a chat with meg jones wall on divination and asking questions

just two mercury kids, chatting for 94 minutes

meg and maeg on divination

Usually when you open a post from me, it’s a big long written thing about stars or plants or zodiac signs. Today is different. Today I bring you audio and it’s mostly about tarot, a subject I don’t normally talk about even though it’s a big part of my personal practice.

Below is a free 94-minute conversation between me and my dear friend Meg Jones Wall of 3am.tarot. We talk about astrology and tarot, we talk about when we reach for divination and when we don’t, we talk about the importance of asking sincere questions. We talk about the agency of the humans doing divination, and how to honor the divination tools’ agency too.

Meg is a self-described “gay tarot person on the internet.” Meg is also one of my favorite people on the planet. I hope you already know their work but if you don’t, wow am I excited for you!

meg jones wall

Meg is a queer, chronically ill, badass, grounded, smart-as-hell tarot reader, teacher, mentor, writer, and photographer. This is Meg’s face.

Meg brings the oracular down to earth and helps you put hearty trust in yourself so you can take action in your life in ways that feel true to you. This work is as compassionate as it is rebellious. Meg’s approach to tarot never denies what’s so fucking hard about being human right now and it also doesn’t let us pretend there’s nothing we can do for each other. Working with tarot this way gets us remembering what we’re capable of in any given moment — that’s pretty powerful.

I got to attend Meg’s book launch last week (!), celebrating their second book Tarot Spreads. Their new book inspired me to be like, “You know what, we should have the conversation we’re always having about divination and how much we love questions but we should press record this time.” So we did!

We had lots to say, had a lot of fun saying it, and you’ll find we’re at least as interested in questions as we are answers. I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed hanging out together.

If you’d prefer to read our conversation, a transcript is available here.

If you want to get a glimpse at what we talked about, here are the time stamps for you:

time stamps

• 0:00 introducing ourselves, plus generally being friends out loud / Maeg rambles about how much they love Meg’s work

• 8:10 okay, now the convo truly begins! what makes a question a good question?

• 16:00 agency and intuition; asking questions that can actually be answered

• 21:22 outgrowing vs. growing with your tools

• 24:24 the word “should” in questions

• 28:07 testing your question by imagining answers

• 33:35 building in clarity: Maeg’s card reversals trick; Meg on spreads and Lyra’s alethiometer

• 39:32 tricks for giving agency to your decks

• 41:09 to whomst are we posing our questions when we divine?

• 45:28 the kinds of spreads that help us trust our readings and the importance of revisiting what works for you over time

• 51:22 getting to know a deck

• 54:10 questions we do not ask (or answer) in our personal and professional practices (plus Maeg’s d20 dice yes/no divination and a plug for the wonderful Call Your Coven podcast!)

• 1:11:12 the limits of divination tools vs. the limits of the diviner; plus, what’s up with fate

• 1:17:53 the role of cards in relationship-building with non-humans

• 1:25:38 tarot and astrology overlapping with the decans

• 1:28:04 MEG’S NEW BOOK and what we’re both up to

meg’s links and info for more

All the links you’ll need once you finish up:

• Meg’s new book Tarot Spreads

• Meg’s website

• Meg’s newsletter (paid subscription includes access to their Discord, which I’m part of and is really excellent)

• Meg has so many offerings on their website that they decided to make a Crossroads Quiz that’s really fun to take that helps guide you to what resources might be most helpful for you right now.

• Meg has two podcasts because of course they do. Meg’s has a solo podcast called Card Talk. They are also a co-host of the podcast Call Your Coven. The other hosts are numerologist

  Rebecca Scolnick
  and astrologer
  Jeanna Kadlec
  . Jeanna Kadlec is also Meg’s wife and one of my best friends. You may remember Jeanna as my collaborator on the lecture Creativity Through The Houses! (which is available for purchase 😇 )

• The next cohort of The Grove is open now! Meg and Jeanna co-run a 6-month container called The Grove where you can find magical rituals and spiritual tools to support your creative practice, alongside accountability in community. Find out if it’s for you here.

If you loved this conversation and would love to see more special offerings like this, let me know!

virtual tea party reminder + bookings

If this conversation inspires questions you have for me for our first virtual tea party (scheduled for Thursday, July 31 at 7 PM ET), submit them here and I’ll cover as many as I can when we meet. Tea parties are a benefit of being a paying subscriber so if you want to join in but need to update your subscription to do so, here’s where you can do that.

I also have just 4 spots left for readings in July and August is filling up quickly. If you want to get a reading with me soon, you can get on the calendar here.

Can’t wait to see you soon, whether in a reading and/or at our tea party!

Take heart,
Maeg