Tesseography: Wisdom in a Teapot

Tessography/Tesseomancy, or as it is more commonly known as, tealeaf reading, is an age-old form of divination. Some think that it originated in ancient Greece, and others in ancient China.

Once a very popular practice to gather insight, it has seemed to have sadly fallen by the wayside. I personally use various forms of divination, and tealeaf reading is one of my favourites.

Contrary to what many others would claim, I believe that anyone can do divination readings for themselves or others, if they are at least somewhat tapped into the intuition that we all have access to. Also contrary to what many others would claim, I believe that divination is to be used as a form of guidance, and none of the information that might come up in a reading is written in stone. You have the power to change your course at any time, and readings are there to gather wisdom, and to see potential outcomes.

So, why not try and give yourself, or someone else a tealeaf reading? It doesn’t require anything fancy, and most of us have tea around our homes. If your tea is in bags, rip it open, as the tea will need to be free to float around your teacup. If you do not have tea, you can always use coffee grounds.

If you want to get a little fancy *winks* you can use a corresponding herb for whatever the subject matter of the reading is. You could use motherwort for issues surrounding motherhood, or if there is issues with Mom; lemon balm can be used for love, and mint for travel. Just make sure that before you ingest any herbs, that they are safe for you/the querent at the time (example: you shouldn’t drink mint while pregnant and want to stay that way), and that they will not affect any medication that you might be on. For an excellent correspondence of herbs and their meanings check out this Enchanted Oak.

Traditionally it is the querent who drinks the tea, but if you are doing a reading for someone far away, you can always drink the tea yourself take a photo of the tealeaves for whoever you are doing the reading for once you are done drinking it.

Once you get all that figured out, go to a nice quiet place, and get comfortable. There are many different methods that people use to tap into their own intuitive voice, so use whatever works for you.

If the querent is with you, get them to drink the tea, focusing on whatever the topic is; if the reading is for you, or the querent is far away, then you do it.

Once the tea is finished you can either read the leaves in the cup (make sure there is a little liquid left over if you choose to do it this way), or you can dump the leaves on a flat surface and read them.

Pay attention to whatever symbols come up. Maybe you will get numbers, letters, a picture, or many. I really encourage people to interpret symbols for themselves, but if that is not your thing, or you get stuck, a great website with a list of symbols and their meanings to check out Tealeaf.ca.

Happy teatime!
Laurel