Golden Moth and the New Year’s Spread - Guest Post by Nicholas Dewart

Hi Folks! 

I'm excited to feature a guest blogger named Nicholas Dewart. Nicholas reached out to me last year after creating this video review of the Golden Moth Deck on YouTube. I thought it was an awesome review and I enjoyed hearing his insights on the cards. When I put out the call for guest bloggers on my Golden Moth Facebook group (please feel free to join!) he graciously obliged with a fascinating article on creating an intentional reading every New Moon/New Year and combining the energies of two decks. If you like this, you can find links to more of Nicholas' writings and podcast below.

I welcome others to submit guest posts for this blog because everyone has something unique to share. Please e-mail me with proposals about your experiences/tips/practices using The Golden Moth Illumination Deck: good_old_fashioned_smell (at) hotmail (dot) com. I'd love to hear from you!

And now on to Nicholas' post!

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Golden Moth and the New Year’s Spread

Tarot and Oracle cards make great friends and as friends they offer insights, novel perspectives and just the right amount of guidance to illicit those “Ah-Ha” moments. So, who better to meet with then the cards for setting intentions and connecting with new energies and circumstances? 

 

I consult the cards every New Year in order to better align with the positive changes and newness that the fresh year has to offer. Well…to be honest, I consult one card, at the start of the New Year, and it’s from my trusty Aleister Crowley’s ‘Thoth’ deck. I ask, “What energy should I embody to be the most empowered this year?”

 

This time (2016) I pulled, XIV-Art, as my card for the year. To me, XIV-Art, from the Thoth deck, is about being a work in progress. The card clearly shows a woman in the process of making something.

Crowley himself describes the card in his, ‘The Book of Thoth’:

“Combination of forces, realization, action based on accurate calculation; the way of escape, success after elaborate maneuvers.”

Wow! I thought, ART! This is going to be my year! I want to live the life of an artist. I want to write and express my thoughts. I hope for those thoughts to be entertaining, insightful and well received.

 

And this is precisely the issue with only consulting one deck when searching for guidance. It’s hard to read for yourself. All of the energy around the XIV-Art card sounds too good to be true and I thought my subjective desire might be reading too much into this card. Are there subtle messages I’m missing in what I see to be a very blunt statement: to embody “ART”?

 

That’s when it hit me. If the cards were truly my friends why would I only consult one deck? To me the Thoth deck is a hard hitting, tell-it-to-me straight kind of friend so why not incorporate another? I wanted a unique voice…

 

In walks Aijung Kim’s distinctive ‘The Golden Moth Illumination Deck’ with its clean lines and idiosyncratic style. Yes, the Thoth offers something specific. The guidance it provided would be my main focus for the year but I need another’s vision in what it meant to be living the Artist’s-Way.

 

So, I created a three-card spread using the Golden Moth to compliment my “Card for the Year” in order to add needed layers of understanding of what it means to live like the "XIV-Art" card. Here’s the breakdown of my questions and what I pulled:

 

1. How best do I employ the energy of the Art card? Golden Moth - #3
2. How will I know if I’m on track with my progress in 2016? Golden Moth - #49
3. How will I know if I’m off track with my progress in 2016? Golden Moth - #8

With the Golden Moth #3 card I learned that I must embrace new structures that are both pertinent and meaningful to my 2016 artist journey. The four shells in the card show me that I’ve outgrown some of the old aspects of my life that used to contain me. The number four to me (as in the four pictured shells) is the number of structure and absolutely shows me that discipline is the key. Since these shells are empty, I’m leaving the old structures behind and am in need of new ones. There’s an aspect of reinvention needed here.

From the Rider-Waite-Smith deck

I love the image of Golden Moth #49 for showing me how I will know when I’m on track. The picture reminds me of the I-Magician card from the Rider-Waite-Smith deck as it’s got a full lush and blooming garden. I personally appreciate how there’s not a person in this perfectly pruned and organized landscape. Things are growing in-and-of themselves. Of course, this garden is man-made but the lack of a human in the picture shows me that I need to have trust in the process. I’ll need to commit to my new structures and put in the hard and organized work but after that I’ll need to let go and allow nature to do her thing. I don’t need to be thinking of the garden at all times. In other words, I don’t need to “stink of Zen” as my favorite author Alan Watts expresses it in his book ‘The Way of Zen.’  

 

I will know I’m off track this year if I’m not actively pursuing my dream as depicted in the Golden Moth #8. This is a warning against passivity and a caution against living in a reverie. I will be in bad shape if I’m generally lethargic and spending too much time passively visualizing this year. With this insight I think it will be important to make sure I exercise and stay physically fit to the do work ahead of me. I may not need to sprint but I better not be sleeping on the job when pursuing my goals this year.

These Golden Moth cards really did give me a nice change of voice from the Thoth deck and offered me a much clearer picture of how to approach the year ahead.  

Interpreting the cards is only part of the process. What you do with the insights gained, to me, is what matters most. As of writing this (Feb. 12, 2016 – 12:13pm PST) we are 43 days away from my New Year’s reading and I have taken several proactive steps to aligning with the advice imparted by the cards. Artistically, I blew the dust off of my poor neglected blog and began writing weekly astrology horoscopes. I’ve also upgraded my website, which enabled me to do my first podcast!  Creating my first podcast was an extremely fulfilling experience and I expect more to come. What I’ve noticed through the years of using the cards for guidance is that when you actually make an effort to take actions as inferred from the cards: A. Those actions feel authentic and meaningful to your path; And B. The universe seems to helpfully intervene more often.

Although, I shared my New Year’s tradition with you here, this process also works well for setting NewMoon intentions. Understanding and aligning with the energy of the new moon cycle is a natural and consciously centered way to approach accomplishing goals. New moons are nature’s markers for new beginnings and this Sun Moon relationship is something cultures have used for thousands of years to aid with farming and marking religious ceremonies. Personally, I find that tapping into this natural cycle of about 29.5 days (one month), from New Moon to New Moon, instinctive. As the Moon waxes, or begins to reflect more sunlight, I feel my energy increase but when the Balsamic Moon phase comes, the phase just before the Moon conjuncts the Sun and goes dark, I feel more introverted and in need of more alone time. So, using this spread to gain insights into how you can best navigate a New Moon cycle can offer potent details into achieving your intentions via a monthly plan.

Feel free to change or modify my spread as you like but there’s a bigger conversation to be had by mixing ‘The Golden Moth Illumination Deck’ cards with your Tarot Deck of choice as it gives you a nice juxtaposition of card tones and insights.

 

Here’s to making the most of new cycles.

 

-Nicholas Dewart

 

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Spread Breakdown

Use two decks:
A. The Golden Moth Illumination (oracle) Deck
B. Tarot Deck of choice

On the day of the New Year/Moon ask the cards while shuffling: “What energy should I embody to be the most empowered this new year/moon?”

Card of the Year/Moon: Pull the Card of the year/moon from the Tarot Deck.

Pull three flanking cards from the Golden Moth asking:
How best do I employ this energy?
How will I know if I’m on track with my progress?
How will I know if I’m off track with my progress?
Lastly, Interpret and journal.

Enjoy,

-Nicholas

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Nicholas uses the tools of astrology and tarot to aid him in grounding his natural intuition into constructive and practical guidance for his clients. He writes weekly astrology horoscopes and covers all topics related to Divination, Spirituality, New Age and Occult at his blog and via his Podcast. You can follow his work and sign up for his newsletter at: www.nicholasdewart.com He also pens snippy daily fortunes on Instagram.