How I Create Tarot Spreads

Hello, and welcome back! I know its been a while since my last post, but I recently graduated from college, and so I wanted to spend as much time with my friends as possible before I left them.

However, I did not forget about Little Miss Pagan and will begin writing at my weekly schedule again,

Today, I wanted to share with you all how I create my Tarot spreads. I am an avid television fan, so most of the spreads I do are based on my favorite tv shows, so for today I am showing how I create those.

I will use my Murder House spread as an example, based on season one of American Horror Story.

The first thing I do is think of a symbol I associate with the show. I use this to determine how many cards will be in the spread, and to give it a shape. For the Murder House spread, I wanted it to look like a house, so I wanted to have four cards as the house, with a card at the top to be the roof,

Next, I chose the five characters I wanted to use, these are usually the main characters and my favorites, and sometimes I'll add cards if I feel I need to include people. For this spread, I chose to use Vivian, Ben, Violet, Tate, and Moira.

Once the characters are chosen, I decide which card they will be in the spread. For the one, four of the characters pair off in the show, so I decided to keep the four of them as the base, and set the last one as the roof. So Moira was the fifth card at the top, and I put Vivian and Ben as the two bottom-most cards, and Violet and Tate as the second row of cards. I decided to have the women on the left and men on the right, again just to give them some organization.

Once the order of the spread is created, I assign meaning or questions to the cards. For this, I think of major character themes or motivations. A lot of the time I'll look up quotes from or about that character to influence the question for that card.

I try to jot down two or three options for each card, and then choose the one that fits the best. For example, for Moira's card I came up with two options: one was about what messes you are cleaning up since she is a maid, and she also has a great quote about women always cleaning up messes, and the second thought I had was to be how people see you, again because as a character some people see her as a beautiful young woman, while others see her as a elderly woman.

So once I narrow down my favorite questions, I assign them to the cards, and the spread is done! For the Murder House spread, this is what I created for the cards:

1: (bottom left) Vivian: What scares you?
2: (bottom right) Ben: What are you hiding?
3: (second row left) Violet: What makes you brave?
4: (second row right) Tate: What is the darkness inside you?
5: (top) Moira: How do people see you?

I hope this helps other tv fans create Tarot spreads. What spreads have you created? I'd love to see them!

Happy (Belated) Beltane!

Since I have been running out of things to post and graduation is impending, I will be cutting down to posting once a week. I will hopefully return to me twice a week schedule once I get settled into the 'real world.'

Beltane was Friday, and it was probably my favorite Sabbat so far. It was also the first Sabbat I celebrated last year, so in a way, it was my 'Pagan birthday'.

For me, Beltane is the beginnings of Summer and so my altar reflected that.

Beltane is a time of flowers, and so I have a purple floral altar cloth, and I kept my Ostara flowers on there as well. I have my standard altar items towards the back. My elemental jars (feathers, chili powder/ashes, terrarium, and water), my Tibetan singing bowl, a red offering bowl, and my God/Dess candles in the center.

In addition to the basics, I added two candles as the 'fires of Beltane' since it is a fire festival. To the right, I have my prayer beads, some stones I found at my favorite places, and I also added a penny to represent my spirit guide. I put a small fairy pendant there to represent nature spirits, another common theme of Beltane. On the right is my ceramic Wheel of the Year, and a photo of my boyfriend and me.

Around the offering bowl, I put crystals that I felt were appropriate. These are fluorite, tiger's iron, red jasper, citrine, clear quartz, mookaite, rose quartz, malachite, and jade.

For Beltane, some friends and I went for a walk in New Germany State Park, and just explored the trails.

Then, I had friends over for a potluck dinner and Tarot readings.

We had so much food, and all of it was delicious. I am so grateful to everyone who celebrated with me.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you had a good Beltane as well!

