Deck Review: New Orleans Voodoo Tarot

I recently became aware of this deck (by Louis Martinie, Sallie Ann Glassman/Destiny Books) through a Facebook forum post that I read, and I was intrigued - I've considered some Orishas and Lucumi decks in the past, but I wasn't impressed with any I saw. This was a Voodoo deck, but there are many parallels between Voodoo and Santería, so I wanted to learn more. Upon doing some light investigation I found that the deck art was created by a Mambo (priestess) of New Orleans-style Voodoo, and she had in fact incorporated Santería into the deck! While many reviews I read were positive, I saw some potent criticisms as well.  Since I was so pulled in by this deck, I decided to find out for myself what it was all about….

This deck has 22 Majors and 56 Minors for a complete 78 card deck. The Majors embrace aspects of Voodoo that pair closely with traditionally understood meanings of each card. For example the Fool card is called the World Egg, and represents the beginning of creation, unformed energy full of promise. I adore this representation of Fool energy, and it works very well with its "zero" numbering. The Wheel of Fortune is called the "Market" and depicts exactly what you would imagine - an outdoor market of vendors meant to symbolize the ebb and flow of the resources on which our lives depend. A creature that looks a bit like Anubis stands in the center of the circle of tables, arms outstretched. The image is shown from almost a bird's-eye view, and the vendors are arranged in a circle, which maintains the sense of cyclical movement. One of my favorites is XV Courir le Mardi Gras. This card carries energy of Pan and the Wild Hunt, and depicts the Mardi Gras Run held in southwestern Louisiana on Fat Tuesday.

New Orleans Voodoo Tarot
Martinie/Glassman

The Minors are separated into four suits, and three bear the names of different branches of Voodoo, while the fourth represents Santería - a neighboring religion stemming primarily from Cuba (whereas Caribbean Voodoo developed in Haiti). Rada is Air, Congo is Water, Petro is Fire, and Santería is Earth. For the three Voodoo branches, Kings are the "Houngans" (priests), Queens are "Mambos" (priestesses), Princes are called "la Place" (masters of ceremonies that serve the houngans and mambos), and Princesses are "Hounsi" (female ceremonial servers). For the suit of Santería, the King is "Santero" (initiated male), the Queen is "Santera"(initiated female), the Prince is "Oriaté" (priest in Lucumi prayers) and the Princess is "Yaguó" (initiate). Many cards carry meanings close to the traditional, though some are significantly different. For instance 1 Congo (Ace of Cups) is about the flow of pure emotion and happiness. On the other hand 9 Rada (9 of Swords) speaks of messengers between earth and spirit, and even can signify house moves.

New Orleans Voodoo Tarot
Martinie/Glassman

Even for people who practice Santería or Voodoo, or are interested in African-diasporic religions and spiritual systems, this deck doesn't satisfy everyone's tastes. Some critics have denounced the inclusion of Santería in this deck (I however appreciate it). Yes, there are significant differences between Voodoo and Santería, however I don't feel it takes away from Voodoo, and it honors a closely-related spiritual system that has experienced a very similar history, creating what I consider to be a lovely complement. Other issues relate to some small but important differences in the presentation of certain lwa (also called "loa" - the spirits of Voodoo), or orishas (the important spirits/saints in Santería). For example, Eleggua in Santería is typically understood to be a small boy. In this deck the book calls it a small girl. There is no explanation for this change, however I don't feel the image is difficult to work with - if I think of Eleggua as a boy (and I do), the picture on the card definitely can be seen as a boy.  Another issue is the depiction of Damballah Wedo, from Voodoo. One of the cards in the deck shows Damballah Wedo as a red snake, which seems to have upset some people due to the traditional and sacred association with the color white. (There are other cards in the deck that show this deity as a white snake). I wrote to a practicing Mambo to inquire about this issue after learning that she uses this particular deck regularly. She told me that this deviance was in part an artistic interpretation, and in part was due to the way in which spirits appear to people in different ways. She said that Damballah Wedo might appear to me as a green snake, and to my friend as a purple snake. That made sense to me, and satisfied my curiosity.

