Divination: Crafting Your Own Oracle Deck (pt. 2)

Hello friends!

This week's divination post piggy-backs off of the themes of the last divination post. Glyphs in most any situation are a way to express an idea in a concrete fashion. They come in a dazzling array of designs and that is before you begin talking about an artistic glyph or letters from other languages. Typically they're used as a form of short hand to express the idea as quickly and simply as possible. 

Language that is written is a form of using glyphs that most people don't think about. Literacy is so common in the Western world that we have forgotten the power of words. I think people are drawn to ancient languages because they don't seem so common and that lack of commonality evokes a sense of mystery. There are many people who don't want to hear that Latin is about as complicated as using a computer generated spreadsheet program. It is tedious to learn, but once you grasp it, using it is very straight forward. The same is true for most of the languages derived from Latin. (This position has been espoused by quite a few Latin teachers and others who teach languages like Spanish that are derived from Latin. I still have nightmares of worksheets on proper verb endings in Spanish.)

When most people think of glyphs, they are thinking not about letters but artistic glyphs (which are often based upon long forgotten languages). These type of glyphs condense the idea expressed to a single image. This image can be called a pictogram, though that term is better suited for language components that have a resemblance to the idea expressed. Japanese is an excellent example of a language that uses pictograms in complex fashions. For example, the Japanese kanji for the word trouble (which I can not pronounce or spell phonetically) is a simplistic image of two women under one roof.

Artistic glyphs can be used to create cyphers and codes (the first thought that comes to mind is the infamous Zodiac killer's cypher based upon the glyphs of the zodiac). These cyphers and codes can be used like normal letters to spell out the intent of your spell work or the ideas you wish to impress upon your creative work. Or you can incorporate the use of a cypher wheel (most often seen with the English alphabet on it, it is a wheel of letters that you can draw a shape that spells your keyword). In this fashion glyphs can be turned into sigils.

Most of the glyphs on my oracle deck are artistic glyphs that serve the short hand purpose accompanied by the English word for the concept they embody. I feel that my artistic glyphs are too simplistic and lack emotional depth. Some of them I am considering completely reworking. I am debating incorporating background imagery to convey the concept of the card visually as well. This leads me to wondering if I should use traditional techniques and imagery or if I should use abstract. It's a tough debate.

Umm... Format changes were going to happen but I forgot. LOL

Hi everyone!

Yeah, I had big plans. I was going to completely revamp the blog and reorganize material. Then I forgot about it in the midst of life being a pain in the neck. I've been having a lot of issues with my anxiety and executive functioning (flashbacks are the seriously un-fun part of C-PTSD). I would have been writing but I was afraid to. Some of it because of flashbacks and some of it because of the flashback trigger - the current political-social environment.

Once I realized that was the problem, I was so angry that I was ready to spit nails. I took my anxiety medicine and did some deep breathing to calm myself down. The anxiety medication worked better than the deep breathing this time, I was that mad. I could have written a flaming rant about everything, but I stopped myself and looked at things from a bit of a clearer perspective. I realized that flaming rants are not going to help anything (especially my blood pressure). I thought about it and came to the conclusion that if I continued posting my content, it would be an act of resistance against the christo-facist crap getting spewed everywhere.

I grew up in an abusive household that had this type of garbage flying through the air and any resistance or rejection of this you got a nasty response ranging from verbal humiliation to physical punishment. To say the least, this isn't an easy topic for me. I was afraid that my blogs were going to get shut down because the powers that be are falling into line behind the president. Then it struck me, I'm not a big enough fish for them to worry about. I didn't have to worry about getting beat for being too liberal. No one was going to verbally shred me without consequence for disagreeing with the government. And, right now, I still am free to say whatever the hell is on my mind.

In a way, there's going to be something of a format change. I am going to be posting stuff that is political on a weekly basis. It will tie back to religion and witchcraft in some fashion usually. But some of the posts may just be old fashioned rants.

Admin Note: Big Format Change coming!

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to let you all know that before I resume topic based posting, I have to dust off cobwebs and reshuffle some things around. I am planning on making more pages with links to individual posts for topics like tarot reading. It is my hope that it will make this blog more user friendly. Daily topics are going to remain the same. Mondays are for divination, Tuesdays are for witchcraft specific items, and Wednesdays are sharing some of the treasures that I have. Thursdays are going to be vlog days. Each month is going to have a theme for the vlog. I will post transcripts of the vlog posts with the link to the vlog entry. And Fridays are recommendations. Saturdays are dedicated to sharing the antics of myself as a godspouse to Loki and Freyr. Sundays are my off day because it is frequently a day that I don't have much access to the computer due to family responsibilities.

I welcome requests and suggestions for topics to cover. I have been a practicing witch since 1993 and I love to share what I have learned. I'm an educator at heart. I will be covering themes and topics relating to Filianism. I'm still at the organizing stage of a full critical analysis of the Opera Omina of the Madrian Orders. This is a big project and will keep me busy for a while as I address each element of the two volumes individually. I will also be working on a new revision of the Children of Déa version of the Clear Recital. There's some formatting issues that need corrected among some other points of order to be addressed. In the early planning stages is a second daybook like A Year With Déa. I hope to have some progress on that by later in the year, with out the formatting problems that happened in the first daybook. 

