 Most people who play cards don't realize that our modern deck of 52 cards is derived from the Tarot deck. In fact, the four suits correspond directly with the suits in Tarot. Here is how they match up: Tarot cards |
| Playing cards | Wands | ===> | Clubs | Cups | ===> | Hearts | Swords | ===> | Spades | Coins | ===> | Diamonds |
Traditional Tarot Decks have 22 "trump" cards along with 56 "suit" cards. The trump cards include powerful archetypes like the Sun, the Moon, the World, the Lovers, the Magician, etc. The suit cards correspond closely to the 52 cards in a playing card deck, except that in Tarot we have not only Queen and King face cards, we have Page and Knight cards for each suit, which were combined into the single Jack card as playing cards developed over time. Playing cards were once used for fortune-telling, too!
 Tarot shows up first in Italy and France in the 14th and 15th centuries, possibly having traveled there from the Middle East. In the early days, both types of cards — Tarot cards and playing cards — were used openly to play games and for general entertainment, but both were also adapted and used for divination or fortune-telling purposes, mostly in secret. Some historians suggest that all card "games" were originally developed in part as a way to hide (from the medieval Church) the more serious application of the cards and symbols. The Church condemned divination and gambling both (in spite of the fact that divination is depicted favorably more often than not in the bible). Tarot has been interpreted creatively by artists and sages through the ages, whereas the playing card deck has stayed pretty much the same.
Tarot art is a rich and beautiful reflection of history and traces the evolution of these universal symbols in different periods and cultures, right up to modern times. Consulting the Tarot cards is entertaining, even as we use it for advice or to decipher the deeper meaning of circumstances and events in our lives.
Attend A Live Tarot and Water Scrying Chat
hosted in our MMC website's chat room Saturday, June 14, 2007
8pm Eastern/7pm Central (US)
(11am Sunday - to our Australian/NSW readers)
Winners from our Chat contests who chose a public reading should be in attendance. If you've ever had questions about the tarot, water scrying or about divination in general, bring them to the chat and we will do our best to answer. There will also be door prizes at the Saturday chat, so mark it on your calendars and plan to attend!
 Hydromancy, from the Greek Hudromanteia (hudro = hydro / manteia = mancy), is also known as Ydromancy, and Hydrascopy.
This is a name given to various different methods of predicting the future by means of water or rain. It's also known by the more common term, water scrying. The art is an ancient form of divination that goes back thousands of years. Water is a metaphor of creation linked to the flow of the collective unconsciousness, and thought to be connected to the Hall of Records or Akashic Records. The seer would sit by a calm body of water and watch its flowing motion create patterns that they would interpret. Often images would appear within the water and bring a telepathic message.
In many ancient pagan and/or shamanistic traditions, initiates would spend hours gazing into a sacred pool of water, or large sacred urn filled with water, to receive messages from the gods. This generally involved time and focus, and the abilities of the initiate to focus within. This brought visions of gods and the future. Many indigenous people use some form of water divination to receive messages.
Nostradamus practiced Hydromancy as a means of receiving messages and predictions, through the movement of water in a bowl. He recorded what he saw, combined with psychic messages, with amazing accuracy. Unfortunately most of his famous book of quatrains were too cryptic, and scholars are still trying to decode and interpret them to this day.
The more you learn to focus your mind while gazing into the water, the more quickly you open yourself up to receiving messages and understanding their meaning.
Hydromancy Techniques
Scrying Within Nature
Hydromancy is best done on a calm day alongside a body of water, such as a stream or lake, where you will gaze. Sit down. Relax and look within this natural body of water. Wait and observe. You can also drop a pebble in the water and read the ripples as they form. You might see an image appear in movement as water is always in transition, a metaphor for the flow of our reality. Some people prefer to gaze into water at night in the light of a full moon as lunar energies are linked to the goddess.
Scrying Indoors
Find a quiet area, free of distraction, as you will have to focus your mind. Select a bowl in which you will place the water. It should not have any pattern on it, but be of a solid color.
Singing crystal bowls used for harmonics, may be used, but please be careful not to harm the bowl, as most are attuned for other purposes. Otherwise, simple select a large, deep bowl made from glass, brass, stone (with no striation or veining) or silver. It must have a smooth and even rim. You may have to change bowls several times to find the right one for you. Remember, metal bowls carry harmonic frequencies.
Set the bowl in a dry level space, one in which you can easily observe. The water used can be bottled, from a well, a tap, or a stream. It can also be stored an used at a future time to water scry again. Water with great energy is often thought to be collected by the light of a full moon or the after standing in the sun.
In my tradition, a coin of pure silver is placed at the bottom of the scrying bowl, then water is poured over the coin and allowed to fill the bowl. Under the light of a either a new moon or a full moon, place the bowl outside and allow the silver of the coin to absorb the lunar energies. Then bring the bowl back inside when you feel enough time has passed (usually a few hours), and set the bowl down in an area where you are comfortable and attune yourself to the silver, to the frequencies of the lunar energy, open your eyes, and read what you see.
If you do not wish to read just then, the water can be saved to be used at another time. Remember to place the coin in the bottom of the bowl and pour the bottled lunar water over it before you begin to do your scrying. Other methods involve holding a pendulum over a goblet of water for yes or no answers. A variation on hydromancy is tasseomancy, or the art of tea leaf reading.
Seeing
Place the bowl of water on a flat clear surface. Gaze into the still water and focus your mind until images appear.
Using a Wand
In some traditions suggest using a wand made from the branch of a bay tree, hazel tree or the laurel. The end of the wand should be covered in dry tree sap or resin. Dip the end of the wand into the water until it becomes wet. Wet the rims of the bowl. By gently drawing the rim of the wand around the bowl it will cause it to resonate. The action of the resonating basin will cause circular ripples to form in the basin. The water may seem to breathe with the sounds.
Interpretation
Images or messages may seem cryptic at first, perhaps because the seer has no frame of reference, such as the huge, strange metal-skinned dragonflies, that Nostradamus mentions in certain quatrains, he saw in the water. Most scholars now believe, based on his descriptions, that what he actually saw were not dragonflies at all, but helicopters. The further into the future the images, the harder they will probably be to interpret, so do not get discouraged.
Hydromancy is more of an art than a science, but with a little practice, you will be able to explore your own intuitive power.
May you all be blessed by the luck o' the moon!
•readings are for entertainment purposes only.
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Labels: divination, scheduled chat, water scrying |
