself primarily as a tea leaf reader with cartomancy as a secondary offering. I’m excited! I like scrying. (I can also use mirrors and black reflective surfaces too but it gets intense and I don’t want to haul that in front of the public; cups of tea are more approachable. That said, it would be good to have an actual crystal ball to work with! Maybe someday.)

If you’re in the Salt Lake City area and would like to schedule a session with me, just email salinespirit at gmail dot com and let me know! I’ll be working in the Sugarhouse neighborhood at a location just off the S line (parking available too).

Yeah, I know I said I hated making shop updates here. Fact is that some extra cash would help me comfortably afford my plane ticket to Many Gods West instead of just barely affording it. I’ll be there, so I’m not exactly threatening to not show up. Just sayin’.

Altar cloths! I got a ton. I scored a White sewing machine at a thrift store and it’s seriously improved and increased the sewing I do. You benefit by getting loads of awesome altar cloths, spread cloths, crystal grid cloths, and even (gasp!) table cloths.               

Blue and green tie-dyed altar cloth.                   Dark blue and green tie-dyed table runner.

All the altar cloths and table runners have been made with 100% cotton for easy care and keeping. I’ve left them minimally finished so you can easily attach trim, fringe, or beads. They also look nice as-is.

I’m still making the little necklaces that are perfectly suited for our favorite deity icons and idols. This is a personal favorite of mine; I love the bone-colored glass bead in the center. These are only $7 so they’re perfect for small offerings or seasonal gifts.

 

My divination backlog is cleared and it’s a great time to schedule a reading with me. I have a few new tarot and oracle decks that I’m itching to use on clients – I’ve got the Ostara Tarot, the Slutist Tarot, the Wooden Tarot, and the Ceccoli Oracle ready to roll! Since I’m doing a bit of fund-raising, I’m taking simple questions and confirmation-style divination requests for just $10; these take around 15 minutes as compared to the 45 – 60 that my usual readings do. You can send me a message through the Divination Services page or email me at salinespirit at gmail dot com.

Speaking of tarot – I have my first deck walkthrough and review on YouTube! You can hear my tiny little voice and see my tiny little hands. Another video is coming next week; if you like this sort of thing, Patreon supporters get a first look at video content as well as all kinds of other things. I’ve been sharing previews of the in-progress Heartroad2 manuscript as well as coupon codes, printables, and other goodies on my Patreon feed. Or you can simply subscribe to the channel for monthly Virtual Temple Project releases and divination stuff.

 

 

The many and complicated reasons that I began blogging haven’t changed, but my willingness to stick with this task has. I’m still here, I’m still interested in writing and sharing, but the things I want to write and share have become much fewer in number. I not only write for a living I try to write all my pagan stuff with the teaspoons left over – and there are fewer than ever. Therefore everything gets put before this poor blog.

I’ve rarely been someone to write walls of text and certainly not on a frequent basis; I’m impressed by the stamina of such authors and envious of their ability to resist eye strain. Sorry if you’ve been counting on 3,000+ word posts every few days but I don’t have it in me, less now than maybe ever.

I am, however, fairly busy on social media because in some ways it’s easier. I don’t want to fill my blog with Etsy shop updates (but hey, there’s been lots and lots of updates!) but at the same time that’s often the biggest news. I’m trying to resurrect the Coffee At Midnight Facebook page and I’m busier than ever on my official author page. ‘Like’ either of these pages to stay up to date on the small things. I’ll try to share the big things here.

Oh! Speaking of big things, I’ve added some new content to the Virtual Temple Project YouTube channel. In addition to a playlist of monthly videos celebrating Loki Herself, there’s also a growing playlist of tarot/oracle deck walkthroughs and mini-reviews. (They’re probably not proper walkthroughs but they’re also not quite full reviews, so whatever.) I’m very excited to showcase some of my favorite decks and am using this as an opportunity to explore new decks that I haven’t gotten around to purchasing just for my own use.  The first publicly released video is a review of The Slutist Tarot, which I’m obviously enthusiastic about. Patreon supporters get first looks at all video content, including future deck walkthroughs and divination-related stuff, too!

