Kaostic Tarot 020
more of a mood than a science…
Hello Darlings,
Week after week you’re showing up for this newsletter and it would be an understatement to say it’s bringing me joy to write it. As the weeks fly by I notice more what I’m pulled to. What I ruminate on. And what I’m avoiding.
I set out to send you a newsletter with a tarot spread to try each week and I started featuring the decks as a side quest. Turns out making and researching spreads isn’t nearly as interesting to me as the cards themselves.
So while I will still be providing some prompting on a spread or practice to keep you and your cards connected, honestly this has become about the decks just as much. No big change, just some self-awareness shared with you since y’all are on this journey with me.
The Spread…
I call this one the drift catcher…
When summer well and truly shows up, I tend to forget my north star and nestle into the moment-to-moment pulse the hot days seem to lend. This is a simple three-card spread to help align our focus without rejecting the spontaneity of summer.
Easy as one, two, three…
1. Your focus — your north star right now.
2. Your anchor — what keeps you tethered to that focus.
3. Summer’s offering — what the season is doing to support your path.
Elsewhere…
If you happen to live on the East Coast of the US, it’s worth noting there’s an amazing (I assume, I haven’t been yet) exhibit open now through October 4 at The Morgan Library & Museum: Tarot! Renaissance Symbols, Modern Visions. We’re planning a trip to see it in September. As far as excuses to visit NYC, this is a good one. But if you get the chance to go before I do, please tell me absolutely everything.
Lauren Bee at Girlfolk wrote A Popular Tarot Reader Quit. The Internet Crucified Her. — I appreciated her thoughtful summation and framing of the issue.
Deck Context…
When I first found today’s deck, I had drifted from tarot. Not in a booo, you suck and aren’t for me kind of way. More in a life is hard kind of way, and the longer I lived the more responsibility seemed to pile on top of me. But in order to bear the weight of all of those additional responsibilities and expectations, it seems like I had to lose some things along the way.
So it shouldn’t surprise me that, looking back, tarot was one of the pieces that were lost along my way.
But then I saw this card.
Everything about it was for me. Right then. Right there. I can’t remember for the life of me where or how I saw it, but I needed to have that deck in hand immediately, or as soon as humanly possible.
I procured it in a morally irresponsible manner, which means I bought it online from the big evil empire. I wish it weren’t so but it was.
It met me where I was. That’s not nothing.
The Deck…
Modern Witch Tarot Deck
Created by: Lisa Sterle
Published by: Sterling Ethos
Published: 2019
Card Count: 78 + 1 bonus card (”Everything is Fine” alternate Ten of Swords)
Suits: Cups, Pentacles, Swords, Wands
Major Arcana: Traditional
On the cards: Fully illustrated scenes (RWS-style storytelling on every card), name and number in the card frame
Comes with: A tiny hardbound guidebook
Gore: none
Sex: none
Representation: Double Rainbow
Vibe: Rainbow Matriarchy
5 years, 24 weeks, and 0 days ago I ordered this deck online, and I’m pretty sure it was next-day delivery. I have impulse control issues, and I really needed a win.
Looking back, I’m a little surprised that this is the first time I ever ordered a tarot deck online. Since then I’ve ordered a couple hundred. But acquiring lots is weird like that.
The Modern Witch Tarot is one that keeps showing up. The first time it arrived with a lot, I couldn’t contain my joy. I wanted it in the mixed deck project so desperately that I had to fight off the urge to donate mine to the mix. *Cami… you use that deck. You love that deck.* So when it arrived, I swooped it up, made sure it was clean and happy and ready to go, and immediately sorted out the 78 cards into their special little spots — and one into the pile of cards I carry around with me as a size guide and also because they’re cool.
The second time this deck came through, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it. It’s perfect. Something needed to happen. And then we got new neighbors and the house contained not just one but two teenagers who were receptive to tarot, so with the permission of their mom (Hi), I sent over two tarot decks — this deck and the deck I’ll give away the last week of July. I was so happy to share it, I think I squeaked all the way home after dropping it off in a bag on their porch.
