Dark Snow Moon
Deep peace of the Dark moon to you
january 29, 2025
Dreaming with Tarot
It’s been dark and cold for awhile. We’ve gotten to celebrate some holidays - and now it’s time for Chinese New Year and Imbolc! - but aside from holiday celebrations, winter can start to wear on us. It can be hard to feel awake and motivated, but that’s for good reason.
For the natural world around us, this season of dormancy is essential for our ecosystem. Where I am, in temperate North America, our flora and fauna (including us!) go through seasons of growth, dying back, and rebirth. So even though when we walk through the woods and the trees are bare, they are very much alive and doing their current job, which is conserving energy and keeping their nutrients in storage so they don’t freeze and break. (And there is some evidence that they’re also tracking the hours of daylight in order to know when it’s time to unfurl their leaves! Trees are amazing!)
The word dormant comes from the word to sleep (any Spanish speakers out there reminded of the word dormir?). And sleep is hugely important to our physical and mental health and well-being. So when you’re feeling sluggish at this time of year, just know that for bears, bees, trees, and you, this whole season is an invitation to rest, conserve, integrate, and dream.
Now, does life under late-stage capitalism support resting, conserving, integrating, and dreaming? It most certainly does not. We must carve out spaces for ourselves and each other to do this vital work. (If you’re looking for some inspiration, Tricia Hersey is a phenomenal artist, activist, and theologian who founded The Nap Ministry and has written two books on this very topic. Please check her out!)
As we work to carve out some protected space for dreaming, one tool we can use to access our inner landscape is tarot. If you don’t have your own deck of tarot cards, oracle cards will also work. You can potentially borrow a deck from a friend (some people like to share, others don’t, and either is totally fine!). Or you can download the free version of the Labyrinthos app and pull cards digitally. The app is also a great resource for learning and interpreting.
I came up with a little three-card spread for us to play with in this dreaming season:
To use this spread, come up with a question, and hold that question in your mind and heart as you shuffle the deck. When you feel satisfied with the amount of shuffling you’ve done, you can cut the deck once or twice, and then pull the number of cards you are choosing to read. The spread is for three cards, but it’s your practice, so if, for example, you want to pull one card and have it represent position two - your connection to others - that’s totally fine! Adapt the spread to your desires and preferences.
Deciding on a question is one of the fun parts because you can explore and experiment forever. So play around with it, and don’t worry about getting it just right, because what you come up with will be great and we’re not seeking perfection here.
This spread is going to highlight our internal, relational, and communal resources. So it would be well-suited to questions like:
How can I nurture my creative spark in 2025?
You could substitute “creative spark” with other things like heart, body, or friendships.
How can I support myself as I’m feeling _______?
Insert any emotion here.
Where can I invest my energy this season?
Instead of the vague “season” which I use all the time, you could specify a particular time period like this week or this month. Or focus on a particular realm of your life like work or family.
What do I need to tend to right now?
Play with different verbs here. Instead of tending to, maybe it’s pay attention to, know, or remember.
Keep in mind that open-ended questions are ideal. Some oracle decks will give you a yes or no, but tarot won’t. And my personal practice with the cards is not, “should I do A or B?” but more about exploring and wondering and pondering.
Whatever your practice, the key is to carve out space for yourself to ponder, dream, and above all, rest. Rest and dreaming are a radical act of resistance and when you do so, you give others around you permission to give themselves a break too.
Join me
Wednesday, January 29, 2025, in Baltimore to practice reading tarot together as we explore our inner landscape in this winter season.
Some Links
My favorite online resource for tarot interpretation is Contemporary Tarot on YouTube.
Follow The Nap Ministry on Instagram.
Have a tarot-related topic you’d like me to cover? Let me know!
Photo by Neil Rosenstech on Unsplash.