Possibly the biggest upcoming thing is Many Gods West, which I’ll be presenting two sessions at. I’m excited to be part of this event for the third time. Both previous years have been highly positive and it’s been a good way to meet people I never would have otherwise. I have ambitions to release at least one of these sessions as a narrated slideshow video after the event but it’s going to take a while.

If you’re local to the Salt Lake City area, please stop by and see me at Elemental Inspirations in Sugarhouse! I’m the house tea leaf reader there two Saturdays a month or buy appointment. I do tarot and oracle readings, too. It’s been a long time since I was a house reader and I’m excited about the challenges that I’m sure to encounter. I want to get better at this craft, so I’m making it a more central part of my habitual practices – hence the growing collection of to-be-released divination videos. 😀

Thanks for reading and for sticking with me.

I’ve been listening to podcasts, reading blogs, and just doing a lot of thinking about magic. I wrote some entries last year about how I felt not just ineffective in my magical practice but downright broken – like I had no more magic in me and that I was fooling myself in the first place to have thought I did. I’ve been slowly coming out of that thanks to the material created by many other people (and by talking to my friends and peers about the whole mess). Along the way I’ve noticed that some people talk about being a “(blank) witch” – a light witch, a water witch, a stone witch, a plant witch, etc. etc. I definitely understand what they’re saying but this way of describing oneself and ones magic is not a familiar thing to me. When I was discovering witchcraft as a teen in the mid-late 90s, I don’t think I saw a lot of really specific self-identifiers like this. Oh sure we talked a lot about which of the four magical elements we were most aligned to and whether or not we were a textbook example of our astrological sign. Maybe I just ran with the wrong crowd for that sort of thing, I don’t know.

Although it’d be easy to scoff and say that it’s silly to pigeonhole oneself and one’s magic into one or two simple categories, I think that this particular development is a helpful way of articulating what approaches to magic one is likely to get results with. Like, this is is a way of expressing how a witch actually goes about getting the changes they want to see. When I was younger there was kind of an unspoken rule that a witch had to be good at all approaches to magic and had to be able to get their desired results regardless of tools, time, circumstance, etc. and while I think that flexibility with regards to practice is healthy and helpful, demanding that people be good at all things, all of the time is a little ridiculous. Of course people are naturally going to thrive in some contexts and not in others. So this got me to thinking: what approach to magic am I actually good at?

And I have no idea.

Sure, I can candle my way through a protection spell or mix up a bunch of herbs n spices to curtail gossip and I can say an effective prayer for prosperity…but what kind of witch is this? A kitchen witch? That doesn’t seem to fit the description or my approach to magic.

I suppose I work a lot with energy – but who doesn’t, on  some level?

I do approach the creation of magical circumstances a lot through art and creativity and even through music sometimes – so maybe I’m an artistic witch? I made this little bag to the right and thought a lot about the mermaids I know and the merfolk I may someday meet. I thought a lot about the treasures of the earth and what mermaids might consider valuable that landmaids might not. I guess that’s sort of magic even though I didn’t really have a distinctive intention embedded in the process aside from the desire to make the finished item beautiful.

What about the kinds of spells I have a knack for or that I have good success with? I know what my job title in the Big Black Building is (which I won’t mention here). I’m also reasonably good with general protection and I’ve been able to kick the ass of any energetic nasty that got in my way. That said, I’m as prone to a decent whammy as most of us.

I’ve always been pretty darn good at divination and fortune telling. Maybe I’m a divination witch? I haven’t tried casting spells as such with cartomancy items but I’ve thought about it. I can “read” energy fairly well – assuming that I’m willing to trust what I’m receiving which I don’t always. I’ve read professionally since I was 18 – nearly twenty years – and I’ve studied cards since I was 11 or 12. I’m decent at this kind of magic if for no other reason than I’ve been working with it for so damn long.

Then of course there’s all the spirit work skills which I’m not sure really count in this situation.

I dunno – have any of you ever thought about what kind of witch you are, or even if you like to call yourself a “(blank) witch”? How did you find your approach to magic?

It’s been a long time since I made any substantial updates to the Etsy shop. Finally, I have nine new tiny necklaces listed and tomorrow eight new altar cloths/tarot spread cloths will go live. Click on the pictures to be taken to the listing.

