Serendipities

Tarot Deck Review: Oriens Tarot/Oriens Animal Tarot

Deck: The Oriens Tarot/ The Oriens Animal Tarot
Publisher: Ambisun / Rockpool
Artist: Ambisun
Writer: T.D. Cloud
Overall Rating: 9/10

Note: I have the first edition of this deck, through Kickstarter, and I am not sure what all has changed in the second edition through Rockpool, so while this review may accurately reflect the new edition, there are likely to be small changes, especially to the box and the cardstock.

Cardstock: The cardstock on the first edition is somewhat plastified or very laminated, and although the cards aren’t too shiny or slick, they flex and shuffle very well. I’m a huge fan!

Artwork: The artwork is really bright and clear despite the dark background color, and all the animals (and insects are depicted recognizably and detailed, without being either cartoonish or hyperrealistic. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the neon colors at first, but I liked the art style and the colors really grew on me. I will say though, this may not be the deck for people squeamish about insects or spiders. It says “animals” but there are insects and sea slugs and the like, too. I think each animal/insect image does a pretty good job of illustrating the card meaning, too, without being based too heavily on the Rider-Waite-Smith imagery.

Book: With the Kickstarter first edition, I got a full-length ebook. I have no idea if the new deck has a full book, a Little White Book, or an option for both, so keep that in mind. The ebook I have has keywords for both uprights and reversals, a short paragraph about the animal chosen and the imagery, and then a paragraph each for upright and reversed divination meanings. As an experienced reader I don’t refer to the paragraphs about the meaning much, but I do really like the paragraph about what animal was chosen, and why.

Likes: I love the artwork, and how well these shuffle. I think this deck lends itself well to intuitive reading, as the imagery is so expressive.

Dislikes: The neon-on-dark took a little while to get used to, but that’s not really a “dislike”. I don’t really have any dislikes for this deck, just the warning that there are quite a few insects and also a spider, in case that’s not your thing.

Overall Recommendation

This is one of the most popular decks in my shop. Clients seem to really connect with the artwork and the meanings, and the artwork is very beautiful and striking. It also avoids many of the depiction problems that decks featuring mainly human figures have: namely, a lack of inclusion of different skintones, genders, body types, ability levels, ages, etc. My only hesitation in recommending this deck to beginners and seasoned practitioners alike, is that I am not sure what the cardstock is like for the second edition!

Tarot Spread: Turning over a New Leaf

January 5, 2023
by Alexandra

This is a cartomancy spread I designed several years ago, as an alternative to the “12 cards for 12 months” types of New Year’s spreads, but it can be used at any point in your life when you feel the need to turn over a new leaf and make a change! The idea is there’s one side of the leaf going out of your life, and a new side coming in, and I organized the cards to resemble two leaves, flipped in opposite directions. I offer this spread (and a smaller version with 7 cards) in my shop, and they’re both currently on sale! I’d also love to hear how this spread works out for you, if you try it yourself!

Card Positions:

Something you’re ready to let go of
Something you should let go of
Something you want to let go of
An external way to make necessary changes in your life
An internal way to make necessary changes in your life
An obstacle in your path
Something you’re ready to accept into your life
Something you should accept into your life
Something you want to accept into your life
An external way to make necessary changes in your life
An internal way to make necessary changes in your life
An obstacle in your path

Crow Folks: Tend to Your Vessel

This month, on an intuitive feeling, I drew ogham to ask what I should bring with me when I went to seek Na Morrigna around their Cauldron. I pulled Ailm, and so when I journeyed there I brought with me a pine sprig. What next followed unfolded a bit like a fable, a simple story with a deeper, metaphorical meaning and a moral, instruction in proper behaviour.

