The Wild Hunt (https://wildhunt.org/tag/rider-waite-smith)
“If someone were trying to trap me,” writes Meg Elison in her review of the exhibit, “one of the surest ways would be to put up a sign to say there’s a show focused on tarot inside this building, this cardboard box, this tiger pit. This thing is a Witch magnet.”
Death is a disintegration of the old in favor of the true. Who are we, what are we, where are we, why are we, and how are we in this lifetime? We can ask the same of our ancestors and ancients, just as our children and descendants will ask the same of us.
The magic that I do has the same grit-teeth determination as any other chore. I need to wash the dishes. I need to take out the trash. I need to light a candle and tell Hermes that I am afraid. I need to tell the Puck I love him. But the baby is coming in a month and a half.
“I have wondered for a long time what makes a tarot deck “click” for someone. My first deck, a pocket-sized Rider-Waite-Smith that my partner took exactly one look at before it fell to me, was entirely opaque when I first picked it up. I didn’t know the symbols they featured or how they were used, and only the small folded paper included in the box offered any insight. I worried over it, put it down, came back to scour the nine-word summaries of each card and try again. I attempted a Celtic cross based on the inch-high diagram, a feat which has meant that my standard spread is just slightly misaligned from everyone else’s I’ve ever met. “
Fiona Leonard looks at a collection of tarot decks created by diverse artists that feature equally diverse figures in their imagery.