My Mom is teaching me how to read tea-leaves. When she was young, her Grandmother read tea-leaves to her. I checked in our geneology photo album and my Grandma Weaver came from Scotland. After her mother died when she was twelve, in 1901, she went to work in a teacup factory, and maybe learned more about tea-reading there. Some of her Scottish ancestors came from Fearn, which is right at the top of Scotland. There are tons of stories of spae-wives and witches from there, and lots of Norse and Old Celtic beliefs. Spae-wives are herbalists, healers, and fortune-tellers.
Researching Fearn led me down another rabbit-hole - I've been reading all about the Celtic Ogham Tree Alphabet, and came across a couple of alphabets made by people in the States, using trees more common to their area.
I was inspired to make my own with trees from where I live because I have just discovered my own 'sacred grove' on my mother's farm - a Grandmother Poplar Tree, sending out suckers from her roots, now stands with her sons and daughters in a perfect circle around her:
I'll be working on the Kootenay Alphabet for the next while, choosing trees and making cards so I can make an oracle deck.
I'll do them in 5 batches, as the letters are split into 4 'aicmi' (families) and 1 'forfeda' (additional letters).
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