When you’re armed only with a book of interpretations and some brand-new cards, you seldom know what to expect, let alone how to work them. There are 10 cards to work with in the Celtic Cross. It is difficult to tailor the card description to the definition of the position. I often, more often than not, had a positive-sounding card in a position of negativity, and vice versa. I just didn’t know what to make of that.

In order to get a decent reading, you need to weave a story through those 10 cards and 10 positions. The flow gets easier as you get experienced, but for the complete beginner, this is a difficult task. I recommend a smaller tarot spread until you get the hang of blending the meanings.

How about a simple 3-card spread? Past, present, future. Easy enough to get the idea from the tiny booklet of meanings. Can you spot a theme running through the three? Ah, now you’re reading the cards!

Here, move on to my favorite: the 5-card horseshoe. Arrange the 5 chosen cards from left to right in the arch of a horseshoe. The first represents the past, the basis of the matter under investigation here. Next is the present, how things stand right now. At the top of the horseshoe is something unexpected – literally. It’s a condition or situation that you haven’t taken into consideration about the question, possibly something you didn’t even know about. The fourth is an immediate outcome, with the fifth being the ultimate outcome of the whole thing.

Sometimes, it is difficult to get one’s mind around the concept of immediate future and outcome in a reading. For instance, in a reading about one’s job, you may get a card for the Immediate Future indicating that the current job may be lost. The Outcome however, may show a new job, or a change of residence to locate the new job, or perhaps going back to school. These are all changes that a job loss may effect in the Real World, and that you could see in the Tarot.

When I was a young teen, I invented my own palmistry system, trying to coordinate the lines on my hands to my perceived fantasy future. A cousin came to visit from her home 3000 miles away, and I read her palm using my system. I remember telling her that she wasn’t going to marry the guy she was affianced to. She got huffy with me and declared that she was too going to marry him. When she got back home, she found out that he’d been cheating on her while she was away, and they broke up. She did get married, but it wasn’t to that jerk.

I don’t recall that system I invented those many years ago, and I’m pretty sure my life didn’t go the way I dreamed it would. So how did I happen to predict what would happen to my cousin?

Palmistry, astrology, tarot and other divinatory practices are tools. They help you connect with the Higher Self or Selves that we are all part of. Those of us who use these tools could probably tell the future or intuit a person’s character without them, but we use them anyway. The reasons are as varied as the people who use them. They can be a crutch, they can cover our self-doubts about our abilities, or they can be portals to a fascinating study. And, of course, other things. I’ve used many of these tools over the years, but from time to time I try to listen to the “still, small voice” within me and understand what it is I seek. Maybe if I really applied myself, I could be quite a psychic, but I do like my tools. They will, if nothing else, give one something to think about, something to ponder (hopefully, deeply).

So let me introduce you to palmistry.

It’s actually about the hands, not just the palms. There’s something to be learned about the shape and size of a person’s hands, the way the thumb is shaped, the way the fingers aren’t quite equidistant when the hand is held open.

You’re not going to learn a whole lot by just studying your own hands. You are so familiar with your own that it may be difficult to realize that not everyone’s hands are like yours.

So, for this week, I want you to pay attention to the size and shape of hands by watching co-workers, cashiers, gasoline attendants, your next-door neighbor. Indeed, everyone you come into contact with. Granted, you’re not going to attach any meanings to what you see, you’re just going to observe. Keep mental notes of the variety, and of the bodies attached. Are thin, narrow hands always attached to thin people? How about hands that look like a big-breed puppy’s huge paws? Are large hands always puffy looking, or can you imagine that they are solid and muscular?

When a customer reaches for a bag, does the little finger cling to the ring finger? Does the middle finger slant toward or away from the pointer? Are the fingers slim, conical or knotty-looking around the knuckles? Long or short? How about the thumb? Does it seem to come almost out of the wrist, or is it set farther up the hand? Does it curl backward? What else can you see?

Add a comment, and tell me what you saw!

It’s what I like about my favorite subject, astrology, but that title’s not an eye-catcher.

It’s the depth, the breadth, the variety, the just-about-anything-can-be-given-an-astrological-touch. People, buildings, baseball, questions, companies, cities, airline flights, volcano eruptions.

And so, phoener.com has its own chart. This site was born April 27, 2009 at 1:37 pm EDT, in Middleburg, NY. Here is its chart as shown by SolarFire 6.0.

(No, the modes and elements aren’t correct. I changed SolarFire’s system while studying with Kelly Lee Phipps and never changed them back.)

We got ourselves a little Taurus site. It ain’t going anywhere soon. Everything that goes on, on this site, will go through a CPU of Taurean style. It is solid, practical, comfort-loving, and nature-loving. Okay, so it can’t plant any Real Life gardens, but it will in time display a variety of beautiful ideas and subjects.

Its Moon is in Gemini. That makes it a chatty little communicator down in its cyber-soul. Should make it a good place for exchange.

Its Ascendant (Rising Sign) is Leo, so it will present itself in a Glamourflage kind of way, very showy and LOOK AT ME!, but generous and fun.

Those are the main points. We also have Mercury, the planet of communication, in Gemini, the sign of communication, in the 10th house (a division of the chart), so it will be a very public conversation. Mars & Venus, the planets of sexual energy, are together in the house of secrets, but I don’t want any trysts arranged here! I run a clean house, I tell you! Aw, geez, and they’re close to Uranus, which makes for some electric high energy, and a desire for independence. My son’s got this energy. The girls like him. Pluto is in the house of recreation and re-creation, and is very explosive. It’s me getting angry if there are any of those trysts I mentioned.

Little phoener.com has the asteroid Ceres near the ascendant, and Saturn further away, but still in the first house. There will be abundance, security, and stability. Opposite the ascendant are Neptune, Chiron, and Jupiter. These are teachers, especially of a spiritual nature.

It’s the chart of the site I wanted: a safe place to gather and express ideas, especially spiritual ones. I wish for people to find healing here, either from me and my words, or from the others who have joined here.

Welcome to my site, and Merry Meet!

-Phoener