For those who are new to the Metaphysician’s Day Planner (MDP), this is a product description and walk-through.
My dedicated use of the MDP year to year has been essential to my success and also personal wellbeing. The organizer-planner is structured in such a way to inspire a holistic and comprehensive approach to the health of your mind, body, and spirit.
Continue reading “The Metaphysician’s Day Planner & Yearly Guidebook”
It’s that time of the year again, for the Metaphysician’s Day Planner. The 2023 Day Planner will be substantially the same as it was this year, 2022.
New to the MDP? CLICK HERE for a walk-through of its contents.
In short summary, it’s customized with your birth chart, 2023 solar returns chart (though I calibrate to the day, rather than to the sun’s degree), and the text you’d like on the interior first page. (Most people will customize their name here, a power word for the year, or a brief phrase.) This name or text is in Prompt #3 from the Order Form below.
This year there will be an optional $8 add-on that includes 4 videos:
Continue reading “2023 Metaphysician’s Day Planner: Pre-Order”
I’ve had a working draft of this blog post, on this topic, started in 2020, and already I was feeling late to it, since it was a topic trending in 2019. Life and other priorities got in the way so I left this draft unfinished.
In 2021 I started seeing this topic discussed with fervor again. It inspired me to reopen this post. I worked on it some more, but again, just didn’t care to finish my train of thought, for whatever reason.
Now it’s 2022 and this same exact topic of conversation in the tarot community is still going strong.
Maybe this time I can finally finish what I was trying to say. I’ll divide up my thoughts by the recurring subtopics or points of argument you hear when community members start talking about tarot deck collecting, culling, and consumerism.
To balance out the paragraphs of text, I’ll be sharing random photos of decks you’d spot around my house.
Continue reading “Tarot Deck Collecting and Consumerism: My Thoughts”
This is a deck walk-through of the Hummingbird Wisdom Oracle by Ellen Wolfson Valladares and illustrated by Yasmeen Westwood, who also created the Tarot of Enchanted Dreams.
Hummingbird Wisdom is a 44-card oracle deck with thematic phrases and call-to-action oracular messages. It’s like a life coach in a box.
Gentle and sweet, these cards inspire you to fully enjoy the nectar of life. The messages are affirming and inspiring. Here, you see the Powerful Warrior. This hummingbird’s message to you: Do not feel small. You are stronger, braver, and more valued than you know. It’s time to tap into your true source of power.
Continue reading “Hummingbird Wisdom Oracle by Ellen Valladares and Yasmeen Westwood”
Tarot for Real Life by Jack Chanek, published by Llewellyn Books, presents one of the best approaches to learning tarot that you can find. I love its focus on the Minor Arcana rather than the Majors, though it most certainly gives due treatment to the Majors as well.
The structure and layout of the book also makes it user-friendly, and the go-to reference you’ll want at your fingertips. If you’re looking up a specific card, there’s a separate table of contents in the front pages just for the 78 cards.
The meat of the book is subdivided into six parts: Practical, Intellectual, Emotional, Aspirational, Personal, and The Big Picture. Respectively they correspond with discussions on the suit of Pentacles, Swords, Cups, Wands, the court cards (under Personal), and the Major Arcana (under The Big Picture).
Continue reading “Tarot for Real Life by Jack Chanek – A Review”
Tarot Neocolonial de las Américas is one of the most impressive decks I’ve come across. Often, decks either have beautiful artwork but the substance isn’t there, or the substance is there and the art is mediocre. Puerto Rican American artist Patrick McGrath Muñiz has created a deck with delectable esoteric elements, expressing themes of colonialism, consumerism, and climate change, while still producing a tarot deck operable for divination.
Muñiz utilizes classical Renaissance, Baroque and Latin American colonial art styles that blend Christian iconography from colonial Latin America with contemporary consumer media subculture.
This will be a review of his Tarot Neocolonial de las Américas, but I strongly urge you to check out his portfolio of art. They’re incredible! His style is sociopolitical commentary and satire depicted through the blending of classical European art with alchemical and hermetic symbolism. Take, for instance, his work “Misteriorum Creationis Humani” (2018), oil on canvas.
Continue reading “Tarot Neocolonial de las Américas by Patrick McGrath Muñiz”
A Lenormand oracle deck for La Santa Muerte devotees, this beautifully crafted deck, both as thought form and fine art, will aid you in love, health, abundance, dealing with substance use, removing blockages, and working through legal troubles. Our Lady of the Holy Death is known for answering prayers that other saints will not; and likewise, this 38-card Lenormand oracle might take you where other Lenormand decks have not.
La Santa Muerte (Spanish for “Our Lady of the Holy Death”) is theorized to have originated from the Aztec deity Mictēcacihuātl, Goddess of Death. An alternate theory is a lineage to the Moirai of Greece, in the form of Parca Morta, the Fate of Death. La Parca is the feminized Grim Reaper dating back to the bubonic plague. Señora de la Noche, our Lady of the Night, is beloved and venerated by many communities across the Americas.
Continue reading “La Santa Muerte Lenormand by Dan M. Pelletier and Illustrated by Callie L. French”
I’ve gotten a bit undisciplined, or at the very least haphazard with the order I’m drawing these cards. I hop and skip around the deck, arbitrarily picking what to draw next based on my whims.
So here we are at the Wheel of Fortune.
I went with the 1870 Jeu de l’Oracle des Dames version of Card 20 for reference. The monkey king with a cape and sword situation didn’t really vibe with me.
Lady Fortuna as depicted in the illustration is a syncretizing of Haudenosaunee traditional indigenous patterns draped in a Greco-Roman style. (Update: I digitally fixed her left sleeve so it wouldn’t be so wonky looking.)
Continue reading “Wheel of Fortune, Three of Wands, Three of Cups: Etteilla Deck Art Update”
Oracle of Novice Witches is a 50-card deck featuring 24 witches and wizards from history and folklore, 13 tools of the craft, and 13 animal familiars. The deck was created by Francesca Matteoni and with art by Elisa Macellari.
The full-color guidebook accompanying the cards features a profile summary of every witch and wizard depicted. Entries for the tools of craft define each tool’s purpose and how it’s generally used. For the familiars, animal symbolism and correspondences are provided.
With a berry and jewel toned color palette, The Art of Adventure Tarot is a space-faring sci-fi graphic novel in the form of a 78-card tarot deck. The deck is the brainchild of Pakistani filmmaker Bilal Lashari and illustrated by Manuel Pasmino.
This fun-filled deck is a little bit of everything. You get Victorian Steampunk that’s retrofuturistic with industrial machines and robotic motifs. It’s dystopian. It’s utopian. And everything in between.
Continue reading “The Art of Adventure Tarot by Bilal Lashari”
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