Amour Abroad

My introduction to divination was crazy. 

Picture this. You’re sitting on your bed, scrolling through your for you page before you turn in for the night. You’ve just begun a new chapter – you’ve started a business, you’re attending graduate school, and the past is in your rear view. Things are looking up. Your days are productive, your nights are fun, and right now you’ve granted yourself some well deserved scrolling time. An evening treat. 

Suddenly, a young woman appears on your screen. She’s got an interesting look – purple hair, dark fashionable clothes. The screen is covered in words… strangely, they seem to speak to a situation that had been on your mind. An old friend who ended up not really being a friend, a relationship you had moved on from. You haven’t spoken to them in months- you’ve been too busy to think about it. 

But the words on the page paint a clear picture of the situation. How you saw your side of the argument, who this person was to you, other details that you hadn’t shared with anybody. The girl herself seems to be drawing you in… as if she knows something you don’t. 

Then she pulls out cards. Beautifully decorated, not like any you’ve ever seen. She shuffles them while explaining something about energy and channeling. The cards are flying out of her hands. She arranges them on a desk and observes them… then looks at you through the camera and says this old friend has been stalking your social media. 

You don’t believe it at first. How could this person know something like that? Sure, you believe in manifestation and you follow the Laws of the Universe, but that’s a far cry from fortune telling. 

And yet…

Somehow, what the young woman is saying describes, to the letter, the same behaviors that caused you to end this friendship. 

You can’t help it. You check your Instagram story. 

First person on the list… there they are. 

But maybe that doesn’t mean that they were the first to see your story. Maybe they’re just there because your accounts used to have high interaction. Although… you don’t follow each other anymore. You haven’t in months. 

You post something random. A picture from earlier in the day with a simple caption. Loving life lately. Heart emoji. Sun emoji. You wait. 

Maybe I need to get out more. How did this even get on my feed? Refresh the page. Loading. Maybe I’m paranoid. Maybe I’m bored? I don’t know, listening to random people on TikTok doesn’t feel like such a go—.

What the hell is that?

Is that…? Oh my God. 

They’ve watched your story. 

It hasn’t even been a full minute. 

What is going on???

And so went my introduction to tarot reading. 

Welcome to the big leagues, kid. Chances are that like many, spirituality seemed abstract and formless for most of your life; like smoke, something to understand intellectually but maybe not physically. 

Well, I’m here to tell you that the opposite is true. Spirituality and divination are real and concrete, with reproducible results and observable phenomena. Get ready for your mind to be blown. 

This post will serve as an introduction to some of my favorite forms of divination and give you a brief overview of how they show up in your life!

Let’s get started!

What is Divination?

Divination is what we refer to as the process of creating probability through material items to understand the speaking of the subconscious. 

Imagine you are flipping a coin. Heads: you go to your favorite burger place for dinner. Tails, you go to your favorite sushi spot. Almost all of us know what we actually want in our hearts – for me it’s the burger- always the burger – but I’m 15 pounds of fat away from my goal body, so sometimes I wonder if sushi is the better choice. 

As the coin is flipping in the air, an impulse runs through us and we know how we want it to land. To be sure, a feeling of disappointment comes if it lands on the ‘wrong’ side. 

Divination works the same way. Cards, gems, birth charts and more point to the current themes in our lives. They try to make sense of an endlessly complex universe, and in doing so show us what we truly desire. 

How you interpret divination is your choice. What matters is that you listen to your intuition and be honest about how you feel. That’s how it goes from a cool fortune telling trick to tools that help you through life. 

Types of Divination

There are so many different forms of divination that someone could (and has) write an entire encyclopedia about them. I encourage you to look into whichever one either presents itself to you, or tugs on your heartstrings. 

• Card reading – Pick a card, any card! Whether it’s tarot, oracle, Angel or other, card reading is one of the most popular forms of divination today. It involves pulling cards out of a deck or shuffling them such that they fall out on their own, and allow the reader to interpret their meanings. 
• Birth chart reading – For all the people that love astrology! Reading astrological birth charts is one of the oldest forms of divination on Earth. A mix between astronomy and sociology, astrology takes into consideration the position of heavenly bodies at the exact time of your birth to determine the themes you’ll explore in this lifetime. Nothing is more accurate!
• Cloud reading – another ancient science, cloud reading is aptly named. Often dubbed as the threshold between the Heavens and the Earth, clouds are interpreted by their shape, size and color. 
• Tasseography – You know this one! Despite its name, tasseography is a common form of divination, better known as coffee or tea leaf readings. Seekers are prepared a cup of coffee or tea, asked to drink, and interpreters observe the pattern left in the bottom.
  

