Creating Your Own Oracle of Care

I love the complexity that tarot offers us and the many ways that it can be used as a tool of self-inquiry and healing.

Tarot cards like many tools of divination are multi-layered. The initial image you see on a tarot card is only the first layer of meaning. Below that are layers of tradition from the astrological to the numerological to the herbal, your own personal associations with an image, the artist's vision, intuitive insights, and more.

Looking at the Fool card, for example, you could read the card as someone about to embark on a new adventure based on looking at the traditional imagery of the card. The tradition of numerology associated with tarot tells us that the number 0, the number of the Fool card, represents unnamed potential.¹ Within elemental tradition, the Fool represents the element of Air, an element prone to swift action and sudden insight, while modern astrological association pairs the Fool with Uranus, the planet of innovation and limitlessness. And those are all just the initial meanings of each of those lines of interpretation. Beyond divination, tarot cards can be used for spellwork, in healing practices, for self-inquiry, meditation, art, and more. These packs of (usually) 78 cards contain a great deal of versatility in their use and meaningfulness to our modern complex lives.

So am I now going to lead you through a multidisciplinary exploration of each card? No, quite the opposite. I just wanted to highlight how a complex tool like the tarot can be used in simple ways when life feels overwhelming. While I love the tarot as a tool of self and community care, it took me a moment to figure out how to not get overwhelmed by all the ways I could interpret a card when I just wanted some to-the-point guidance. 

Some of you might be wondering why I didn't just purchase an oracle deck geared towards self-care, but I had a hard time finding a deck that spoke to me. I was also wary of buying yet another deck, especially an oracle deck with a new system that I would have to learn. What I really wanted in these moments was a tool that I know could hold all of my complexity while being familiar and friendly. Something that I could rely on to help me out of funks, reorient my compass of care, and help me reconnect with the people, creatures, and places I love. 

Did I end up trying to transform the major arcana of my tarot deck into a self and community care oracle? Yes, and it's been a lot of fun! Here's how I did it. 

I started by pulling out the Major Arcana from my tarot deck and then grabbed a pen and paper. I jotted down a list of things that helped me feel cared for and reconnected to my community from the more practical (eat some lunch! call a friend!) to the more magickal (rebuild my altar!). This list is less about aspirational goals and much more about what skills or practices you already have in your toolbox or are working on developing. Taking time off to travel sounds lovely, but we're looking at something that you'd be able to do with relative ease (i.e. something you could theoretically do even if it might take some mental-emotional effort) and little planning. 

So I've shared with you one example of a list of correspondences inspired by my own with some thoughts and variations thrown in to help inspire you. I hope you see this as a starting point, borrow what works for you, adapt what doesn't, and tailor-make your major arcana into an oracle of care that works for you. This could be a really beautiful and fun activity to do with your tarot reading group, coven, magickal collective or whoever you gather with as part of your tarot practice.

The Future Ancestor Tarot by lexa luna studios

The Major Arcana Oracle of Care

On my list below I've included both traditional and modern names for the Major Arcana because I use both in my practice. Some of these names are of my own making, but others I've marked where they have come from in with the following symbols: 

• The Slow Holler Tarot ▽

• The Gaian Tarot ◎

• The Collective Tarot ✴︎

• The Future Ancestor Tarot ❁

0. The Fool - Play a Game
Whatever type of game makes the most sense to you, go ahead and take some time to play it either on your own or with friends. If you're feeling a need to stretch beyond the mundane look up experimental travel or exploration games or maybe make a ritual out of your play to move energy.  

I. The Magician - Altar Work
Time to tidy up, clean, remake or make a new altar.

II. The High Priestess - Take Some Time to Journal
The High Priestess encourages self inquiry and the act of writing and journaling helps us do just that. 

III. The Empress, The Land, Experience, The Gardener ◎, Reception ✴︎ - Get Outside
Enough said.

IX. The Emperor, The Web, Framework, The Builder ◎, The Navigator ▽ - Take Your Herbs
This can easily include any medication you might've been neglecting as well as herbal body care like face masks and body oils if that is something you'd like to do but have been putting off. 

X. The Hierophant, The Guild ▽, Virtue ❁ - Talk To Your Ancestors
Whether the Mighty or Beloved Dead, it's time to reach out to your ancestors because they're reaching out to you.

