I don’t do divination as much as I used to. I still have the tools and the books but I haven’t pulled out my playing cards or L-rods in a while. Not much need to because I don’t need to know what the future is going to look like every three days. And there certainly are situations and times where I don’t want to know.

However, because I have been doing divination for such a long time, it’s built into how I do things. Which isn’t bad, keeps me from getting totally rusty.

A good example is palmistry. While I don’t spend hours staring at the lines of my hands (besides, it takes about six months to spot any difference), I do note if a small white dot pops up on my nail. My diet is quite stable and regulated (and there’s also the fact every woman in my family with exception to a small handful is in medicine, I grew up around doctors pretty much) so I know the difference between “Maybe I could put more iron in my diet” and “Yep, I did have a big life event occur that really threw me off guard about three months ago.” When I catch them, they help me look at the situation and all the issues surrounding it because every finger represents something different. Basic palmistry 101 stuff.

Thing is, divination is good for looking in the future and the past but it’s not for reading every five days. The palmistry is good for me because a) I’m good at it, I still remember a person I read for banging on the door of one of my college classes during a final because they wanted me to read their hand again and b ) it’s quick and easy, no need for cards, pendulums or anything. It’s only when it catches my eye do I take notice.

I think this type of “divination-lite” is good for those who have pretty intermediate or advanced experience in divination because by that point, the diviner can separate the wheat from the chaff – as in, they can tell the difference between a sign they should focus on and a regular happening. I wouldn’t be trying to divine the cards dealt to me if I’m playing cards with my friends or doing solitaire. That would be nonsense. I would take note if I saw a deck and drew a card with the intent of getting clued into my future. Or do a simple yes/no card reading where I look for one of two different cards and it looks like I’m just straightening up the deck by dealing the cards out one by one. However, I just do those very few and far in between.

The thing about divination is that, while it is nice and if you do it right, you’ll rarely be wrong – BUT! Too much meddling in your own future can cause random left turns that could leave you in a worse situation than predicted.

Here’s the thing about humans and bad circumstances – they will try to change the hands of fate if so much as a blemish of a bad time blips up. I have done spreads for others where the future splinters off into two routes: the future if things stay the same, the future if there are changes. I have told people I read for, “Yah, this looks pretty bad but it appears you have to go through it because it looks like a life lesson you have been ducking for who knows how long. The smoother route is here but it’s really just a calm-looking fake out before things really hit the fan worse than they are right now.” Guess which part they hyper focus on? The “smoother route is here” part and that’s it. How do I know? They’re the folks finding me a month or two later pretty much going “I legit ignored everything you said that was useful, focused on changing the circumstance so I wouldn’t have to experience it at all and things went very Chernobyl with a dash of Three Mile Island. Halp meh.”

There is a reason why I have a “I do not unscrew your screwed pooch” rule. And why I don’t divine much for people outside of Samhain Pickers (which I haven’t done in a while) and that’s it.

But to keep from being rusty, I keep the light divination for myself. Works out better that way.