When I was four years old I went to my first Tarot reading. I went with my uncle's then-girlfriend. I was captivated by the smells of Nag Champa, wafting from the dark back room which was converted to a reading space, clinking behind a plastic faceted-crystal beaded curtain. The room- a clever amalgam of the early aughts now-deemed celestial whimsigoth aesthetic: complete with jewel-toned candles, casting Byzantium glows, a cheap blue tablecloth with a celestial print, and a Rider-Waite-Smith deck. The experience would leave a deep impact on me. Certainly, it inspired me for a love of tarot: One that I would carry with me for the rest of my life, sparking my deep love for fragrance, and how it would eventually shape my magical practice and, by proxy, my life.
When I was ten, I would scour the internet searching for any divination I could get my hands on: learning tasseomancy, crystallomancy, and of course, cartomancy by way of tarot. I snuck into a Barnes & Noble once with 12 $ worth of quarters stashed in my pockets. I would practice on kids at school at lunchtime. Eventually, when I was old enough, I started going to a hookah club in Kansas City with a group of friends. Between the rose shisha, and blaring music, I garnered a sharp focus on the 78.
It wouldn’t be until post-witchcraft initiation, that I would incorporate my scrying and mediumship into the work I do, formulating a system of tarot that was meant to be worked for me.
Until Lent of 2023, in which I took up Geomancy. Debating if it was the method of divination I truly was invested in, I took the Intro to Geomancy class from Dr. Alexander Cummins. I immediately fell in love with this sister system to Astrology.
As I approach my 6th-month mark of studying this divination practice, I’ve decided to write a bit as a learning tool for myself: to record and document my thoughts on the subject of geomancy.
This certainly isn't meant to be a teaching guide for anyone- and if you’re interested in learning about the subject might I recommend Dr. Cummins's courses on intro and & advanced geomancy.
I can’t talk about resources without also mentioning Sam Block’s blog The Digital Ambler which is a wonderful resource as well, especially for in-depth blogs on geomancy mathematics, Geomantic aspects, and keying in a Part of Fortune and Index (or Part of Spirit as Sam calls it.)
As far as books go, John Michael Greer's The Art and Practice of Geomancy: Divination, Magic, and Earth Wisdom of the Renaissance (2009) is a great book that applies geomancy in a contemporary context, which I think is very important as source material on Geomancy is widely published about (at least in English) in the renaissance. Greer applies this traditional method of divination in a way that applies to the contemporary (which is the very point of divination: it should be practical), without completely removing it from its context (something I find "modern", astrology tends to do with itself).
Here, I’ll be meditating and musing on the figures, their placements within the twelve houses and court, their combinations, making small bits of digital collage, and thinking about the myths and magics, and sorceries surrounding this divination practice.