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That sounds fascinating @Raggydoll . I've never thought of speaking to my ancestors when I am in my sanctuary. But that's probably because I don't have much of a relationship with them. I do speak to my guides though.... and thinking about this now - two of those guides are actually what one would call "ancestor's of time" (alla Nancy Hendricks) - because they are actually people from somewhere else on the planet from another time... not related to me by blood. (Generally when people say "ancestors" I immediately think of ancestors of blood, which is what you are talking about here). @Misterei I honour my recent dead - people I have known who have passed on.. One thing I do is set up an ancestral altar (a pop-up altar as it's only up at this time), and put on it a representation of all these aforementioned people (this can be a piece of jewellery that they once owned, a crystal that reminds me of them, a business card of theirs that I still have - etc) and I decorate the alter around the objects. I'll usually then contemplate (meditate on) these items and the people they represent and remember them. I may pray or chant. I may light a candle. I may decide to design and perform a whole ritual with a section speaking directly to them. Depends on what a fancy.

Strike out "not being entitled" from your brain right now Marina!!! If you see a practice that you like - who says you can't make it your own and enjoy the richness & beauty that it adds to your personal experience? IMO. "Culture" has been mixing, incorporating and intermarrying for Aeons, if you really start digging up the roots of everything as an historian. Look at the RWS for instance - how many cultures are actually jammed into there? Remember, The Golden Dawn's aim was to invent a new and better spiritual path - from mixing the best of a number of ideas from different cultures together.

But you need to be able to see the possibilities and look at all the OSs available. But geoxena's right - birthstones are just too much.

I meant Orphalese is for wondows only, not my app. I was planning on doing ios, mac, pc, android, linux, and maybe steam. I might do a webapp but probably not (im still looking into that one.) I agree thatbOrphalese has a lot of cool features from the video. I dont have a working windows machine at the moment to install it.

Oh gosh, birthstones. Honestly, I would probably roll my eyes and pass on an app that offers choosing my birthstone before a reading. Birthstones have nothing to do with tarot.

Sure - but for the facilities it offers, I'd not want anything more. And as geoxena says - you surely don't want to restrict your app to one OS. Better yet, even make it operable in Linux as well ! But nothing would make me use a tarot app on a phone. Never mind clogging up important things that phones need to do, the screen is just too small. If you are adding birthstones and the rest, it would be just too cluttered a screen. (Not that I have a good smartphone anyway !)

Because I really don't have any clear ancestral… heritage to to speak (to clarify: my family came from a big mix of poor immigrants, of different nationalities & ethnicities, so there isn't a single cultural "thread" that I feel I can call ancestral), I do not feel entitled to any standard rituals or celebration. That said, I do like to take the photos of my dear departed ones - human and animal family -, light a candle in remembrance and thank them for the love and the time shared. I do it on the 2nd of November, which is "Dia de Finados" (the day of the dead) here in my country, because there is a whole collective energy already focused on it. I guess it counts for something, even though it's not anything magical or profoundly spiritual

I would think that if you're developing an app, you'll need to test it on a range of devices and operating systems. Unless you only want to make it for iPhones? I generally don't need to carry a tarot deck with me wherever I go, so I don't use a tarot app. Once in a blue moon, however, I login to tarot.com for a free reading, just for fun. It's an old site, been around for ages, but maybe they have features there that you'd want to use for your app. I access it on my laptop. I personally do not like downloading apps to my phone because having too many can slow it down. I much prefer using websites on my laptop over apps on my phone.

My ancestors have initiated a new type of divination/communication with me recently. I guess you could liken it to astral card readings 😊. I journey to my sanctuary, the place where I consult ancestors and perform magic. And there they have made an altar-like platform with a deck of cards. The cards are like nothing I’ve ever seen before, the images move and scenes unfold inside the cards. I believe each card is unique for every reading, at least so far I have not seen any repeats and they feel very specific for the context of each question. I have understood that the ancestor wishes to guide and communicate with me this way. So it is something I will explore further tonight. I agree that this time of year is particularly conducive to ancestral communication. I also understand why they treat ancestors differently depending on how recently they passed on. I have never had an ancestor who recently passed on, show up as a guide for me. It is a process both for the dead and the living.

