Between the Body and the Unbodied
Seasonal tarot availability, related offerings, related services, and related reading
I’ll use this space to share occasional book reviews and to include notices about seasonal tarot availability, related offerings or services, and related reading.
Between the Body and the Unbodied
The Sun is in Venus-ruled Libra until October 22. No wonder this time of year is characterized by so much beauty on stunning display. As chlorophyll production drops with the dropping temperatures, the leaves turn red, purple, orange, and yellow, our most brilliant autumn colors made possible by just enough sun in the daytime, and just enough chill in the night.
I’m one that tends toward and does well in the margins and with extremes, but I value centered stillness all the more for that, and I like to take a minute at this time of year to bring conscious awareness to things like matter-spirit balance and mind-body balance.
Two reminders I speak to myself frequently:
Balance spiritual pursuits and material concerns, Both are needed to maintain well-being. Balance physical fitness and intellectual nourishment, Both are needed to maintain well-being.
With that in mind, I’ve opened my books for tarot reading, and I’ve put together a small selection of related seasonal offerings that may be of interest to you as shadows lengthen and the darkness settles in.
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Vignette Readings
This season, October 9th - November 4th, I’m opening my books to offer Vignette Readings. These are low cost but enriching readings on any topic or question, available for a limited time in only one format, and delivered within a 24-hour window via only one method.
Cost. $22
Availability. October 9th - November 4th
Format. 2-4 typed pages, photograph-illustrated, pdf document
Delivery: Via email within an agreed upon 24-hour window
Place an Order Here
Order here and I’ll write to you shortly to confirm the next 24-hour window of availability: Order a Vignette Reading
Client In-Take Form
Upon placing your order, your browser will redirect you to a client in-take form where you can confirm that you are 18+ and let me know some of your preferences and expectations.
For example:
What is the burning question or the general topic that you want to explore?
Are you seeking insight and wisdom or are you seeking guidance?
Are you simply curious and open to whatever arises?
Are you a seasoned reader yourself, or are you completely new to tarot?
Would you welcome a short list of practical action steps?
If you have preferences, your client in-take form is a great place to let me know.
Confidentiality
All information that you provide will be held in confidence and anything arising out of your reading will be shared only with you.
Disclaimer
In the US, tarot readings, intuitive, psychic, and occult services, and all related goods and activities are considered curios for entertainment purposes only. Further, you are under no obligation to take action on any insights gained or suggestions made through a tarot consultation. And finally, if you have a medical concern, a financial issue, or a legal matter, please contact a qualified medical doctor, a financial consultant, or a lawyer.
Post-Reading Follow Up & Feedback Form
I want to make sure that all is well following your reading, and I will invite you to ask any questions for clarification that you may have in response to it.
Optionally, I will invite you to complete a short customer survey form where you can rate your overall experience as well as my accuracy, insightfulness, ethics, and value for money. Your honest responses are confidential and very much appreciated.
And finally, I will invite you to leave a public testimonial, but there is absolutely no obligation or pressure for you to do so.
Other Goods & Services
I keep a pretty solid devotional practice in this house, so when my books are open, if this trial goes well and this becomes a thing, I may also offer a few additional goods or services arising out of what is current within that practice at the time.
Right now, with Halloween at the end of the month, I’m spending time with my annual long list and short list of powerful and beloved dead. They include patron saints, mystics, and sages as well as scholars and historical or otherwise celebrated figures. Also in their number are the cherished loved ones that have passed on over the years and those people within the traditions and the schools of thought in which I participate who have died. I look to them all as a group and as individuals for inspiration via various methods from simple remembrance to mediumship. And this is when I like to review, refresh, and renew those practices.
If you are interested in the background reading that helped me develop my Beloved and Powerful Dead practices, here is a shortlist of books that have influenced my craft, my actions, and my thinking:
Dionne, Danielle. Magickal Mediumship: Partnering with the Ancestors for Healing and Spiritual Development. Llewellyn Worldwide, 2020.
Grimassi, Raven. Communing with the Ancestors: Your Spirit Guides, Bloodline Allies, and the Cycle of Reincarnation. Weiser Books, 2016.
Illes, Judika. Encyclopedia of Mystics, Saints & Sages: A Guide to Asking for Protection, Wealth, Happiness, and Everything Else! Harper Collins, 2011.
Mortellus. The Bones Fall in a Spiral: A Necromantic Primer. Crossed Crow Books, 2022.
Penczak, Christopher. The Mighty Dead: Communing with the Ancestors of Witchcraft. Copper Cauldron Publishing, 2013.
I’ll pick at least one of these books this season and write an October book review to share here. And if you have read, or written, something good on this general theme in either fiction or nonfiction—I love book recommendations.
Hughes Guides for The Curious
Hughes Guide for The Curious: All Hallows and The Powerful Dead pdf for $5. Pre-order yours here: Hughes Guide for The Curious: All Hallows and The Powerful Dead Pre-Order
If you pre-order, please provide your preferred contact email address for delivery. I will begin sending out copies and announce that the pdf is live on Monday, 14th October.
