Prompted by @Pyrokar suggestion to post stuff I take for granted because it might not be obvious to others
i have had very little success just... talking to summoned entities in vision (I rarely perceive any responses back, not even as thoughts in my own head).
i use tarot, but I don't "do a reading", I have a conversation.
So yesterday as part of Helios Unbound, I evoked Queen Didas, mediator of Venus's energies on Earth. I had her represented by the Queen of Pentacles before me, and a couple of different complete tarot, LeNormand and oracle decks around me. I choose intuitively what to draw from.
So I say out loud: "What's going on with Venus and Mars in my natal chart, what's the relationship there?"
Shuffle, draw: Queen of Pentacles, 5 of Wands.
"Haha okay so that's YOU and... petty squabbles causing energy to be wasted in self-conflict? (The fact that I drew a court card for her and Mars by only a minor is relevant. I wouldn't say "petty" if I'd drawn the Tower. Of course this is coming from her perspective)
"I'll come back to that. how are your energies showing up in my life right now?"
Shuffle, draw: 7 of Pentacles, 9 of Swords
Out loud: "okay so my Venus-relevant growth is being blocked by irrational fears. What am I afraid of?"
Shuffle, draw: 9 of cups, 4 of Pentacles
Out loud: "I've got some creature comforts and I'm unwilling to give them up... okay what specific area of my life is this about?"
Pick up Green Glyphs oracle which is better for prosaic questions, house, job etc. Shuffle, draw: Wisteria [change], Giant Tooth [irrational fear]
narrows eyes "That's the same thing. Okay then HOW do I work on removing those irrational fears?"
Tarot, shuffle, draw: Page of Swords, Knight of Wands
Page of Swords can mean communication, and since I'm using the Knight of Wands to represent King Dagjidus of Mars [to be summoned next Tuesday] and given the 5 of Wands draw earlier, I interpreted this as "go talk to him about it, it's not my fault"
You get the idea. I asked some other questions like "what strengths do you bring to my life that I could be making better use of?" that were more productive but you get the gist.
The point is that it's not a static spread, there are no fixed positions, it's a real-time back and forth conversation. You might have a plan for a few things you want to know, but you'll also go wherever the conversation takes you. (Given the speed, if you need to look up meanings in a book, I would only try it with a friendly and patient entity).
It helps to have a few different styles of deck on hand - I'm sure you could use runes as well if you knew them. Just pull from whatever deck makes sense and shuffle fresh for each question. If you only have one deck, shuffle the drawn cards back in each time. If you have a few, you can leave them laying out because there's other ways for the entity to repeat itself if it wants to.
Tip: it's almost always more productive to draw two cards at once. One card can have a one-dimensional meaning that's hard to interpret. With two cards, you have the relationship or tension between those two cards that makes it much much more information-rich
i have had very little success just... talking to summoned entities in vision (I rarely perceive any responses back, not even as thoughts in my own head).
i use tarot, but I don't "do a reading", I have a conversation.
So yesterday as part of Helios Unbound, I evoked Queen Didas, mediator of Venus's energies on Earth. I had her represented by the Queen of Pentacles before me, and a couple of different complete tarot, LeNormand and oracle decks around me. I choose intuitively what to draw from.
So I say out loud: "What's going on with Venus and Mars in my natal chart, what's the relationship there?"
Shuffle, draw: Queen of Pentacles, 5 of Wands.
"Haha okay so that's YOU and... petty squabbles causing energy to be wasted in self-conflict? (The fact that I drew a court card for her and Mars by only a minor is relevant. I wouldn't say "petty" if I'd drawn the Tower. Of course this is coming from her perspective)
"I'll come back to that. how are your energies showing up in my life right now?"
Shuffle, draw: 7 of Pentacles, 9 of Swords
Out loud: "okay so my Venus-relevant growth is being blocked by irrational fears. What am I afraid of?"
Shuffle, draw: 9 of cups, 4 of Pentacles
Out loud: "I've got some creature comforts and I'm unwilling to give them up... okay what specific area of my life is this about?"
Pick up Green Glyphs oracle which is better for prosaic questions, house, job etc. Shuffle, draw: Wisteria [change], Giant Tooth [irrational fear]
narrows eyes "That's the same thing. Okay then HOW do I work on removing those irrational fears?"
Tarot, shuffle, draw: Page of Swords, Knight of Wands
Page of Swords can mean communication, and since I'm using the Knight of Wands to represent King Dagjidus of Mars [to be summoned next Tuesday] and given the 5 of Wands draw earlier, I interpreted this as "go talk to him about it, it's not my fault"
You get the idea. I asked some other questions like "what strengths do you bring to my life that I could be making better use of?" that were more productive but you get the gist.
The point is that it's not a static spread, there are no fixed positions, it's a real-time back and forth conversation. You might have a plan for a few things you want to know, but you'll also go wherever the conversation takes you. (Given the speed, if you need to look up meanings in a book, I would only try it with a friendly and patient entity).
It helps to have a few different styles of deck on hand - I'm sure you could use runes as well if you knew them. Just pull from whatever deck makes sense and shuffle fresh for each question. If you only have one deck, shuffle the drawn cards back in each time. If you have a few, you can leave them laying out because there's other ways for the entity to repeat itself if it wants to.
Tip: it's almost always more productive to draw two cards at once. One card can have a one-dimensional meaning that's hard to interpret. With two cards, you have the relationship or tension between those two cards that makes it much much more information-rich
