Working with My 2022 Metaphysician’s Day Planner

On By benebellIn grimoire, personal, personal spirituality, promotional1 Comment

So if you saw me share this video earlier but it was the same video as the one on the Day Planner pre-order page about how to upload to Lulu, then you saw the wrong video. I took that down and re-uploaded with the correct video. Serves me right for naming both video files “2022 day planner how-to.” Totally confused me this morning when I went to upload to YouTube.

THIS video walks you through how I’m filling in the different page sections of the day planner. Sorry, it’s been one of those weeks. I’m frazzled and fried. Going to go take a nap now. Thanks.

BA GUA (EIGHT TRIGRAMS) PRINT-OUT

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+ Complimentary 2022 Forecasts & Guides

Johnny of Cosmic Wheel Tarot’s Deck Creator Corner

On By benebellIn tarot community5 Comments

I am so, so excited to have stumbled upon Johnny of Cosmic Wheel Tarot and his video interview series called Deck Creator Corner. It’s on Instagram as a video channel, which is the only negative thing about it (lol, am I biased against technological progress or what). I say that only because I don’t know what to do with someone’s IG video channel that I love. I don’t know how to share it. I don’t know how to bookmark it for later. I can’t even subscribe to it. Argh.

But this is worth your fuss. I promise. Johnny’s Deck Creator Corner interviews artists from our community who share their inspiration, their creative process, and give advice straight from experience.

Btw, I’ll be chatting with Johnny on his Insta channel this Saturday, Dec. 11, at 10 am Pacifc, 1 pm Eastern (Man, do you midwesterners feel left out? We always flag the east coast and west coast time, but rarely mountain, central, and let’s not even talk about Alaska or Hawaii.)

Here’s a sampling of 12 interviews from Deck Creator Corner, linked for your convenient viewing pleasure.

Continue reading “Johnny of Cosmic Wheel Tarot’s Deck Creator Corner” →

72 Shemhamphoras (Shem) Angels, Tarot Correspondences; Tetragram of the Zohar

On By benebellIn free download, grimoire, Magical in the Mundane, traditional witchcraft3 Comments

Sorting through the mess of files I have on my computer drives and found this. I think I shared these in a past Bell’s Newsletter. It’s excerpted from the textbook for the Western Witchcraft I: The Fundamentals course. References in this free handout to other chapters, etc. are because this is just an excerpt from that textbook.

72 Shem Angels, Tarot Correspondences & the Tetragram of the Zohar

Click Me to Download the PDF

Click Me to Download the DOCX

SEE ALSO:

Frater Setnakh’s correspondences compared to Payne-Towler’s.

FRATER SETNAKH

PAYNE-TOWLER THL
DOCX MS WORD FILES

Posting to the blog just so it’s up on this website and available.

How Do We Value Art? What AI art means for tarot and oracle deck publishing

On By benebellIn I Ching, oracle deck, Spirit Keeper's Tarot20 Comments

If you haven’t played around with the wombo.art app yet, then check out this link and have fun. You type in some keywords– any instruction you’d like to give the AI, be that themes, subjects, nouns, adjectives, colors– then choose an art style, like ukiyo-e, pastel, high fantasy, dark fantasy, medieval, etc., and the AI will generate a work of art based on your commission.

And the results are rather stunning. Human artists, in particular those who work primarily with digital art techniques, are now wondering what this means for the future of their vocation. No, not necessarily because of this app specifically, but just in general, this inevitable supplanting of human artists with AI.

More notably, I think, this is going to have an irreversible impact on tarot and oracle deck artists.

Take, for instance, these I Ching oracle card illustrations generated by the AI in a ukiyo-e art style. I typed in keywords for each corresponding hexagram, plus keywords for the two trigrams, selected Ukiyoe for art style, and hit the Create button. Then I did the design layout, added the hexagram image, number, and key phrase. Voila.

Oh, and if you’d like to download the digital image files for all 64 of these AI generated cards, go here.

Continue reading “How Do We Value Art? What AI art means for tarot and oracle deck publishing” →

SKT Revelation: First Printing Sold Out

On By benebellIn Spirit Keeper's Tarot11 Comments

The first print run of the SKT Revelation deck has now sold out.