If I’m still offering this next year, I’ll likely have added to it and it may cost more, but anyone who purchases it this year will have perpetual access to all future updates at no added charge for as long as it remains in this form, and not, for example, recast in the form of a book or an online course.
But your interest in this document will help me determine whether there is indeed a book here or a course to develop, or not, or possibly both.
So if you are curious, watch this space for the launch. I’m transforming my personal-use notes, (some might call a collection of notes like this a grimoire) into the first Hughes Guide for The Curious as we speak and throughout the week. Some topics in the editing stage include:
Draft Table of Contents
Connecting to Helpers, Mentors, and Powerful Dead
Visiting Graveyards
Marking Feast Days
Offerings
Automatic Writing Exercises
Tarot and Other Divinatory Tools
Meditation with Your Helpers
Candle Dressing and Blessing Oil
Crafting a Nine Circles of Kindly Helpers Mandala
A Witch Twist on The 14 Holy Helpers
Litany Templates & Formulas for Writing Your Own
The Nine Circles of Kindly Helpers Mandala
Pre-order yours here: Nine Circles of Kindly Helpers Mandala Pre-Order
[2024.10.10 GGH Note: My services for the mandala are now fully booked for this season. Thank you.]
These have extremely limited availability, so if you want one, snap it up. Customization is a significant part of this particular work, and I'll need your preferred contact email address to discuss the details before I begin. There is a space for this on the pre-order form.
Guidance to create one of these is included in the Hughes Guide for The Curious: All Hallows and The Powerful Dead. Many of the exercises and suggestions in the guide can be crafted or worked through in short time, but not this one. This one requires a serious investment of time in meditation, a walk in nature to gather earth, air, fire, and water, several hours of research, and then a few hours of drawing before the mandala is ready to be consecrated. But it does not all have to be done in one day. Even so, if you want one, but you do not have the time to put into its creation, I’m offering to craft the mandala for $93. I have availability to make up to 3 of these spread across October.
When it’s ready, I will put it in the mail.
[GGH Edit 2024.10.08: I originally wrote that I’d provide the recipient with guidance to “activate” it. Because it is un-intentionally misleading, that was a terrible word choice, and I apologize. It does not require any form of “activation.” But the recipient will benefit from lighting a candle and saying a few words to enter into the experience of gently connecting to the energies and the powers that consolidated around its creation.]
To get an idea of what the end product will look like, the form for it was inspired by Hildegard of Bingen’s classic Medieval work, Scivias I.6: The Choirs of Angels.
Yours need not include angels, but it certainly can.
For an example of what work inspired by this piece may look like, take a look at this post from May 2008 by Quoin Monkey, “a writer and photographer who anchors monkey mind through practice.”
QuoinMonkey. “Hildegard of Bingen’s Vision: Coloring Mandalas.” Flickr, 2008.
Kindly Helper Blessing Oil
Pre-order yours here: Kindly Helper Blessing Oil Pre-Order
$9 per 1/2 ounce (15 mL) glass bottle.
You cannot go wrong with just using extra virgin olive oil here. However, if you would like an especially crafted and charmed oil for use with your Kindly Helpers Mandala, suggestions and guidance to create it are included in the Hughes Guide for The Curious: All Hallows and The Powerful Dead. But if you do not have the supplies, inclination, or the time to make one, I am happy to blend and charm one for you. Orders for this item are open and unlimited until November 4th.
Seasonal Banqueting Table
Please enjoy this selection of evergreen blog posts from the archive of one of my favorite witch blogs, For Puck’s Sake, as a seasonal banqueting table and feast for Stygian souls.
Auryn, Mat.
---. “Jack-O’-Lanterns And The Devil.” For Puck’s Sake, Patheos, 3 Oct. 2020.
---. “Pros & Cons Of Honoring Our Unpleasant Dead.” For Puck’s Sake, Patheos, 22 Sept. 2020.
---. “The 20 Best Books On The Dead For The Modern Witch.” For Puck’s Sake, Patheos, 23 Sept. 2020.
---. “Watch Llewellyn’s Author Forum: Ancestor Veneration.” For Puck’s Sake, Patheos, 12 Oct. 2020.
Please also enjoy this classic Victorian era, haunted house, piece of horror writing, The Turn of The Screw, a novella by Henry James (1898). This was my first ghost story, and I loved it then, and I love it still. It opens on Christmas Eve, but it’s a good read at any time of year, especially during October, November, and December.
James, Henry. The Turn of The Screw. 1898, Elegant eBooks, PDF created by José Menéndez.
It’s readily available as an audiobook on YouTube as well:
“The Turn of The Screw [A Chapter by Chapter Playlist in 25 Mostly Short Videos].” Produced by Spoken Word Entertainment, uploaded by Imagination Audio Books, YouTube, 2021.
Wishing you and yours well today and throughout the months ahead.
Thank you for dropping in.
A very interesting approach to Tarot. I am at a Tarot conference this weekend but will make contact again upon my return. Chat again. Thank you for your words.