How to Handle Burnout

Recently, I have been feeling a bit worn out with my craft, and have noticeably decreased my practice. This makes me sad, because I really enjoy my spirituality, but I also understand that it can take a lot out of you, and that burn out is something that witches and Pagans can face regularly. So, I have created a list of things that I believe would help someone who is experiencing spiritual exhaustion:

• Get back to basics. I think that once people start practicing, it can be easy for them to want to progress quickly, without focusing on the basics of it. I think this happened with me, because lately whenever I do practice, I feel very drained of energy. I think this is because I never really focused on grounding myself, so going back to this could help me keep my energy.
• Meditate. This is another sort of basic, but I think it can help with any kind of burn out. I briefly mentioned an app in another post called "Stop, Breathe & Think" which is free on Google Play,and probably Apple as well. This app is great because it lets you adjust how you are feeling physically, mentally, and emotionally, and then makes suggestions based on how you are feeling.
• Find what made you happy in the beginning. For me, it was forests. I realized that what I felt in a forest was definitely a sense of worship, and that is what drew me into Paganism. So for me, getting back to the elements made me feel that same joy that I felt pre-burnout.
• Relax. I personally don't think that you should force yourself to do anything spiritually that you don't want to do. If you force yourself to do a Tarot reading or a spell when you aren't feeling up it, it becomes a chore rather than something you love. The flip side of this however is that forcing yourself may remind you of how much you love it, and it could kick you out of your slump. I guess this is a choice you have to make yourself, but I would rather not do the latter.
• Work with others. Something that is helping me with my burnout is planning the Beltane Gathering with my friends. Seeing like-minded people makes me feel better about my practice. If there is no one near you who you could work or practice with, reach out to other Pagans or witches on the internet.

That's what I have so far. I hope this helps people who are going through a similar phase as myself. Tomorrow I should be doing a post on my Beltane altar, since its coming up on Friday.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

Birthday Witchy Haul

Here is a list of all the witchy stuff I got for my birthday! I always like seeing all the pretty stuff other people have in their collections, so I thought I could do one for myself too.

That little gold thing is a tiny incense burner that was a gift from one of my friends who has recently explored Paganism with me. I haven't quite figured out how to use it without accidentally putting out the incense, but I'm sure I'll get it right eventually. I also picked up some Night Queen incense to go with it.

These are two new crystals I got for my collection, but I'm not quite sure what they are. The one on the left is a low-grade Tiger's Eye (or so I was told) and the shop said the one on the right is a jasper, but it doesn't look like a jasper to me. I'll take these to the rock shop in my home town to get a better identification

And my new pendulum collection! The one on the right is carnelian, and I already kind of talked about that one. The one on the left is probably rose quartz, and the one in the middle was supposed to be bloodstone, but it doesn't look like it. It's black, so I'm thinking it might be onyx?

Finally, I got a Marimo moss ball! This isn't witchy or Pagan related, but I think its adorable and wanted to share it. I named it Carlyle, and its my favorite.

That's it for this week! Talk to you on Tuesday!

New Moon Gathering

Saturday night was the New Moon, so my friends and I came together and celebrated! It was my first official spiritual get together, and it was a lot of fun, so I will definitely do it again.

I was little out of it, because I wanted to try fasting on the New Moon, and it drained me a lot more than expected. I may not do it again, I haven't decided yet.

Before people came over, I wanted to make sure my place would be protected, so I created a super brief protection spell. I hung a twig star on my door and focused on it protecting my home, and I also grabbed some stones that I felt were appropriate (sodalite, amethyst, shungite, jasper, and Botswana agate) and I placed them in five candles. As I lit each candle, I again focused on my home being protected.

We spent the evening doing Tarot and pendulum readings, and just generally discussing our spirituality, beliefs, spirits, etc. All in all, I think I had about ten people come out, and I would have had a few more people, but they were busy. I am going to invite them all out to my Beltane gathering as well.

It was really great to celebrate with everyone, and I am so grateful to everyone who came out. It's fun being a solitary practitioner, but there's something about practicing with others that feels better to me. I'll be sad to graduate and leave my group behind.

