From My Instagram Highlights: Tarot Tips & Tricks For Beginner's & Those Looking to Shake Up Their Practice

Hello all!

I’ve been trying to really learn Instagram Stories and use it to help boost my tarot client and occult writing reader base and today I posted a story with some basic tarot tips and tricks that I wanted to share here as well. These are meant for TOTAL beginner’s but can absolutely be used for more seasoned readers looking to deepen their relationship with the tarot cards.

Tip #1: Tuning Into Your Intuition
Intuition is just the way your body processes and accesses information. To tune in: close your eyes, get comfy, and take a few deep breathes. Once your breathe is steady and deep, tune into how your gut,heart, and mind feel. Listen to them each for a few moments. Now you should be in tune.

Tip #2: Compare and Contrast

• Look at the story of your tarot deck by looking at how each card changes and shifts from the one before it.

• Pull out all of your aces at once, then your twos, threes, etc. What similarities are there? How are they different?

• Look at decks that aren’t yours! What similarities and differences do you see in the cards?

Note these similarities and differences somewhere. Those notes can and should become a foundation for learning your tarot deck.

Tip #3: Follow Tarot Readers on Instagram! Or Watch Them On YouTube!
Seeing other readers in action is SO important to the learning process. You won’t agree with everybody’s interpretations and that’s okay. The important thing is to see how the cards are talked about and treated by others.

*Please note! It’s fine to have a favorite reader you watch or follow, but try to follow several different readers. The comparison is so important!

If you have questions for me based on this list, never fear! I am here to answer them and I am always thrilled to hear from you. I’m going to try to make my stories tarot and witch-educational on a regular basis and you can follow along here.

Finally, I have a keyword list here that is new and affordable and will help you learn the tarot through a more inclusive, sex-positive, and creative perspective. Use it alongside your Little White Book or disregard it entirely!

Blessed be y’all!

Cassandra Snow

Whelp, That Happened

On Tuesday so many of our worst fears got confirmed. Hate, anger, and fear won--for now. What I'm having the hardest time wrapping my head around spiritually is this: it shouldn't have. By which I mean Clinton won the popular vote and when you factor in third party votes or conscientious abstainers, well over half of America voted against hate. And yet our government is structured so that it won anyway. Love had numbers on it's side, and hate still won and I am still reeling from trying to place that somewhere productive in my milleu. And I know the fight isn't over. It's never over, and it's wouldn't have been over under Clinton who I enthusiastically voted for with every intention to keep her accountable on the issues I didn't agree with. The good fight has undeniably received a huge hit though, and I made a spread to follow up my pre-election post from Sunday. If it's useful to you, use it as much as you can.

This one is five cards. Deck used is this one. I started with an overarching question that many of us who have been reading about faithless electors, impeachment, and eradicating the electoral college have been thinking: is this round actually over, or is fighting worth it at this point? The Six of Earth reminds us that nothing is really over until we say it is, that there are safe places and touchstones even in the darkest times, and that fighting is always worth it. A bit vaguer of an answer that I wanted, but after reading an egregious amount of journalism, real and pseudo, over the past few days, I believe it's saying this: we should fight all the fights that are feasible to keep the Trump/Pence ticket out because it may not work this time, but it's crucial for future progressive elections and will make a huge difference in the long-term. AND we may actually see something come of it. Don't give up, have hope, and know that even if this is it, and Trump is our answer, that there are still safe places and people we can build community with now.

The next three are more straightforward and more about us and less about the election. The placements are:

1. What do we do to cope in the immediate?
2. How do we change our behavior so this doesn't happen again? (IE how do we stop contributing to white cisnormative heteropatriachy supremacy)
3. What DOES the future look like right now, and how does that affect us?

The final card in this one is "What do I need to know, no matter how things turn out?" That's the top one.

This sample reading, mostly geared towards me but potentially useful to you says this: our coping mechanism is the 10 of Air, a card of tarot specifically in this case. For me, tarot has always been my healer and my saving grace. It has gotten me through major stepping stones in each of my careers. It has aided my therapy. It has given me answers, guidance, and hope when I didn't even know or think I deserved them, and so for me this is obvious: turn to the tarot like I've always done. For you it may not be tarot--the message I have for those reading based on this is turn to whatever has always healed and soothed YOU, the thing that has gotten you through crossroad after crossroad and threshold after threshold. That thing hasn't gone anywhere. So I'm going to keep flipping cards, creating art, and writing it all down to share with you. I'm going to snuggle my queerplatonic partner and my cats even harder and more often. My coffee habit is going nowhere in the immediate. And you--you do whatever the equivalent to these things is to you.

The cards then remind me to always be fair and balanced if I want to tip the scales of progress in the future. Flying off at the mouth may not be my best bet right now. For some people it absolutely will be, remember, this was primarily a personal reading. For YOU this one is about always putting your money, your carbon footprint, your mouth where your heart is. We all need to evaluate our own part in getting to this point. No white person, no cis person, no man, no straight person, no able-bodied or healthy person is completely innocent. There is more you can do and the time to evaluate that is now.

Unfortunately with the God card here, we're in for it to be a little rough for awhile. Those coping mechanisms and our community building skills are going to be crucial. We will be struggling against white supremacy and patriarchy for awhile. It's important to remember that even if somehow this vote gets overturned, this ticket has uncorked those who have been dying to act out hatred and bigotry for Goddess knows how long. That's not going to go away overnight. Getting a different president in will not solve all of our problems. We have to keep fighting back, we have to expect change to be small at first. We have to be strong and disciplined and strategic. That last keyword is just as important as the others now.

Finally, the "what do I need to know?" card gives us a card of cows and farms and "slow but steady." Remember that there is enough to go around. Do not center your movement in greed and power grabs--that's how we got here in the first place. Donate to organizations that need it if you're able. Try to live your life as normally as possible. Trust that true change takes time but hearts are softening as we speak. Your home is still your sanctuary for now, and if it isn't, there is a sanctuary for you. Find it.

BUT WAIT--while this spread gave me a ton to plan, think about, meditate on, etc. I really needed to pull one more card, to see if there was any hope that the next 4-8 years would either not be Trump or Pence-led, and if they were if there was any way it wouldn't be terrible. And the deck gave me this:

Check out that 90's-tastic fabric on my favorite ugly chair.

Primal matriarchal, earthy energy. Fertility, success, creation. Love. Compassion. Your Divine is still here and it is listening. Make of that what you will.

Until next time, 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.