XI. The Lovers, Connection, Interdependence - Appreciate Some Art and/or Do Art
I either pull out some art books or scroll around online art exhibits for inspiration, but art comes in many forms and shows up in all sorts of places. It's time to seek it out and find yourself reflected back at you. Other times, this is a reminder to pick up an art project that I've set aside or start a new one.

XII. The Chariot - Turn Your Heart to Holy Places
The Chariot is a card of will and having a clear sense of direction. When I pull this card I take a moment to reorient myself that which feels sacred to me and to help it feel more tangible I actually turn and face towards the direction of holy places. Old growth forests, ancestral lands, your Grandma's house, whatever and wherever it might be, spend some time orienting yourself to that sacred place to help you feel it where you're at right now.

XIII. Strength - Move Your Body and/or Eat Some Lunch
When I pull the Strength card I do a workout because working out brings me a lot of joy even if it sometimes feels hard to show up to. Move your body in a way that feels good to you and you know would be of benefit to you in the moment - from getting up and taking a shower to getting up to going for a run to dance parties with your roommates and so on. Sometimes this card comes up as a reminder to nourish my body with food, whether that's eating lunch, getting a snack or calling some friends to meet up for dinner.

IX. The Hermit - Alone Time
Time to clear your schedule and get some quality alone time. Is this one of my favorite cards to pull? Yes, yes it is.

X. The Wheel of Fortune, Chance ✴︎ - Watch a Movie or Show
Doesn't have to be complicated or deep, just watch something that you enjoy, maybe inspires you or at least cheers you up. 

XI. Justice, Reconciliation, Intersection ▽, Accountability ✴︎ - Evaluate Expectation Versus Need
Here is an opportunity to rebalance the scales in my life of where I'm putting my energy. When the Justice card comes up I pull out a piece of paper and make two columns: one is for expectations and the other is for needs. In the expectations column I write down all the things that I feel like I'm expected to do (they might be my own expectations, expressed or assumed expectations of others, cultural expectations etc.) and feel most pressing and present in my life right now. An example of an expectation might be to finish a blog post by tomorrow because that's a deadline I set for myself and I worry that I'll let down my readers if I don't. In the needs column I write down my most present needs and to do this I might need to take a moment to check in with myself, scan my energy, and settle into my body a bit. An example of a need might be needing to take the rest of the day off from work and rest because I've been pushing my limits for too long. When I'm done making my list I try and reconcile the expectations versus needs and I often find that I've put too much weight on expectations and not enough on my actual needs. Usually simple revelations and solutions arise (i.e. I can take an afternoon off and delay blog post by a day without causing any harm and instead creating a lot of benefit) after going through this process.

XII. The Hanged One, Metamorphosis ❁, the Precipice ▽ - Read a Chapter of a Book
One of my primary associations with the Hanged One is someone who is seeking wisdom and does this through inner strength and perception. Reading a book takes more effort than staring at a screen, wakes up my inner world, and is a wisdom seeking activity for me. I either read a chapter from a book that I'm already in the process of reading or pull a book at random from my shelves, open to a chapter, and read that.

The Gentle Tarot by mari in the sky and Nourishing the Nervous System by Tayla Shanaye

XIII. Death - Change Your Sheets
While I chose "change your sheets" because fresh and clean bedsheets always feels luxurious to me (I feel so old writing that sentence), you could easily substitute "change your clothes" or "change your hairstyle" or "change your location" for "sheets." The point is to choose some sort of simple but physically tangible change to your environment that can be done with relative ease.

XIV. Temperance, Balance, Homeostasis - Practice Breathwork
Sometimes it's helpful to have a time marker for your breathwork practice. "Practice 5 Minutes of Breathwork" can feel a lot more doable than an open-ended "Practice Breathwork" prompt. Or you could choose a specific breathwork practice like a Tree of Life meditation for this card. Breathwork is an act of rebalancing and tempering energies so it feels like a very Temperance card thing to do.

XV. The Devil, Oppression ✴︎ - Clear Out
When I pull the Devil card one of the simple practices I do is add something to my donation box. While the Devil has many complex interpretations, one of the ways to understand this card is how we can get tangled up in being restrained by our stuff as well as our fears and expectations around what we do and do not own and what that says about who we are. If the Devil card is coming up in the context of my self and community care oracle, I know it's time to let go of something that's been taking up too much space in my life and that I know longer need. This is not an invitation for a full downsizing of all your belongings, but rather an opportunity to clear out a drawer of items you no longer need, as you call in the space to feel more free in your life.

