Exploring the Shifting the Story Spread - Part 1: Writing Yourself into the cards

A few days ago I shared a spread that has been an awakening both to my creativity, a door way into working with my subconscious and an exercise in shifting stagnant and resistant energy that has been stored in me for years.

Check out the spread here : Shifting the Story Spread

With the encouragement, support and community of courageous soul explorers I continue to work to create healing opportunities for fellow tarot lovers, writers, artist and all creators. I truly felt the shift for everyone who took the time to play with the spread and venture into the shadowy depths of their psyche and beliefs.

Guided from my own use of the spread, and receptivity for healing I decided to take the spread deeper and unfold the layers to investigate different ways to approach the journaling questions and reflect on what comes up with each question and card.

Today I am sharing with you an exercise I did to write myself into the spread that allows the card to write itself into my current story. I like the back and forth relationship that unfolds between the energy, images and response that I get with each card.

My hope is that you may find something that can aid in taking your relationship with your story to the next level to uncover what is hidden and waiting.

What is the most prominent story playing out in my life right now?

For this exercise the first thing that I like to do is let my subconscious mind know that I am looking for the story not the divinatory meaning. I tell it that knowing what the card means can come later after I have impressed my own meanings onto the card. I can always go into the guidebook or universal understanding of it later if I want to seek out a specific idea or message that comes up in the exercise.

I find it helps to give the story a title. Go off what you see immediately, or a feeling that it gives you. Once the title is set, I set a timer for 15-20 minutes to aid my mind in knowing it doesn’t have to have the full ‘novel’ of the the specific life issue or story written down, I only need an entrance, a snippet and to start free-writing.

I shift into placing myself in the body of the character, animal or object that I see in the card. If you don’t identify strongly with the character it can be fun to experiment with giving a life and a voice to an object or animal. For my example below I resonated with the man in the image.

When the timer goes off I allow myself the space from the session. You want to come back to it with fresh eyes when you work with the next layer: Creating and communing with the character in your card. If you want to continue writing or looking at different angles this would be a great time to see how many perspectives and voices can offer you different or unanimous messages. You don’t need to stop putting yourself in the cards. You could do one to begin with to test then it out, or do them all. Do whatever feels right for you.

If by chance you find yourself creating a character or that a character begins to speak let whatever comes naturally during the process happen. Sometimes when I work with the cards a persona steps in and I need to work with it rather than the ideal perspective of who I am right now.

Here are some questions that may help you put yourself in the card.

* Who are you in the card? Are you in your female or male aspect?

*What do you see in the card that you also see in your life right now?

*How do your surroundings mimic what you see in the card?

The breaking of the cords

I stand upon the dock as the wild, untamed and turbulent ocean crashes around me making the decking slippery. Salt touches my boot and wet’s my Fox foot, the part of me that is animal and yearns to run wild and away from the reality that I don’t want to see behind me.

Two ships are passing, carried along by the ripples, their masts still in shape, the bottle blue water bringing their dirty sails flapping like birds facing their escape. I feel as if I have been hiding from those ships my whole life. I feel the illusion of joy when I choose to stay on slippery ground, and on the land. Hiding behind the pentacles of commitment and negating my self love. While on the other hand I battle between the spiritual calling screaming inside me and the physicality of survival.

In this card I am the rescuer, trying to save both of the coins when I know I only can only carry the weight of one of them. It demands decision and I want to drop them both in the ocean right now. If I do I could start a new life, but the story goes that I have always chosen the stone of sacrifice, to carry the burden of both frames of mind and turn them over in turmoil never knowing if the right pentacle was the right choice.

I always choose sacrifice over my health. People need me more than I need them and that scares me, and sometimes I need people more than they need me. I come to the pentacles for both inner and outer balance.

I am dressed today in my earthy garb of red and brown. I am warm enough and secure. My hat is already growing roots that are expanding beyond the storm and into the sky, putting out branches and feelers for divine guidance. I am looking into the future, a seer, a prophet only in this state of indecision my foresight is foggy like the mists of the sea.

I spend too much time living in the frame of mind where I question what my future might be like, rather than what is my present. I am looking at what could be. I know if I don’t make a choice and make a change I will spend eternity looking into the future telling myself “One day.”

One day I will leave this relationship.

One day I will create.

One day I will raise my voice.

The storm behind me is a reminder that even in the chaos there are choices to be made and I need to make one.

Do I go it alone [am I ever truly alone?]

Do I need to learn to start rescuing me rather than living a life rescuing others?

Do I need to allow time to recover or wait for the ships to pass me by or the ocean to pull me under because I am paralysed and cannot move?

Do I invest in myself and my resources {where I have a voice} or resist my voice and live in scarcity, in panic because I am scared of the future, and walking it in with my divinity and my power?

One thread, one cord has already been torn, detached from my body and my life while I have been waiting to make a choice. It has been carried away into the ocean and I can never get it back. It has been released, it is free. I am entirely now fixated on the thread and have forgotten the pentacles and the ability I have to choose. Just one is all I need; Just one.