Episode 11: Tarot Reading For Creativity
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Danikka: Hey there, welcome to The Snailed It Podcast with Danikka and Erin, brought to you by Authors Own Publishing.
Erin: Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of The Snailed It Podcast with Erin and Danikka. Today we are talking tarot.
Danikka: Yes, I don't know if I've mentioned it on the podcast before, but I do tend to use tarot cards to help with my creativity and my writing and I recently, at the last Lost Plot Writer's Retreat, did some tarot reading for the attendees and everyone enjoyed it. And so now Erin's like, okay, let's do a podcast episode for it.
Erin: We need to talk about tarot.
Danikka: So, I guess there's two ways that I use tarot in my creative practice but for people who—I mean, I'm pretty sure most people would know what tarot is by now. But because we've got Australian accents, we're talking about, you know tarot reading cards; and yeah, they're often associated with like witchiness and the occult, I suppose, but I don't know ... I feel like they're much more mainstream now.
Erin: Yeah, I agree, yeah.
Danikka: So, I started using them, I want to say like four years ago – three, four years ago – and I guess my practice with them has just kind of developed over time. When I first started I was just kind of purely using them for, like, personal reflection; I wasn't using them creatively or anything like that. And then I was pinning some different spreads on Pinterest and like this spread for plot-planning came up, and I was like, 'Oh! That's interesting. You could use it like that.' So I read a few blogs, I never really did much with it, and then Rhi bought me a book from like a secondhand book sale and it was literally a whole book about using tarot for creatives. So, yeah, helping people through creative blocks and helping plan books and things like that, and had like all the interpretations of the cards kind of translated to work for creative stuff, if that makes sense. So like all of the cards have that meaning, no matter what deck.
Erin: Yeah and that can probably be the confusing part is the translation because you can read like it this card means this whether it's you know the right way or upside down or whatever and then I'm sure a lot of people myself included go that's great but how does that what does that mean for me personally or for my character or my plot or whatever
Danikka: Yeah yeah so and like I'd never really thought about it before but the that was the first book that I'd read about tarot where they were saying look at the pictures on the cards as well
Erin: oh
Danikka: Because like the the pictures of the cards have a lot of symbolism and like if you so the Rider Waite deck was like the first mainstream deck to come through and it's what most modern tarot decks are based on and I'm pretty sure that's what it is Rider Waite someone who knows tarot better than me is probably going to correct me send me an email after the podcast but that's okay I don't mind being corrected so now all of the cards kind of have variations of those symbols and oftentimes in the descriptions people will like if they've used a different symbol or a different kind of picture they'll talk about traditionally this card is this but we've done it this way because this like there's the one that I did the readings for you on in particular it was a fairy's one and the girl had designed it based on like her meditations like she made a different one and had like these like fairies and elves and things like kind of pop into her mind while she was meditating and so like that's how they kind of appeared in the suits for her as she was designing the deck and so she that's why the descriptions of her cards have like this big background information of like what's in the card and what it symbolizes and that kind of thing because like even though she's based the tarot deck on the traditional tarot kind of suits and majors she's also added her own kind of symbolism based on what that card means to her and so when you practice tarot super regularly you'll notice that like I tend to pull a lot of cups and swords so I'm really familiar with those and occasionally rings or pentacles as people would call them and so I'm really familiar with those suits but I don't pull as many like wands or major arcana's because for whatever reason those cards aren't relevant to what I'm going through a lot of the time but then when I pull cards for other people they'll get completely different cards like sometimes I'll be doing a reading for someone and I've been doing readings for myself on that deck for like every day for weeks and I'll do a reading for someone else and they'll pull a card that I've never pulled and so I actually have to read the description I don't know what it is
Erin: Yeah
Danikka: So it's very much like an individual kind of process but I guess when you're not used to reading them most people will start with a three card spread so the one the most common one is past present future if they're reading for themselves and what I find more helpful if they're coming with like a specific question or if you want the reading to be really targeted at what they're going through at the moment and not necessarily spread across past present and future because that can be a bit more of a vague reading and I find people don't connect with it as much so I usually will do the what I think is happening what's actually happening and then what if anything can I do about it
