SEE FOR YOURSELF
on using Chelsey Pippin Mizzi's Tarot for Creativity: A Guide for Igniting Your Creative Practice
When we first started working with Chelsey Pippin Mizzi on her stellar book Tarot for Creativity: A Guide For Igniting Your Creative Practice, Cassie put out a simple call:
To the folks who raised their hands, we sent an equally simple ask in the subject line: so, you like tarot? try Tarot for Creativity. Chelsey’s new book, Tarot for Creativity, is The Artist’s Way for tarot (cue up those morning pages), with 78 unique tarot spreads, accessible explanations of how The Fool, the Empress, and each of the major and minor arcana relate to creativity, and over 300 generative prompts to get your daily practice in motion.
You also won’t want to miss Chelsey’s 30 Days of Creative Tarot Prompts during release month.
We were in the process of testing the book ourselves, and we wanted to prove that it works. Publicity via… proof? So, don’t take it from us–some of your favorites tried it too. Here’s a sampling of what tarot led them to create (you’ll have to slide into their DMs to find out where the full pieces land):
Emma Bolden, author of The Tiger and The Cage: A Memoir of a Body in Crisis
Emma drew The Fool, representative of the ideal creative state: risk-taking, a willingness to “jump blind and see where you land,” and with it, chose Chelsey’s prompt to write a story or poem about conquering a fear of heights.
Emma wrote back, It’s the first bit of flash fiction I’ve written in probably a decade. In other words, this book WORKS and these exercises are AWESOME.
From Emma Bolden’s “A Head for Heights”
“Congratulations,” she said. “You’ve stopped jerking off and you’ve named your fear.” And it wasn’t, as it turns out, the worst fear to have. A little strange, yes, though the psychologist didn’t say this directly. I just felt it, indirectly but certainly, behind her words, her tone. Still, it was a fear that could be dealt with, that I could learn to deal with, and in no time.
“Remind yourself of gravity. Of the laws of physics.” She was really getting into it, the psychologist was, leaning over and gesticulating with the excitement of a child who has finally figured out how to turn two shoelaces into a bow. “Remind yourself that even if everything else in the world fails, those are two things that can and will never fail. Those are two things that will keep you safe.” The psychologist seemed sure of herself, absolutely sure, and that made me feel sure, too, not necessarily that the laws of physics will never fail me but that if I keep telling myself that they won’t, I’ll believe it.
By the end of the session I felt light, buoyant, like someone pumped helium into my lungs until they puffed up like balloons. I smiled at the psychologist in a way that made me very certain of my teeth. I put my hand on the doorknob and for once I wasn’t terrified of the person I’d become once I left the office; I wasn’t worried that every bit of progress would leak out of me like a tire with ten thousand nails stuck into it. I turned back to look at the psychologist.
“Are you even allowed to say ‘jerking off,’ as a shrink? Like, isn’t that against some kind of oath?”
The psychologist shrugged. “It’s allowed if it works. And it looks like it worked.”
[you’ll have to wait to read the rest!]
Kristine Langley Mahler, author of A Calendar Is A Snakeskin & Curing Season
Kristine drew a card and wrote to it every day, for over a month now, and shared her response to The Magician–of whom Chelsey writes, “Magicians conjure opportunity; they make things happen for themselves.” In a study of manifestation that only Kristine could write, she finds the heart of Chelsey’s project: “A person does not manifest magic as much as a person manifests the eyes with which to see magic.” Some might call that manifesting creativity.
Kristine Langley Mahler, “How can you manifest the act of ‘making magic’?”
I have been working for years now to understand manifestation, and by working I mean I have been attempting to manifest and then assessing why the behaviors did or did not work. I have been collecting feathers and tracking the days when snakes cross my path and noting the astrological forecasts for my particular rising sign, making note of the blessings and opportunities to grow. The feathers do not always vindicate my behaviors, though I seldom will admit that. The snakes are not always reminding me that I am shedding the correct past. The astrological forecasts do not always pan out, like the tornadic storms swelling and dissipating without explanation on the outskirts of Omaha, a dramatic gravity I should be grateful for but which always leaves me a little put-out, disappointed at the lack of impact.
A person does not manifest magic as much as a person manifests the eyes with which to see magic. A person does not manifest those eyes as much as a person grows and trains their eyes. Magic is manifested through training to pay attention to everything, a behavior which is exhausting, but I have never been one to shy away from exhausting my own attention to detail.
I went for my weekly walk in the park and brought a baggie full of old feathers, seeding them along my path at intervals and naming fears I wanted to release, then promising myself I would only pick up certain feathers in the future—owl feathers, hawk feathers, blue jay feathers. But when a turkey feather—one of the short, youth-sized ones—presented itself along that path through the park the next week, just as I was listening to my astrological forecast say the phrase “When we commit to something, we actually are able to make it happen,” I had to pick the feather up.
The turkey feather is nestled along the back side of an amethyst tree I was given as either a birthday or Christmas gift, wire bound into the base of an unpolished hunk of granite. A piece of yellow jasper I plucked out of Lake Superior is positioned on its left, my aquamarine on the right. Intercepting the tree, on the wall, is my old aura photo, and then hovering above both the tree and my old pictured self is my new aura photo from this past January, taken in Sedona, my injured green relationship ending blaring itself as the obvious focal point.
