The Soft Season: Tarot for Clarity & Inspiration
January is a slow month for me, soft around the edges after the solstice's bright sparkle. Having already celebrated the new year at Samhain, January is less of a starting place as it is a slowing place. But, truthfully, January hasn't always been like this for me - I arrived here after spending a lot of time connecting with the seasonal rhythms of the land and my own internal seasons.
Which is all just a poetic way of saying that a few years ago I burnt out so hard that finding space for radical slowness in my life was the only (slow, soft, steady) way home again.
During this period of burnout, I found myself lying on my back in the brambles of the untended hedges of my personal boundaries, watching the seasons pass by. Getting out of that tangle took time and a lot of listening to where it was the slowness that I needed lived in the cycles of my year. The pace that I was used to moving at was no longer an option and, as the dense speed of the year rushed past me, January stuck out with its calm. It was during this month between sabbats that I started to rebuild my energy using the unfamiliar-to-me tools of softness and ease. In the process, January has become my soft season, my Quiet Moon, and the time of year where I linger between rest and reconnecting with my community practice.
Even though it was an uncomfortable and strange land to be moving through, I have come to treasure softness as the soil where the seeds of inspiration and clarity are planted. As an herbalist, tension is one of the energetic states I see most often in the clients I work with, not least of which because we are living in demanding times of ever increasing stress, and many of us are taught to overly rely on tension to prove our productiveness or as a "reasonable" way of getting by. But it is from softness, letting go of tight and narrow thinking, that possibility arises, and we can feel where it is that inspiration is calling us to.
While my soft season is the time between Midwinter and Imbolc, your soft season might appear to you at any time of the year. I encourage you to find your season of softness and I hope the following tarot spread helps you call in the energy of softness for clarity and inspiration in your life whenever you need it most.
Tarot for Clarity & Inspiration
The following tarot spread is all about slowing down and softening your gaze so that you might dissolve the edges of whatever it is that is blocking your vision to better spot where inspiration is trying to guide you.
Witch tip! I recommend calling in the physical qualities of softness before casting this spread, whether it is lighting candles or soft lamps, changing into soft and comfortable clothing or perhaps building an altar to softness, gentleness, and ease.
✨ Card 1. The Querent
A card representing you (or the querent if you're reading for someone else) and your current state of being. You can see this card as something like a personal energetic snapshot or simple emotional weather report.
✨ Card 2. Less Of
A card showing you what you need less of in your life. This card might reference experiences in your past.
✨ Card 3. More Of
A card showing you what you need more of in your life. This card might refer to new habits, beliefs, and/or activities you're trying to incorporate into your life to draw you towards future goals.
✨ Card 4. Inspiration Calling
An inspirational idea, concept, and/or practice that is calling to you that would benefit from your attention.
✨ Card 5. The Cradle
Something (an idea, proposal, practice) which needs more time being sheltered, resting, and growing before being shared with the world beyond yourself. A card that helps us to invite clarity in, instead of trying to figure everything out all at once.
✨ Card 6. The Coracle
Coracles aren't the steadiest form of water craft, and represent how we might ride the current of inspiration whether or not it is a fully formed or stable idea just yet. This card is about letting yourself ride the current of inspiration and points toward the place to jump in and follow your flow.
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While you can peruse through my complete archive of tarot spreads, you might be interested in my annual review tarot spread or how to incorporate tarot into your healing practice if you're journeying your way through burnout or similar experience. If you’re looking for more herbal inspiration for the season of softness, come this way.
May your journey ahead be full of inspiration, ever nourished by a wellspring of clarity!
This post was made possible through patron support.
❤︎ Thanks, friends. ❤︎
