Eclipse Season Tarot Spread: I Am Still Fighting With My Big & Small Fears But Lately I Seem To Be Winning (now say it back)
a Soul FLOSS workout
Welcome to Eclipse Season!
Things kicked off last (Tuesday) night/this (Wednesday) morning with the Super Moon/partial lunar eclipse in Pisces and wrap up October 2/3 (depending on your time zone) with the New Moon/Solar Eclipse in Libra. Eclipses have a rocky reputation—some people discourage any spellwork or manifestation during eclipses, while others warn of cataclysmic events and undoings.
Either way, transformation is tough in a society that prioritizes “sticking with it,” rejecting “failure,” and remaining easily understood/categorized. What happens when we push back against this conditioning and embrace failure as generative (and the basis for confidence), and change as the only constant (as Octavia Butler famously argued)? What if we embraced the shadowy, otherworldly terrain of eclipse season as radically fertile? A place to imagine beyond societal constraints?
I created this Tarot spread to help you explore the fertile magic of eclipse season—if you have the courage and curiosity to let go of right/wrong, success/failure, black/white paradigms and stay a while. This is a wonderful spread to sit with throughout eclipse season OR any time of transition and transformation. You'll notice that I have NOT included a placement for what is on the other side of your transformation—there are two reasons for this. The first is that eclipse season is about EMBRACING the in-between, the fecund middle ground. This Tarot spread is about making the most of process of transformation, NOT trying to rush through to the other side. The second is that I wholeheartedly believe that what is on the “other side” of transformation depends completely upon our approach while on the journey... so there's really no telling until things are allowed to unfold!
Out beyond ideas
of wrong-doing and right-doing,
there is a field—I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language,
even the phrase “each other”
don't make any sense.
~ Rumi
I Am Still Fighting With My Big & Small Fears But Lately I Seem To Be Wining (now say it back) | a Tarot Spread
Step #1 | GATHER.
» Two Tarot decks—one with a hard-edged, more challenging personality, like Cristy C. Roads’ Next World Tarot, and one with a gentler, more compassionate approach, like Mari in the Sky’s Gentle Tarot
» A beverage (half for you, half as an offering)
» A sweet, grounding treat
» Something to write with and on
Step #2 | RELEASE.
Get hip-deep in a natural body of water—or a salty Epsom bath will do—and rinse your fears, anxieties, griefs, et cetera, away. Imagine the salty water drawing all the icky emotions out and washing them away—your challenges floating downstream like leaves.
Step # 3 | LISTEN.
The easiest way to get into the meditative state—i.e. receptive state—is by listening. Close your eyes. Listen. Listen to the sounds of the world as if they were music. Don’t try to identify the sounds or put names on them, simply allow them to play with your eardrums. Let them go. Let your ears hear whatever they want to hear. Don’t judge the sounds. There are no proper or improper sounds. It doesn’t matter if someone coughs or sneezes, it’s all just sound. As you hear sounds coming up in your head—thoughts—listen to them as the general noise going around, like cars going by or birds chattering. Look at your own thoughts as noises. Let the outside and inside world merge into a happening. Everything is a happening and all you are doing is watching it.
Step # 4 | BREATHE.
Get cozy in your body, close your eyes if that feels comfortable or let them go soft, and drop into your body, your solar system. Let your breath keep dropping you into yourself. Let yourself get heavier into the earth, let yourself sink. Keep breathing deeply, as deeply as you can. Notice the places in your body that feel like the breath can’t reach them, the places that have become breathless. Imagine the breath coming in, not pushing, not pulling—just holding that place, wrapping air, wrapping breath around the tightness. As you breathe, drop out of the head, down below your neck, feel the pounding of your heart. Notice the miracle of your heartbeat. As you drop into your stomach and the bowls of your pelvis, notice the miracle of breath—how your breath goes on whether you notice it or not. And in these deep delicious breaths, notice that you are precious as you are right now.
Nothing to fix, nothing to extract. Perfect.
Step # 5 | SHUFFLE + DRAW.
From this spacious place, shuffle the hard-edged, taking-no-shit deck of Tarot cards. Draw seven. Seven is a good number for crossroads, cliffhangers, fateful plot twists, unexpected power outages, indecision fatigue, et cetera.