Lukumí is my religion and that of my husband, our children, friends, and extended family both in the United States and in Cuba. While I love this deck, I wanted my husband's opinion as well. After looking through the deck, he's also given it his seal of approval. He saw the child on the Eleggua card as male (I didn't tell him about the book description!). His only hang-up was the fact that the Olofi card shows the image of a pregnant woman, when this manifestation of God-on-Earth is often seen as male (there are some practitioners that see Olofi as female). I read the book entry and it says that Olofi's creation-energy was combined with Earth energy, leading to the use of the symbol of the pregnant woman. It did not say that Olofi was female or male, or that the image itself was supposed to be Olofi. So no matter how you conceive of Olofi, there is room for interpretation in this card.

New Orleans Voodoo Tarot
Martinie/Glassman

The artwork in this deck is beautiful, and looks to be perhaps color pencil or oil pastel, on excellent card stock. The energy reminds me somewhat of that of the Wildwood Tarot in that it carries a deep, shamanic feel that appeals to me and my spiritual worldview. In fact the only two decks I've worked with, to date, that have caused a tingling sensation in my crown chakra upon working with them have been these two (yes, cards are "just" ink on paper, but some decks reach into us more profoundly than others). The drawings are colorful, soft, flowing, textured and rich, and most cards maintain the right balance between simplicity and complexity of detail that help engage intuition.

So how does it read? Well, I've done one reading with it so far, and it was stunning. I found that I seemed to read almost exclusively using intuition, and that, in part, may be due to the different correspondences and energies of this deck. For instance, Yemayá was one of the cards. She is the orisha of the ocean and motherhood, and I know her as deeply connected to water, which is represented in the card image as well. But her suit, Santería, is connected to the earth element. I honestly didn't pay much attention to the number or element. Yemayá was the only thing that mattered, and she gave deep meaning to the reading I was doing.  Another card was the Hounsi of Congo (Page/Princess of Cups). The picture of a young person pouring water out of a vessel melded with the cards on either side, creating a sacred story. The traditional Page meaning provided insights, but the image itself and its connection with the others in the reading spoke loudest of all. The colors and images flowed together, and provided such depth of meaning - it was beautiful "conversation" of sorts.

This is a special deck for me, and one I look very forward to reading with, and further connecting with. For readers interested in or connected to shamanic practice, or African-diasporic spirituality, this deck is a valuable one to own and work with. As there are a few non-traditional elements to some of the depictions and representations, it would be beneficial for the reader to either already have an understanding of Voodoo and/or Santería, or be willing to study it in addition to careful review of the accompanying book (which is hefty and quite nice). There is great wisdom available here, just waiting to be tapped.

My Favorite Lenormand Deck (so far!)

My very first Lenormand deck was the Gilded Reverie, by Ciro Marchetti, an early Christmas present from my husband. I loved it. And I still love it. Not only are the stylized images very clear and beautiful, the size of the cards is perfect. Many Lenormand decks tend to run a bit small because the largest common spread is the Grand Tableau (GT) which utilizes all 36 cards; if you have large cards, there are few large-enough work spaces aside from the floor in which to set them out (and the floor is a'ight but not ideal!). The Gilded Reverie card size is larger than most Lenormands, but still small enough to be workable in a GT. And I love cards produced by US Games - they are by far my favorite in terms of the quality of card stock.

I have two other Lenormand decks - soon to be four (I can't wait to receive the Vintage Lenormand by Kendra Hurteau very soon!). One is Caitlin Matthews' Enchanted Lenormand, and the other is the Blaue Eule, a very traditional deck. Both of these decks are pretty small - not much larger than a mini-Tarot deck I have - and in my case this is not always preferable for shuffling because I have hands that are a bit on the larger side of average!  I must admit I never use my Blaue Eule, and don't really like it very much. Despite its size, I really like the Enchanted Lenormand, and the card stock is really high quality - it's durable, thick, smooth, easy to shuffle - all the good stuff.