Erin: I feel like yeah I liked that yeah
Danikka: I don't remember what cards came out for you but like did you feel like I think it was a lot around like your writer's block with the Love In Brooklyn
Erin: Yeah
Danikka: Series yeah
Erin: Well yeah yeah and it and it's just interesting seeing that what you think is happening versus what is actually happening
Danikka: Yeah yeah yeah because I remember that I think the first card was like what you think is happening and it was like all doom and gloom and like feeling really stuck in one place and then what was actually happening was like you're just growing creatively you're just going through this change of direction and it's like oh okay like it's really not that that big thing
Erin: Not that dramatic
Danikka: And that happens a lot like I say a lot of the time like a card that slapped me today or like I did a reading for Rhi my partner the other day and they like really slapped them here's the truth buddy like so yeah I think I don't know if I necessarily believe in like the occult side of it like I like to like when I'm in a like a kind of spiritual kind of mood it's fun to like play with the idea of like you know there's something influencing what the cards are doing but I think most of the time they're really more of just like coincidence and what you're going through at the time kind of influences the lens that you view the cards in and it's kind of more like holding a mirror up to yourself and you can draw the same card at two different times and whatever's happening at that time the card will have different meaning so I think it's definitely like I was reading something the other day and it was like tarot is not meant to be predictive it's meant to be like a reflective practice so I think that's why it works for creativity and for writing because if you're feeling stuck on what needs to be happening in your book and I think the reading I did for Lauren for her current work in progress that she was doing was a really good example of this because she'd written past the point where it needed to be fixed so she had a main character who was a very like proactive and powerful person but the story wasn't moving forward and she couldn't figure out what was happening and it was because her main character was being too passive and that was kind of what came out with that spread because we did where the manuscript is now and then we did where it's going wrong and then we did how can I fix it and what will the outcome be and it was really it was really interesting because when we you know had where are you at now it was definitely like she was like yeah that sounds like where my work in progress is at the moment and then the card was like talking about you know safety and you know people being there to catch a person and you know take not taking as big a risk as what you think you should because like you know people are there to catch you and so it was coming off cross very like yeah the main character's being too passive and so then the card that came up to fix that was like you know take action you know take risks and you know it was much more like a more forceful and then the card that came at the end was like very much just like everything is unraveling how it's meant to be happening like these things have happened and now you've got to the end it like sounded like the ending of a book so like it didn't necessarily relate directly to Lauren's story the way we translated it was the outcome will be that the book will be finished
Erin: Yeah
Danikka: So it was like and like the pictures of the on the cards were really indicative as well because it was like when the one that was going wrong it was like supposed to be the hanged man which is like a big like card for change in most decks but the way that it was drawn on this deck was the woman in the picture was hanging herself but there was fairies underneath her holding her up so like she was never actually going
Erin: Yeah
Danikka: So and that was how we kind of translated the passiveness of her character in that moment as well so yeah i think a lot of it comes into looking at the pictures knowing your cards so like using them as a daily practice like just pulling them and looking at them and just like thinking about the meanings of them and then when it comes to your story things do kind of flow a bit like that's where that reflective it's almost like you're priming your brain to think creatively if you're using the terrors for creative creativity like it's the same way that people are like well you need to write every day or you need to be thinking about your characters and things like that it's just creating those habits and like trains of thought in your brain to take you to where you need to go and I think that's why I like tarot because I'm not someone who can write every day but I do like I have a tarot app on my phone and I do tend to look at tarot every day so even if I can't write every day I'm still thinking about like characters or the meaning of tarot or like the deeper side of things so then when it comes to writing my stories my brain it was always that part of my brain that's kind of thinking