The Magician balances all four suits above his hand, in my tarot card—he rotates a coin on an upper finger, a cup floats above the coin, a sword floats above the cup—cutting across his eyebrow and the sword’s point ending at the middle eye—and then a wand bisects the sword, pouring a yellow strand down to the bottom of the card. It takes money to manifest compassion; compassion to manifest boundaries; boundaries to manifest creativity. Or perhaps it is all a question of which eye I will train.
Writer Amy Cipolla Barnes, author of Child Craft
Amy sent us back a fully-fleshed review after using Tarot for Creativity for a month-long daily writing practice, an offensive move against a writing slump. She said, Because writing a story felt overwhelming, the book was perfect in its small bite approach. I found myself focusing on smaller (still difficult) character-building. It took the pressure of trying to write a complete story off the table. I had cards in front of me that were characters on their own. I was able to create my own new character “cards” from the book’s prompts. It was the push I needed–now.
She met more than a few new character cards:
A woman with a concrete uterus that became a woman with a bucket uterus
A doctor who sutures with embroidery floss and her initials
Ghost children who haunt the interstate chasing a wolf away from their brother
A 70s version of my mom in a terry tube top and shorts
A reality show set on the moon
A bride trying not to get lost on her wedding day
My larger goal was always to write a longer story, a fuller explanation of one of my character “cards.” I was drawn to a darker prompt: The Tower Spread. It focused on worst case scenarios. The prompt instructed me in a positive tone to “hold space for your experience and offer you rebuilding when you’re ready.” I’m not sure where this story will go, but it had its magical root in my tarot month.
Amy Cipolla Barnes, “The Bride and The Frozen Peas”
Ella’s wedding dress hem is filled with frozen peas.
She had her seamstress sew them in. She knows when the peas will unthaw and send the unexpected smell of pea soup emanating through the chapel.
In the bridal room, Ella giggles when her maid of honor asks if she has to pee. Her mother fiddles with the heavy brocade fabric, tries to stretch it to fit Ella’s swollen belly, slaps her breasts under the sweetheart neckline, while announcing again strapless dresses are for sleazy girls even if they’re made of white white fabric like the bleached sheets and underwear hanging on her clothesline.
The ceremony starts on time even though there’s ironic rain falling outside.
Ella’s father grips her arm so hard with more green fingerprint bruises that she can’t hide with make-up or lace sleeves.
Arthur is wearing a green tie and cumberbund. Ella sees him first, standing on dusty teal church carpet next to a meadow of grass green bridesmaids that sway in time to the organ march. The matching groomsmen are grim soldier trees.
Ella once thought Arthur’s green eyes were piercing, handsome–all the superlatives. That was when they first met and he read books and held umbrellas over her when it rained. Now, he only holds umbrellas over Bridesmaid Number Three.
Ella is wearing a green face behind her veil, nauseous, anxious.
Right on time someone and then another someone and another someone whispers what is that smell?
The pastor can barely speak over the whispering. Ella keeps quiet, thankful to kneel at the altar until she can smush the peas with her knees, until the hem of her dress is green like the peas she knows her mother has placed under their new mattress to see if they’ve pressed down the sheets. She knows she and Arthur will leave on a green horse on a green road to the suburbs where the grass is not greener and their green-eyed child will play forever in the pea fields.
Journalist Mallory Carra, the voice behind West Coast Media Jobs
Mallory is currently in her Year 1 in numerology–a year much aligned with The Fool. She wrote back, Year 1 is the start of a journey, filled with letting go but also lots of stops and starts, at least in my experience. You can start something, but it takes time for it to reach fruition. And during this past month, I've particularly felt like The Fool - a year of starts that led to rejections and many hopes falling away, but in August, they were much more personal. Yet, I tried to make sure they didn't overshadow the promising new beginnings I had on my plate and stop me from taking risks, though that was hard.
She chose Chelsey’s prompt to make a mood board for this year–it was very therapeutic.
Rebecca Gummere, the voice behind Mystery, Memoir, and Meaning
Rebecca, too, spent time with The Fool (hand a book on creative tarot to creatives–they’re going to play and take risks), and shared her own poem embracing the card:
The Fool leaps
Lights sees has
Holds releases
Leaps again
Discovers applauds
Lands
Stops to take in the view
Eats the beauty
Drinks the joy
Deeper higher wider
All is not ever enough
You can read a cutting room piece from Tarot for Creativity here about building your brand as a creative, listen to Chelsey on Art & Cocktails for Create! Magazine, learn how to use tarot to write memoir in Literary Hub, listen to Chelsey and Danielle (founder of Moonlight) chat about the book, read a review in Star Revue, hear Chelsey on Shit No One Tells You About Writing, listen to Chelsey on La Vie Creative, listen to Chelsey and Melinda Lee Holm chat on Instagram, and also with The Tarot Lady, Theresa Reed, on Instagram too! Plus, MORE TO COME! (Like EXCITING more!)
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The sample pages are awesome. I love this structured process of working through the cards, while still allowing for intuition. Best of luck to you.
Can wait to read this book! My writing group pulled Tarot cards for me whenever I’d start a new chapter! It totally helped me find the chapter’s shape!