Readings
and Stories
By Alan Ritchie
The world abounds with stories. We are the hero of our own stories. We play parts in the stories of others. The art of good reading is that essence of knowing the story. The imagination of the intuitive reader is a powerful tool. Looking into the ability of the intuitive reader with Rory's Story Cubes I am investigating if we can hear the hum of the divine story.
The occasion of when a client and a diviner coming together is called a reading. Many attempt to rename it as a consultation or some other term but in the end we know and the world around us, the uninitiated call it a reading. Looking at the word "reading" is a clue/hint/suggestion that what we are doing is narratively driven. Considering the card spread, the Rune casting, or the I-Ching coin toss we are seeing and giving voice to what we see.
There are many who practice the magic of the story, teachers, politicians, salesmen, advertisers, and fishermen. When we give a reading we are telling our clients the story of their own life. There are many tarot teachers instructing their students a form of storytelling from a spread. There is magic in a meaningful story told at just the right time.
The cold reading is a scam that tells the client a generic but tailored story to make them believe that it is insightful and relevant. Fables, myths, fairy tales and legends are all forms of moral teaching used for millennia to communicate truth to a new generation or reinforce communal standards and expectations of behavior. Universal themes and lessons at the heart of every story from the monumental works of enduring literary efforts, the newest release movie or the humble comic strip in the morning paper. The reading of the Rory’s Story Cubes® as an oracle is tapping into that intuitive understanding of stories as truth tellers.
With the Rory’s Story Cubes® I attempted to work in similar ways as other oracles. There is raher a gentler interaction happening in combining the story, illustrative fiction and intuition. The Story Cubes require looking into the unknown by transversing the mundane while remaining authentic to the tool’s creation. There is is something fantastic about getting a story generator to work as a divination tool. To capture the tool’s power requires the imagination to see the story that needs to be told, the intuition to interpert the signs and understanding the divine nature of all truth. Stories ignite the intuition leading with hunches that takes us to the next level of understanding and truth.
Readings and Stories are connected. We know this and I relearning it all over. We should never underestimate the power of the story to speak to a client, a friend, a family member or to ourselves in effective ways in the moment when they are needed. In whichever oracular tradition I use to spark my imagination, ignite my intuition and hear the voice of the divine I will know that stories are priceless and effective conveyors of truth and answers.