Erin: That's going in the background yeah yeah yeah
Danikka: Have you gotten out your tarot cards again since the retreat
Erin: I removed them from the box that they have been in since I purchased them that was a good step and then
Danikka: Which was a year ago
Erin: Uh yes and then I shuffled them a bit for a couple of days in a row and then because I'm hopeless I forgot and then I looked at them this morning when I was doing something and I was like I really shouldn't pick those back up again um I think I because I am well not that I have a short attention span but I like them but I don't really connect to the artwork on them and I reckon that's part of my problem
Danikka: Oh yeah
Erin: They're cool like I really like I like looking at them but I don't like your fairy ones were so pretty
Danikka: yeah
Erin: you know yeah so maybe it's a matter of finding another one that I vibe with more
Danikka: yeah because yours were very
Erin: I also like your book they're very witchy looking
Danikka: yeah
Erin: yes yeah your book was also very detailed my book is not very detailed like it didn't have I had to google like what was the reverse of something when I was doing them the other day because it didn't have the reverse meanings in there
Danikka: yeah yeah the wildwood deck the first deck that I got didn't have the reverse meaning yeah so that was something that I didn't get for a long time like a lot of my earlier readings didn't really make a lot of sense if I drew a reverse card I didn't know what the reverse meaning was and it wasn't but that was I think that's why I use the fairy deck as my everyday deck and then the wildwood deck is the one that I use purely for like like I'll use the wildwood deck to pull like my theme cards for the year and like for big creative decisions and thoughts and things like that but I don't tend to use it like everyday problem solving because I find that it's too broad
Erin: yeah
Danikka: so yeah the fairy deck is definitely the one I use the most often and I love the book
Erin: yeah it was so good
Danikka: yeah the wildwood one is the one that I have on the app on my phone as well I've got the physical deck itself but it didn't come with a book but when I googled it I found the app and I think the app was like six dollars for lifetime access so I just bought the app I've got like a widget on my phone and I get like a card of the day that comes up on my phone every day so I'm really familiar with that deck which is good because when I do pull it out because I don't use it very often I don't feel like I've lost the connection with the deck because I see the artwork every day like I you know even if I don't read the card for that day from that deck I've still seen one of the cards and kind of thought about how it might relate to the day and then because I have two other decks but I don't ever use them so I was just thinking when you said then about the book I'm like maybe I should send you my other one I should show it to you when we finish recording because I really love the artwork on it it's quite similar to my fairy deck where it's like very medieval and like there's these like really pretty pictures and very detailed and it's got a really detailed book but I just it doesn't call to me if that makes sense
Erin: yeah see I don't yeah I don't think my one calls to me
Danikka: yeah and like there's a big thing in like the tarot community where your first deck is supposed to be gifted to you which which I think is interesting because I bought the wild wood deck myself and it wasn't working for every day and then my mum bought me the fairy deck one so like I picked it but I didn't but she paid for it she like was like well which one do you want and I was like oh well I like that one and so yeah she bought it for me and so that's the one I ended up using every day so like
Erin: interesting
Danikka: not that I put like a lot of stock in that kind of thing but I do think it is interesting yeah
Erin: I just love it I just like I love all of those like to call things right like crystals and tarot and all of it and I like the fact that it's kind of becoming more mainstream because maybe everyone's just embracing like a bit of a witchy side which I personally love
Danikka: yeah me too
Erin: yeah like so good you know just you know scream at the moon that kind of thing that's where we're heading
Danikka: yeah let's do it let's do it um but yeah I'd be interested to know if any of our listeners have used tarot
Erin: me too
Danikka: they're writing because I think it's something
Erin: or if they use it or if they use it like personally and hadn't thought to use it for their writing so now would they start to