We sold out on December 2, exceeding our projections. Based on the numbers from the First and Vitruvian editions, plus the number of pre-orders for the Revelation, we did our best to project the print run quantity we would need to ensure that anyone who wanted a deck in 2021 could get one, and have some surplus to last us until Spring of 2022. Oops.

Second Printing Waitlist

CLICK TO JOIN THE WAITLIST

Although you probably won’t get e-mails from the waitlist newsletter anytime soon, other than that initial canned introductory message, if you are sincerely interested in purchasing the SKT Revelation deck, second printing, please be sure to put your name on the waitlist.

This is very useful to us, because it helps us to gauge interest, what to do with production, the pre-order process, timeline, everything. So if you’re interested in getting a deck in the future, join the newsletter group.

Shipping Status

Everyone who pre-ordered prior to Oct. 6, 2021 has already received their decks or your deck is in-transit and heading your way now, with the exception of some Australia orders.

Some Australia orders are sitting tight while we wait for the US post office to resume mailing to your country. (The private UPS mailing option is still available for those who are in Australia, but the cost of it is pretty crazy.)

We are now making our way through the post Oct. 6 orders. Our ship-out date, meaning when your deck is packaged and sent out by us, is still set at late December.

Continue reading “SKT Revelation: First Printing Sold Out” →

The Celestial Tarot by Kay Steventon and Brian Clark

On By benebellIn deck review4 Comments

This deck was first published back in 2004, so that’s 17 years ago from the date that this review is going up. This post is another one of my 2021-walk-down-memory-lane oldies-but-goodies deck reviews. I fished it out of who knows where from what old box of decks I totally forgot I even owned, and was delighted to rediscover the Celestial Tarot.

Underpinning the Celestial Tarot is astrology, astronomy, and mythology, with the 78 cards projected up and out onto our night skies to see what constellations, planets, and celestial phenomenon correspond with the tarot keys.

Continue reading “The Celestial Tarot by Kay Steventon and Brian Clark” →

#only10decks The 10 decks I’d take with me

On By benebellIn personal, tarot, tarot community10 Comments

…to that stranded remote island where I will only ever be able to use these 10 decks for the rest of my mortal life. Or so goes the prompt. I may have embellished a little. Katey Flowers on Tarot Tube started the hashtag. You can watch her video here.

By the way, at the start of her video she says she was inspired by the makeup community’s tag “only 10 eyeshadow palettes” and I have to confess I kind of guffawed at the thought of “only” 10 eyeshadow palettes.. Ten…palettes? I don’t even have one! Ah but then I’m sure most of the known world would guffaw at my struggles over choosing just 10 decks for this prompt.

Continue reading “#only10decks The 10 decks I’d take with me” →

The Radiant Tarot by Alexandra Eldridge and Tony Barnstone

On By benebellIn deck review2 Comments

The Radiant Tarot: Pathway to Creativity is a Red Wheel/Weiser Books publication that came out earlier this year, authored by Tony Barnstone, a professor of English and environmental studies, and artist Alexandra Eldridge. This is a deck project 12 years in the making, “born from working with archetypal images, the universal symbolic language.”

Author Prof. Barnstone set out to create a deck that would be a harmonious balance between verbal and visual, rational and magical. That mission and vision for balance has produced an incredible guidebook to the Radiant Tarot that you’ll be able to use in your studies of the tarot, in general, well beyond this deck. The card meanings Barnstone provides are given through the lenses of the psychology and science of creativity, and “the world’s literary, artistic, and spiritual traditions.”

Continue reading “The Radiant Tarot by Alexandra Eldridge and Tony Barnstone” →

Tarot History: Theories of Origin

On By benebellIn Holistic Tarot (book), tarot5 Comments

I’m making an effort to complete the Holistic Tarot companion course video series. Here’s the ninth installment, on tarot history, or more specifically, theories of origin.

While there’s 33 pages of citations for the content of this video, I hope it’s clear that we’re still talking about speculation– hence theories of origins. I started this focused level of research back in 2014, even before Holistic Tarot was published, for a work of historical fantasy. Yes, a novel. That novel I’ve been struggling with, which I hope I can dedicate 2022 to.

Continue reading “Tarot History: Theories of Origin” →