Intuition Rocks!

 

Playing with the Connected and Free Oracle deck to connect with my intuition

A few years ago I was talking to a prospective client about how I work with people. She was wanting to “go with her gut” more often in her life, she noticed that her gut was always right but she more often went with her head instead. I told her that I look at our gut, or intuition, as a muscle – the more we use it and follow it the stronger it becomes. She then said “what you offer is like pilates for our gut-intuition!” I still laugh at that analogy (having never done pilates!), and I will never forget it!

One of the easiest and most fun ways for me to connect with my intuition, that wise voice inside of me, is to play with tarot and oracle cards. Sometimes it’s a five minute process of simply pulling a card and letting its message filter through me during my day. Other days I create more of a ritual around it; I may journal about the card and even use the card as inspiration in my art. In this post I thought I would take you through my ritual from lighting a candle to a finished art journal spread inspired by the card.  I’ll be bringing you along on my own little intuitive journey in the hopes that you will also see that intuition rocks!

1. 

   Creating ritual with my tea, candle, palo santo, journal and the Dark Goddess Tarot

   The set up – I will be guest teaching about the Divine Feminine in Pull Pen Paint, an online course that begins in a couple of weeks, so I’ve been using my goddess-themed oracle and tarot decks a lot lately. I love the energy of the Divine Feminine in all of its permutations! I chose the Dark Goddess Tarot by Ellen Lorenzi-Prince (now available as an app) on this day. I made sure I had my cup of tea, journal, and candle all ready. I burned a bit of palo santo to begin – I use this to cleanse the energy in my space and to breathe deeply and settle my thoughts. I also love the way it smells. Creating a little ritual and calming the mind help me to hear the inner voice of my intuition. I usually say a little prayer or intention – Help me learn what I need to know right now for my highest good.

2.  Pulling a card – I usually just shuffle and let the card choose me (it almost always falls out of the deck and that’s the one I use). People have lots of ways they like to choose a card, and all of them are good. You can fan them out and choose one, or shuffle and choose the top card (or bottom or from the middle). This is your practice, you get to make the rules.

I got the Priestess card, it’s one of the 22 Major Arcana cards in a tarot deck. It’s also the card most associated with intuition. Whenever I get a major arcana card it’s a sign to pay extra attention. Before I read the book I like to spend a few moments looking at the card and writing down my first impressions. I ask myself: what is the energy of this card? How does it make me feel? What do the images on the card mean to me? Here’s what I wrote: “calm, quiet meditation, looking into her bowl, looking into herself. Dark violets and blues – the Mystery. Surrounded by the serpent – wisdom, knowledge, divine feminine.”

3. Making meaning – After doing a bit of journaling I then look at the book to glean more information. I was struck in reading about The Pythia (the goddess associated with The Priestess card in this deck), that the name refers to a sisterhood and not a single woman/goddess. I’ve been thinking a lot about the power of the groups of women that I belong to and the unique healing that comes from being loved and accepted in a group. I’ve also been thinking about creating an online group of women to go deeply into goddess energies and archetypes, and this card feels connected with that. I knew I’d be writing this post about intuition and cards before I picked the card, so I was a bit blown away to get the major intuition card in the deck. Here’s a quote from the book: “Believe in your own intuition. You know more than you can explain, so do not let wordlessness get in the way of knowledge. Recognize knowledge may arise through any avenue of your being.”

After I wrote some more, I went later that day to my women’s Transdance circle led by Heather Munro Pierce. We’ve been dancing the chakras, and this week we danced the 6th Chakra – the third eye. Of course, this is the center of intuition, inner vision, inner knowing – all of the things I was journaling about with my card. Even this chakra’s colors are the same, indigos and deep blues.

Laying down some color in my art journal

4. Making art – I pulled out my altered book art journal (that I made with this amazing woman) and began laying down some color with acrylic paint and pearlescent acrylic ink. I had roughly gessoed the page ahead of time and you can see how that made the grey/blue color all uneven – which I really like. I used the colors and images on the card as a starting point, and then I worked intuitively finding images and using colors that spoke to me.

Materials include: journal/altered book, gesso, Golden Fluid acrylics, Daler Rowney FW pearlescent acrylic ink, magazine and book images, Stabilo All pencil, Stencil Girl Stencils, Paper Artsy paints, Uniball white pen, Seth Apter stamps, stamps of unknown origin.

My page with images and words collaged onto it with glue.

After adding more colors, stenciling, stamping, some marks, and a border with more acrylic ink my page is done.

A closer look, I love this weird witchy tree woman

A close up of the word Transform over the swan

What I loved about this intuitive process of working in my art journal is that I could really play with image and color and shape. Yes, I am showing this page to you, but really it’s for me. It has brought me deeper into the messages from this card and what my intuition wants me to know.  One of the messages is about my transformation into becoming my own oracle and that my intuition is the perfect guide. I truly did not plan this card, it literally jumped out of the deck as I was shuffling, and it is really so crazy perfect – perfect for this post and perfect for my life right now. Do you see what I mean now? Intuition Rocks!!

Interested in going deeper with the cards, journaling and art with me

Pull Pen Paint class

and a host of other awesome teachers? Join us in Pull Pen Paint, it begins February 26th: http://bit.ly/2artjournaltarot

 

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