I bought this deck as a little prezzy for myself after a week of presenting on the history of tarot for DragonCon, and then reading for a room full of students at Emory. It was a crazy week, but exhilarating, and then I topped it off with a root canal. Hey, they can’t all be winners.
What drew me to this deck was the folksy dark art style and the concepts of the cards themselves. Cards like ‘Candles’, ‘Nature Spirits’, and ‘Transformation’. Don’t they just sound yummy and delightful to read with? The same people also have a Seasons of the Witch Yule Oracle, and you can bet your sweet britches that I’ll have that one before December for the same reasons.
What first struck me when I opened the box, however, was the glossy, shiny, BRIGHT RED gilding on the edges of the deck. I’m pretty impartial to gilding on cards, as it usually wears off over time, but this is really gorgeous. It makes the cards something special and different to anything in my collection. And the art style did not disappoint on closer inspection. The images are deep and evocative. My only complaint is that there isn’t a lot of diversity in the women shown on the cards. I feel like if that was fixed, this deck would be almost TOO perfect, and might have to be destroyed for the good of the world.
What did it have to say to me? Let’s take a look at the cards:
- Tell me about yourself. What is your most important characteristic? Intuition. It will help me tap that deep inner well of intuition. It will help me steer past ego and the rational mind to see what I sense is true.
- What are your strengths as a deck? Healer. (per the book) ‘you are being called to initiate yourself as one of the wise ones.’ This deck will help me to heal other people and ‘be a guide for those finding their way’.
- What are your limits as a deck? Banshee. This deck will not give warnings or reveal bad omens. That tracks if this deck is to be used more for healing. It may have a blind spot when it comes to bad things coming up in the future if it’s focusing on healing things from the past.
- What are you here to teach me? Graveyard. This deck is here to help me find peace and acknowledge the losses that I’ve already faced. This finding peace goes along with the healing aspect from above as well. We can’t change the past, only the lessons we bring from it into the future.
- How can I best learn from and collaborate with you? Frog. Be willing to transform. Be willing to find serenity in that transformation, and embrace it. Be patient as the change begins to happen.
- What is the potential outcome of our working relationship? Crystals and Herbs. This card is all about healing with earth energy. So hopefully this deck will help me to find my passion in my craft again, and help me to find joy in the simple acts of working with my magickal tools to affect healing.
Overall, I would say that this was a really positive reading. I did shuffle reversals into the deck, and none showed up. So everything was really straight-forward and clear. I honestly feel connected to this deck already. It feels like a ‘coming home’ kind of deck, and I can’t wait to work with it through Samhain and maybe beyond this year!
Blessed be! <3