Creating the major arcana cards is probably going to be my biggest challenge. Out of the 22 cards, 9 of them are absolutely loaded with symbols relating to the abrahamic religious tradition.

In the same way that I want to leave out themes of feudalism and binary gender essentialism, I also want to find a way to make meaning of these cards while leaving out the four cherubim from Revelation, the rapture, angels, original sin, the devil.

Many of you know I’ve had a complicated relationship with spirituality having grown up in an authoritarian religion, Jehovah’s Witnesses. For a long time after I left, I didn’t have any spiritual beliefs or desire to connect with any.

Learning tarot, healing the wounds left by a high-control religion, and creating my own personal spiritual practice has opened up a whole new way of being for me.

So for now, I’m working out the major arcana that don’t have anything to do with the religious themes. Now that I think about it, it’s probably why I was drawn to make the Hanged One so early on.

The stage I’m at now with the major arcana is collecting figures that have the look and feel that I want for each card. Here are a few of the candidates for Death, The Fool (which I plan to rename), and The World.

Death

Potential figures for card 0—the Fool. I plan to rename this to reflect a quality of wide-eyed optimism or something like that. The Fool as an archetype has a much different connotation to me because of knowing so many of them from art history & literature! (I’ll make a post about that in the future)

Some potential imagery for The World. In the Colman-Smith deck this card also has the four cherubim from Revelation on the card but I think they’re simply there to denote the realm outside of The World so that should be an easy work-around. 

Will you pledge to support the creation of the deck? The stretch goal we’re working on now is the addition of 5 oracle cards to the deck and guidebook, and we are literally dollars from reaching it! Use the bio link when you’re ready to pledge!   Thank you to all of my new and current Patrons for helping make this happen! (Any current patrons who would like to increase their pledge can also do so here!)  ✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