Tarot for Healing: An E-Book by ME!

Hello all!

I am involved in a really wonderful, beautiful project to benefit a crucial and timely organization. For it, I wrote a mini e-book (about 8 pages) about Tarot for Healing. It's three spreads, plus some pretty significant backstory about how I came to tarot. I'm really happy with it, and while I wait for the big project to unveil decided to make it available for $10--and because my heart really was in a giving place when I wrote it, 25% of all funds received ($2.50 per e-book) is going to be donated to Standing Rock.

*Deck featured is the Tangled Roots Oracle by Leora Effinger-Weintraub.

How to Know if This is the E-Book for You
I did write this publication with individual trauma and grief in mind, but my life dealing with chronic illness filtered in too. If you have experience or concerns in any of those areas, OR if you have clients, friends, or partners you're always trying to better your readings for, this is definitely, definitely for you. It's also a great book for beginner and intermediate tarot readers looking for some different spreads and thoughts about what tarot can do.

Included in this Mini (but mighty) E-Book

• My own backstory about tarot, trauma, and coming out of the closet and how they all correlate.
• A spread for when you're still in the thick of a bad situation
• A spread for processing grief, trauma, and even physical setbacks
• A spread for when YOU are doing alright, but you're fave loved one? Not so much
• Full color photos and sample readings of each spread

The Catch?
No catch! I will likely take sales of this product down once the major project launches, so you are on a bit of a vague but very real time crunch. Otherwise you'll get a (hopefully) lovely product by me and know that part of the money goes to support the water protectors at Standing Rock.

My technology is in a bit of a weird place, so we're going to use a streamlined by very old-school style of internet sales. To order this Tarot for Healing Mini E-book:

• Send an email to snow.cassandra@gmail.com with the subject line "Tarot for Healing Order".
  • The body of the email should include your name, pronouns, and whether I have your permission to add you to my email newsletter or not.
  • The body of the email should also include how you plan to pay: PayPal, Venmo, and Square are your options. If you live in driving distance of NE Minneapolis, you may swing by my apartment building with cash during the weekday (except Tuesday) but that's not preferred. At all.
• Once I send you my payment details via your preferred method, send your payment. You will receive your copy of the e-book within mere hours! (Give me a full day in case I'm slammed, but otherwise I can hit "attach" and "send" rather quickly.)
• That's it! Enjoy! If you fall super in love with it and want to send a testimonial or review, please do. Otherwise, I leave you to the book's treasures.

Blessed be, y'all!

Election Anxiety and Beyond-A Reading for Hope and Healing

I've had nightmares about this upcoming Tuesday all week and my chest tightens at the mention of election anything. Living with PTSD is never a cakewalk but this election cycle is another monster entirely. For so many of us living with anxiety, trauma, and mental illness it seems like there's a new trigger at every turn, a new reason to be fearful every time we check into Facebook, a new person in our lives we learn we can not trust because of the levity with which they treat these triggers.

Tarot will probably not save the world--but as a spiritual person I serve liberation and empowerment, and with most things in life that starts in our homes and in our hearts. So while I did a not-quite-cheerful reading about the election with the intention to share it with you all, I ultimately decided against it.

Because we KNOW Tuesday is going to be a living nightmare of anxiety and we KNOW that many will take their anxiety out on others, creating a dreamscape Stephen King himself couldn't have dreamt of, and we KNOW that equity and compassion might lose. Big time. And ONE function if tarot is to warn us of what's to come or give us the truth about where we are right now--but it's not it's only function.

Because like the bulk of my spiritual work, tarot is also about healing and empowerment. It's about learning how to move on even when we don't want to or don't think we can. It's not about the Death card, it's about how we learn to live again after the fact. So here's a simple spread, and a simple reading for all of us to hold on to until Tuesday about how to cope and rebuild.

This is a three card spread--an overarching energy to show what we're actually dealing with.

A card for how to cope and find balance in the meantime

and a card for healing and rebuilding. Even if the worst doesn't happen, this is taking a lot out of us. The initial high of defeating our worst fears will give way to exhaustion and allowing ourselves to feel and live in our spent-ness. And of course, the worst could happen. So this card is how to grow from there.