I’ve made these to fit your very favorite deity statues; the lobster clasp lets you easily place and remove the jewelry even around awkward swords and other pointy bits. They look really beautiful and make lovely offerings or just tokens of affection.

The necklaces with two strands (like those in the above pictures) are made on a slightly smaller scale and are great for smaller figures and figures made on a detailed scale. The single strand necklaces (like the one below) are great for larger statues and those made on an overall bigger scale.

These are just $7 each (+shipping). I’ll be adding more as soon as I have some new beading wire to work with – and time to make some! If you’ll be attending Many Gods West in Olympia, WA I’m hoping to have a few available for sale in the vendor’s room. Even if I don’t have any, do catch up with me and say hi.

My current study is propelled by several driving questions, especially regarding the nature of the human self in relation to divinity and the metamorphosis that occurs as these two points gain and sustain proximity.

One matter that never sat quite comfortably with me was the hardline stance that (modern, Western) polytheism posited an irreducibly discrete nature of divinities. While I do consider myself a hard polytheist, I use this term to describe how I think and how I organize experience rather than how I believe the gods to be (or how I secretly wish they were). My experience tells me that regarding the Powers as separate and particular individuals is an effective way to exercise good religious hospitality and it helps clarify the organization of my various relationships. However, I find it difficult and perhaps even impossible to tell the gods what they are. Maybe it’s just because I run with world-breakers and mischief-makers but sometimes it happens that a Power rather overflows its boundaries and starts to get more or less muddled with its neighbors. It has happened only infrequently with me but this muddling of categorical identities has caused no end of problems for other worshipers. (It’d be inaccurate to say that my experiences of this blurring hasn’t been confusing or anxious-making but I’ve perhaps experienced less distress as a result from spending a lot of time in traditions with a more or less laissez-faire approach to discrete divine identities.)

My concern regarding the stance outlined above is what it implies about the experience of ecstatic union and the desire for transcendent union. Can multiple parties whose natures are irreducibly separate ever achieve a satisfactorily unified state? Granted, the basic thrust of “hard” polytheism doesn’t have anything to say about religious goals (of which transcendent unity might be one), but for those polytheists who seek or desire unitive experiences, is there a basic philosophical tenant arguing against us?

(One simple way of answering this question is to say that ecstatic and transcendent union is a gift the Powers grant us as a matter of grace – of presence freely given. This might certainly be an accurate answer as far as it goes but it’s not one that I find completely satisfying.)

In contemplating these questions and in studying materials written by more informed people than myself, I came across a passage explaining that difference itself was the engine of unity. The (dated and heterosexist) example given in the text was that just as the differences between men and women made it possible for union, so the differences between divinity and humanity made it possible for union. I’d rephrase this example as “the differences between self and other” if I wanted to continue to leverage this metaphor, but like all metaphors its instructive and illustrative nature breaks down and becomes silly pretty quickly. The point is that discrete categories can fit together *because* they are different.

The nature of the differences between divinity and humanity also begs clarification. What exactly is different about us? If we are irreducible individuals, as the basic stance of polytheism outlines, what characterizes each category – and indeed, should the basic unit be the individual and not the category of being? (That is, should be speak of gods as individuals instead of as a collective community comprised of individuals?) Regarding these questions I got nuthin’ – but difference may still be an engine driving us towards unifying experiences.

What hides under the desire for unity that seems to press Powers and people together? It might be that we wish very strongly to see reality from a new perspective, but my own experiences with this particular desire are much less articulate. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be any words in there past, “You; you; I want you.”

Some philosophic schools hold that a unified state in which all distinctions are dissolved is unsatisfying and not ultimately what’s sought. They hold that distinction allows for pleasure, and that even though all things known and unknown fundamentally have their base in a shared substance, distinction is inherent within this foundation of being and exists as a mysterious property of reality. Other schools hold that that this property is not so very mysterious after all and that distinction is chosen by the soul on some level in order to experience the giving and receiving of sacred pleasure. Still other schools think that aspiring even after these high levels is ultimately wishing for a type of bondage and point out that all beings desire freedom most of all.

