Simple ways to use oracle cards

If you're seeking a quick, fun, and meaningful way to look inward, working with oracle cards could be an enriching practice for you. The simple act of choosing a card (or a few cards) is an immediate way to invite self-reflection, whether you are starting your day, pondering a lingering question in your life, or invoking nighttime dreams. Oracle cards generally come grouped into a deck, and they can provide us with insight into our innermost questions -- not from some outside source, rather from our inner wisdom used in deciphering their message. Tarot cards are one well-known example of an oracle card deck, though there are many other types. You don't need to be a professional tarot reader, a shaman, a believer of woo-woo, or anything other than exactly who you are to make oracle cards part of your practice. All you need is a favorite deck (or you can even create a deck yourself using your own art and/or images cut from magazines.) A few of my favorite oracle card decks I keep around my studio are pictured below, and many can be purchased via the Amazon affiliate carousel at the bottom of this post.

Ways I like to use my oracle cards:

• At the start of my morning
• To set intentions for my week, placed upon my altar or around the house as a visual reminder
• For clients to draw at the begining of therapy to arrive into the sacred space and set the tone for the session
• As creative writing or journaling prompts
• For help in answering a question that I'm mulling over (because the reflecting on the image requires me to go deeply inward and inquire from my true, core self.)
• Before bedtime, to close my day or invoke/inquire into my nighttime dreams
• To mark special occasions, like my birthday, new years, or the beginning of a project
• To mark a transition, like a move, a new job, a birth, a death, a relationship beginning or ending

How-to and prompts:

Once you have a deck you like, get a feel for it. Hold the deck in your hands, shuffle it gently, cut the cards - do whatever you'd like. While you are holding the cards, think of a question you'd like to ask. It can be as simple as: "What do I need in this moment?" or "What will this day bring?" You can fan them out or stack them. Using your intuition, pull a card from the deck. (Sometimes a card will fall on the floor as you shuffle - that's usually your card.)

After you pull a card, study it closely. If you have a deck of words (like the Angel card or Blesssing card decks in the carousel below) or phrases on the card (like the Shambhala deck or Danielle LaPorte's Truthbomb deck,) then see how/if this word or phrase could apply to your life.

If your deck is comprised of cards with images, really look at the card you pull. What is pictured? What colors are used? Is there movement or stillness? Is there a person(s) present? Are there animals? Which natural elements stand out: fire, water, earth, air? Simply describe what you see. (We art therapists call the practice of just describing what you see "the phenomenological approach to the image" - fancy huh?) Describing form/the image leads to content/the meaning.

Now it's time to let your mind free-associate and play! Does your card remind you of anything or anyone in your life? Could it apply to the question you asked as you shuffled? What do the words or colors or shapes mean to you? (i.e.; "yellow reminds me of the sun and happiness" or "owls make me think of nighttime and wisdom" or "the word 'patience' is such medicine for me right now.") At this point, you may choose to make notes in your journal. If your card comes with a booklet describing the images (as tarot cards and other decks often do,) you might choose to then add this collective wisdom into your own personal reflections. Though, I'd recommend saving the booklet for last so as not to cloud your intuitive hunches.

You might also pull 3 cards in a row, representing 1) Who I was, 2) Who I am, and 3) Who I will become. You can get creative about what sets of cards can mean, or you can consult the booklet that comes with your deck to see what types of readings are recommended.

This practice can be infused with any energy you give it: light, fun, sacred, deep, meditative, inspiring... and the best part is that you can connect with yourself and your inner voice in under 5 minutes when engaging in oracle card reading. Trust the process.

So, what is Reiki anyway?

Reiki has been circling back into my practice more regularly since the new year, and it seems like a perfect time to write a little post about this ancient, subtle, and powerful hands-on-healing method. I am a Master/Teacher-level Reiki practitioner in the Usui tradition and lineage. I have been studying energetic healing and the chakra system since 1995, and I have been formally practicing Reiki since 2003. I enjoy calling upon Reiki energy for my own healing, cleansing the energy of a space, and for hands-on healing treatments for clients, family members, and friends.

This Spring I conducted two Reiki workshops in the Bay Area for therapists who also wish to become Reiki practitioners, and incorporate this type of energetic healing modality into their practices. In these workshops, I shared information about the psychology of the chakra system, taught specifics about Reiki I & II, and 'attuned' the participants to become Reiki practitioners. We gathered in a lovely space in Mountain View, and it just felt so good to send more healers out into this world.