Enchanted Lenormand - Caitlin Matthews

So in a fight between Gilded Reverie and Enchanted Lenormand, which would win?

The Enchanted Lenormand gets the gold. One of my main complaints about the Gilded Reverie is that after some use the golden edges have started to split apart on some of the cards, forcing me to resort to super glue (and narrowly avoiding laminating to card to my skin in the process!) - what's up with that, US Games?? It's been really the biggest let-down with this deck, which is sad because its small carrying box is excellent and so portable. While the Enchanted comes in a large box, I'll simply have to dig up a little bag for it. Furthermore, I really enjoy the hand drawn artwork on the Enchanted deck. The Sun really leaps off the card, and the expression on its face is of pure joy.

Perhaps my favorite deck will change as I accumulate more, but for now, the Enchanted Lenormand gets two, un-Superglued thumbs up.

An Infant in the Palm of the Universe

(This was a hard post for me to write, and I hope it makes sense, and also apologize if anything appears sloppy! One note - while this topic is relevant to all divination, I am specifically speaking about my learning experiences with the Lenormand system in this post)

One thing I've been wondering about lately is….our ethics as readers in terms of telling the truth of what we see, no matter what. Who are we to withhold information? This is sticky territory - what if I think I see something, but I'm not absolutely positive, so I don't act on it? What if I'm wrong? 

But what if I'm right? 

Yesterday on one of the Lenormand boards, a deck creator was giving away a free deck. In order to join the competition, you had to choose one out of the 36 cards. Once 36 people were signed up, the creator would randomly pick a card, and the person connected to that card would win. I chose Tree. I had a feeling I wasn't going to win. I decided to do a 3 card Lenormand draw on the very superficial question: "Will I win the deck?" I drew: Cross - Mice - Tree.  It couldn't have been clearer. NO WAY, NOT GONNA HAPPEN! Actually it was SO clear that I burst out laughing.  So then I decided to draw a card asking which would be the winner. I drew the Lily, and left it at that. An hour or so later I dropped back in to the forum and the winner had been chosen. And guess what? It was the LILY!!! I could not get over it. I was having all sorts of chills and tingles, I was so excited. Seriously? Out of 36 cards, my deck told me exactly who the winner would be. I still can't believe it, kind of. I feel confident in the quality and accuracy of my readings, but something about the odds, or the predictive nature of this experience really shocked me. I really didn't believe it would be the Lily. And it was.

So then I started thinking about predictions, and about the future. We often say, as readers, that the "future is set in sand." It can be tricky to accurately see what's to come because there are often so many factors that influence what will happen, and even if we foresee a particular event, there's always a chance it may not come to pass. And I do believe that. Most of our life situations are far more complicated than "which card will win the deck?" Nevertheless, I started to wonder just how much of the future is fairly pre-determined, and how much is open to being manipulated or altered.  I believe in Free Will, and I also believe that some things aren't meant to be known (when this happens I often pull the High Priestess, or even sometimes the Wheel of Fortune). 

Now onto something more serious. I did a Lenormand GT for a family member around Christmas time, a sort of "year ahead" kind of predictive outlook. I saw his mother becoming very ill, I saw his sister perhaps knowing of the illness but not being forthcoming with the information, and I saw my loved one taking a sudden trip home due to this issue. I saw a pretty dire set of circumstances. I didn't say anything about it because…what if I was wrong? I can't pass on this kind of news! I said nothing to him, though I did mention it to my mother at the time, in confidence.

Time passed and I became busy with other things. A reader friend of mine is studying a new divination method using cards and just last night offered to read for me for practice. I happily obliged, and asked her some questions about work. When she finished she sent me the results and said "Olivia, I hate to say this, but I didn't see a lot about work - I saw that someone in your family is going through a hard time, and there may be an serious illness coming up really soon." I sighed, and told her about the GT, though as of yesterday there were no signs of any developments in this regard. I decided that today I would do some investigating, send an email to my family member's sister to check things out. I never had the chance. My dear loved one sent me a message this afternoon informing me that his sister just called to report that his mother is ill and he is planning a sudden trip home. 

