Clockwise from the top: Fractals of Nature Oracle, Renais Tarot, Dream of Nile second edition, The Citadel Deck, The Jolanda Witch Tarot

*Nudity warning in the cards ahead

It’s time again for a month of focus study on the Thoth system! Last time I did a Thoth intensive month I delved into some pretty intensive reading decks (as in, I actually had to read the companion books in earnest). Since then I’ve become less scared of the system and found a few Thoth decks that felt a little more, well, interesting to me! Both the very feminine Jolanda Witch and the Dream Nile Tarots feel accessible without coming across as “water-down Thoth” for a RWS reader.

My goal this month is to start using the Thoth system more intuitively, though both of these decks have excellent guidebooks that I will be using. Along with these Tarot decks I wanted to pair them with some oracle decks that, like the Thoth system, at first glance look simple but are layered and complex. The Citadel is probably my favorite Oracle I own, and the Renais and Fractals of Nature are relatively new to my collection but feel appropriate pairings for the Tarot decks (the three of them also look grand together as you’ll see).

I saw and used the Jolanda Witch Tarot nearly a year ago before purchasing recently, and I was really taken with how well it reads. I typically think of Thoth as very fiery and aggressive decks, but there’s something extremely earthy and grounded with the feminist tilt of Jolanda that really makes her an exceptional deck to use and I’ve been absolutely in love with it this month. I drew the middle card first, then the left and right so that is how I’ll read this.

One of the hard things in reading Tarot is how deeply personal things are often stirred by the images on cards. It’s part of the magic, I think. I know a lot of Tarot readers in the public sphere take the leap and make generalized readings for their audience, but I like to share my own readings so folks can watch how I structure the thought process (maybe this is useful, I know I like it when readers do that for me). The problem with sharing your personal readings is, well, it’s personal! I’m going to take a leap here and share that this 21 The Universe is quite meaningful for me as it reminds me of a dream I had about ten years ago, of swimming in space with humpback whales. It was a wonderful dream and a tranquil, freeing feeling. This was during an intense time in my life when I was leaving an incredibly abusive relationship and this dream helped me look forward to being free from that harm. So when this was my first card, I sat up an listened! Here I see a personal integration with the world, both physical and spiritual. Giving and taking in measure. Freedom in radical acceptance. Things working out. Alright.

Following that I drew this incredibly meditative Four of Swords, which has they key word “Truce.” An old man is floating under a starry dome supported by the four swords (sharp points embedded in the ground)–reflect before action. Is he a monk or a sword’s master? Now is the time to think and plan.

Thirdly I drew 0 The Fool and what a brave, if oblivious, Fool it is! Off they go into the world, content with their pipe and oud strapped on their back. Who knows who is a friend or who is an enemy; they have no expectations but are totally capable of entertaining themselves! I also get some pie-piper vibes from this card–the fool being their authentic selves draws all sorts to them, a highly charismatic individual.

I see these three cards as indicating that I’m in the “flow” of the world at large, I’m thinking ahead and if I stay true to myself I’m able to overcome anything. Lets see with the rest of the draw if it turns out this positive!

The Dream Nile is just a beautiful deck and it feels so balanced and calming, though having used it this past week it is a bit of a heavy handed reader and does feel strongly Thoth. Starting in the middle again we have the 7 of Air (Swords, or I guess in this case spears). Immediately I see an ascent into the light, but also a confusing ascent from the dark, or decent into the dark. I see the need to discern truth in a confusing, tense situation. There might be purposeful deceit at hand, but there is only the slim stave that divides the truth from the lie. In my mind, I think “its always darkest before the dawn” and the idea that one needs to endure discomfort before you see results. We also see a moon lighting the arch, but then there are stars which also bring light though you may not immediately notice.

II The Priestess came after, and Isis is just gorgeous isn’t she? Again, the sickle moon motif. There is deep intuition at play, listening to one’s inner wisdom, paying attention to symbols and dreams. Snakes and lotuses, images of healing and spiritual knowledge adorn her.

And then I drew the 6 of Water (Cups). A basic concept we all learn as children is sharing is caring. You share, I share, we share together in community. Together we are better than alone. I have things I can give and things I am in need of, now is a time to build those mutual bonds with others and reinforce that bond with the people already in my circle who I think of fondly.

The three together I read as: There is a challenge ahead and it’s outcome is balanced on the edge of a knife–it may seem as if there isn’t a difference but there is–only careful discernment can see the outcome. Use your inner intuition and the personal connections you’ve made to help guide you!

It was at this point I was wondering if I just shouldn’t have stuck to the two Tarot decks this month.

