There’s something about the Butterfly Lenormand by Mendy Dunn of The Artistry of Tarot that tug at my heartstrings. How I even came to hear about it was a bit of chance and serendipity. At the time, I really wasn’t on Tarot-Tube that often, but on that day, I happened to surf onto my YouTube homepage to look for something to play in the background while I did some house chores.
There was a tarot livestream going on, so of course I clicked onto it, and didn’t even think it through or look to see whose channel it was. And it just so happened to be a debut of Mendy Dunn’s newest creation– images from her Butterfly Lenormand.
Here’s a Hay House deck from 2016 that I’m about to give away, and before I do, I figure I’d take a final set of photos of the cards and post it here on this site as a walk-through. I no longer have any recollection of how I acquired this deck, whether it was gifted to me or sent to me by the publisher, so am unable to give an accurate disclosure. I’m fairly certain I didn’t buy it though.
Click on photo for enlarged zoomed-in view
The Keepers of the Light Oracle is positioned as “a powerful congregation of ascended and enlightened beings who are dedicated to the nurturing of the world.” This deck is like a rolodex through which you can call upon these spiritual intelligences.
This deck’s draw is its creator, Kyle Gray, a spiritual teacher, bestselling author, and angel communicator. Gray does really cool work and this deck is reflective of his eclectic, integrative spirituality that’s a fun blend of Christian mysticism and angelic communication with Eastern spirituality and an interest in a global pantheon. This is one of those accessible, uplifting decks depicting angels, ascended masters, gods and goddesses from diverse world traditions. And the art is really pretty.
The Ostinato Oracle by Mellie Parkway is a lot more profound than it first appears. It combines cartomancy with musical terms, on the premise that these symbols we use in the music world connect to the collective unconscious. Archetypes in the music we create, like archetypes found in mythology, can reveal insightful aspects of our inner selves.
In its own words, the Ostinato Oracle guides you through the harmonious and cacophonous elements of existence so that you might live a gorgeous masterpiece. Come to think of it, there’s a lenormand vibe here!
This is a beautiful 43-card deck that comes in a matte finish box. The cards are gilded and there’s a bi-fold Quick Reference Guide that tucks inside the box. You can also get the full-size companion guidebook, as you see above, that gets into the musical indication of each glyph and its divinatory meaning when these musical instruction symbols are used in this way, via cartomancy.
Seed & Sickle Oracle by Fez Inkwright is a botanical lover’s dream deck. There are 49 cards, where each card reads a little differently depending on whether you’re reading it as a Dawn card or Dusk card.
And thus you’ll get two guidebooks, the Dawn Guidebook and the Dusk Guidebook. Dawn is for reading about growth, investment, and nurturing something to manifestation, while Dusk is about self-reflection, self-care, or even connecting to the unseen spirit realms.
I worked with the planetary hours when reading with these cards. So for readings at the hour of sunrise, about taking action or initiative, I’ll work with the Dawn aspect, and thus look up my card readings in the Dawn Guidebook. At the hour of sunset, for meditative divination, I’ll work with the Dusk Guidebook.
The Lost Tarot of Nostradamus brings together tarot divination and the 16th century prophetic writings of Michel de Nostradamus (1503 – 1566). The better known work by Nostradamus is Centuries, which began appearing around 1555 and has remained steadfastly popular, inspiring thousands of published commentaries and hundreds of translations.
In 1558, Nostradamus published a third edition of Centuries and posthumously, a last volume of the work was published as The Prophecies in 1568. Purportedly, 58 additional quatrains exist, but couldn’t be found after his death.
The Kosmos Oracle by Carmen Bello was published earlier this year and so far it’s flew a bit under the radar. And I’m not entirely sure why, because it’s a marvelous, delightful, and very accurate reading deck. The namesake comes from the Greek term Kosmos to indicate the universe as a harmonious, orderly system, a deck that will help you to regulate Chaos.
There’s a 1970s pivot-of-change aesthetic here, or at least that’s what comes across to me. The 70s was this decade of social progress in the form of civil rights and sexual revolution, individualized spiritual awakening, both coups and efforts at decolonization in many of the developing nations, genre fiction getting a spike in the publishing industry, and the hippie subculture.
Ooh…this is my first circle animal oracle deck! Jamie Sawyer’s Nature Portals is a 52-card circle deck that features open portals for looking into the life of animals, amphibians, insects, birds, and marine life. The premise of the art is to capture a moment in that creature’s life, and allow us, an observer, to watch, listen, and to learn.
The cards are 100 mm in diameter, at 400 gsm cardstock, so there’s a noticeable sturdiness to them. You can really feel the intention of the portals transporting you to the animal world in that card back design. I also love that Sawyer went with a more artistic box design, rather than it being too commercial-focused.
The free companion journal is a 119-page full-color beautifully illustrated guidebook that labels what animals are depicted on each card, facts about each animal, keywords associated with that animal spirit, and then first-person insights into spiritual experiences with those particular animal spirits, written by both Jamie Sawyer and her mother, Gail Sawyer.
I’ll be showcasing six Lenormand deck recommendations, each one different from the others in art style. Four of them are indie and two are traditionally published. These are decks that have been sent to me and for these types of collection showcases, I typically choose only from the decks sent to me for my collection.
Let’s take a look at how the Lenormand is illustrated in six different art styles. The first is what I’ll call contemporary kawaii cutecore; the second is Western European medieval art; the third is inspired by the Italian Renaissance; then the Lenormand in a black and white Victorian illustration style via digital collage; children’s picture book fairytale art; and fin-de-siècle, rendered through digital collage of illustration works by Pamela Colman Smith.
These hand-painted engravings of healing herbs and garden vegetables are a delight, and I’m sure at least one creative person seeing this will get ideas, download, and do something lovely with these illustrations, so here you go.
They’re from Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal (1737). Below you’ll find a zip file you can download of high-res images from the book. Or view it in the entirety, courtesy of The British Library, Catalogues & Collections.
Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal is notable both for its beautiful illustrations of medicinal plants and for the unusual circumstances of its creation.
[It] contains illustrations and descriptions of plants, their medicinal preparations, and the ailments for which they are used.
The first herbal was written by the Greek physician Dioscorides in the first century AD.
Elizabeth Blackwell was born in Aberdeen in about 1700, but moved to London after she married. She undertook this ambitious project to raise money to pay her husband’s debts and release him from debtors’ prison.
Blackwell’s Herbal was an unprecedented artistic, scientific and commercial enterprise for a woman of her time.
She drew, engraved and coloured the illustrations herself, mostly using plant specimens from the Chelsea Physic Garden.
It was highly praised by leading physicians and apothecaries (makers and sellers of medicines), and made enough money to secure her husband’s freedom, although she later had to sell the copyright as well.
This finely-bound copy of A Curious Herbal is from the collection of King George III, held in the British Library.
A treasure of a divination system in a box that you’ll cherish, Morning Calm Oracle by trained shaman Seo Kelleher invites you to engage with a world of spirits, divinities, and nature magic from the Land of the Morning Calm, a name of endearment given to Korea.
The box design, sigils, and the tactile experience of handling the cards are an exemplary representation of East Asian magic. Those who are sensitive to energy will even feel the difference in the vibrations of this deck in hand compared to other decks you might have in your collection.
I am enchanted by the effortless beauty and the beneficence of this deck. The artwork is done by Alodia Yap, whose artwork is moving and melodic. Yap’s art style here is impressionistic. It works in perfect harmony with what Kelleher set out to achieve.
benebell wen 