What control do we have, or should we have, as readers, regarding the information we see? Maybe I could have been wrong, maybe my reader friend could have been wrong. But we weren't. What if I had told my loved one of this possibility at Christmas time? He might have been able to prepare, even financially, for this turn of events. But what if I had been wrong? What if I had told him and caused undue worry and concern? Do I have a responsibility to say what I see, even if I fear I might be wrong? Or is that I'm afraid I might be right? Who am I to see something and choose not to report it? I am really just an infant in the palm of the universe. 

There are a lot of questions I'm pondering now, and I don't have answers for any of them. Maybe we *could* have been wrong, but we were not wrong. We sometimes doubt ourselves - doubt our ability, doubt our interpretations, doubt the permanency of the messages we see when high-stakes issues are on the table. What is our responsibility? 

This is something I'll be turning over and over in the days to come.

Soul Essence

I was having a 6 of Cups moment…. remembering back to how I experienced life as a kid, how I experienced myself.  I was thinking about how we change as we grow older, as we experience life in all its pain and ecstasy, and how still, at our very center, there's a critical element that never changes, our soul essence. 

For many years I struggled with who and what I would be when I grew up. I studied Anthropology during my first stint at university because it was the only major that appealed to me… the culture, language, humanity, spirituality. I'm glad for my degree but even Anthropology wasn't entirely "it." I went to graduate school for linguistics…super interesting, and yet I still felt lost. I remember walking with Jorge (my husband) one afternoon a few years ago, talking about this frustration, this sense that I still (after two college degrees and the development of a fine teaching career) felt like I couldn't pin my finger on what I was really supposed to be doing. So many people dive head first into their lives and seem to know just what to do. I envied those people who found an educational and career path that deeply fulfilled them. 

As a kid I always lived with one foot in the spirit world, and the other on the earth. What do you do with that? I told Jorge, "You know, what I really feel is that if we lived hundreds of years ago, we'd be those people serving as herbalists or shamanic practitioners. But we don't live in that world. We live in a different place where we have to choose from other paths that don't fit us quite right." This was a time when I had no idea that people read Tarot for a living, or even practiced shamanism as part of their life's work. I really understood it to be a closed door. That didn't stop me from dabbling in divination, dream interpretation, or from being keenly aware of the beauty of intuitive messages, but I certainly didn't have a focus for any of that exploration.

I read Siddhartha (Herman Hesse) in college and felt so deeply connected to his story, in terms of the way in which he sort of strayed from his path (I'm not sure "stray" is the right word) and delved deeply into the material world for long years before stumbling back toward his purpose. I always hoped that I, too, would figure out what the hell I was supposed to really be doing. I set my deep connection to spirituality aside for years as I pursued my Master's degree, expanded my family, developed my career. Only within the last year have I been pulled back, through an interesting series of events, and I've been feeling grateful for that. I've felt happier than I have in years, and I feel I'm much more closely aligned to my true path now than I ever have before… at least since I was very young. I don't regret anything - working in the material world helps us grow roots, get our hands dirty, and I think being grounded is essential - a prerequisite of sorts - to making spiritual progress. Nothing is more grounding than having kids! I had to "leave the path" for a while in order to end up where I am now. And I'm grateful for that, too.

So I was sitting and playing with my cards the other day, pondering all of this, and I decided to lay out some cards around "my soul essence." I pulled the King of Cups, the 4 of Cups reversed, and the King of Wands reversed, with the Knight of Cups as the "shadow" card (from the bottom of the deck). Wow, a lot of court cards!! 

