When I was in sixth grade, my mom got really into psychics.

Chris is a bit of a seer, herself. She’s had some memorable prophetic dreams, and regularly reports to seeing spirits in the middle of the night.

Mom got into psychics and mediums because her mama died far too young, and, naturally, she wanted to connect. But being a dyed in the wool Capricorn, she didn’t just trust any vaguely witchy person. She’d only consider practitioners with long waitlists — she didn’t trust a mystic with an open calendar — or who came highly recommended from a trusted confidante. And the woman is nothing if not disciplined, so she didn’t see psychics regularly… Maybe once every few years. But when she did, I’d beg her to tell me what had happened in the session. We’d pour over her notes from the reading together, tallying up the “that’s so TRUE” moments and “hm, I don’t know about that one” remarks to decide whether we thought the reader was legit or full of it. (We always decided they were the real deal)

As a result of her relative openness to the occult, I had my first tarot reading at age 12. I don’t remember what was said, but I remember how it made me feel. Brave. Powerful. Inspired. And it was my mom who bought me my first deck the summer before I went to college — Magical Messages from Fairies, which is now a legit collector’s item because of the whole Doreen Virtue brouhaha. I remember unloading my suitcase and being slightly embarrassed for my new roommates to see this sweet little deck, suddenly feeling my interest in ghosts and angels and spirits was childish and unintellectual.

(Thankfully, I got over that, and by my sophomore year I’d embraced my archetypal identity as “dance major who reads people’s natal charts at parties”)

I’ve acquired and released many decks in the nearly 20 years since I pulled my first fairy message. My current collection is shamefully large, but I assuage the overconsumption guilt that comes with holding on to decks I don’t use regularly by telling myself that tarot and oracle decks are a form of outsider art, and I am nothing if not a patron of the arts!!!

One of my best friends was staying with us last week, and he asked if we could pull some cards. As I pulled down decks for us to use, I found myself justifying my picks: “Well, this deck is weirdly accurate about predictions for the future, so we should use that. And this one is my most psychic deck — it always gets to the root of what’s actually happening and it’s actually predicted multiple marriages and multiple babies being born so… But you should also pull a card from this deck to get your, like, animal totem-slash-energy for this moment.”

(If you want the deck stack, I’ll drop it later in the article)

Of course, we had a beautiful friend moment and a really dreamy reading together. But I had to laugh at myself as I rattled off the little mystical resumés I’d assigned to my decks — this one predicts babies, this one’s my most psychic, pull from this one for your totem energy — in front of my bestie.

To be so real about it: it was kinda unnecessary.

My friend and I could have gotten a beautiful, rooted, slightly-uncanny reading with a pack of gas-station playing cards. Or a paperback off my book shelf. Or via the first three things we saw out the window. The decks I’ve meticulously collected are so lovely. But the actual practice underneath all the pretty mystical objects doesn’t hinge upon having the “right” tool. Long before Etsy, before Doreen Virtue, before the wellness-industrial complex figured out it could sell you a $58 deck with a matching velvet pouch, people found divinatory messages in tea leaves and coffee grounds and bird flight patterns and the same card deck they played parlor games with.

I’ll always think the best way to make a decision is to trust your gut — to listen to what your body or spirit is telling you. But in moments when your internal compass needs recalibrating (been there myself many times, we’ll get to it in a sec), interpreting the every day oracles we encounter can feel like a lifeline.

And you don’t need to buy a single thing to do this. Because the MOST accurate oracle readings come when you generate your own encyclopedia of meaning. A card, a bird, a book, a flower — none of them really mean much on their own. Something something semiotics. But the mundane becomes arcane (and therefore oracular) when it evokes a personal, memorable meaning to you.

Which means the real work of oracle-reading is about the slow, unsellable, personal project of knowing what signs mean to you — and learning to ask a good question, and then learning to tell a real answer from one you forced.

So, without further ado, let’s jump in to how to use the things you already have access to as your personal oracle.

First, your personal codebook...