Well, the Renais “Tarot” out of Cocorinna studio in Greece is a delightful historic Tarocchi style deck that doesn’t follow any of the modern “Tarot” standards but adheres to Renaissance philosophical ideas. I’ve used this deck only a little and I am still puzzling out how to best use it in my own practice, but I adore the historic illustrations. Right away I see that the woman is playing her hand pipe which looks very similar to the Fool’s and she also has additional instruments at her disposal (like the Fool!). This immediately makes me think of utilizing my own arts and being resourceful with the skills I have at hand. Seeing as she has a beautiful swan with her (and I think of the Fool’s plethora of critters in their vicinity) I am getting the sense of taking pleasure in the work at hand and doing it with friends (ah-hem, 6 of Water). The variety of instruments makes me think of trying different things, see what sticks, enjoy the exploration.

To the left of Music is The Citadel’s Wise One. Such a title suggests time tested methods, but I love the picture of a hand plucking at a plant which is different that the others. This makes me think choosing the right remedy for the ailment or trouble. Reflection before action again.

To the right is VII (7) from the Fractals of Nature. This is another deck that I really am intrigued by the concept of yet I am unsure of how to use it in my practice. The accompanying text around the edge of the card says “Life’s journey is not to arrive at the end in safety, but to live in fullness along the way.” I like how the accompanying guide book alternatively puts it: “There are time when caution feels like wisdom, and times when it quietly narrows the world.” Hmm, there seems to be a theme here in the whole draw juxtaposing wisdom with the Fool’s energy of Carpe Diem.

Lets look at the whole draw together. In the right column we have the Four of Swords (Truce), The Wise One, and II The Priestess, so a strong sense of using one’s inner mind and self to make judgements. The right column we have The Fool, “Life’s journey is not to arrive at the end in safety, but to live in fullness along the way,” and the 6 of Water (Cups), which seems to ask acting in the now, against perhaps the “safe” path forward to aid our relations and provide a giving, reciprocal environment. Then our middle column we have The Universe, Music, and 7 of Air (Swords). We are in the flow of the world right now, we feel the rhythms of the world and we can see what things really are. Now that is a deep reading for a month! There is much work ahead to do!

How about you? How do you like to read your Thoth? Do you follow strict structure rules or are you a more intuitive reader? What are your rhythms in the universe right now?

Warning: nudity portrayed in the cards

I recently purchased the Materia Prima from Uusi, an oracle deck based on the periodic table that I’ve been looking at since 2020. I do not know why I waited so long. Though I don’t usually like decks where I find the guidebook necessary, I have been loving this deck and book so much that I knew I needed to use it this month, and I wanted to base my monthly decks off of it. For the theme I chose “Elemental.” To me, this key word evokes thoughts of adhering to basic principles of Tarot (and Oracle) as well as alchemical exploration in the Tarot systems.

The Terra Volatile with its entire fifth suit of Vessels dedicated to “Quintessence,” and its general alchemical vibe seemed a no-brainer companion to Materia Prima. Though I’m far from able to say I know Terra well, I do feel comfortable using it now after extensively studying it last year. I also wanted to bring The Naked Truth Tarot, is a deck I had since its Kickstarter twoish years ago, but never formally included in a monthly decks. This is a cheeky deck of mostly nude paintings is pretty “Elemental” in it’s unabashed portrayal of people. While it is RWS, it also has very clever takes on the traditional card meanings and it’s just a very beautiful deck. The Secret Garden, an absolute lux deck with plenty of accompanying Kickstarter rewards is really fitting my mood as I wrap up the historical fiction novel The Column of Burning Spices, a book about Hildegard von Bingen. This deck centers around very stoic historic figures with dramatic dark backgrounds and brilliant flower motifs. It’s serious, beautiful, and has a historic apothecary garden feel that matches the rather dark mood in the rest of the decks. And finally, The Wild Unknown Archetypes oracle is no stranger in my collection and has been around for a while on this blog. But, it does feel very primal and elemental in its imagery and Jungian themes.

So, full disclosure, I had a totally different draw organization intended for this month, but the Secret Garden Tarot had other plans and very clearly spat out one card that landed face up on the left and two cards face down on the right. It seemed quite purposeful so I decided to let it be and draw my other cards around these three.

Ah, The Womb. This is a card that has a tendency to pop up for me. I personally think of it as “The Source”, its that thing that ties all living things and non-living things together, a place where we came from, where our mothers came from, and their mothers, and mother earth. Its about holding a sacred space, and understanding that when we deviate from our spiritual/moral source, things are out of balance.