XVI. The Tower, the Storm ▽, Disaster ✴︎ - Clean Up
When the Tower shows up I choose something to clean up. Often this is my workspace, but sometimes it's a project that I've been putting off. Often what is challenging about Tower energy is the aftermath of things falling apart, so pulling the Tower card is an opportunity to acknowledge the mess and clean up what I have control of.

XVII. The Star - Read Some Poetry
You can easily replace this with "read from a sacred text" or similarly reflective and inspiring text.

XVIII. The Moon - Time for a Lunar Ritual
No matter the phase of the Moon I make time for a lunar ritual when I pull this card. Though originally written for the New Moon, the rituals for each sign of the zodiac in my New Moon Healer's Project can be adapted for any phase if you're looking for some inspiration.

XIX. The Sun - Indulge Your Inner Child
What cheered you up as a kid? Maybe it's time to replicate that in an appropriate adult way. Playing with dolls, making a tree fort, outlining an extensive game of mutants versus bad guys? Do it! 

XX. Judgement, Restoration, Liberation ✴︎, The Awakening ▽◎ - Sound Therapy
You don't have to have any fancy equipment for sound therapy - humming or singing does wonders for our nervous systems and even better when it's with others.

XXI. The World - Call a Friend
Your friends love you, give them a call. And if that's feeling too hard, and you're wanting to speak with a person, maybe reach out to a chat or text hotline where there are folks waiting to chat with you no matter what. But if you can, reach out to a friend or a family member, and let them help draw you back into your community.

The Weiser Tarot

How to Use Your Major Arcana Oracle of Care

You've put together your list of correspondences for self and community care so it's time to put your new deck-within-a-deck to use. While I often keep at least one tarot deck of mine with the Major Arcana and Minor Arcana always separated for times like this, more often than not I just grab whatever deck is at hand and begin pulling out the Major Arcana cards. I find this to be a meditative process that helps me calm down and focus in on asking for what I need. 

With the 22 cards of the Major Arcana in hand, I shuffle, I pull a card and often that's it! Remember, this is supposed to be an easy to implement practice, so this might be the summation of what you do. Sometimes I like to set the card up on my desk, build a mini altar of herbs and stones around it, but most of the time the card goes right back in my deck and I carry on with the suggestion. 

You can write your self and community care correspondences directly on your tarot cards (it's totally ok to write on your tarot cards!) or keep your correspondence list written in your Book of Shadows, witch's notebook, notes app, or back of a receipt that you keep in that drawer.

And because I know that there are some of you who like a bit of complexity in their practice as a way to help move you out of a state of stagnation, you can always look up the astrological correspondence of each card and then compare to where that correspondence is in your birth chart. If you pull the Moon card, for example, you might tend to the energetic needs of your Moon sign and whatever House (i.e. area of your life) it shows up on your birth chart. 

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If you're looking for some more inspiration around using tarot as a tool of healing, here are some of my favorite healing practices to use with tarot. For an in-depth journey into the world of tarot and herbalism check out The Tarot Apothecary.

However you use your Major Arcana Oracle of Care, I hope that it inspires you to use and build upon your own collection of tools, whatever they may be, that help you get out of a funk and feel more centered and content.

This post was made possible through patron support.
❤ Thanks, friends. ❤

Footnotes

(1) My favorite theory about the development of numerology is that Pythagorus had ordinal linguistic personification synesthesia and his personal synesthetic number system got codified as a universal instead of a personal experience. I wonder a lot about the influence of synesthesia in the codifications of magickal correspondences beyond numerology. Many synesthetes are not aware that they have synesthesia so there is a lot of room for things like this to happen and there is also a long tradition of trying to induce synesthetic experiences within magickal and philosophical circles. All of this is to say that abstract correspondences are only as meaningful as you want them to be and it's ok to find meaning in present traditions or dream up new ones.