But then another one arrived.
I’m not going to lie, I have this little hoarder streak to me. Who knows what it is. The collector in me. I also buy multiple copies of the same shirts, dresses, bras, underwear, and socks just in case they stop making the ones I like. (Yes, it is shocking that I’m autistic. There were no signs.) And there was a part of my brain that was like what if something happens to our copy.
But this specific deck — the one you see in these photos — came in with a lot from Goodwill. Perfect shape, the little book still here, the flawless bonus card. I sat with it in meditation, two of my favorite incenses burning. I shuffled it like a little deck of playing cards because I could and sometimes that’s really satisfying. And I decided I’d find it a home. Because that’s the kind of love this deck brings out in me.
Growing up, the spookiness and mysticism of the tarot was a huge draw. But as I got older and began to really absorb the utter and complete lack of diversity I was surrounded with as a white woman, I realized it was lacking. I looked at my own personal deck from my teens not too long ago and was reminded that it was telling a very homogenous story.
This deck doesn’t.
This deck maintains the tradition and grandiosity of tarot while moving past the homogeny that so many decks suffer from. Flipping through the cards presents you with a fucking rainbow of human representation. I like to think Pamela Colman Smith would have loved it. The only human experience I would say not given focus in this deck is cis men. And you know what, that’s cool with me. The world has catered so heavily to men and the power they wield that I think including your standard garden-variety man in the deck would have lost the trust of the people this deck was made for. Which is anyone who loves traditional tarot and thinks that it and the world have been whitewashed and pinned by patriarchy. No more.
On the tradition-without-the-baggage point: the one and only card that was renamed is the Hanged One. The Hanged Man, unless I’m very much mistaken, is the only card in the tarot that explicitly uses the word man. Taking it out was the natural path. And they didn’t change it into something exclusionary. They just brought it under the roof of inclusion.
The art is gorgeous, well done, but also that bright candy feeling of pop art. Little modern surprises like earbuds, laptops, cellphones, tattoos, cities, and hair dye make me feel even more seen and draw me deeper into a world that is just lovely to visit. The pictures are glossy and pretty but not so glossy they can’t be photographed or force you to see your own reflection.
Every card is the answer to why someone would love this deck. It’s the deck I recommend above literally all others.
Want One?
Want one of your very own? First make sure you don’t have a message from me saying that you won this copy… If you don’t, you can pick up Modern Witch Tarot Deck at Bookshop.org. That’s a Bookshop.org affiliate link — a small commission comes back to support this newsletter, and Bookshop.org’s whole model routes a percentage of every sale to independent bookstores. You buy a deck, three things happen at once.
The Giveaway…
These 5 decks came in used and mostly in lovely shape. I cleansed each one with care — incense curling, candles burning, a Q-tip in isopropyl alcohol and moonwater for the ones who needed it. I picked them from the salvage last month, each for a very specific reason. I don’t know why I want to do this but I do, so let’s go. This month we find out if one of these decks wants to be home with you.
Every subscriber is already entered to win once. If you refer a new reader, you get an additional entry, capped at thirteen entries per person. If you win one deck this month, you’re not eligible to win the others.
If your name comes up for a deck that’s already on your shelf or just isn’t your vibe, you can choose a mystery deck from my archives instead. Only subscribers with a US shipping address are eligible for physical decks, but if your name comes up and you’re not in the US, I will still reach out with some sort of prize.
Winners will be notified by end of day Friday.
That’s it…
I was already very wordy.
Love love love,
Cami
Wanna hang out between Fridays? Follow @kaostictarot on Instagram.
Our winner has been notified and seemed very pleased. Excited to do it again next week.
I’m sharing this with my kiddos. It’s so cool to learn more about the deck and how much you love it.