Golden Tarot - Kat Black
US Games

The Knight felt to me like spiritual pursuit, and I suppose that at my core that is the path I've always been walking. Learning, growing, expanding, falling off the horse a few times, getting back on, making mistakes, struggling, developing.

The King of Cups is master of emotions, a healer, wise, patient, calm and gentle, sensitive but grounded. A couple of months ago my mom bought me a clay tile with a heron on it in honor of the King of Vessels from the Wildwood Tarot, to whom she seems to feel I'm connected. I was really happy about the gift, and I love the Heron and its symbolism, but I remember wondering why she thought I was particularly connected to that energy. Then I thought back and remembered a friend reading for me back in the autumn, and pulling the King of Cups for me, which at the time I was intrigued by, because I don't automatically associate that card with myself. So seeing this King, all of that came flooding into my mind. I'd love to think of myself this way, though usually I think of myself as the Hermit - less outwardly engaged than a King tends to be. But healing has always been a deep passion of mine, and I do feel I'm pretty even-keeled emotionally. I love to support everyone's endeavors, hear all opinions and perspectives, though I also am clear when I feel something is off-balance and needs to be addressed. And in some way I'm not quite as nurturing as a Queen (I've always felt like this was a bad thing, like a weak point, but maybe it's just how I function??). 

The King of Wands was interesting to see, and this King has also come up for me before (what's with all the King energy??). It's reversed and that makes sense to me, because fire is not my cup of tea. In fact I'm currently working on exploring this energy, developing my leadership abilities, my inner fire, my self-confidence, and the ability to be outspokenly "me."  I'm not outspoken, usually. I'm pretty quiet in general, and I'm probably over-sensitive to stepping on toes, or not being liked. I'm learning that in order to develop inner balance I need to be okay with not pleasing everyone. It's an impossible task anyway! 

The combination of these two kings is interesting in that in a sense it's uniting polar opposites, water and fire. For the past year I've received a lot of 2 Cups/Lovers....uniting the two within me, balancing passive energy with active. Passivity is my comfort zone. The King of Wands is also about career and spirituality, which is interesting because I'm in the process of shifting my career from teaching to divination, and it's very much underdeveloped, raw energy at this point. The reversal is very appropriate.

So then the 4 of Cups serves a bridge from passive energy to active energy. When I saw this card I thought "late bloomer." It touches on my tendency to be emotionally separate/quiet/withdrawn in terms of expressiveness, and starting to learn to reach out. One of Mary Greer's meanings for the 4 of Cups reversed is "the practice of divination." How fitting!  I'm moving from passive Cups energy to active Wands energy, engaging the world through the practice of divination. It's a way of tapping into my core nature and allowing it to become the focus of my life rather than settling for it always being on the back burner. 

Personal readings like this can be deeply healing and affirming. This reading will be tucked away somewhere easily accessible so that when I'm having moments of frustration or self-doubt I can pull it out and remind myself that I'm doing the right thing.

So what's your soul essence? How are you utilizing it in your active, daily life? Do you feel you are paying enough attention to who you truly are? How can you honor yourself more intentionally? If you choose to read on the topic of your soul essence, I'd love to hear what you get, and how it touches you!

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The Wheel of Fortune (Upright) Ain't Always Good Luck

So often I see people treat the Wheel of Fortune as a "good luck" card, when upright. This is opposed to the reversal, which tends to indicate that things are out of control, or flowing forward in a negative manner.

The thing is that "negative" is subjective. While I do feel that reversed the Wheel suggests the possibility for harmful, or truly challenging, elements to crop up in a particular situation, I tend to see the Wheel of Fortune as a rather neutral card when upright - not necessarily always indicative of great things to come. Not to say that a great upswing is not "in the cards" - it may be. But just maybe you'll be disappointed by the outcome of the upright Wheel, and that doesn't mean that the resulting circumstance is negative.

