Today on the Plant Cunning Podcast, witch, seer, musician and host of Coffee & Divination Joanna Farrer returns to discuss her book The Diviner’s Path. She shares why she wrote it, to map the shared “grammar” across divination systems so readers can learn new tools more easily and practice more skillfully. She explains divination as an active, interpretive process, emphasizes humility and preparation, and offers guidance on asking better questions using a “bowl” metaphor for balancing overly broad vs overly narrow inquiries. Farrer surveys tools she uses—pendulums, runes, Greek alphabet divination, cartomancy/tarot, dreams, omens/augury, and trance work as a priestess of Apollo—highlighting the blend of technique and intuition. The conversation covers spiritual hygiene, boundaries, cleansing methods like a “factory reset” of tarot, the structure and risks of omen walks, working with land spirits in farm decisions, consequences of ignoring signs, and avoiding overreliance on divination.
00:00 Meet Joanna Farrer
01:14 Why Write This Book
03:26 Shared Divination Principles
07:02 Asking Better Questions
09:55 Choosing Divination Tools
14:53 Barn Pendulum Story
17:19 Who Answers Divination
22:57 Spiritual Hygiene Basics
30:59 Cleansing Decks and Tools
32:08 Resetting Your Deck
33:16 Omens Versus Tools
34:10 Building Symbolic Lexicon
37:48 How to Do Omen Walks
42:11 Discernment and Saying No
46:28 Attention and Gorilla Test
49:35 Travel Mode Awareness
51:46 Meeting Local Land Spirits
57:19 Divination on the Farm
01:02:15 Sacred Chickens and Augury
01:04:24 Sacred Chickens Warning
01:06:06 Humility in Divination
01:06:52 Tarot Second Guessing
01:07:40 Designing With Land Spirits
01:09:20 When Systems Disagree
01:12:15 Pond Siting Case Study
01:15:33 Beavers Join the Project
01:18:10 Overusing Divination Signs
01:23:34 Agency and Future Readings
01:27:30 Where to Find Joanna
01:29:38 Why Everyone Needs Divination
01:31:16 Final Thanks and Wrap