While I think that the idea that distinction is a mysterious property contained within undifferentiated reality is a rather nifty explanation and one that has a pleasantly mystical quality to it, it’s not really one that’s been floated in (modern, Western) polytheist circles – and it if was, we’d all get accused of (gasp) monism. (I personally find the second explanation – about distinction arising from a soul-deep desire to give and receive joyful pleasure – to be emotionally satisfying but that’s because I’m a Tantric and therefore just a monist with a funny hat.) At any rate, neither of the three explanations outlined just above really have a great deal to do with broader (modern, Western) polytheism even if one tradition or another might have their own take on this question. (After all, we’re all still very concerned about whether or not Loki gets honored in worship rituals; we haven’t gotten around to worrying about matters of transcendent unity and its implications for our polytheist identities, practices, and relationships.)

The idea of difference driving the desire for unity is helpful, I think, and perhaps especially relevant to devotional polytheists seeking to understand the weird things that happen as a result of prolonged exposure to various Powers. Of course, some desires change and this changeable quality draws attention to other nuances of a discrete identity. If one knows oneself in part via desire for another, what happens to that self-knowledge when the desired other changes in some way? This is an unsurprising source of anxiety that comes up when the Power one is close to begins to get muddled or otherwise shift.

In some ways, I wonder if this shifting isn’t something of a cosmic challenge. After all, we are subject to changeable desires every day, every hour even. These changeable lusts and loves and wants rarely disrupt our sense of self, but the kind of desire felt regarding the Powers is quite different – or at least, that might be what we are called on to demonstrate. Can you keep loving as shit gets weird? Can you love yourself through a reinvention of the Beloved? Can you love yourself through a reinvention of yourself?

Sometimes it’s the self that changes and must rediscover the thread of this ongoing desire; sometimes it’s the apparent object that changes and the self must trust the presence of that thread. One can work towards these deeper realizations from either end, triggering changes in the self or changes in (the perception of) the object. And of course, the Powers themselves may choose to change in order to bring us to new levels of knowledge.

There is a post I keep trying to write and it never quite comes together. We’ll see how far this one gets.

There are emotional horizons beyond that of love. As deep, broad, and intense as sacred love is there are things that lie on its other side. And there are things beyond that still – or so I trust.

Extreme sensations, no matter how sweet or pleasurable turn into pain eventually and when there is no relief  or culmination or resolution all that pain turns into a kind of drawn out grief. No one talks to us about love so intense and outsized that it becomes its own source of tragedy.

I write so little about Him here that people actually don’t realize that He’s my primary focus in life. It is much, much easier to write about other topics and those are what people gradually know me best for talking about.

I’ve spent the last several years lost in medieval Indian love poetry because I have no source of emotional refuge closer to home. My religious leaders certainly didn’t talk about what happens after love.

The thing is, I don’t know how to cope with or manage this experience. It is drawn out like hot wire, fine and burning and bright and dangerous to hold. What do you do with this kind of emotion? My only response has been to melt and wave after wave of sentiment surges out and I cry all the time.

**

One of the people I rely on for instruction (I wish I could remember specifically who) said that there’s a good reason people are so wary of religious life. When you shack up with a path you might very well find your life going to shit before very long – and yeah, it’s not too inaccurate to say that religion is the source of the problem. See, when you suddenly rearrange your priorities in a way that will always leave you fundamentally disappointed and frustrated, you will always find life and lived experiences somewhat lacking. For instance, if your religious worldview includes charity as a priority and you go through each and every day surrounded by greed and selfishness, you will naturally end up disappointed and frustrated. If your religious worldview prioritizes a view of humanity as fundamentally connected and interdependent and you see nothing by people talking about how we don’t have to care for one another, you will naturally end up disappointed and frustrated.

The problem isn’t religion as such – and in fact, since this is an entirely natural outcome of religious engagement, I’m not sure it can be considered a problem at all. The difficulty arises from being forced to exist in contexts where our highest goals will be impossible to achieve or realize – and this, perhaps, is the entire point. Trying to force consensus reality to conform to a present, private understanding of a religious paradigm is misguided at best and abusive at worst.

