lefthandedgoth
NorthernTigress said:Does anyone else have any ideas?
Well, I don't want to sound like I'm telling you how to do it, because this is YOUR system, but I will share what works for me.
I usually throw on a cork mat so things don't roll all over the place. However, it's not photogenic, and I mostly do this online so I have to have a good background for the photos. So I use a wooden table or bench most of the time.
I rummage in the bag until the "right" number of things are in my hand. Sometimes I use left, sometimes right. Chaos does not care. I drop the stuff from about 6 inches and see how it lands.
If something falls out of the bag or skitters out of the reading then I put it aside and read it separately as a comment or general influence on the rest of the stuff.
I learned Jungian dream interpretation in college so many of my readings proceed in a similar way. The energies of the pieces represent influences in the person's life, more than literal things. Like a soldier could represent the way you keep certain aspects of yourself protected. Most clients ask for general readings rather than specific questions, and the dream interpretation method seems to be the most useful for them.
The stuff often comes to land in small groups. Clusters are read as a unit. Things pointing into the cluster are incoming and things pointing away are leaving. Things on top of other things can be masking, oppressing, or forming a base/basis.
Hats and clothing represent roles. Faces are masks. People can be parts of the client or others in their life. A baby is a new project or something that must be attended to.
Animals are usually interpreted as if they were totems, or their distinguishing traits. Sometimes, for example, a bear means strength, but if there is a snowflake and it happens to be winter, the bear might be hibernating... cooking something up that will come to fruition later in the spring. Or a crab might be cancer, or a Cancer, or someone being crabby, or something else entirely.
Oops. Getting off course here.
so another common thing in a throw is the direction of the stuff. If it seems to be an explosion, just randomly falling out, generally one piece stands out as the starting point. Sometimes I have to ponder it a while, but it's usually very obvious. I list out the items and their potential meanings (knowing full well that the meanings may shift when read in context). That helps me form kind of a crib sheet. Then I describe the shape of the throw, with clusters and piles.
Usually there is a line or path, meaning start to finish. I connect the dots and the reading progresses, unfolding like a dream. Then I go back and tie it together.
Generally, things in the middle are "now". Things above can be hopes, dreams, influences, thoughts, or potentialities. Things below might be underlying influences, the base of the matter, less important stuff, hidden issues. I mostly read left to right as recent past to near future, with things farther out as more distant, temporally. since I'm the stand-in for the client, things that are closest to me have more weight than things farther away.
Specifically, in context, all that can change. It becomes like a choose your own adventure puzzle and the only way you can get proficient at it is to just keep doing it. Say things land in the shape of something, like a tree. Roots, trunk, branches, sky. Different pattern of energy, so the reading is different.
I use color associations very sparingly, but for example someone asked me to verify "something" (without telling me what it was). She had suspicions about something and said she just wanted me to see what came up. The crab, which is in a yellow ring, a yellow dog, and some other pieces came up, many of which had yellow in them. Yellow is used in hoodoo for bending the will of another. Crabs move sideways so this might suggest not being straightforward. The dog is usually a good friend. I took one look at the different pieces and asked her if she felt like maybe someone was trying to undermine her but she couldn't figure out who it was? The lady about fell over, yeah that was what she was asking about. I don't like to be nasty but this was just really blatant... I explained what all the pieces meant one by one and by the end of it she was going, one of my good friends is stabbing me in the back, but who? I said you know anyone blonde born in July? And bingo, that was it. I told her to be very objective about checking up on the hunch, since after all this is only junk and what I might be picking up is something from the client, but she got back with me and confirmed it. Yikes.
The point of the above paragraph being that that particular reading had no temporal issues and very little to do with the querent, but it identified someone by their behavior and even their birthdate.
So, my two bits...
Ande