First Quarter Moon Card Holder

This week, my moon magic art ritual is inspired from an online course I’m taking from Susannah Conway.  The course is called Daily Guidance and at one point Susannah invites us to do a reading with our oracle or tarot cards by choosing three cards based on how the imagery appeals to us in the moment. I loved the way the exercise inspired me to sit with my deck and go through it slowly card by card. I usually sit with my deck face down and I shuffle and draw the cards in a variety of random ways that make me feel like spirit is choosing the cards for me. This exercise was different. I was in charge!

It felt a little naughty at first, as if I was going against the Tarot gods or something. But I loved Susannah’s suggestion because I lingered with my deck far longer than I ever do and I just sat and enjoyed the art and imagery of each card. The exercise was also empowering. It felt as though I were choosing my fate and claiming my destiny. I decided to incorporate that empowerment into a ritual for the First Quarter Moon.

The First Quarter Moon is, to me, symbolic of being at a crossroads or choosing between two different realities. In the First Quarter phase, the moon is half light and half dark. It’s a time of shadow and truth, ego and spirit, littleness and divinity or in a word, duality. In that space of duality, I like to exercise my power of choice.

My mind, my emotions, my words and my actions are under my domain. I wanted to create something for my altar that allowed me to showcase whatever card I picked to represent the energy or intention I was choosing for myself. Not a card to represent a message spirit had for me but a card to say, “I CHOOSE THIS. I want to act like this or be like this or believe in this or dream about this today.”

I knew I wanted something to hold my card of choice but I couldn’t think of what to create until I saw a kid’s project for a clay hand dish. I knew that was it. A clay shape of my hand was the perfect idea because, to me, the shape seemed to hold the same conviction as the idea of putting my foot down. I imagined myself slapping my hand down on the table and making a declaration.

The first thing I did was make some clay out of baking soda and glue. You can see the recipe I used here. The batch I created didn’t work very well. I suspect it may be because I didn’t have any regular glue so I had to use Mod Podge. That may have affected the recipe. Either way, although my clay was dry and hard to mold I decided it was good enough for this particular creation. Next, I found some wire and my pretty purple wire cutters.

With the wire, I created a shape similar to what you would see in wire photo holders. In fact, if you would like ideas of different ways to shape your wire, do a search for wire photo holders and you’ll see an amazing variety of ways to bend wire to hold your tarot or oracle cards. I chose to create a simple and easy design from scratch. It’s not fancy but it works.

With every twist of the wire, I repeated my intentions to stand in my power. I thought about what that looks like in my life. I thought about all the places I haven’t been doing that and all the areas in my life that may challenge me in the near future. Repeating the intention to stand in my power infused the process of creating this simple design with energy and purpose.

I then tried to add paint color to my clay but that didn’t go as planned. As I mentioned, the clay was hard to work with. Although the paint didn’t evenly mix throughout the clay, I ended up liking the marble look of the pink paint so I once again decided to stick with using the clay despite my initial disappointment.

I chose a strong pink color intentionally of course. I’m tired of apologizing for my emotional and transparent nature. As I kneaded the color into the clay as best as I could, I thought about how I wanted to integrate love for my personality flaws and especially love for the aspects of myself that have been the hardest for me to accept and appreciate.

My next step included adding the herbs and spices that symbolized the intentions I wanted to infuse in my altar oracle card holder. I added roses to invite the fairies, basil to invoke my personal power and lavender to remind spirit that I like my growth to happen with ease and grace. I rolled the basil and flowers into the clay with my craft rolling pin while thinking about my intentions and sending gratitude to the fairies for all the magic and connection they’ve gifted me with lately.

I then rolled out the clay and traced and cut the shape of my hand.

It was time to insert my quirky little wire card holder into the palm of the clay hand. I also decided to add a few extra herbs and spices. I placed a black pepper corn in each finger tip for power, a circle of cloves around the wire holder to represent angelic assistance and one Star Anise to invite psychic insight when I choose my daily tarot card.

The end result wasn’t as refined as I thought it would be but I ended up loving it. It reminds me of a bowl of rose potpourri. And truthfully, with rituals and ceremony, the end result isn’t as important to me as the magical process.

If you’d like to re-create this ritual, I’ve included the step-by-step instructions in this easy to print recipe format. Enjoy!