So, what is Reiki?

Reiki is not a religion or dogma, does not take away from current belief system; it’s a gentle, effective, non-invasive hand-on healing modality based on an ancient form of healing. Rei means spiritual consciousness.  Ki means life force (sometimes called chi and prana). Thus, Reiki is a spiritually guided life force energy, which is everything around us (earth, air, sun, water.)

Some of the benefits of Reiki: 

• Reduction in stress and anxiety
• A sense of deep peace and tranquility
• Release of blockages on physical, emotional and spiritual levels
• Feelings of overall well-being
• Renewal of spiritual awareness and insight
• Inner stillness, allowing a deepening connection with self
• Enhanced functioning of the immune system
• Reduction in levels of chronic pain
• Decreased time necessary for healing from illness or injury
• Shortened recovery time from physical exertion
• Management of symptoms from chemotherapy
• Support for conventional medical treatment

What to expect during a Reiki treatment session with me:

I offer 75-minute Reiki sessions. You may think of scheduling a Reiki session as a self-care and self-inquiry treat to yourself, much like getting a massage or acupuncture. You don't need to be my psychotherapy client to receive a Reiki treatment, as I offer them independent of psychotherapy. At times when appropriate, I also incorporate Reiki with psychotherapy clients who are interested.

During a Reiki treatment, you will lie comfortably on a massage table, as you remain fully clothed. You may wish to gently close your eyes as you lie quietly on the table and relax fully into the treatment, remembering that you do not need to do anything to increase the effectiveness of the treatment.

The room will be comfortably lit with either candles or soft lighting. Soothing music may be played to enhance relaxation.

I will spend a few minutes getting to know you better, as well as discussing Reiki treatments and finding out what your reasons for coming for a treatment might be. Anything that you choose to share during your treatment will be kept confidential, remembering that this is a safe and sacred environment. If you have any significant areas of physical discomfort, be sure to share that information before the treatment begins, or as you become aware during treatment. I then will gently place my hands over/on the major energy centers, or chakras, of your body, leaving the hands in each position for a few minutes, helping the body to bring itself into balance as it draws in the healing energy of Reiki, and may spend additional time at other areas of the body that seem to be calling for attention.

During the treatment, you may experience a variety of sensations throughout your body such as heat, vibration or tingling, pulsation or flowing energy, lightness or heaviness, deep relaxation, and occasionally temporarily intensified emotions as you release blockages from the past. You may also fall asleep for all or part of the treatment, or find that you do not experience any physical sensations at all. This is perfectly normal, since Reiki does not need to be perceived for you to receive its many benefits, nor do you need to be awake during the treatment.

If you'd like to learn more, I recommend the following books on Reiki: (clicking on affiliate links below will open the Amazon page for the book in a new browser window on your computer) 

• Essential Reiki: A Complete Guide to an Ancient Healing Art
• Reiki Handbook: A Manual for Students and Therapists of the Usui Shiki Ryhoho System of Healing
• And if you'd like more information on the body's energy system, I recommend starting out by reading the following book: Wheels of Life: A User's Guide to the Chakra System
• You may also wish to read the FAQ page on the Reiki web site.

Or feel free to contact me to discuss scheduling a session.

The Practice of Gratitude

While we can choose to include expressions of gratitude in our every day lives, this time of year reminds us to give thanks for all of the blessings we’ve harvested. Acknowledging gratitude on a daily basis can help us all to feel more balanced, joyful, and peaceful. It can also aid us attracting the energy of abundance into our lives.

Often, in the busy-ness of Thanksgiving, the true meaning of the holiday can get lost somewhere between parades of oversized floats and the cranberry sauce. Here are a few reminders for expressing gratitude during this season, and carrying it into your every day life.

• Gratitude journal: Keep a simple book beside your bed where you can jot down three things you are thankful for at the end of each day. (Or begin each day with gratitude instead.)

• Gratitude blessing at mealtime: Before eating dinner on Thanksgiving night (or every night,) encourage each family member to share at least one thing they are thankful for from their day.