In the west we are approaching Halloween and Day of the Dead or All Saints Day at the end of October and beginning of November. In the Hindu calendar the 2 weeks leading up to October 9 [depending on Lunar Calendar] are a time to honor ancestors. There are special rules according to the date the loved-one died, but if you don't know the date, October 9 is the day you can collectively honor all your dearly departed. Pitru Paksh strikes me as very similar to Halloween. Same notion of the veils between the worlds being thinner at this time and the dead being more accessible to the living. Different dates but a similar vibe nonetheless. One interesting difference I just learned from a YT video--for Pitru Paksh you only honor people who have been dead longer than 1 year. For the first year after a person dies, it's considered different. Do you do any rituals or practices to honor ancestors at this time of year? If so, what?

@Chariot thank you for the link! I'm looking at it :) and think that I'll probably love ISG reading circle. Your practice to "put in order" the deck after the reading is interesting. I may give it a try! I usually shuffle it as it is, until it seems enough to me. For me it has been the contrary: I started reading for others online, and only recently it happened to me to do some readings in presence.

I usually go for established spreads but I do sometimes change and adapt according to the question asked. I like 3 card spreads, past, present, future or sometimes I'll just take part of a spread and use that. I still go to the old AT forums and find popular spreads from there. One I don't like is the Celtic Cross, I've tried shorter variations of it but there are others that I like better.

I like that the pictures seem to reflect contemporary settings and issues as well. That can be very helpful.

Thanks for the reply though. I watched a video and its cool. I will have to find my laptop and if the battery isnt toast i will download it.

Its for windows only and i dont have a windows tablet or phone. I have an android tablet and an iphone. I wish i could look at it since it seems to have cool features but i cant use it.

I'd take a look at Orphalese, It's pretty much ideal.

Hello, I’m building a non-AI tarot app. By “non-AI” I mean the app would not generate interpretations for you. Instead, it would focus on the reading process itself, so you could either interpret the cards yourself or use it as a tool when reading for someone else. Im looking for ideas for features that aren’t already common in other tarot apps. I know most of the basics have probably been done, but here are a few ideas I’ve come up with so far: 1 After shuffling, you can cut the deck by choosing exactly where to cut it on the screen. 2 You can switch to a different deck in the middle of a reading. 3 There’s a reading timer you can pause, so you can keep track of how much time youve spent. 4 I’m not sure about this one but what if I add all the birthstones or other crystals, like you can draw one before the reading starts. I think i got this idea from Esotarot. 5 what else? If you use tarot apps, what feature or combination of features would make another one genuinely useful to you? Even small details or annoyances with current apps might be helpful. I’m new here, Thanks, Sebastian

I looked at The Crow Tarot too but I realised it didn't pull me like the Urban Crow Oracle did. The Urban Crow cards are also very intuitive, the keywords just help open up the cards, like a stepping stone. The companion book is also pretty good. It's not often I can get lost in card imagery, similar to how I work with the Liber T, but these cards are drawn to help you do that. It's an interesting journey.

oh, I love this exercise, because lately I have been getting ideas of songs that fit for specific tarot cards. I am truly obsessed with Fiona Apple, so both of them are Fiona's songs: "Oh Well" - 3 of Swords "Waltz" - 4 of Wands. I know here it seems more questionable, but 4 of wands for me also stands for satisfaction; quiet celebration, in this case. It doesn't need to be excessive for me.