Paired with The Womb is Bromine, one of the reactive Halogens. Let me take a paraphrased quote out of the Materia Prima: Reflections on Matter as I cannot do justice to this card with my own words:

His was a simple, productive, monastic life until a bright light shown suddenly on Bromine. Extraordinary attention and false praise inflated him and led him to abandon his natural, established order…The thrill of a cheering crowd!…Bromine began to feel superior and embarked on a steep and forbidden road that brought about a troublesome existence…ashamed of his foul toxicity, he reveled in poisons…And then, all of a sudden his moment of greatness was gone… (page 163)

The rest of Bromine’s story here speaks of falling into shunned oblivion and longing for connection, until Being “politely reopens the door. “

Bromine’s story reminds me of Mean Girls, and any story really about a bully who rises to popularity. The bully may not even mean to be a bully, but whenever a person feels superior to others, they tend to excuse their actions to greater and greater extent until they can no longer deny that they are toxic, at which point they are so invested in their image they also cannot suffer the shock to their ego to admit how wrong they have been. Any one who has ever known a person with a narcissistic personality knows that this sort of person will literally prefer to die than admit their wrongs. When we stray so far from the universal threads of kindness, truth, and justice, we face the same perverted pride that Bromine is dealing with. It will only end in isolation. I feel as if there are many things in the current world reflected in this story old as time.

Together, the womb recognizes Bromine moving away from living in harmony with what connects us all, and we can see not only the destruction Bromine has done to the rest of the universe, but also (and perhaps most profoundly) to themselves.

I’m going to do this reading in a bit of a reverse order as I felt it was important with the position we see in Bromine.

To Bromine’s back, or perhaps we can say “past,” we have some very interesting imagery. First, from the Terra Volatile, which seemed to have gotten the memo about this being an “elemental” month gave us the King of Vessels in reverse. Vessels are a fifth (non-traditional ) suit that represent æther, a spiritual/alchemical element of the soul. He is supposed to represent the alchemical “Great Work” or the ability to create the mythical Philosphers Stone which purifies everything into its most essential form (like turning base material into gold). Or in more practical terms, a rebirth into a new whole self. His purpose is to merge with the Queen of Vessles and harmonize. But turned in reverse, he denies this sacred union. He selfishly keeps his power to himself, but in doing so is unable to accomplish the first step of spirituality. From the Terra Volatile book “…some can call him a cult leader.”

Then Secret Garden Tarot gave both Judgement in reverse and the Eight of Cups reversed. Judgement calls us to account for our actions, to see reality for all its truth and understand how we fit in reality and understand how the ripple of our actions have affected the world. When seen reversed, this isn’t happening, or is somehow blocked. The Eight of Cups in the RWS traditionally means moving away from a relationship, either leaving it, looking deeper, or cutting one’s losses. This image in particular is interesting because upright it seems to invite us to the window to gaze out at the moon, but reversed it is not clear to me which direction we are asked to move. To me these cards together speak of walking away from accountability or being unable to tell that you are being called to account.

With the King of Vessles Reversed and the Judgement Reversed and Eight of Cups Reversed, this feels as if someone, or rather “Bromine” was falsely duped by a manipulative “cult leader” into believing he was better than others but the reality says differently and he is unable to square himself with that past.

Bromine gazes on the Page of Pentacles as they put their faith in a plan and is about to take the first step to plant a new idea. Above them from The Naked Truth Tarot sweeps one of the extra cards labeled XXIII The Enchantress. Clearly a witch, she brings a burning torch down from the dark skies, much like Prometheus brings mankind fire. A special card of the deck, she represents a feminine and heightened counterpart to The Magician. She is a master of her own power and has the chops to harness her outer-world to do her bidding. She relies on no cheap tricks, but rather trusting her personal intuition and embracing the mystical aspects in her life and her own skills. She is leading the charge it would seem.

The Page is ready to take the first steps into a process in which they are unsure of the results, but there is a lot of hope hinging on this Page’s limited resources. Even so, in the meanwhile there is plenty of other fruits and plants to help support them as their vision takes root, things that have been seeded long ago that are blooming now. I wonder if Bromine and the Page are the same person, and Bromine is looking upon a possibility of themselves. Or is this Page another who is moving on to a better world without Bromine? Is this Page purposefully turning his back on Bromine? Does the Page know they have The Enchantress guiding over them? Preparing to give them her fire and knowledge?

With strong feminine guidance rooted in honest mastery of oneself and connection with the greater world, we see the start of a Page’s hopeful endeavor. This Page has moved on from the struggle we see Bromine is suffering, and uniting back with that Womb–Source. I see the relation of the Womb gifting the Page the Enchantress’s self realized powers while the Page in turn gives back to the Womb.

