Tarot Spreads: Tending Your Spiritual Garden
It’s been a heck of a winter here in upstate New York. Not so much snow, but bone-cracking cold and below-freezing temperatures for weeks at a time.
Now mind you, I have a BLACK thumb (I kill plastic plants!) but here in farmer-rich Schoharie County, a lot of my friends and neighbors tend to counter the Winter Blahs by pulling out their seed catalogs and planning their spring plantings.
Envisioning the March and April mud, they mull over melons, peruse the pea plants and hanker for honeysuckle and hollyhocks. Yes, they know there is a lot of cleanup work after a heavy winter, but the reward is worth it. And most of them are also good friends to the wildlife around us, leaving compost heaps and trimmings for the birds and beasts just coming out of hibernation.
We all have gardens, you know. They may not hold heirloom tomatoes, but those “inner gardens” of growth and spirituality need their own times of planting, harvesting, and lying fallow.
And when it’s time to start fresh — on New Year’s, your birthday, or any other time you feel the need to rejuvenate it — the same tasks are required: pull up the dead things, plant the good things, and leave some things to feed other creatures. And this is where a little divination is as good as planning the crops and perusing the seed catalogs.
So let’s try a “Tending the Spiritual Garden” Tarot reading, shall we?
When you clear a garden from the winter detritus, you get rid of the muck and weeds that never got pulled up in the fall.
You plow the ground and get rid of the stones.
You fertilize it.
You plant specific seeds.
And if you know that the leftovers are useful (bracken for birds to hide in, for instance), you put them neatly aside.
That’s how I’ve designed this spread for you — and I’ll model it first with a standard Tarot deck, and then with an Oracle deck, just to show that the deck is not as important as the spread and the intent.
What needs clearing?
What needs plowing/reshaping?
What will fertilize growth?
What shall I plant?
What shall I prune and/or leave for others?
For the Tarot, the cards are:
CLEARING: XV The Devil
PLOWING: V Pentacles
FERTILIZER: King of Pentacles
PLANT: Queen of Swords
PRUNE: Page of Cups
The first card, Clearing, is pretty clear: for properly tending your Spiritual Garden, clear out all those small and large things that bedevil you, and the bad habits that keep you from moving forward to your highest and best.
The second card, Plowing/Reshaping, is all about finding your balance in what may feel like spiritual quicksand. As you review the last part of your life, see where you stumbled and gently pry up the memory; what was underneath that you failed to see? How can you take that knowledge and make it something worth keeping?
The third card, Fertilizing, says “spend wisely” — and in this case spend wisely is put your time, energy, abilities and materials into what will enrich your spiritual life. Budget, if you will, so that you get the most return for what you “plant.”
The fourth card, Planting, speaks of using both head and heart to walk the spiritual path; cut through fluff and look at all the things you have wanted to do spiritually and choose only a few that will really nourish your growth.
The fifth, Pruning, is the eternal hope of the novice; you are no longer in the novitiate, but can leave that bright and shiny emotional toybox to the “rookies” who will follow you. It’s also giving away the idea that you have to have friends on the same path; the true Seeker knows that if they need to seek alone, they will do so. Leave the “herd mentality” for those who do not yet know how to walk a solitary path.
All right. Let’s say you don’t have (or don’t use) a Tarot deck, but one of the Oracle decks instead. Let’s use the Whispers of Lord Ganesha deck by Angela Hartfield:
CLEARING: Blessings
PLOWING: Positive Outlook
FERTILIZER: Courage
PLANT: Openness
PRUNE: Listen
Clearing out Blessings? Really? Yes, that can be the case if what you considered blessings before are no longer of use as your life moves forward. For instance, it may have been wonderful to have a job working for someone else, but if you want to be an entrepreneur? Thank it, but leave it behind.
Plowing, or preparing the ground for growth, is asking you to have a Positive Outlook: trust that leaving old blessings behind will not leave you barren. In a physical garden, when you stop planting carrots because you need zucchini, you trust that the ground will welcome the new growth patterns. Do the same here: start looking forward and imagining what new positivity may be coming into your life.
Fertilizer and Courage? Makes perfect sense. When we walk into the unknown, we can’t look backwards at what used to be safe, but must square our shoulders and welcome the changes. It is all about being willing to literally “rebirth” yourself.
Planting and Openness? In this case, it means to be open to planting new ideas, new connections, new possibilities, new creativity. Whatever worked for you before — well, that was before. What new energy can you plant as you welcome this spiritual spring of your life?
Pruning, remember, is not only cutting away, but leaving things for others you no longer need. The Sustenance card here means to trust that you will be sustained and there will be enough in your life, rather than hoard what you have or what you know from before. Do not refuse to create, experience or grow based on what fed you before. Instead, be generous in giving past “sustenance creators” to those who come behind you.
So there you have it — an easy way to make sure your spiritual garden is ready for the warm winds and sunshine of the spring to come. Happy gardening!