• Gratitude garland: This is a sweet art project that uses the beautiful natural materials the earth provides for us in autumn and can be fun to do with children. Go on a nature walk and collect vibrant fallen leaves. Ask each person to write one thing they are thankful for on each leaf (using glittery pens or markers) and string them together by poking wire through them or hot gluing their stems to a lovely ribbon.

• Thankfulness jar: Start by decorating a jar (a simple ribbon holding an autumn leaf against the jar can be a nice touch) or finding a container you love. Count your blessings all month long by writing them on little notes each day and placing them in the jar. Spend some time around the Thanksgiving table reading the notes of thanks aloud to each other.

• Gratitude mobile: Collect leaves, acorns, pinecones, and string them across a stick or from an embroidery hoop along with lovely papers where you and/or your children write down the things for which you are thankful.

• Expressing thanks: Send a handwritten letter or make a phone call to a person for whom you are thankful, expressing the gratitude you feel for them. It will surely brighten their day, and in turn, yours.

I’ll leave you with a quote I enjoy about gratitude by Thornton Wilder: “We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”

Altars & nature tables

Do you have a special place in your home where you can rest your eyes and find peace and comfort? Creating sacred space has always been a particular passion of mine, so creating a meaningful altar feels soul-fulfilling for me. An altar is a surface (usually elevated in some way) containing objects of significance and a place to engage in whatever sort of spiritual practice fits for you.

A nature table is a place where the seasons and rhythms of the earth can be observed and honored. For those of us for whom season and earth intersect with our spiritual practice, these can often look similar.

Ellen Dissanyake states that art is about "making special." She says "this aesthetic ability.. enabled us to ‘bracket off’ the things and activities that were important to our survival, separate them from the mundane, and make them special. We took the objects and practices involved in marriage, birth, death, food production, war and peacemaking and enhanced them to make them more attractive and pleasurable, more intriguing and more memorable. We invented dance, poetry, charms, spells, masks, dress and a multitude of other artifacts to make these associated activities, whether hauling nets or pounding grain, more sensual and enjoyable, to promote cooperation, harmony and unity among group members, and to also enable us to cope with life’s less expected or explicable events." Altars and nature tables are one very concrete expression of this idea of art as meaning-making or ritual.

I often create small birth altars when friends are in labor, bringing a baby into the world... keeping a candle lit throughout the birth to send love and light their way.

Personal altars can also be made portable using matchboxes.

Children can even take delight in creating their own personal nature tables or altars, like the one you see below.

As you can see, altars come in various shapes and sizes. They can live at home or at work, be made with your children or alone, small-scale or large, seasonal or not. I am inspired by so many beautiful nature tables I see online -- you may wish to search pinterest or flickr for inspiring examples of various types of altars or nature tables. Once they are created, altars can be a lovely addition to a family room or a personal space where you can sit and enjoy meditating in front of it or having some quiet time alone.

Interview: Art as therapy and as ritual

I recently was interviewed by Open Path Psychotherapy Collective, and had the opportunity to talk about what happens in an art therapy session, who benefits from art therapy, and how art can be healing when used to mark transitions and sacred times. I have reprinted the interview below for your convenience, or you can access it here on Open Path.

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Open Path: I would wager that many “classically trained” therapists have a murky understanding at best of what an art therapist does with their clients. I'm curious if you can describe some of the portals you use for integrating art into the therapeutic relationship, and how this work typically moves forward in your work with a client.

Jen: I am so grateful to have an opportunity to answer this question, as there does seem to be some degree of mystery around the practice of art psychotherapy.

When I tell people I'm an art therapist, most assume I either work solely with children or with artists. While many art therapists do work with children, and some of us have clients who are trained artists, art therapy is valuable for any age and for all artistic skill-levels. In my current practice, I work with adult clients, the majority of whom have hardly picked up an art material since grade school.

Although some clients specifically seek out an art therapist to support their process, many adults come to my office initially for talk therapy, while expressing an apprehensive attraction to engaging in art. A simple invitation to make a mark on a page is often enough to open the door to the part of a client that has been thirsting to create, as creation is our innate birthright as human beings. Many times, I've witnessed intensely therapeutic processes unfold by my merely making enticing art materials available and giving permission to play. In other cases, clients prefer a more directive approach, so we work together on integrating applicable art activities into a treatment plan.