Tarot Decks Featured

The Future Ancestor Tarot by lexa luna studio
The Gentle Tarot by mari in the sky
The Weister Tarot published by Red Wheel/Weiser

Using Tarot In Your Healing Practice

When I started reading tarot I had the good fortune to be gifted a book that centered the cards as not only a tool of divination but one of transformation. The tarot was a living temple that one could visit, populated by interesting people, creatures, Old Ones, and landscapes that reflected our own inner psyche. Another of my early tarot books was on shadow work with tarot which I worked through as an earnest teenage witch who didn't quite know what they were doing. That early enthusiasm for self-inquiry and healing work has supported me these decades later and led me to turn again and again to my cards when seeking clarity around healing work. 

For me, the tarot is a multidisciplinary magickal tool - it is art, a collection of rebellious and traditional ideas, a practice of self-realization, a path of divination, a book of healing, and so much more.

With that in mind, I wanted to share with you some of my favorite ways of bringing tarot into your healing practice, whether for your own healing work or as a practitioner working with clients. 

The Gentle Tarot by Mari in the Sky

Create a Healing Tarot Altar

Tarot can easily become a vision board so why not create an altar incorporating cards related to your healing desires? For me, The Star is one of the most beautiful and healing cards in the deck and often finds its way onto my altar. It represents rest and restoration which is something I struggle to commit to in my healing practice. But any card in the deck can represent healing for you including goals you might have, allies you want to remember to recognize or call-in, and healing practices you want to incorporate into your practice. Finding cards for your healing altar can be as simple as flipping through your deck and pulling out whatever cards call to you, that you feel hope and possibility with. Add some other items if you like (a bowl of water, a candle or two, a healing stone or plant friend) and you've set up a sweet little space for healing work. If you work with clients this can be a really special thing to do with them while in session or ahead of time before they arrive in the space. If you're looking for more inspiration I've written about each of the healing qualities of each of the tarot suits.

Tarot by Caro - Caro Clarke

Find Your Shadow Card

I've written a whole post about tarot and shadow work including how to find your shadow card, but essentially it's a wonderfully visual and visceral way to understand a healing challenge you might be faced with at the moment. For example, if you're working with a client who is experiencing anxiety but is having difficulty pinpointing why or one of the places it might be stemming from, helping them choose a shadow card can help to start a discussion by talking about what they see in the card and the feelings it brings up in them. I do this in my own personal practice when I'm feeling overwhelmed by what seems like an endless expanse of things to be anxious about during these times of churn and change, to help me find an anchoring point to reconnect with my own inner compass and figure out what needs meeting with first. Learn more about how to find your shadow card.

The Future Ancestors Tarot by Alexa Villanueva

Cast a Healing Spread

I have a couple of different tarot spreads that I turn to for healing insights including the Healer's Celtic Cross for general readings, this one for working on old stuff including ancestral inheritance and generational trauma, and this one for helping point towards hope in the midst of a challenging situation. But I more often than not pull very simple three card spreads for healing guidance such as:

• Mind/Body/Spirit: A good general spread to check in with different parts of ourselves. You can pull additional cards for any of these points, expanding the reading if you need more clarity.

• Finding the Love: Struggling with health (mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, and so on) can be draining and demoralizing. When I'm seeking hope I like to pull a card that represents the situation I'm in, another card for what I'm feeling challenged by, and a third that represents where the love is at. I don't think illness is here to teach us a lesson, but we have opportunities to learn through whatever we're going through, and one of the skills we can develop is to learn to spot the love in any situation. It might be recognizing who showed up to support you when you needed them or the ferocious way you chose to believe in your worth no matter what in a challenging situation or the simple pleasures that are helping you keep grounded and centered. Love fuels hope and hope fuels healing which is why this three card spread can be so useful.

• Embrace/Release/Return: One card for something you should be doing more of (embrace), something you should let go of (release), and a reminder of where you hope to go (return). 

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So those are my simple suggestions for bringing tarot into your healing practice. What are the ways you use tarot in your healing work? I work a lot with the tarot and plant allies, so if you're interested in the healing intersections of tarot and herbalism, check out The Tarot Apothecary.

However you cast your cards, I hope that you're able to find the answers you're looking for and that your healing needs are met again and again.

This post was made possible through patron support.
❤︎ Thanks, friends. ❤︎

Notes

The two books I refer to at the beginning of this post are Teach Yourself Tarot by Naomi Ozaniec and Tarot Shadow Work: Using the Dark Symbols to Heal by Christine Jette.