Anyone who has felt wronged by another I think can relate to this drawing. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say we can see current real life parallels. To me this is a draw about acknowledging where others have gone wrong and tried to exert their superiority, and how they end up on such a corrupted path that is removed from reality, truth, and a balanced living. The world must go on without them, new harvest must be planted, new ideas for shaping the future need to take shape in our minds and heart and we can use old guiding principles of justice and equality and simple intuition of treating others how you wish to be treated. Perhaps one day they will see and walk the road Judgement asks us all to take, but only they can choose to become the change for the better.

From 10 o’clock, clockwise, Shining Stars Tarot, The Citadel Oracle (combined with The Deck of Emblems), The Endless Tarot, Medieval Europe Tarot, the Aisling tarot

This month my bestie and I needed some much needed escapism in our free time, so we decided to do another monthly decks based on a D&D party. For those of you who haven’t been here for a while, this is a hilarious game we play where we roll a dice to determine what kind of characters are in our “party” and then we pick tarot decks that exemplify that character. This month we rolled a Rogue, Barbarian, Wizard, Sorcerer, and a Fighter. We have a huge draw that is a “quest” for the party that usually takes several hours to complete, but I’ll save that draw for another day. Here’s my monthly draw and I’ll explain my choices as we go:

I kept getting double jumpers from the Endless Tarot and the Shining Stars no matter how many times I reshuffled, so I kept the two for each and it turned this into quite the full feeling monthly reading!

I wanted to use the Citadel Oracle mixed with the accompanying Deck of Emblems for my rogue character. It seems very rogue-like that the deck knows the “city” inside and out, and knows each character’s role and doesn’t try to justify morally the roles each plays. From this deck I drew The Merchant–you have things to offer, you need to weigh the cost this is to you to make a fair trade. You may also unexpectedly have something that others want or need that you’re not even aware of. Make sure you value your self and your time. Make sure that when you are giving, you are getting something of equal value in return. Be careful of time wasters who don’t value your worth.

I was torn about which deck to use as a fighter. In comparison to the barbarian I imagine a fighter being well trained, disciplined, professional and able to take a birds-eye view of a situation, and a little lonely. The Endless Tarot really fit this bill! For the first half of the month I was (surprisingly as I adore all of Maille’s decks) having a tough time with this deck and the large swaths of black edges, but I’ve finally warmed up to it! The Endless gave me the 10 of Pentacles and a special extra card, The Story. Together this reads to me as sharing my ancestral stories, my communities’ stories. With the merchant, it makes me think of rewriting the narrative to properly reflect real people’s experiences, or maybe crafting a story as part of a trade.

I’m so glad that the Shining Stars Tarot turned out as cool as the Kickstarter made it look! I don’t have a picture here, but it has sparkly purple edging and the soft touch card stock is just to die for! This deck bases all of it’s images off of mythical figures or figures of legends, real or made up. This became my wizard in my party as it requires some prior knowledge of these legends or otherwise requires legwork on my end! We have Hermes in the Eight of Wands with rapid motion and movement. Then we also were given the Seven of Swords with Robin Hood, having taken seven swords from the wealthy manor also moving rapidly! Lots of action it seems. Perhaps I’ll be attending to righting some systemic wrong. Hmm.

The Aisling tarot has been completely enchanting to me this month. As the sister deck of She Is Wilderness tarot, I finally bit the bullet and purchased Aisling, which I’d looked at several times since it was published last year. It is definitely a very quirky deck indeed from it’s odd shape to very interesting takes on the Marseilles system. It has a witchy, lolita-esque vibe that is very different from anything in my collection. This is the deck I chose for the Sorcerer because of its witchy-oddness that is very charming. I drew from the deck its classic take on the Fool. Our fool is very confident! She goes forth head held high on her new adventure, and we wonder if she sees the edge! There is much to look forward to, but also know there is present danger.

Then from my rough and tumble and much beloved Medieval Europe Tarot—which, due to its graphic imagery, is playing the role of the barbarian this month—out came a surprisingly passive Knight of Wands. This knight, while fully dressed and ready for battle, is instead passively waiting, courage at the ready, peaceful scepter held high, and head in the clouds, imagining outcomes. This, from a deck that is all about impulse and barbaric action, really is out of key with what I’d expect from a Knight of Wands (typically the most impulsive card in a RWS deck!). With the accompaniment of the fool, I read these two together as “go forth courageously, but stay action, be prepared and measured instead.” I also think it’s interesting we see the scepter in both Hermes 8 of Wands and this Knight. Robin Hood’s swords are also held downward and not in a way that will be used to harm another.

So, taken together, I have a role to play in shaping the story of my family and community, giving what I have of value to others and receiving in return. I will need to be prepared to take swift action to right a wrong that require courage and an open heart, but also peaceful passiveness. Very interesting! Tell me, how was your November in the cards?