As for our universal reading (which I did with the Cosmos Tarot and Oracle), we show that we're not wrong--there is definitely an aggressive energy permeating through everything in American society (and those societies closely linked to and affected by it) right now. And Mars is a card of war which is why even those of us who live in magick and whimsy are so prone to pick up pitchforks and begin yet another speech with "OKAY, first of all..." right now. But Mars is also a card of action and vitality--there is good life left in our fight yet. Applied correctly, we could still turn this mess around with Mars looming so closely.

Our "immediate coping mechanism" shows us digging deep down for those last reserves of strength. For better or worse, it's only 2.5 more days. Repeat that to yourself ad nauseum. For better or worse, it's only 2.5 more days. Don't stop fighting for what you believe in for this election because even when it doesn't seem like it, some hearts will still open and some people will still "get it" last minute. But also remember that Hercules has a weakness, as we all do, which forces us to rest and retreat from time to time. Do everything you would normally do for self-care in times of duress. Sleep more. Do less. Love just as hard as you do in good times and hold them all tightly. Remind yourself that you are not how you reacted to this election season. And as a side note, sometimes the cards make a more surface level metaphor. For those physically able to do so, pouring our emotions into exercise and physical activity may be your saving grace right now. Get outside. Eat lots of protein. Put your remaining energy reserves into the things you've been working hard for all month/year/life-long. They will still be here tomorrow and you need the outlet now.

Finally we see the Page of Air. We don't know what things are going to look like from Wednesday on, but we do know we'll have new insight and ideas into how to rebuild. It is important to have a plan for healing and regrowth in your mind, but leave room for freshness and flexibility. Again, lean to those you love and as for help when you need it. Plan a day trip with one or two you hold dear to blow off steam. Remember, there's no shame in hiding until the fury dies down if your life allows you to do so. And hilariously, this card does allow for what we've all be threatening--moving out of the country if we just really can not.

As a final note, while Fire oversees us, the other cards were Swords/Air. So use logic--you know there is an end to this and a next step. Try to get some clarity--meditate, vent to a friend, exercise your brute strength with some rad kickboxing classes--whatever you need to do to just clear your mind and escape the inundation of poll reports and internet fights. Wednesday will come. And there will be one the week after that. And the week after that. Hold on to the GOOD that you know is real--not just the bad that we are swimming in.

Hope this was helpful, lovelies. Blessed be.

"All We Are Is Our Stories"

This is something the flawless Desiree Burch said during Nerdcon in the fall, and it is a sentence that haunts me and comes back over and over again. It grows deeper every time--when it was stated, Desiree was giving a speech on why stories matter, and basically said that stories matter because we matter, and all we are once we leave this plane is the stories we leave behind. That is such a stunning and beautiful concept, such an impetus to speak your truth. Then this kept showing up in my readings.

This is the card "History," a special card added into The Tarot of the Silicon Dawn by Egypt Urnash. You can see an in-depth review of this card (that I did not write) here. It is devilishly queer and the extra cards are so wonderful and perfect add-ons for my life. This History card is starting to get under my skin as I grow and evolve, and keeps showing up in readings to really push the point home.

I've had a rough life, you guys. I make no secret of this, but I don't harp on it either. It is what it is, and I like to think that in spite of a rough upbringing, several chronic illnesses, and the reasons behind my PTSD and severe social anxiety disorder I am learning to move and thrive, and I am. I so am. The past year was so wild and I remembered how much potential and promise I truly have. Still there is something holding me back at times, and it is that voice that sounds like everyone who didn't believe me, everyone who hurt me, everyone who thought they were better and tried to oppress me. I have grown leaps and bounds, and still this card keeps showing up.

This card, you see, is about what we make of our history. It's about the stories we tell ourselves about our histories, and therefore our futures. In the card we see our figure bound by their words, bound by their stories, bound by their history, but this is not a card about how great bondage is. (Those cards are in this deck though, don't you worry ;) ) This is a card about how crucial moving forward is, but it exists to remind us we can not move on until we take control of our stories. This card tells us we can rewrite them, and we can rewrite their ending, and that we have too. We have to write our history in a way that we are empowered and we come out the victors in the end. We have to rewrite the stories we tell ourselves if those stories put us down and reinforce our insecurities, we just have too. We deserve stories where we persevered and we are so powerful. We deserve stories where we win. We deserve stories where we recognize that the story isn't over and anything can happen. We deserve empowering stories.

Because all we are, after all, is our stories, and we can't leave marvelous tales of wonder to the world when we just keep telling ourselves the same old horror stories.