The last time I did a top ten, it was at the end of 2012, reminiscing on the blogging year I was leaving behind.
Besides the realization of “gee, I should do that again!” I also learned that doing a top ten list is an excellent way to wrap up the year and go into the new year fresh, clean, and knowing exactly where you came from… so you know where you’re going! It was hard to choose my favorite blog posts, but I was able to do it based on site stats, general popularity, and which ones were my personal favorites to write. Without further ado…
Best of Tarot by Hilary 2015
10. Lessons from Boy Meets World and a Return to Regular Programming
Oh, reruns of Boy Meets World, can there EVER be enough of you? Me stumbling across the episode “Quiz Show” on MTV2 during a bout of procrastination yielded this blog post, all about investing time and energy in worthy pursuits (like my tarot business and my blogging) and less time used up by my addiction to Candy Crush.
9. How Does Tarot Work? [from the Ask a Tarot Reader series]
I know that tarot works (boy and how!). But exactly how does tarot work? I attempt to answer this question using the concepts of synchronicity, archetypes, and a little bit of mystery. It boils down to that tarot DOES work… the how is beside the point. What’s the point of tarot? It isn’t to “know it all” or to anticipate every single thing that happens or is going to happen. That would make life dull! Life is meant to have a few surprises! What I believe tarot to be is a tool for understanding. I have often quotes Socrates on this point: “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Tarot is the tool I use to examine, to understand, and to make better choices through that understanding—and to help my clients do the same.
8. Behind the Scenes: My Tarot Deck Library
Behind the Scenes blog posts are the most fun to write, and it always gives me a “huh, people really want to know that about me?” feeling. What started as an internal “I really need to keep track of the decks I own” effort turned into an alphabetical list of every cartomancy deck I own, broken down into the categories of Tarot, Lenormand, and Other (most of the Other category consists of Oracle decks). The next time you are scheduled for a reading with me, feel free to look over this list beforehand and specifically choose a deck (or a few) if you feel so moved. I’d be happy to accommodate you!
7. 7 Questions with Tarot Diva Sasha Graham
Part of the 7 Questions series, I interview Tarot Diva Sasha Graham about magic, tarot, and her new book 365 Tarot Spells (available for preorder now!). Sasha is authentically true as both a tarot reader and a magical person, and deeply respectful of both worlds (while still remaining bubbly and fun). I like to call this interview my proof that there are “many ways to witch.” 🙂
6. Excuses, excuses: why your tarot business won’t work if you don’t
We’re all looking for the magic bullet, the secret formula that makes our work 4x as easy or make it not feel like work at all (no matter what type of work we do). The secret is, there is no secret. And while you certainly shouldn’t be feeling downtrodden every day you go to work on your business, there WILL be days when you want to quit, or when it’s not feeling as breezy as you wanted it to be.
The excuses can prevent us as much as we want them to, and they are easy to come by: what’s not easy is cutting through the excuses and doing the work anyway, which is what this post is all about.
5. Tarot Ritual: New Moon in Cancer for the breaking of bad habits
If you are looking to knock a habit and need an astrological boost to help you along, the New Moon is one of the best times to set the intention to begin again. Even better is if you sync up which sign the New Moon is in to further help your intentions along.
This particular article is about using the New Moon in the sign of Cancer to break bad habits (in my case, procrastination), using the energy of the New Moon, a ritual bath, and tarot cards. This week, we have the New Moon in Capricorn on Saturday, January 9th: use the example I’ve given, and make a New Moon ritual of your own!
4. The stories we tell ourselves and the power of denial
Sometimes it may take weeks or even months before a person in deep denial will come back to me and say: “you were right about everything; I was just not ready to hear it.” Sometimes that may not happen at all, and I never hear from that person again. I try not to take that too personally either!
The tale described in this post is not unusual… I’ve had many people shaking their head at me from across the table, and known in my gut not to press it. Stories are POWERFUL. It takes a lot to dismantle the incorrect ones, especially if you’ve been telling yourself the same ones for years. If there’s one piece of advice I could give it is to tell people to regain authorship of their own lives: and that starts with the stories they tell themselves first.
3. Casting Love Spells: A Cautionary Tale [also appears at WitchesandPagans.com]
What happens when a teenage witch casts a love spell? She gets what she wished for, along with a heap of lessons! Often, the spells that went wrong became my greatest teachers. Sure, I had a few cute stories of spells that went right purely and thankfully by luck, but there was very little to be gleaned from them. Spells work! And when they work, the outcomes are often far different than we may have anticipated… which is why I (now) like to bring tarot into the mix when I do decide to cast a spell!
The spell that I talk about here DID work, but that’s beside the point (it’s a cautionary tale, after all).
2. Tarot Reading Aftercare (from both sides of the table)
My friend the massage therapist recommends things to do AFTER a massage, and I thought, why not do the same thing? Here are my best tips/to-dos to take care of yourself AFTER your tarot reading, from the clerical (like making sure your reading recorded!) to the clinical (drink lots of water and eat something to ground).
1. The beauty of beginner’s mind
After sticking by my staple freebie ebook 5 Empowering Spreads Anyone Can Use for years, I decided to retire it this year and release my latest ebook Tarot Beginners. Though my first ebook will always hold a special place in my heart, the assertion in the title “Spreads Anyone Can Use” was… well, kinda untrue and backwards. What good are a bunch of spreads if you are not properly introduced to the tarot first? Tarot Beginners is a free e-book for everyone who has asked me the question how do I learn tarot for myself? On the surface, it’s about learning the tarot. But really? It’s about accessing that little small still voice inside you that is constantly available to guide you: your intuition. It’s designed for people who look at the concept of learning the tarot and feel overwhelmed—people who struggle to recognize that we ALL have some form of intuition inside of us. Every. single. person. And yes, I know well that feeling of overwhelm. That crying on the floor “I’m never going to understand this” type of feeling. I know it because I lived it! Let me help ease a bit of those growing pains. There’s no shame about being a beginner in anything: after all, anyone that’s ever done ANYTHING has had to start where? At the beginning!
Tarot Beginners is available to all of my newsletter subscribers. Not one of them yet? Sign up for it now here or using the Subscribe form below.
Did you enjoy this little bloggerific walk down memory lane? I sure did! I can’t wait to see what 2016 has in store for all of us, and I thank you for reading. You (yes, YOU!) are the reason why I continue to write, teach, read cards, and do what I do here in Tarot by Hilary-land.
Blessings,
~*~Hilary~*~
www.tarotbyhilary.com
Any personal favorites that aren’t listed here? Feel free to Comment below!
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