LUCKY DIPS
I read a news item recently that Queen Elizabeth II in the U.K. is not going to be able to practice a favorite New Year’s Eve game with the royal family this year, because of severe travel restrictions in place, owing-to the current surge in Coronovirus cases. It’s called the ‘Lucky Dips’ game, and it consists of a footman bringing in a large, sawdust-filled container with predictions for the coming year, written on paper or note cards and stuck here and there in the sawdust. Each family member takes a turn reaching into the sawdust-filled container and drawing a fortune. All predictions for the coming year in this sawdust-filled container have been written by household members (but must first be approved by HM the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh). If someone pulls a good fortune, yay. If someone pulls an unlucky fortune, the poor footman gets blamed (I assume he’s the one who sticks the predictions in the sawdust, and decides what goes where). The drawback with this game is sometimes household members can write predictions for the year with an eye toward score-settling or just needling the recipient. I presume that’s why the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh function as editors.
This sounded like a very simple, easy fortune-telling method. We may not have either sawdust or a footman on hand, but if you have a large-enough bowl in the kitchen, and a large-enough quantity of dried beans, lentils, or rice, then this divination game is easily doable. Of course you can write your own, but to eliminate the possibility of score-settling or passive-aggression on the part of your nearest and dearest, I’ve included a set of predictions for the coming year in the PDF below, which I hope strike a good balance between too-general and specific-enough. If there are few-enough people playing, you could even do a second round of prediction-drawing.
To ensure the predictions remain confidential, fold them in half or into quarters before sticking them in your bowl of rice, lentils or beans, so the predictions remain random. If you make everybody wash their hands before selecting their prediction for the year, you could still use the rice, beans or lentils for a future meal. Actually, washing one’s hands before performing either Lucky Grabs or Lucky Dips is a good symbolic act to perform before drawing a New Year’s omen anyway; it’s like washing off the old in order to make room for the new.
I have included one blank slip of paper in the PDF, and you have two options with that one. You may either write-in a prediction of your own, or you may leave it blank, and tell the chooser of that fortune that their coming year is either a blank slate–it is what they will make of it–or that it means they are in for a ‘no-news’ sort of year. Of course, you don’t have to use the lucky dips predictions I created. This is one divination method where you can let your imagination run free. Just don’t make it too free; you want your predictions to reflect a realistic possible year.
THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE
For at least a century and a half, the Wheel of Fortune concept has been a favored divinatory method. Indeed, a popular game show has been based on the idea. Aside from the restriction that The Wheel of Fortune must be a circle divided-up into segments, the specific design is limited only by your imagination. So I let my imagination out to play, and the product of that exercise appears below. This is designed so that you can either place it on a lazy-susan and give it a spin-then-point, or you can keep the chart stationary and use a spinning object, as in the Gyromancy II lesson. Or, as I suggested with the Halloween Wheel of Fortune, you can pin it up on a bulletin- or cork-board and play Pin the Tail on the Future.
This is so helpful, thank you!
You’re welcome. Having done an entry on Halloween divination, this seemed like a good way to end the year.