Being in a context suffused with tension between desire and resolution, interior reality and exterior reality, is intensely painful and we have a choice regarding how to deal with this pain. We can lash out and harm others as they inevitably fail to live up to our private ideals; telling others that they aren’t pious enough, aren’t devoted enough, aren’t pure enough, aren’t driven enough, aren’t educated enough, aren’t committed enough, etc. etc. doesn’t actually inspire many people to adopt a religious worldview and certainly doesn’t further the resolution of one’s private desires. Others’ “failure” to conform to our private priorities isn’t a flaw in the system. It’s a feature; a lesson; an opportunity to shut up and recognize that everyone is currently suffering or will eventually suffer from the same failure to resolve the tension between private desire and consensus reality.

What I’m saying is that we can choose to learn from this tension, this “problem” or we can hurt ourselves and others with it.

I struggle with this. I prioritize the sacred relationships in my life and feel them with such intensity that I can have little patience for the small, nuanced, and delicate ways that interpersonal ties are formed and sustained. I am not always a very good friend. I am not always very patient with the ways interpersonal ties are expressed. I have failed to be compassionate and patient and without doubt I will continue to fail.

This failure isn’t a flaw; the flaw exists only in me demanding that all other versions of reality conform to my interior priorities. It doesn’t mean that I’m wrong or bad, merely that I still have much to learn.

I don’t feel like this love lives in me; I feel like I live in it, moving through it like a cloud or bank of fog every day. This outsized love is painful enough that it feels like a flaw, like a problem, like a burden – but just because it feels this way doesn’t mean it is.

My life has been ruined by religion. I’ve been shredded to pieces and beaten down until I don’t recognize the person I was or am or might someday be. The little markers that gave me gravity and a place to sit are long gone and I have no idea where I fit or where I belong. I have loved long past the point of pain and I don’t know how to stop. I thought about stopping and even tried for a while but found that the world of dry and empty and bland. I don’t know precisely how to channel this intensity or how to find relief; nothing seems to fix it for long.

“My ruination,” I call Him.

And yet I persist – not out of any nobility of purpose but only because I don’t know how to stop.

I’m still here. The amount of catch-up I have do to with this blog is a bit overwhelming so I’m avoiding it. Every so often I think about an entry I could write and I might even sit down and write out several paragraphs but I leave off before it’s finished and it ends up just languishing in my queue.

I’m working on May’s Patreon perk. It might be a sample from current work on the Heartroad 2 manuscript or it might be another printable. I’ve been working on printable altar backdrops and one is currently available on Etsy.

I’m also busy sewing for a few clients, so I haven’t had time to get back to making more altar cloths. I really like making them but finding fabric isn’t always convenient.

I’m busy studying in preparation of my presentation at Many Gods West. I’ll be revisiting the well-received session on three lady poet-saints and I’m very excited. I’m deep into a book examining Mirabai’s cultural legacy. I’ll also be doing the Advancing Devotional Practice session that I’ve presented at PantheaCon. This session was done at February’s PCon and it was amazing. I’m sure the conversation stimulated at MGW will be just as illuminating.

In addition to may paid sewing work I’ve been volunteering to outfit deities at a few different temples, two local and one distant. This work is a wonderful test of my abilities and gives me wonderful opportunity to learn some very unique skills along the way. It’s work of spiritual excellence as much as it is of technical and artistic excellence; I feel immensely grateful and humble to have these opportunities and it’s truly wonderful to be able to give back to communities that have been so gracious and welcoming to me.

I’m very much enjoying getting back to doing divination for clients. Each reading I do is a chance to become better and I’m hoping to find time to study more in-depth sometime later this year. Even though I’ve been reading professionally for 17 years I still feel like I have lots to learn.

Thanks for sticking with me. I have so many, many projects I want to work on. I’ve chosen to re-do the recordings of the audio book for Worshiping Loki so that project is a bit on hold. I’m writing an outline of another audio project. I’ll record it eventually. I keep wanting to quit one of my jobs so that I’ll have time to actually do these things but as it is I can’t afford to. I’m still hoping to find new employment that will increase my earning so that I can decrease my working hours in order to focus on art but nothing’s come through. Anyway, thanks again.