Ep. 247: The Diviner's Path with JoAnna Farrer

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