Halloween Tarot/US Games
Karin Lee, Kipling Scott

The Wheel is about ups and downs, and more than that, it's about the unpredictability of life. Perhaps you don't get what you want after all. But is that a bad thing? Maybe not! Perhaps life takes you off in some other direction you never imagined, and at first it feels foreign and confusing, but in the end it brings you to a fruitful place for your development. Perhaps the fellow you're dating suddenly disappears off the face of the earth. Maybe that's not the direction you were hoping for, but it was "right" for him, and as a result is better for you (who wants to be in a relationship with someone who's not equally invested?). Perhaps the Wheel simply means that things will be hard to pin down, and that you should expect the unexpected.

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Cards I Don't Love to See in Love Readings (Part 2)

Here we go again! In my last post I discussed the Hierophant energy in love readings, and how it definitely makes me cautious. Today I thought I'd talk about the trusty 3 of Pentacles! What's wrong with this card, you ask? Nothing, really, it's a perfectly nice card…. in a career reading this is a great sign of project expansion, teamwork, appreciation, and indicates that the groundwork for a plan has been successfully lain - now it's time to keep on building!  When applied to a love situation, it would seem that a similar vibe would be true: love requires the focus and attention of the couple; the foundation of the relationship is set, and it's time to move forward toward mutual goals - or hey - maybe the couple even works together!

DruidCraft Tarot
Philip and Stephanie Carr-Gomm
Will Worthington

Yeah….but no. I'm not hating on this card, or denying the fact that in some cases it can refer to positive and uplifting teamwork in a relationship. I'm simply saying that in many cases I've experienced the 3 of Pentacles as a gentle warning that there's a third "something" involved in the relationship. This doesn't necessarily have to represent a third person, but it does represent some issue that puts pressure on the development of the couple. This could be an issue of jealousy, important responsibilities that could detract from time spent together, or it could simply mean that how well a couple's puzzle pieces fit together has yet to be determined. Perhaps one person is very interested in taking things to the next level, while the other is still trying to keep things a little more "open" for the time being. So while it's not at all a "bad" card, it always makes me hesitate and take a very careful look at the message that the rest of the reading is giving off. It usually indicates the need for increased dialogue about what each person wants from the union.

A final note: I work with reversals, and in these "Cards I Don't Love to See" posts I am referring to upright cards. I will have to write a separate post about the intricacies of those feisty reversals-vs.-uprights in the future :)

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Cards I Don't Love to See in Love Readings (Part 1)

I've had a higher-than-usual number of romance readings in the past week, and it's had me thinking about lovely, and not-so-lovely cards for love. There are a lot of cards in a Tarot deck, and all offer a range of challenging-to-pleasant meanings (some admittedly much more/less pleasant than others!). There are cards that tend to provoke visceral, negative reactions in us at first sight - the Tower, 10 of Swords, 3 of Swords, to name a few. And then there are some cards that seem fairly positive at first glance, but which I often find hold difficult energy when they pop up in a love reading. There are several cards that fall into this category, but in this post I'm only going to cover one: the Hierophant.

The Hierophant

Golden Tarot/Kat Black
US Games

This is a card that many associate with "marriage," and it's fair to say that that can be one of its meanings. This is a card I feel represents teaching and learning, structured beliefs, grounded and ancestral spirituality, and group-related activity. This might seem promising as an outcome card in a love reading where the querent wants to know if a relationship will reconcile, or develop into something significant, and in certain cases it may well suggest such a positive possibility. However in most cases I've found the Hierophant to be something a bit less promising. In some instances it has shown up as a rather rigid person who is so focused on traditional roles and/or community pressure that he/she either proves to be a difficult partner, or simply isn't willing to pursue a deeper relationship with the querent. In other cases it's appeared in readings where the querent was involved, or considering involvement, with a married person. In this context it usually indicated that the married-person-in-question would remain loyal to his/her marriage when all was said and done, leading to the demise of the querent's relationship. So while it might be tempting to see the Hierophant and think "marriage, making it official," etc., it pays to be very careful with this card, and to take into very close account the other cards in the spread, and the overall feel that the reading is giving off.

..to be continued…!

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