Magic Reading
Fortune-telling being as old as humans, and interlaced with Magic, has always created a space for resistance and reflection. The devices of divination have great insights into how everything is interlaced.
(Pollack, R., 2007)
Correspondence, and connection, everything is connected. My
struggle and oppression are part of a chained tapestry, and our
movements and care maneuver us, affecting the net of systems
of injustice.
Through fortune-telling ideas and words of critique in places
where they were not allowed, were discovered, created, and
exchanged. To arrogant and cruel kings advice and opposition
were delivered through the words of the stars and planets
combined with bones and fire, so that the resistors could
survive, protecting themselves with the cloak of Magic while
working towards their liberation.
Inspired by practices of fortune telling, specifically Tea reading,
astrology, and tarot, Magic reading became my methodology of
care and resistance.
These practices, with their own Magic system, have unique
qualities. One of which is their perception of time, that is
different from us humans. Time is not linear for the methods of
fortune-telling. Past, future, and present are fluid, as the present
is constantly flicking to the past and future. This difference in
perceiving time laces to my method of using them, as not to
predict the future, because there is no concept of linear time
in these tools, but to look through the looping strings of time.
Gazing with these devices of divination is to see differently, to
engage and imagine the possibilities of what we are reading
and ourselves through them. Together, we are looking beyond
the restrictions of the dimensions of our world, reflecting
and understanding ourselves and the world outside of us, the
skeletons of human-time, and the grey structures of societies
and systems.
“Our challenge is communal, but to face it we must be empowered as individuals and create structures of support and celebration that can teach us freedom. Creation is the ultimate resistance, the ultimate refusal to accept things as they are. For it is in creation that we encounter mystery: the depth of things that cannot be wholly known or controlled, the movement of forces that speak through us and connect us at our core. To value the mysteries we must describe the world in ways that make 33 possible encounters with mystery. When we view the world through the lens of that description, the old systems and structures may themselves be revealed as distortions.” (Starhawk, 1989)
From De Salon , 2024
Tea reading is the practice of brewing loose-leaf tea, pondering over the cup and drinking it, flipping the cup once its content is reduced to the very last dregs and flipping it back again, peering into the cup to see what the tea has left for you, the drinker. Shapes and beings and words.
Tea reading is the practice of brewing loose-leaf tea, pondering over the cup and drinking it, flipping the cup once its content is reduced to the very last dregs and flipping it back again, peering into the cup to see what the tea has left for you, the drinker. Shapes and beings and words.
Magic Reading Guide with Tea
Reading the cup is deeply
intuitive, letting go of the messy strings of doubt and flowing in
the cup with clumps of tea leaves, listening, seeing, reflecting,
and communicating.
Tea in itself has a knotted and intricate journey and history.
It has existed in my household in many forms. Black tea, for
energy and joy, and variations of damnoosh* teas that do not
contain theine and are a mix of herbs and plants, leaves, roots,
bark, fruit, seeds, skin, stems, and flowers. The knowledge of
what herb for what purpose, was available to me through my
grandmother and centuries-old cultural heritage. I began
foraging, drying, and collecting herbs and plants, and soon my
cabinet was full of jars of wondrous smells. To mix my tea and read the cup, it braided a bridge between nature, my world, and
me. Allowing me to talk to and hear from nature.
Traditionally, in Tea reading, or other methods of fortune telling, there is a fortune teller and a receiver, but It was also crucial in the methodology of Magic Reading, that they read their own cups, thus read their own fate, giving them the agency for transformation and their autonomy of their narrative.
The method of Magic reading does not follow the concept of linear time, therefore past, present, and future and fluid, and this fluidity creates the opportunity of understanding re-imagining, and reflecting.
Through it, we listen, speculate, and get in touch with our own and each other’s reality and care for it collectively.
You can read more in depth about Magic reading and my research here.
*( In Farsi, damnoosh is referred to hot drinks that are mixes of herbs, flowers, plants. Etc)
Traditionally, in Tea reading, or other methods of fortune telling, there is a fortune teller and a receiver, but It was also crucial in the methodology of Magic Reading, that they read their own cups, thus read their own fate, giving them the agency for transformation and their autonomy of their narrative.
The method of Magic reading does not follow the concept of linear time, therefore past, present, and future and fluid, and this fluidity creates the opportunity of understanding re-imagining, and reflecting.
Through it, we listen, speculate, and get in touch with our own and each other’s reality and care for it collectively.
You can read more in depth about Magic reading and my research here.
*( In Farsi, damnoosh is referred to hot drinks that are mixes of herbs, flowers, plants. Etc)
Photos from De Salon and Not Just a Collective
Credit To Han and De Salon
References:
Pollack, R. (2007). Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: a Book of Tarot. Red Wheel/Weiser.
Starhawk. (1989). Truth or Dare. Harper Collins. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/84244
Pollack, R. (2007). Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: a Book of Tarot. Red Wheel/Weiser.
Starhawk. (1989). Truth or Dare. Harper Collins. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/84244