Place all seven face-down, in a single column. Flip one over at a time.
These cards represent reality, the current state of affairs. Life as you know it.
Pull the corresponding cards from the gentler, more compassionate deck.
Place them in a second column, directly opposite the first set of cards.
So if you drew the Devil, the 5 of Pentacles, Judgment, the Knight of Swords, the 2 of Pentacles, the 9 of Wands, and the Queen of Swords from the first deck, then pull those same cards from the second deck, and lay them out in a parallel column. This second column represents the dream—your ideal version of your life.
Step # 6 | TAKE NOTES.
Meditate on the information the cards are giving you. Note down anything you notice about the imagery, the color scheme, the numerology, et cetera. What emotional vibes are the cards giving you? How do they correlate to various aspects of your life? How do you relate the figures to the characters in your own life? What questions do they bring up?
Step # 7 | SHUFFLE + DRAW.
Shuffle the gentler, more compassionate deck. Draw a card and place it between the two columns. This is your middle ground, what’s possible between reality and the dream. This card will also give you some insight into the actions you can take to re-align reality with your dreams.
Step # 8 | TAKE NOTES.
Meditate on the information the cards are giving you. What actions do the cards want you to take? What incremental changes can you make in your daily life to manifest your dreams? What emotions are the cards bringing up? What kind of change might they be provoking? If the cards are making you feel a little bit breathless, listen to that.
Step # 9 | DRINK.
Drink a lot of water (at least one full glass) and eat something even if it’s a light snack. Eating and drinking helps us to ground ourselves back in our bodies after the heady time spent in the in-between of a reading space. This helps to ground and center after a reading.
Step # 10 | MOVE.
After a Tarot reading, some people feel a bit spacey: exercise helps to remind the person that they have a physical body. This doesn’t have to be a rigorous, full-on sweat inducing workout. Five minutes of gentle yoga poses and stretching after a reading is most beneficial. Or: SWIMMING!
Step # 11 | MAKE AN OFFERING.
Express gratitude to the spirits with coins, flowers, seeds, bread, vodka or whiskey, a piece of fruit, a piece of hair, a hug, a song, tears, silent gratitude, et cetera. You can place your offerings on your altar, or leave them where you had your reading—burying them at the base of a tree, tossing them into a body of water, et cetera.
Step # 12 | SHELVE IT.
This is a biggie that most people will want to skip over, putting it in the category of “surely she doesn’t mean ME”: shelve the reading. Yes, really!
Don’t worry; you’re not storing it permanently away where it will never see the light of day again. While most people are very gung-ho about a reading, I strongly advise that people not listen to the recording of the reading or look at their notes from a reading for at least 24 to 48 hours after the reading. This helps you gain perspective and look at your reading more objectively. During the reading, more than just thoughts come to the surface: deep-seated emotions, and sometimes even emotions you didn’t know you had about a situation can come to light. Getting a Tarot reading is not just a cerebral experience, but an emotional one, too. Shelving the reading allows these emotions to cool, so that when you look at your notes or listen to your recording again, you are not clouded by the emotional experience as much… and you will be able to hear what was actually said during your reading instead of what you THOUGHT the reader said!
In the meantime, stash the cards in your purse or underneath your pillow or beside your laptop. Absorb their energy, and let them absorb yours.
Step # 13 | COLLECT MORE CARDS.
Pull the same cards from as many decks as you have available. Compare the imagery, color scheme, emotional vibe, et cetera. Jot down any divine downloads. Ask questions. Keep in mind that the purpose of the Tarot—as art—is to unveil the questions hidden by the answers.
Don’t listen for answers.
Listen for better questions.
Step # 14 | DO THE WORK.
Yes, I am a reader that assigns homework (and by homework, I mean “lifework”)! What is a tarot reading for but to gain actionable steps and bring clarity to the situation?
Step # 15 | CHECK IN.
With friends, family, your Tarot reader. Accountability works! Invite folks you trust to take this journey with you—to remind you that you are not alone, you are part of a larger story and you are loved!
That’s all for now, babes!
You can access the rest of my transformative Soul SAUCE workouts on Youtube and all of my alchemical Soul FLOSS rituals here on Substack.
xxxO, Dr. MLE | Beach Witch
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