Danikka: yeah yeah um because an exercise that I did for my characters because I start my work in progress Project November that I've been working on I started off with just one point of view character and then it was two and then it expanded to four and so then I was having a lot of trouble trying to figure out what each of the individual arcs were because like I ended up it was just one sister who was the main character with her love interest and then now I feel like it's the two sisters who are the main characters more so than their love interest so it's kind of spiralled in my brain and everything is getting tangled so what I did was I got the cards and I did four cards for each character I did how they perceive themselves how the world perceives them what their biggest kind of arc or problem to overcome was going to be and then what the most important relationship in their life was and kind of did it that for each of them and found really common themes across the board and then that was how I kind of found the theme for my overall book and started to weave the stories together um yeah so yeah I think just having that reflective approach and just using it as a prompt in a lot of ways can really help
Erin: yeah yeah because it's because you can think about those things like how they see themselves how I would see them and all of that you can think about that like without tarot cards obviously but you might sort of end up going around in a circle a bit and chasing your tail a little bit like it is yeah having prompts and things to like push your brain in certain directions you go oh yeah what about this
Danikka: yeah I think it can make you think of things that you might have never thought of before and just see things from a different direction as well like I think because I would have never realized that it was the two sisters that were the main characters or I might have realized it but not much longer until I saw the two of them kind of side by side in the tarot readings and I was like ah that's really interesting it's almost like they're two sides of the same coin which I wasn't really thinking of before like I was thinking more of like the sister was part of the like the before story and not so much of the after story
Erin: yeah yeah yeah
Danikka: but then it turned out that her story like it was almost taking over like I was writing more of her point of view than the first sister and I was like this is weird like what is happening and so then yeah I looked at them both and I was like oh okay
Erin: yeah that's why you're a main character yeah you’re not a side character
Danikka: exactly and then I was like the people who I thought were the main characters were the side characters and so I was like that's really yeah
Erin: I just love tarot and I want to do more of it yeah I'll get myself together I need to do some but I the other problem is I'm always looking for decks online and I feel like I want to see them in person
Danikka: yeah yeah well I got the the fairy deck that I got the one that you like is I've got that at a psychic convention here oh yeah like a
Erin: a psychic convention?
Danikka: what do they call it like it's not a convention it's like and I
Erin: it's kind of that would be the word I would have been
Danikka: ah Rhi’s just yelling at me from the other room the psychic expo
Erin: oh expo same diff
Danikka: yeah yeah same diff yeah but like yeah the psychic expo because I was like I'm trying to because they do an ad for it on TV and there's this little girl who's grown up and every year they do a different ad and you see her grow up and but the words that they use in the ad is fantabulous I've had fantabulous in my head but I couldn't remember what the ad was for
Erin: what is that
Danikka: it's a psychic expo right
Erin: psychic expo in Toowoomba yeah get your tarot decks here
Danikka: they travel so like it's the same like they go to Brisbane they go oh
Erin: I was gonna say I don't think I've come to Melbourne no I've never seen a psychic expo in Melbourne
Danikka: but maybe I need to look up if there's a psychic expo in Melbourne because I feel like that would be cool
Erin: yes I'm gonna I will do that when we leave here yeah yeah psychic expo Melbourne
Danikka: because that would be fun
Erin: well i think that's kind of all for today right
Danikka: yeah that was yeah let us know if you have any tarot thoughts yeah we're really interested to know if you use tarot or if you haven't used tarot before and like we'd like to get into it would you be interested in seeing me do a reading on the podcast
Erin: that could be fun
Danikka: that could be fun maybe we could open it up on instagram if people want tarot reading on the podcast um we can try that but yeah let us know and we'll talk to you in the next episode
Erin: bye
Danikka: Thank you for listening to this now that brought to you by Authors Own publishing the home of indie publishing don't forget to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts and follow us on Instagram at Authors Own Publishing. Music brought to you by Mikel with more details in the show notes
Episode Description
Join Danikka and Erin as they delve into the world of tarot, revealing how authors and creatives can use the cards to help fuel their imagination and storytelling.
Brought to you by: Authors Own Publishing, Danikka Taylor, and Erin Thomson.
Danikka’s Details:
Website: www.authorsownpublishing.com
Instagram: @danikkataylor or @authorsownpublishing
Erin’s Details:
Website: www.erinthomsonauthor.com
Instagram: @authorerinthomson
Intro & Outro Music by Mikel & GameChops. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily reflect the views of Authors Own Publishing. Thanks for Listening!
