This video is part of a companion course series leading up to the release of my third book, I Ching, The Oracle. I’ve covered this topic previously here, “Mysterious Lady of the Ninth Heaven (Jiu Tian Xuan Nü, 九天玄女).” However, given the personal relevance, we’re revisiting the Lady of the Nine Heavens, now within the context of my Purpose for publishing this new translation of the Book of Changes.
Yesterday I was invited to live-chat with the Three Fat Readers and one of the topics that came up was deck personification. You can watch a replay of it here.
The timing of our sit-down together coincided with a greater conversation that’s been trending in our community as of late. Tarot Readings From a Bitch covers the controversy succinctly here and gets the ball rolling by asking the question.
I very much enjoyed ScholarBot’s perspective and explanation for not personifying tarot decks, linked here.
Robyn’s Reflections shares why and how she personifies some decks and not others here.
Lisa and Dawn Michelle chat about deck personification here.
This particular issue recycles in the tarot community every so often, so if you go back five years, you can see this video by Katey Flowers on personifying tarot decks.
Since the opening premise of the tarot deck I created, the Spirit Keeper’s Tarot, was to explore and experiment with the concept of animism, I thought I might chime in. To that end, I’d like to separate out the discussion on deck personification and the discussion on animism.
Continue reading “Tarot Deck Personification (cf. Animism?)”
This is just a flip-through first impressions look-see of the Earth Magick Tarot by Daniel Martin Diaz. So I won’t delve too much into commentary. We’re here for the pretty pictures. =)
Continue reading “Earth Magick Tarot by Daniel Martin Diaz: Hermetic Prophecies”
This video lecture course is an overview of the eight trigrams (八卦, Bā Guà). It is part of a companion course series leading up to the release of my third book, I Ching, The Oracle.
Timestamps provided in the video description box (you’ll have to watch on the YouTube platform). Apologies, the editing and audio are a bit choppy. The timing of the slides and voiceover narration are off in a few places.
I was gifted this deck by the creatrix while at the Omega Institute Masters of the Tarot Conference and thought it might be fun to write up a first impressions walk-through. This is the Abstract Futures Tarot, illustrated by Dannielle Tegeder and Sharmistha Ray who together, make up Hilma’s Ghost. Tegeder and Ray are both Brooklyn-based avant-garde artists.
Hilma’s Ghost produces art that is conducting “experimental pedagogy, transcultural dialogue, and collectivity through the lens of feminism and spirituality to build community and reckon with patriarchal art histories that have excluded women, trans, and nonbinary practitioners.”
A batch of the printed LWBs (Little White Booklets) have a pagination error. After page 22, it jumps to page 55. Fortunately it’s just a small batch. Most of the LWBs should be fine and when we did our QA-check, none of them turned up with this problem, so we think the impact should be fairly minimal.
In the mishap, after the 22 to 55 jump, the page jumps again at 86, jumping back to 55. (Total page count of the LWB is 88 pages.)
As far as we can tell, only a small batch of LWBs were printed with this mishap, and it’s the same mishap in all of them– after page 22 it jumps to page 55…
…then it continues from 55 to 86, and then after 86 it jumps back to page 55 again…
If you received a Little White Booklet with this page 22 to 55 pagination mishap, please e-mail us at abelldelivers (at) gmail (dot) com as soon as possible. We’ll gladly replace your LWB if you notify us of the issue within 30 days of receipt of your deck, if you purchased it directly from us. For this issue, we can even extend it to 60 days.
We are trying to assess the scope of the problem before contacting our factory. So please check your LWB. Also, if you have any friends who purchased an SKT Revelation second printing, please tell them about this issue and have them check their LWBs, too.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
The Symbolic Soul Tarot is a black, white, and gold deck that’s brimming with Expressionist mystique. It was released late last year in 2022 by Lo Scarabeo. The artwork is by Italian illustrator Elisa Seitzinger, and the companion booklet written by one of our favorite Llewellyn editors Barbara Moore.
Packaged in a unique two-piece box structure departing from Lo Scarabeo’s norm, the production value is indie-reminiscent. The luxe, matte finish cardstock with metallic gold accents will tantalize.
I don’t know why or how drawing the First Edition of the SKT was a dream-like experience and even the digital coloring process for the Revelation went along at good momentum and a consistent rate of progress, but then here with the Etteilla art project, it has been SO… @#$%^&… EFFING…. $#$@!!… HAAARRRRD!!!
And I can’t even articulate to you what about the process is harder.
Even though both the SKT and this Etteilla are solo indie projects, the SKT illustrations felt like channeling and downloading, whereas these Etteilla illustrations feel like I’ve been commissioned to do the work and there’s some tension, push and pull between whoever is masterminding the project and me, the commissioned illustrator.
With the SKT, anything and every element that needed to be aligned was aligned. With this Etteilla, I dunno… that’s not how it feels at all.
I use the commissioned art analogy because based on what I’ve heard from artist friends about that experience of being commissioned to create someone else’s vision, that slog is exactly how this effort feels.
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