Wow, it's been a week already?

 Dear Reader,

I have been super busy this week with functionally no time for writing. I had hoped to hop back in the saddle and resume daily posting but life got in the way. A lot of progress was made in off-line happenings but not much with my writing online or off-line. I apologize. I had plans to write a lovely poem for Lady Day but I spent Lady Day doing just about all the dishes in the apartment and prepping a fish tank for a new betta. (Our old betta Snap passed on last month the day before my father-in-law died. We now have a new betta named Pacman (with the nickname Sunshine because the kids couldn't decide on a name) and he is just as silly as Snap. The coolest thing about this betta is that he is yellow. I'd never seen one that was yellow before.)

I did not get as far as planning out blog posts for this week. As such, I didn't have base ideas to work from to create quality content. I'm going to do that today. While yesterday was my planning day, I spent the day running from appointment to appointment. March has been a busy month and April looks to be just as busy, to be honest. Being disorganized does not help my writing process at all. I know there are threads that I have dropped and I'm trying to find them in the back posts here. It slows me down a considerable amount too. I am doing my best to get back to daily content. It may just be a bit rough for a little while. Please bear with me as I am working on it.

Divination: Musings on Crafting Your Own Oracle Deck.

Dear Reader,

I posted a while back that I am working on making my own oracle deck. It is based off of dream images and running themes in my artwork. The preliminary deck is small symbols sketched out on 3x5 notecards with a word associated with the symbol in question at the base of the card. It is proving a bigger challenge than I anticipated. I need to flesh out the artwork because a small glyph doesn't fully capture the meaning of the image.

I am trying to decide if I am going to use paint or colored pencils on the next set of cards I make. I am a fan of both mediums. I don't think I'm brave enough to use the watercolor pencils that you can paint over. I have always had a hard time controlling where the paint goes with watercolors. Either way, the glyphs alone is not sufficient. 

Reading with the deck is pretty meh right now. I have come to the conclusion that the deck is incomplete, which means I need to work up more glyphs for more dream symbols. I can get an ok reading with the deck but it lacks detail. I want the deck to give results that are just as detailed as I can get with a tarot deck. That means tweaking it and working up different layouts for readings. Just pulling cards gives some information that is useful. Laying them out in a fashion similar to the Celtic cross just gives me a jumbled mess. So tarot spreads are not going to work for this deck.

It's a shame that my favorite craft store is going out of business. I'd pick up heavier cardstock and make the cards with that. It's not easy to shuffle a deck of notecards. They tend to bend. But, here's your update on how that project is going. Slow and steady is what's going to win the race here.

Godspousery Notes (a day late)

The past week has been busy. It has been stressful to see what the Trump team is doing to the government. So stressful that I am back on the higher dose of antianxiety medication. I grumbled and muttered about how I didn't want to do it. Both Freyr and Loki gave me a glare. I dare say they had matching expressions of disapproval. I was pointedly reminded that I had just finished a major depressive episode and failing to control my anxiety would drive me into another. I could have been stubborn but that only gets you so far when you're out numbered and logic is on their side.

I thought that Freyr was going to be upset with the vegetal casualties of my depressive episode. He wasn't, much to my surprise. His response when I started to apologize for the umpteenth time was to say "You did your best. How can I expect you to walk on a broken leg while it is still in traction?" He is encouraging me to do more gardening indoors and outdoors. But he is making a point of cautioning me against making plans that are too much for me to handle. Continuing with the broken leg image, he told me that I can't run when I'm using crutches.

Loki has been quiet of late with the exception of the day that I heard about his opinions on my resistance to the antianxiety medication getting raised. It feels like I'm being observed. I am pretty sure he's up to something but I have no idea what. It is a bit unnerving when deities take your measure and you're aware of it on some level. They can see literally everything about you.

Moura 2025 CE: Day 28

 It is Kala. This is the day that Our Lady is slain by the Dark Queen. Given everything going on in the world, it seems like the Dark Queen is running rampant. It's pretty easy to feel tempted to despair. I exhort you all to resist that temptation. When feeling like all hope is lost, sit with the feeling and learn from it what you can. Then bless it and let it go. Resist the urge to ruminate on the feeling because it will only make you feel worse.

When you have done your best to let the feeling of hopelessness go, refocus your efforts on the present moment. Do something that involves as many of your senses as possible. For my part, I'm going to go wash dishes after I finish this entry. I may wind up cleaning up a significant portion of the kitchen. My effort to tending to present matters will help push aside the anxiety that I am feeling and help me to adhere to the ritual taboo against contemplating the future over the next 48 hours.

If washing dishes and tidying up the kitchen doesn't refocus me on the present, I know my stomach will when I am done. Lunch time is about an hour away and I figure I have about an hour's worth of work to do. If that doesn't help, I know there's more housework to focus on.