In practicing art therapy, there are various approaches and materials to apply depending on the client’s background, presenting issues, and stage of therapy. This is where an art therapist's unique and specialized training becomes necessary to determine which art materials and interventions are indicated, and when they are appropriate.

Open Path: I'm curious if you can tell us how you define art therapy, and maybe clear up some other misconceptions that might exist about the way it is practiced?

Jen: In 1951, Florence Cane, an art therapy pioneer, put forth the idea that art makes the unconscious conscious. I define art therapy as the use of art materials to externalize one's inner world for the purpose self-inquiry, transformation, and integration. One has the opportunity to reauthor past experiences, make meaning of the present, or envision the future when using art materials to bring concrete structure and form to what were previously nebulous feelings and emotions.

Another common misconception about art therapists usually comes by way of a suspicious sideways glance and this question: "So, if I draw something for you, you can interpret it and diagnose me?" When looking at art a client has created, I exercise my training in mindfulness to suspend my own projections and impulses to interpret, thus allowing the client's image to arrive with freshness into my awareness. Unfolding meaning from the image is a collaborative process between the client and the art therapist, held in the safe container of the therapeutic relationship. It works beautifully when I can witness my client creating art in session, followed by hearing the descriptions and stories about the image being told by its creator.

Open Path: It must be such a relief for clients when they realize their work is not going to be judged or interpreted. Judging and interpreting so often bring us away from our deeper self, or unconscious mind.

Jen: The adult intellect can be adept at keeping habits or homeostases intact (even ones that keep us stuck) when communicating verbally in therapy. Art offers a way to safely deepen into the unconscious behind a safe veil of metaphor, all while relating to the image. I view the art a client creates in session as being similar to a dream a client might bring into therapy. Just as dream "decoder" books are not universally applicable, there is no one interpretive guide for art images. As an art therapist, I cannot presume to know more than the client does about his or her art; however, I am trained to help midwife meaning and insights through the art, and aid my clients in understanding what the image has come to reveal and teach. It directly accesses and honors a client's inner wisdom. In an art therapy session, we stay within the metaphor of the art—witnessing, describing, or dialoging with the image. Art bypasses the verbal defenses, allowing the ah-ha moments to come sooner and in a way that feels safe. I feel so blessed and humbled to explore these images alongside each client, only shifting out of the metaphor when the client is ready to make the leap, and integrate the new discoveries into his or her life.

Open Path: When you talk about helping to “midwife meaning,” it leads me straight to one of the functions ritual plays in providing a context and language for accessing certain depths of our experience—in other words, how we, as a species, are capable of making the profane sacred. I'm curious about the role ritual plays either in art therapy or other areas of your practice?

Jen: Practicing art as ritual is a cornerstone of my work. Ellen Dissanyake describes art as making the ordinary special or holy, pointing out that this need to “make special” is inherent in our species. In my human and artist bones, I know this to be true, and I joyfully practice from this place of knowing.

Our modern American culture doesn’t necessarily encourage pausing to reflect, connect, commemorate, and create. Often when people come to therapy, many describe feeling lost and seeking to find direction and meaning. When feeling disenchanted and dulled in the day-to-day, we need a way to reawaken and remember the sacred in the ordinary. Bringing mindfulness to everyday moments, noticing details, and recognizing their innate sacredness is a gift of art therapy. Rhythmically bracketing a therapy session with a simple lighting and snuffing of a candle, to honor the inner work being done, is an example of a seemingly small gesture that makes a big impact. In a session when we make art—whether it’s a drawing, a clay bowl, a beaded necklace, a painted stick—there is a ritual transference onto the art object, where it can become empowered as a talisman, carrying previously unseen emotions. Relating to this self-created talisman can be profoundly healing.

In addition to my private practice, I officiate blessing ceremonies for moms-to-be  where the woman crossing the threshold into motherhood (via any path -- pregnancy, surrogacy, adoption) is surrounded by her community of loved ones to participate in art rituals that help to celebrate and integrate this transition in a supported way. Together her tribe may offer a natural object to a birth altar, contribute a bead to a birthing necklace, string flowers into a crown, or write a blessing on a belly cast, all while sharing food, stories, fears, and wishes.

In both the therapy room and at a mother's blessing ceremony, I witness the light coming on when people remember the magic in the mundane by way of creating art (creating the Self!) and discover deep meaning through that process. Really, what else are we here for?