I will be having another Beltane/ Full Moon gathering next Saturday, so I will make a post about that once that happens.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

My Favorite Online Resources

Hey, for today's post I thought I would share some of my favorite online resources for Paganism and witchcraft. Sometimes I feel like their can be a bit of a 'shun technology' vibe in Paganism, which is fine, but I personally think it can be great for those who can't afford books, or who want to talk and meet like-minded people.

Here's my list:

http://www.paganforum.com/activity.php  -  Pagan Forum was one of the first places I found as a Pagan, and I loved it because its all info from other real Pagans and witches. I didn't need to worry about finding little Harry Potter spells or anything, and the discussions were also very helpful in helping find my path.

http://www.witchywords.com/  -  This blog is run by a woman named Marietta, and she was one of my main inspirations for creating this blog. Marietta makes witchcraft and Paganism feel very approachable, and she herself is very likeable. I find her Sabbat posts to be very helpful.

Pinterest  -  Pinterest can also be a good resource. I found a lot of good posts and inspirational quotes on their about Paganism, but you also have to be careful because a lot of it can be Halloween stuff. Just follow what feels right to you, and check your sources.

Tumblr  -  Tumblr to me, is my greatest resource right now. It has a wide network of Pagans and witches, as a result there is a lot of information. A lot of the users are also very friendly, so I think its good for people who are just starting out because they can ask questions to others who have been practicing for a while.

YouTube -  YouTube is a lot like Pinterest in that they have good resources, but they also have terrible ones. I go to YouTube for the more 'New Age' -ey stuff, like crystals, meditation, divination, etc.

There are a lot of other resources, I just can't think of any off the top of my head.  There are also some good apps, I just downloaded a meditation one called "Stop, Breathe & Think" which allows you to adjust your mood, emotions, and physical state. I haven't used it yet, but its got good reviews.

Let me know if there are any resources that you think I should check out! Thanks for reading!

First Pendulum and Dedication

So myself and my friends have recently begun communicating with spirits via pendulum work. I used a Ouija board a lot as a kid, and talked to one spirit in particular: Reg. I had a feeling that he was still around, and sure enough, he is. I wanted to get a pendulum that I would use exclusively for speaking with him, and this is it:

It is made of Carnelian, and I got it from the same place I get all of my crystals from. I had it for about six hours, and then it fell on my floor and the tip snapped off. Reg said he liked it better broken though, and the brokenness has kind of grown on me.

After I got it, I did a little cleansing/ dedication ritual for it, and I thought I would share here since I couldn't seem to find any on Google.

Materials:
Pendulum
Incense
Incense Burner
Sunlight/Moonlight
Bell (optional)

I started by going out into the woods with my pendulum. I sat and lit the incense and offered it to the God and Goddess, as well as to Reg.

Then I rang the bell (my Tibetan singing bowl) and said:

I call all spirits who wish to help
I banish those who wish me and mine any harm

I said that three times, and then set the bowl down by the incense.

I passed the pendulum through the incense smoke, and focused on cleansing it of any negativity.

I held the pendulum in my hands and said:

I dedicate this pendulum to myself and my spirit guide, Reg.
It will help me communicate and understand Reg better.
It shall be used as a tool for the good, and shall not be used by anything that wishes harm on me.

If you do not have a spirit guide to dedicate it to, you can use your deity, or just dedicate it to yourself.

After that, I kissed it, and set it in the sun to charge (make sure your pendulum will not fade in sunlight. If it does, you can use moonlight instead, or a charging method of your choosing). I hung mine in a tree to catch the sun:

It was a lot sunnier when I actually did the ritual

When I felt like it had charged enough, I took it down, and said thanks. I love my pendulum so far, and have been carrying it around with me so I can ask little questions when I need to.

I plan on getting another pendulum for my birthday (this Friday!) and I will more than likely do a witchy haul post. I am also hosting a New Moon Gathering for some friends and myself, so that's another post to look forward to.

I hope this post helps anyone looking to dedicate their tools!