I do something sometimes (but only with up to 3 cards, of course) which is getting three or two cards and using my intuition to let them speak to me. Feeling like the cards spoke to me directly. I am not sure this is "making my own spread", but sometimes it can be very enlightening. Really it works better with two cards, but sometimes I do it with three. I like using spreads, but I had never thought of making them myself. Thanks for the idea. :)

The only Spanish deck I know of is the "Tarot del Fuego" by artist Ricardo Cavolo, I heard it is hard to interpret though and use for readings, but it looks beautiful, very personal indeed. I use lately a deck called "The Wandering Star" by Cat Pierce, which is a gift from my boyfriend. And I have the Golden Art Nouveau deck because it is golden, and I don't use really much my old RWS but I find still a good idea to have one of those around. Those are the two tarot decks I use the most. :)

Thanks for that detailed and informative reply, @Muir I find I'm in agreement with lots of your methods and attitudes. I think it's important (although probably not necessary) to ground yourself at the start by 'learning' how cards work, and what their potential might be. But then yes. Go with what works for you. I'm a firm believer that tarot is a language ...it speaks to the reader in terms ...even words ...that allow a conversation between the cards and the reader to take place. We don't all speak the same language! As far as cleansing my cards, my method (call it ritual?) is that at the end of every reading I re-order the cards into their original positions in the deck. It's not so much spiritual cleansing for me, but simply ensures that the last reading I did won't influence the next because of the positions the cards were left in. I like the idea of starting each reading from scratch. I have got very quick at doing this sorting, although if I were reading for a bunch of people at some event, I would have several decks with me, so this wouldn't be necessary between each client. I also find that handling and looking at the cards each time is beneficial as well. Instant recognition is good, when it comes to cards, I reckon. I read for myself a lot, but do have to be careful about 'slanting' readings. The payoff is the accuracy of the readings, most of the time. I would like to read for other people more often, though. I had a group of friends who lived here, in the same town as me, for a while, and that was great. But, unfortunately, they have ALL moved away! So I'm expanding my circle online these days, and it works pretty well. You might totally enjoy participating in some of the reading circles. Here's a link to what's on offer. Some are monthly, some are weekly, some are for tarot, others for oracles, etc. My favourite is the ISG reading, which teaches us how to intuitively read a card based on its design and imagery, rather than what's in the accompanying 'little white book' (LWB) or other books the author has written about the deck. This has been an eye-opener, at least for me. Anyway: the link: https://www.thetarotforum.com/forums/forum/31-tarot-reading-circles/ I look forward to seeing more of you on the forum!

Hi Chariot :) Thank you for the question :) Being not intuitive, clairvoyant, gifted or talented, but being rational, I started as many do, with a traditional RWS and studying it card by card. I prepared my own file of corrispondences, meanings and so on, and I started to read attaining to it. Also, I joined few nice facebook groups to practice with others. I'm not a deck collector, but quite soon I started to buy some decks that I felt nearer to my taste and inclinations than the RWS. I still have some on my list to get, but not as many. More important to me is that after a year or so I found out that the cards in a spread tell the tale by their own, if only I take the time to look at the images and don't try to make them match with the usual meanings. I also found that every deck has a different language and/or a different way to say the things that have to be said. Meanwhile, I don't do rituals, nor feel the need to cleanse the decks. I don't think that decks have their own negative/positive energy or negative/positive power. Personally I think that the only energy involved is the reader's one while they are using the cards, meaning with it that cards - through the images - help the reader to make associations and to connect with some inner sense that I am not able to define, if the reader is able to focus solely on the question that is asked for. I have both "pip" decks and not pips, and I'm quite picky about the ones to buy :D In general, I don't use the booklet coming with decks to read with them, except for the Chesca Potter's Greenwood tarot deck, that I consider a completely different thing than the others. ... and I read only for others, feeling always to be too involved and not ojective enough to do that for myself. I do an exception for the daily card, when I do that, and in general I do that if I want to work with a specific deck.

I'm inclined to check this one out, as I have the Crow Tarot, by MJ Cullinane, and think it is a beautiful deck. It's one of the few decks I bought simply because I liked the look of it. As a tarot deck I find it difficult to use, as the pictures (especially the minor arcana cards) don't stand out from one another well enough for me to do an intuitive overall reading. But an oracle deck by the same artist (with keywords) might be just the thing. Thanks for the recommendation. UPDATE ...looked at it online, LOVE IT. Just ordered it! I think I'm on an ordering spree at the moment ...must stop....

Welcome! Everyone here is very friendly and helpful so I think you'll enjoy joining right in. I think Gregory is a little ahead of me getting to 81 already, but in November, I'll be 81, too, so I'm close on her heels.