Relationships

I’m sure you can guess how I felt upon finding out that my socials were being stalked via tarot reading. If you’ve read my post on spiritual journeys, you know that all things pertaining to the spiritual practices were foreign to me until 2 years ago. 

I would have scrolled away, but something in my spirit was calling me to stay, and in the end it alerted me to a strange, and potentially dangerous interpersonal development. 

You see, divination is very good at saying the quiet part out loud. You might have ended a friendship because you could sense their envy (read my Letting Go & Moving on from Toxic Friendships post for help), but what we often don’t know is that jealous friends become desperate when they don’t have anyone’s energy to pull on. 

If you’re a former people pleaser like me, you might have experienced this – letting someone who hurt you before back in, and watching them gear up to do the same thing again, this time with twist. 

Divination is good for exposing these and other patterns so that you can confront the wounds within you. As soon as they’re brought to your attention, you’ll take steps to address them – practicing self care or speaking more kindly to yourself. And in time those old relationships will no longer seem appealing. 

In contrast – and this is the part of tarot that I particularly love – your readings will gradually change to reflect better things. Where two years ago your readers had messages about creating boundaries, now they will tell you to open your heart to incoming love. 

It all works out in your favor!

New Self Concepts

Here was the kicker for me back in 2022. I’d gone my whole almost 24 years of life without a relationship. I thought I would be one of those women who spent her life alone until one day, the right person came along – then we’d get married and I’d never be alone again. 

Like a princess in a tower. 

Imagine my surprise when a few months after the first fiasco, a Christian tarot reader appeared on my FYP telling me that I was being prepared for romantic partnership. The bold words at the top of her video read “YOUR SINGLE SEASON IS OVER!” 

Just like that, my self concept changed. 

Divination can point out things that were building up our ego. Long held beliefs about romance, finances, family and more can be disrupted with a simple observation, a north node here or a Judgment card there. It is life changing to hear someone say out loud the secrets you’ve never spoken to anyone, and more amazing still when they tell you how that belief is not actually true. 

The shift always works in your favor, and with a few days of internal adjustment brings new, fulfilling experiences into your life. 

Life Guidance

Finally, the big fish! Divination is the go to for understanding your life’s path. If you’re someone with a large anointing – maybe someone told you that you would to change the world as a kid, or you just knew that there was something out there with your name on it – divination is one of the best tools to help you find your way. 

This is the paradox of our Universe – abstract practices make abstract concepts concrete. There is no way to necessarily prove that your interpretation is right, but when you give it a try you will find out that you are correct! And once that happens, it’s down the rabbit hole!

By ‘down the rabbit hole,’ I mean you may feel compelled to learn everything there is about your chosen divination practice. How long it’s been around, what ancient cultures it was first observed in, how to be more precise. It’s possible that you can, for a time, feel completely dependent on it. 

Don’t worry! All people have to visit Alice’s Wonderland sometime. That’s where all the good stuff is anyway. And when you feel your craziest, there are always others around who are just as deep in as you! That’s the gift God gives those of us who trust Him.

Many of the steps I took were based on a mix of what I read in the cards and what God said to me while I prayed. Over time they showed me that they were one and the same, yet focusing on different energies. God’s spoken instructions meant do this right now; the tarot message said this is what we’re doing over the next 5 months. 

When you can create a balance between your personal relationship with the Universe and your use of divination, you’ll be able to find your own path and serve as an aid to others! And the power comes in when you come back to reality with an understanding of the forces that move people. 

Nothing will ever take you by surprise again!

Conclusion

There are many wonderful forms of divination that take the complexity of our Universe and make it readable. Like quantum physicists, you are studying the fabric of reality, only your emotions guide you rather than metrics and logic. 

In time your use of divination will make you a powerful spiritual force, able to help others to their happiest life while you reign in the glory of your own! 

Which forms of divination stand out to you? Let me know in the comments!

I love you 🤍