– – –

Na Morrigna turned my pine sprig into a spoon, and with that spoon They instructed me to stir the liquid in the great cauldron, clockwise around, a total of nine times. By the time I had finished, the liquid was a swift whirlpool, a vortex through which the bottom of the cauldron could be seen, just barely. One of the Sisters pointed, and I bent down, to look more closely. There was a tiny crack, a hairline fracture, in the base of the cauldron, and as I watched, the force of the whirlpool strained the cauldron, and the crack began to widen, and the liquid began to flow out so that the bottom was no longer visible, and then with a loud crack, the bottom broke in two and all the rest of the liquid was quickly absorbed by the land beneath, gone and leaving no trace. What a disaster came of such a small thing! “Protect your foundations.” They told me. “Tend to your vessel. But when it breaks…” I looked to Na Morrigna as They went silent again, wondering what They would have me do next. Instead, They each took their walking stick or spear and pounded the broken vessel with those, to break the cauldron further, into small pieces of rubble. When that was done They set down their sticks and raised their hands, using sorcery, and reduced the rubble to dust. As the dust settled, I reflected that it seemed like it had more potential this way than it had as rubble, and that was strange to me but also right, because this was more completely destroyed. Then each Sister took up a new task: One poured water on the dust to hydrate the clay, One shaped the clay with her hands into a new pot, and One piled wood around the new cauldron that was taking shape, taller than it was tall, and in a wide ring, surrounding it. When their work was complete, They all three took up a place around the wood ring, and bent to strike a fire, so that it might catch from all sides. The blaze began to fire the pot, and by the time it had burned down to coals, the new Cauldron was finished, and ready to once again be filled.

– – –

When it was finished, I was sent on my way with the memory of what I had seen, to share with my community. The experience reminded me in many ways of a dismemberment healing, a similarity that was somewhat underscored by their use of the word/concept “vessel”, as in the saying “you can’t pour from an empty vessel”, which means that we (the vessel) can’t help others if we don’t have enough energy for our own needs. I’ll leave the story as I saw it happen for you all to think about and interpret (and feel free to share any meaning you glean from it!) but my personal interpretation is along those lines: we need to take care of ourselves and our needs, in order to be able to do the Work that Na Morrigna are calling each of us to do. This time of the year, that can be really difficult for many of us – particularly those of us who have difficult family situations and many social obligations. But as that hairline fracture with the added stress of the whirlpool caused the whole cauldron to crack in two, so too can small issues in our own lives – when ignored for too long or stressed by difficult circumstances – cause upheaval. The message, I think, is that sometimes more destruction can actually be fruitful at that point, if you can get back to a place of potential and open possibilities. It’s given me things to think about, for sure.

Tarot Deck Review: Emerging from Darkness

Deck: Emerging From Darkness
Writer & Artist: Robin L. Cole
Publisher: Self-Published
Overall Rating: 6/10

Cardstock: These cards are standard tarot sized with a semi-matte texture, and they riffle shuffle pretty well. The edges are gilded in a silver glitter but after the first few uses they didn’t seem to really shed flakes. They riffle shuffle pretty well, but the edges aren’t smooth, which means I have to take a little more care than I might normally, when shuffling. The print job is what you’d expect from a high-quality deck.

Artwork: The artwork is mostly black and white, but there are colored labels and some muted color throughout. The sketch-like style features a lot of crosshatching for shading and depth, and it’s a little strange to me to be looking at that kind of artwork up close, since it is a little busy. I think the art style (and thus the deck) looks better from a distance, but that might just be a personal preference. I think the sketch-like style does lend itself well to the central metaphor of the deck, the interplay of light and dark, even if I personally find it a little difficult to read this deck intuitively based on the artwork. Besides my difficulties with the crosshatching though, I do find the artwork to be very emotionally evocative.

Book: The included booklet is more of a pamphlet – approximately three words per card – but the deck did come with the option of a full sized book or an ebook: “Emerging from Darkness: Using Tarot for Personal Shadow Work”. I bought the physical copy of the book, and I’ve found it very useful. There are a few chapters at the beginning that serve as a decent introduction to shadow work just in general, and the included tarot exercises have proved very fruitful for me and others.

Likes: I really like that this deck and book are meant to work together, to guide the user in one of the most important kinds of growth, which is also one of the most undervalued and neglected! That is really what drew me to this deck, the idea that it could really help me and my clients when we’re struggling with our own personal shadows.

Dislikes: It’s really a minor thing overall, but I find the coarse size of the crosshatching in the artwork to be a little distracting.

Overall Recommendation

I think this deck has a space in my collection more for the book than for the deck itself. They’re a team that works well together, but I think if they were separate and not so intrinsically linked, I might just have bought the book and skipped the deck. As it is, though, I do like them as a team. I just don’t find myself reaching for this deck when I have other types of questions.

Four Ways to Read Tarot Reversals

A couple of months back, I was doing an in person reading for someone who said they were somewhat new to their own tarot practice, and as I walked them through what I was seeing in the cards we’d laid out, I made a note to also explain some of the “Why”, and that turned into a short explanation of the four ways I usually read reversals, which I thought I’d share here! And: major shout-out to Lynda Hardy, who gave a presentation on reversals about a decade ago, which really helped me organize my thoughts about them and understand them better, right as I was beginning to branch out and do readings for acquaintances!

I don’t always use reversals – some decks I never let the cards turn upside-down, sometimes I’ll turn the whole deck back upright before drawing, and sometimes I’ll just tell the deck not to bother because I’m going to read them all upright. When I do use them, though, the first thing I do (as an intuitive reader) is try to feel what kind of reversal it is, by sorting them into one of three broad categories: Delay, Internalized, Shadowed, and Opposite.

Delay

This kind of reversal means that the standard meaning of the card is still going to happen, but it’s going to take longer than it normally would to come about. This delay can mean that some cards that are often understood to mean something happening soon or quickly can unfold over a longer period, like Death or the Tower. In a “past” position in a spread, a delay reversal can either mean a lengthening of the past into the present, or a very long-term past pattern stretching into the more distant past. This is probably the type of reversal that changes the meaning the least.

Shadowed

Shadowed reversals change the meaning only a little bit more than the delayed type. For the shadowed meaning, the basic meaning doesn’t really change, but any negatives are emphasized and put front and center, and any positives are downplayed. Even overtly positive cards like The Sun can be dimmed by a shadowed reversal, becoming a sign of “probable success” instead of a sure thing! A lot of tarot cards are pretty neutral, but have aspects that can become negative when taken to an extreme, and that’s when I most commonly see shadowed reversals in a reading.

Internalized

An internalized reversal most often means that the conflict in the card is something the querent is feeling internally. For example, the Five of Wands is usually understood to be about conflict, disagreement, and competition – all external, normally. If internalized, that card could instead mean that someone is in disagreement with themselves, or that they’re feeling stress from what they perceive as a competition, though the other person doesn’t have a clue what’s going on. This same kind of internalization can also mean that the actions associated with the swords and the material things associated with the coins/pentacles can become more about the querent’s inner world, their mental states and emotions.

Opposite

Opposite meaning reversals are probably the best known, and they are the type most people are familiar with, and the type that you’ll most commonly find described in the booklet that comes with a deck. Positives become negatives, endings become beginnings, victories become losses, solutions become obstacles. In booklets that don’t have keywords for reversals, it can sometimes be a little challenging to come up with opposites, but its important to remember that sometimes the opposite of a neutral thing is just a very different neutral thing. For example, The Heirophant represents spiritual tradition and religious authority when upright, and the opposites of those two things might be developing new spiritual practices, and a neophyte. None of those things are inherently negative, but they’re opposites of each other. (And before anyone gets on my case about “religious authority” being negative, yeah a lot of people who claim that title are fairly problematic, but it’s not inherently negative as a concept. People who actually know the lore and the language/culture well enough to explain it to others are religious authorities as well! It’s the demand for unquestioning followers that is toxic, and that doesn’t have to be a feature of our pagan religions.)

Hopefully that helps some of you get deeper meaning out of your readings!

Reminder: All of my 12-card or 12-rune spreads, and all of the year-overview and life-overview spreads are on sale in my web shop for approx. 20% off, now through the end of January! No coupon necessary – the sale price is just listed in the shop. (And look for a flash sale on all divination at the end of December!) Make sure you’re shopping on my website, though – I have an Etsy shop as well, but the sales won’t be active there.

Year-Ahead Tarot Forecasts: Why I Do Them

Every year on New Year’s Eve, I pull 12 tarot cards for my coming year – and most years I pull them for a few friends and family members as well. I’ve never been the sort of diviner who does daily pulls; I’m more interested in the larger patterns than the smaller flows, unless I’m investigating a specific issue. But a monthly card gives me something to focus on and consider each month, and it becomes the roof pole around which I organize myself. Then after the month is over, it becomes the center of the web of my monthly reflection, as I think about what I struggled with and what I learned during the month I’ve just completed. I think a monthly card can give really valuable insight into where you are on your life-path, and pulling monthly cards for a whole year gives you touch-points along the way.

My Year-Ahead spread is one of my most popular divination products, and the monthly card forms the basis for my Card of the Month Club on Patreon (which will remain the place with the lowest price point for a monthly card from me unless you catch the New Year’s Eve flash sale), though I draw the cards for the Patreon Club just before the new month starts instead of all at once. With the spread in my shop, you can have all twelve cards at once in a deck of your choice, whereas the Patreon Club has a different deck for every month throughout the year. Also, the Year-Ahead spread in the shop gives the option of an additional three cards for a yearly focus, and those can be in the same or a different deck.

For myself, I usually pull two cards: for tarot, I use all major arcana, but I also pull oracle cards (from an oracle deck I’ve been working on), and the interplay of the two cards gives me even more insight into each month in the coming year. In the past I’ve also used lenormand, runes, and ogham to good effect, and I do have an option in my shop for 12 runes if that sounds more helpful! Any of the deck listings with an option for 12 could be used for a year-ahead spread, and they are all currently also on sale through the end of January: no coupon code needed!

So if you’re interested, please check out my web shop! These spreads are approx 20% off now through the end of January. Make sure you’re shopping on my website, though – I have an Etsy shop as well, but the sales won’t be active there!

Crow Folks: A Resting Place

November 26, 2022
by Alexandra

This month when I did my Dark Moon ritual (a few days ago, sorry for the delay posting), I began my journey at the cottage where I usually meet Bé Chuille and Dinand, and I spoke to them first, and then took the path out back which, in a meandering way, leads me to the place I normally meet Na Morrigna around their cauldron. I had a feeling, as I walked up, that we’d be doing prophetic poetry again this month, and sure enough, as I lowered my eyes to look in the cauldron, what I found was a small stick with ogham carved on it. Three feda: hÚath, Uir, and Tinne. My kennings for those three are, respectively: “Humanity’s Hedge”, “Unending Cycles”, and “Tested Resolve”.* I was told that we’d be working on poetic forms with specific numbers of syllables this time. Three lines of three syllables, followed by two lines of five syllables for each ogham fid, and then an ending couplet with three syllables on the first line and seven on the second.

Here is what I ended up with, when They were satisfied with my work:

hÚath

Held at bay,
At thorn-point:
Disaster.

It will not come if
it is not summoned.

Uir

Cycle turns.
Remember:
Prepare, breathe.

Not a finish line,
just a resting place.

Tinne

Hardened blade
Thorn-sharp edge
Clean and smooth

Forged in melting fire;
plunged in ice water.

Together:

Moon Cycle:
Time to reflect and to plan.

* I developed these kennings as part of the Ogham Intensive through the Irish Pagan School a few years ago.

Song for the Winter Rade

In September, I shared a poem/song/prayer I called “Song for the Way Opening” after getting a message from some of my allies that I should be celebrating the movements of the Pleiades more intentionally. I’d followed the outline Morgan Daimler gave in their book Living Fairy, and made Daimler’s fairy cakes, and then the prayer in the book turned into a sung prayer to the tune of Thomas the Rhymer in my head, and, well. That was the subject of the blog.

This time, I intentionally worked out the poem/song/prayer, and I made an offering of nuts and whiskey, and I’ll be giving a little bit of the secular feast tomorrow as well, so I didn’t make fairy cakes this time.

The first two stanzas of the song are the same, and the last two stanzas are as well, except for the last line.

Song for the Winter Rade

I call to all you goodly wights,
My kin and friends whoe’er shall be.
All you who’d be my allies true,
And come and walk this path with me.

I call to all the Queens and Kings,
Monarchs and Sov’reigns, all gentry near —
If you would celebrate with me
Tis time to come and join me here.

Tonight the Queens will reach their height —
At mid-night they’ll be standing still,
Poised in the center of the sky
And shining down on all they will.

Their fair blue light, it brightly burns:
A torchlight for an open gate.
The Fairy Rade will then emerge
As seven Queen-Stars culminate.

Through the gate, and between worlds,
The Queens will ride across our land —
For our two worlds are intertwined,
Like fingers lacing hand in hand.

As they ride past, may we be blessed,
With token or with smile or nod,
And may they take our offerings,
As their refreshment while they’re abroad.

A good word to the Fairy Rade,
And may you never do us ill!
Ride out along the fairy roads,
Bringing with you Winter’s chill.

This time I’ve also pulled an omen to share: one rune and one ogham, to symbolize the two groups of fairy folk with whom I work most closely. I pulled Wunjo and Onn. Wunjo is a rune of joy and satisfaction, and my personal poem for it is “Joy in wealth is found when it is shared; joy in life is found in the happiness of those around you.” Onn is an ogham associated with the ash tree and gorse, and my personal kenning for it is “Onward Momentum”. So, as we move into the coming days, try to find joy, and reasons to keep going forward! I know this is a hard time of year for many people, as the light wanes (and complex family difficulties are exacerbated by the winter holidays), but there are still good things to be found and enjoyed.

I do have a Crow Calls post to make soon, too, but I wanted to do it separately, so that will probably be here in a couple days!

Bé Chuille and Dinand: My Understanding of Two Obscure Irish Goddesses

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably seen the craft name I use at some point. I generally use my given first name, and a matronymic: Nic Bhé Chuille. This is a name I was told to use more publicly, as I’ve been using the matronymic for a while in the Otherworlds on account of my relationship with a fairy queen I publicly call “Starflower”, who I understand to be the daughter of the goddess Bé Chuille. UPG alert on that whole bit, because there is no lore about Bé Chuille’s children, and honestly UPG alert on most of the rest of this blog, because there just isn’t a lot of lore. So if that’s not your thing, read the next paragraph and then wander off or something.

The lore that we do have for Bé Chuille and Dinand is pretty sparse, and the main myth they appear in is the Lebor Gabála Érenn, commonly called the Book of Invasions in English. They are referred to as “she-farmers” (in most translations) and as daughters of the goddess Flidais near the beginning of the section on the Tuatha Dé Dannan, though the word translated as “she-farmers” bantuathig,¹ may instead mean a type of witch associated with north-turning or anti-clockwise movement (and likely with what we might call cursing and banework), which elsewhere is spelled bantuathaig². In the Cath Maige Tuired, where Lugh asks “his two witches” what power they will bring to the battle, the original text uses the second word/spelling, and most translators give it as “witches”. They respond “We will use our sorcery on the trees and stones and clods of earth, so they will be a host under arms against them and they will flee in fright and terror”.³ Bé Chuille and Dinand also appear in the Banshenchus (Lore of Women), named as sorceresses, along with Nemain, Morrigan, Badb, Macha and Etain, and in the Metrical Dinsenchas (Lore of Places) as adversaries of an evil Greek witch named Carmun. They are probably also meant to be the two “witches of Lugh” who are also called daughters of Flidais in the Oidheadh Chloinne Tuireann (Fate of the Children of Turenn), where he gets revenge on the men who killed his father. And that’s basically it! Not a lot to go on.

So – UPG from here on out.

While the etymology for Bé Chuille’s name isn’t known for sure, and is made more complicated by the fact that Old Irish spelling and diacritical mark usage wasn’t standardized, Morgan Daimler suggests “woman of destruction”,⁴ and while I’m not a trained linguist, I personally wonder if it might not be related to modern Irish cuil, a fly or an angry or aggressive appearance.⁵ Those do seem to fit my experience of her magic – she seems to be particularly adept at magic relating to decay. Partly because of that, I associate her most with the season of autumn. She also seems to specialize in certain types of battle sorcery, especially related to land and to a lesser extent freshwater, as in the Cath Maige Tuired, where she raised the sods of the plain to fight on the side of the Tuatha Dé Danann. When I journey to see her, I meet her most often in a dark autumn pine forest on the edge of a river, and I associate her with those shades of dark green and black-brown, and with thorny thicket plants, fungus, and the cycles of autumn decay. When I see her, she is usually light complexioned, with dark wavy hair. I find her to be intense but somewhat lively, though quick to anger. Devotees of the Morrigan may feel some recognition at her untalkative and yet very expressive manner.

