Laura's Blog

The tarot can be used as a divining tool by reading cards that are selected unseen from a deck, and interpreting the interaction of the cards and their positions in a spread (specific layout), with reference to issues of importance in your life.

Tarot decks normally contain 78 cards, 22 of which are referred to as the Major Arcana and depict the major changes on our path through life. The remaining 56 cards, known as the Minor Arcana, expand on these themes. Like a pack of playing cards, the Minor Arcana are made up of four suits - wands, representing the spirit/fire, cups the emotions/water, swords the mind/air and pentacles the physical world/earth - numbered 1 to 10, Page, Knight, Queen, King. Some decks use different names for these suits, and others substitute Prince and Princess for Page and Knight, but most of the qualities represented by the cards are similar.

The first commercial deck - the Rider Waite deck - on which many modern decks are based, was produced in 1910 by A. E. Waite. The tarot has continued to grow in popularity, and modern printing methods ensure that it is becoming available to anyone who wishes to explore its uses. This is not to say that everyone understands the tarot - only study and personal growth can help to reveal its many mysteries.

The word intuition is defined by Merrian-Websters dictionary as:

1: quick and ready insight

2 a: immediate apprehension or cognition

   b: knowledge or conviction gained by intuition

   c: the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference

For me intuition is an inner knowing without thinking. Intuition describes a wide variety of ways you get information without using known logical or rational processes.  All people have intuitive capabilities, but some might not be aware of them. We have called intuition with several other names like hunch, precognition, sixth sense, gut feeling, etc.

The term Spirit Guide generally makes reference to one or more entities, which watch, teach, heal, and help you on your physical journey into spiritual awareness.

The general characteristic that separates a Spirit Guide from other types of spiritual beings is that they have lived a physical life and have returned to aide others in working through the same lessons they have been through. A guide could also be someone we knew in a previous life, or indeed, a family member. Due to the time they have spent as spirits, they have become highly developed in spiritual ways. They choose to remain close to the earth life, and act as a link and teacher. They can often appear in groups as well as singular.

Apart from the different forms they might take, some Spirit Guides have special attributes. Here are just a few: