Tag: tarot deck

  • Choosing a tarot deck for yourself.

    It is easy to see why people hesitate about buying their first tarot deck or adding another deck to their collection. It’s hard to predict before using it whether or not a particular tarot deck will work for you in the long-term. This is normal because tarot is a tool. If I am a carpenter,…

  • Introduction to the Wooden Tarot Series

    Introduction to the Wooden Tarot Series

    The Wooden Tarot is a 79-card self-published tarot deck by Atlanta-based artist A. L. Swartz in 2014(?). The deck was conceived in the Rider-Waite-Smith tradition, but Swartz’s unique style and artistic preoccupations make this deck a big departure from  mainstream visual tarot traditions. The Wooden Tarot features no human beings, with the exception of a…

  • The Wooden Tarot: Suit of Plumes 6-10

    The Wooden Tarot: Suit of Plumes 6-10

    This is part of an ongoing series in which I write about my interpretations of the cards in A.L. Swartz’s Wooden Tarot. You can find the other posts here. Six of Plumes A Common Mallard swims away, looking over his shoulder with two eyes on the same side of his head. Six dark-brown feathers trail…

  • The Wooden Tarot: Suit of Plumes 2-5

    The Wooden Tarot: Suit of Plumes 2-5

    This is part of an ongoing series in which I write about my interpretations of the cards in A.L. Swartz’s Wooden Tarot. You can find the other posts here. Two of Plumes Two partially folded, white-gray wings appear on either side of a waxing crescent moon. Above it floats a lemniscate. As with the other…

  • The Wooden Tarot: Introduction to the Suit of Plumes

    The Wooden Tarot: Introduction to the Suit of Plumes

    This is part of an ongoing series in which I write about my interpretations of the cards in A.L. Swartz’s Wooden Tarot. You can find the other posts here. Air/Swords/Plumes In both the Suits of Stones and Plumes of the Wooden Tarot, it almost seems as if there are two suit symbols. In the case…

  • The Wooden Tarot: Suit of Blooms 2-5

    The Wooden Tarot: Suit of Blooms 2-5

    This is part of an ongoing series in which I write about my interpretations of the cards in A.L. Swartz’s Wooden Tarot. You can find the other posts here. Yes, I’m going through these quite quickly because I want to keep up the momentum (and also finish them while I have time off of work…

  • The Wooden Tarot: Suit of Bones 2-5

    The Wooden Tarot: Suit of Bones 2-5

    This is part of an ongoing series in which I write about my interpretations of the cards in A.L. Swartz’s Wooden Tarot. You can find the other posts here. I think this set of cards may be the most sparsely illustrated in the entire deck, which is both freeing and intimidating. The Wooden Tarot, while…

  • Some First Thoughts on the Thoth Tarot

    Some First Thoughts on the Thoth Tarot

    When I first began reading about tarot, I came across references to the Thoth deck and was not interested at all. A deck by Aleister Crowley about some Egyptian god? I’ll pass. But one day a few months later, I googled the deck for some reason and was amazed by what came up on image…

  • The $2 Deck Wrap

    The $2 Deck Wrap

    One thing I can say for sure is that many of the rituals surrounding storing and “cleansing” tarot decks really don’t appeal to me. Sometimes my die-hard skeptic comes out and I’m like–“There is no way I’m going to waste a bunch of salt or sage on a tarot placebo.” The same goes for the…

  • The Slow Holler Tarot Deck

    OK ok. After giving myself a hard time about backing the Linestrider Tarot deck (which has been fully funded and will probably begin to ship a few weeks ahead of schedule, yay!) I found yet another deck which I couldn’t resist: the Slow Holler deck. This deck is still in the funding process and honestly…