Dinand is possibly even more obscure, as there are three spellings used (Dinand, or Dianann, or Dinann), and it’s very hard to say what the etymological root might be. She is often there when I journey to see her sister, and she seems to be the elder of the two. I see her as light complexioned and dark haired as well, though her hair is thicker and less wavy. I associate her with the same dark autumn pine forest, but she seems to have more affinity with the river running through it, and so her colors in my practice are dark green and dark blue. She seems to also practice destructive magic, and of course the battle sorcery from the Cath Maige Tuired, and I associate her magic with the fierceness of river rapids, the water crashing against large boulders in its path. Like her sister, she is intense, and sparing with her words.

I tend to honor them together most of the time, and for offerings I suggest woodsy scented candles, coniferous or thorny plants, river stones, and I’ve yet to meet an Irish deity that doesn’t like whisky! For non-consumable offerings, maybe try going for a walk in the woods, swimming or boating in a river (safely!), bouldering, cleaning up trash in those areas, removing invasive plants, composting, fermentation, martial arts practice, or mastering a magical skill.

Let me know if you’ve met these goddesses – I’d love to hear others’ experiences! I really haven’t seen much of anyone discuss them in a modern pagan context.

Notes:

Full text is available online here: https://celt.ucc.ie/published/G800011A/text001.html . P. 35
Full text is available online here: https://celt.ucc.ie/published/G300011.html . P. 92
From Morgan Daimler’s translated volume “Cath Maige Tuired: A Full English Translation”, independently published, 2020. Lines 116-117. (Available on Amazon.) See also Daimler’s footnote #77 for more information on “bantuathaig”.
Daimler, “Cath Maige Tuired”, footnote #76.
https://www.teanglann.ie/en/fgb/cuil

Tarot Deck Review: Dark Exact

Deck: The Dark Exact Tarot
Writer & Artist: Coleman Stevenson
Publisher: Self-Published
Overall Rating: 7/10

Cardstock: These cards are a different shape than the standard tarot card, a bit more square, more like some oracle decks I own, but larger than poker size – approximately 4 inches x 3 inches. They have a semi-matte texture, and they riffle shuffle pretty well. My only complaint any the cardstock is that small dings to the edges tend to expose the white of the card interior, which is in sharp contrast to the black face of the cards. But one could always take a sharpie to the edges.

Artwork: The artwork is very minimalist, tarot symbology pared down and distilled to its key essences. The minor cards are mostly pips, but arranged in an evocative manner with the occasional additional symbol, like an alchemical elemental triangle, and the heart in the Three of Swords. The Majors have more detailed images but still usually one main element: a flower bulb for The Hermit, lines on a person’s palm for Judgement, an ouroboros for Death.

Book: The booklet is very short and has very small font but manages to pack some really good keywords for upright and reversal readings of all the cards. It also has a very brief explanation of tarot in general, and two spreads: past/present/future, and a Celtic Cross. There is also a full sized guide book, but I haven’t purchased that (yet?) and can’t speak to its contents or quality.

Likes: I think that this deck really does what it set out to do: be a minimalist black and white, very readable deck. It fills its aesthetic niche very, very well. I also think that the inclusion of a second Fool card, so that there’s one for the beginning of the journey and one for the conclusion is a really interesting touch.

Dislikes: I think I might’ve liked these cards better if they were actually poker sized and if the edges were bonded or coated somehow but those are really very minor detractions and very personal preferences.

Overall Recommendation

I do really like this deck, I think it’s a great addition to my collection and really is the best of the black and white decks I was looking at with more minimalist artwork. It’s a nice counterpoint to some of my busier fantasy art decks. But I’m not sure I’d recommend this deck for a newbie reader or for someone reads more intuitively based on what in the artwork draws their eye. A newbie reader might be able to learn with this deck if they also buy the full sized guide book, but without having seen the book I couldn’t say for sure.

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