PROCEDURE
Once you’ve assembled your ‘tableau’, you’re ready. I recommend following these steps:
- With your back to the divinatory-tableau you’ve created, close your eyes and calm your mind.
- Ask God/Goddess, Spirit Guides, your Guardian Angel, Ancestors, or your own Higher Self: (Fill in the blank with your question). When I open my eyes and turn around, please guide my eyes to the right objects for my answer. Thank You.
- Then look over your shoulder. Your choice of left or right, whichever direction feels like the correct one.
- What’s the first thing or things, which caught your attention? This isn’t necessarily the first thing you see. Which object or objects drew your attention? Which object or objects said, ‘look here, look at me’?
- You may want to remove these objects from your ‘tableau’ and set them aside to study them. Which object(s) were they? Was it the color or shape, not the object itself, which caught your eye? Was there any commonality among the things you first eyed, a theme running through it? What do you normally associate with this item? This approach to divination demands the ability to free-associate to arrive at an answer.
For example, for earlier this this year, a majority of the world’s population was under strict quarantine in the early stage of the Covid-19 pandemic. Let’s say, in your over-the-shoulder glance, your eyes fixated on the door-knocker, the bird cage, and the peacock. One possible meaning here could be that you really want to visit friends, but you can’t because, like everybody else, you’re cooped-up at home. Perhaps the peacock is suggesting you spend your time in quarantine sprucing-up your appearance–starting an exercise routine, ordering new clothes on-line, weeding or altering your existing wardrobe, improving your hair-styling, nails, and make-up skills, or maybe sewing or knitting up a storm, so you can show-off your progress to your friends. Or maybe you’re an artist and you’ve been really productive under-quarantine, and you eagerly look forward to a time when you can show your output from this time.
A variation you can try with the over-the-shoulder deck is, ask your question, then say (to whomever you’re asking to guide you), ‘show me some hints which contain the answer, let those cards land face-up,’ then throw the deck over your shoulder. You’ll be taking only the face-up cards into consideration for your answer, and only those face-up cards which ‘call’ to you. So long as you don’t mind having to pick up a mess on the floor every time you ask a question, this might prove to be a more effective approach for you. You might want to shuffle the cards, grab a chunk of the deck at random, then throw that over your shoulder, so you’re not picking up the whole deck afterwards.
There’s a third option, if you don’t want to assemble a tableau, you don’t have your over-the-shoulder cards with you, or you want things more free-form. Find a pad of Post-It™ notes and a pen and you’re golden. Let your imagination run riot. Write words, phrases, famous quotes, draw pictures, punctuation marks, emojis, anything which crosses your mind. Then stick ‘em on an empty wall in a completely random fashion as you finish each Post-It™. You may want to use a variety of colors of Post-It™ pads. This part might be fun with a group of people contributing. Speaking of which: