Wicked Tarot Deck Review

It is with great reservations that I write this Tarot review at all. I finally received the Wicked Tarot deck the other day, after months of waiting, and little to no updates.

The Wicked Tarot started as Kickstarter project that launched sometime in September, and I wound up helping/ funding it, back in October 2015. Mind you, it is the end of May 2016 now. There were very few updates about the work of the deck during the time myself, and anyone else awaited their arrival, and when we did start getting these updates, it wasn't until the very end and they were being shipped out within the week,

"Tarot has never been this..wicked!"

(An actual quote from their page)

That quote alone really inspired me, and set my heart aflame when it came to the deck, and the images that were shown to represent the art of the cards blew my mind. I will always say I have a love for the darker things, and these cards knocked it out of the park! Skeletons, creatures, and spooky-cool colours, how could I not be in love?

The above are just a few of the cards, such as the Kings of the Minor Arcana, my favorite card in any deck, The Hanged Man, and Death just happens to look like a skeletal centaur. There's no way I', going to deny being smitten with such a card.

As excited as I was for them, even upon arrival and holding the deck box in my hand, I was still over the moon, however, it quickly fell into despair... Now, I don't have a fancy camera or anything, but other than cropping the photos, no adjusments have been made, and while I noticed some issues right off the bat, they became ever more clear as I laid out the cards for this post in general.

Right off the bat, after removing the shrink wrap from the cards, I noticed the edges of the deck. In the second picture you can see all the white dotting the edges. I didn't know how to explain it at first, it tends to be a look of wear and tear, at least in my case, after a long handling and shuffling of decks in general. Cards get beat up, it happens, not brand new, right out of a book they don't.

They could have been printed or cut badly, either way, it's not quality work, and upon a friend's recommendation, the people behind the project were emailed the same day the cards arrived.

Some other things to note, the card stock is light weight and the cards themselves scuff easily. I actually damaged a card lying it out for the photos. The guide booklet doesn't have much in the ways of inspiration or explanations, just the basic info about each card. Yes, the booklet is meant to be a guide, but I', the kind of person who like a bit of background to the cards, who they are, where they came from, the mindset of their creator. Hell, they even went about adding additions to the well know Celtic Cross spread without reasons as to why (see below).

The last thing I ever want to do is to complain about someones hard work. At some point, I have to believe that there was love and time invested into the art and these cards but at that same time, everything looks and feels completely rushed. The cards themselves give off more of an abandoned feel and there's certainly no means at the moment for them to be worked with. I've already thought about setting them aside, or putting them together like a giant picture and framing them, but then, there's still the issue of all the scuff marks...

So, while I love the art and the idea of these cards, I'm not happy with them in the slightest, and I actually ache for the beings in the cards themselves. Now maybe if I hear a response back from the team and something changes, my attitude will change, but until then, they're going to sit in their box and I'm going to be glad I didn't spend much more money on them or the offered Kickstarter rewards then I did.

 In all hopes though, I just received a bad deck and everyone else out there will be pleased with theirs, as well as any prints or inked guitars and everything else that was purchased between the tiers.

Soul Cards Deck Interview!

    I just want to scream about how in love with this deck I already am. I've looked at them here and there, the only place I've ever seen them was on a friend's Instagram feed, and then she uploaded a video onto YouTube showing them off and I don't know if it was because it was late in the night and I was tired, or in some state of mood, but it was like they were calling to me. 

    Here's the thing about Soul Cards, there are no keywords, no designated meanings, and the guidebook is just a means for ideas how you might want to work with, and incorporate them into your life. The art is meant to speak to your soul, and lying in bed watching this woman show them off in her video, that was exactly what they did... like old friends crying out for me to remember them.

    If you read my last post. This is a huge thing for me right now. Old friends and working with spirit.

    Now, it's been awhile since I have done a deck interview, and they can be long and tedious, so, I sort of went with my own questions and spreads, though I did look around for a few general ones as I didn't want a card or two when a pyramid seemed to fit better. 

    The questions:

1. Who are you?
2. How do you see me?
3. What can you offer?
4. How can I connect with you?
5. Where can we go together?
6. Is there anything else I should know?

    Prior to going into this, I had looked through the deck, I mean, who doesn't try and see what their cards are all about first? I really cannot explain the sensations I got, but a few cards did call out to me more than others, and a few of them actually appeared for this spread and questionnaire. 

    It's hard to ignore the colours of these cards, and I feel like there is a good representation of the elements going on in them. Not so much fire, which is my astrological element, but definitely earth, wind and water, and then there's the red in cards One and Five, red like blood is what comes to mind, and I'm not going to sit here and try and hide it. A lot of feelings have surfaced this past week, and a big one is my left behind sixth sense... or whatever it's called, and it directly links to the fact I've always had a passion of the ancient, the mystical, and that which has passed on.

    While I'm not going to go into all the cards, or else this might become really long, I will go into a few. 

    The first card, I see a few different things going on, the most prominent and probably not the obvious, is a person in the water, but at a closer look, the person may very well be jumping over a wall and ready to free fall, or it's hardly a jump at all and they will land on their feet and run off where ever the wind chooses to guide them.

     Again though, it's more like they're drowning, the water swells around to carry them below, the red of them, the pressure getting to them, and this could very well be the end. While that's what I see, that's hardly what I think the deck is about. I think it's more along the lines of rising from the depths, that there might be crushing pressure but with the right support you can rise above. Break the surface, take a long, deep breath, then go back to work. 

    I like the "What can you offer" card a lot. Like a literal guide purring he can show me the magic, remind me why I started doing this in the first place. He's not talking about reading Tarot cards or the New Age spell books either, but being able to feel like I used to, connect to those that have moved on, hear them. I know it sounds crazy, but I remember the blood freezing chills from when I was a child, and I remember those sleepless nights waking up and knowing I was being watched. I'm done playing pretend with the lot of it, and I'm done letting people think me silly. Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but I'm not entitled to listen. 

     Card five, again, that blue and red, the red like blood... I'm just going to say this. This is me connecting to spirit, connecting to the afterlife and what's beyond. This is my window, I can see them, they can see me and I am allowed to come through, all I have to do is ask. 

    These cards are everything I need right now and I have much need of working with them and plan on it so long as they let me. 

    I must indeed sound silly at this point. I am a writer, I am doing what I can to build a foundation to be an author, to be published. I am working on networking so that the day may come where I can have the relationships that I need, that suit me and that are willing to support me then and now. Then I throw something in there where I sounds like I think I can talk to the dead? Who is going to want to know someone like that? Perhaps nothing is that direct, but do not think for a second I might deny the possibility. 

Dear John Doe

    Dear John Doe, I cannot tell you how many times I've written this out in my head, how many times, I've wanted to tell you since we've started texting, or how many times these emotions just came flooding back in general. We started talking again like it was nothing, and I bet you never even considered what a blow it was to me, the way we were terribly close and then you were gone, and I had no idea how to get by without the guy I once considered my best friend.

(not my photo!!!!)

    Dear John Doe, while yes, you have a name, I don't feel like using it. Though I hope you'll see this. I hope you'll know it's about you. I haven't decided if I'll hold back much of anything, just your name or maybe more. If you're reading this already, like you're hovering over my shoulder, I have to wonder if you're cringing, knowing exactly what's on my mind and the story that goes with what comes after. You know, or maybe you don't. Maybe you've completely blocked them out of your head, those forty-eight hours of dread. Those forty-eight hours I stayed awake, crying and consoling, you and your mother. Maybe that's what I'll leave alone, but you know it's there, and we were teenagers, of course we move on, but of course, all things impact us. 

    Dear John Doe, you were my brother's friend first, and we were silly, dating around at fifteen, hardly being able to kiss one another, and then you were into that guy. Do you remember him? I do, I adored him and I adored you two together, you broke his heart, I felt his tears and then again, you disappeared from my life, and I never heard from the other again. 

    Dear John Doe, to be honest, I actually can't remember the intervals of time you would be in my life then stop talking to me. I do that now. I'll talk to someone for awhile then just drop off the radar and leave them. I wonder if some broken part of me picked that up from you? Damaged, not broken. Though, maybe you lit the fuse but all the bullshit after the match was struck exploded into everything else. 

    Dear John Doe, I actually started writing this months ago, when, again, we first started talking, now on the eve that we're suppose to meet up, I find myself worried. We still haven't acknowledged jack-shit, and I'll take fault for that at this point too, but you still think we're going to be buddy buddy and talk like we've always have.

    Don't you remember what you said to me in those final words when you writing me out? That you felt uncomfortable and had always just told me what I wanted to hear? Don't you know that things I told you, between what I might have thought of as psychic abilities and seeing ghosts were from my heart and soul, that you were the only person I could talk to about them and I had thought we were sharing in something?

     I let a lot go after that. I forgot what it was like to tap into a different side of me, and I don't feel like I used to, I can't hear the other voices anymore and when I started reading Tarot cards, and a friend told me I needed to connect with my Guides, Spirits and Ancestors, it nearly broke me. Even now, I feel useless when I try to talk to them, and I'm pretty sure they're still harboring some sort of grudge against me. 

    Again, this is that lit fuse, but I don't blame you. I can only blame myself.

    So here I sit, on the eve of our finally getting together, meeting for the first time in what will nearly be a decade and I brood and worry, and rush to get out everything it is that I feel. I wouldn't be much of a writer if I didn't do such a thing.

    So here's to tomorrow. To hoping it's not as awkward or menacing as I think, and that maybe we'll find some closure, because you cannot tell me you don't need it too. 

Tarot Aftermath

 Within the last two weeks I've come to realize a few things. One, that paying for school out of pocket, even for one, online class, it's expensive for someone who makes less than twenty-thousand dollars a year, especially when your out put is more than your input as far as checks and bills are concerned. Two, that I really enjoy reading Tarot cards. Not just for myself, but for others, and I've now had the privilege of putting this to the test a few times. In person and online. 

    

    Prior to Sunday I had announced for a few days over my Instagram that I would be giving away free Tarot readings. While I don't have a large following (which in this case was probably a good thing), I did get to read for a few people online, and Sunday was the day I sat down to pull cards, and jot down notes (in my lovely Snow White notebook while listening to classical music like Chopin). 

    Here's the thing about Tarot, and, at least for me, writing in general, it's Exhausting! It really does take a lot of mental focus and I prefer writing everything by hand. Yes, keyboards are nice, but the internet is distracting whether you can put a time limit on a block for it or not. I find that I switch through songs a lot less on my phone using iHeart Radio than I would if I had YouTube up on my computer. Plus, classical music songs, some anyways, have a tendency to be a lot longer than a three-and-a-half minute hit. 

    The exhausting bit isn't just mental though, it's something more. Tarot cards involve interpretation and intuition to unlock and understand, but when I got caught up writing a piece for my story at work the other day, I realized that investing yourself into characters, unlocking their  minds and dipping into how they think takes quite a bit of mental work too. 

    I was actually impressed when my characters popped into my head Thursday night, and I had to focus between running my machine at work and getting everything down between a woman called Dirk, a man she calls Quinn and the doom that is the AI they're trying to take down, but that's a matter for another time.

     Everything change for me in that span of time, with her thoughts and his reactions and what such imminent doom might spell for them in what could be their last moments. Perhaps I wasn't so much impressed with myself as I was with the resulting feelings after. I was tired and empty. Drained might be a more appropriate term. 

    When I had sat down to do the Tarot pulls, I was ready to do them all, write them down, type them up, except, I forgot that there is a strain on the mind, and that after I took care of the first one, I had to slow down a bit, writing them out turned into jotting notes and to give each person their reading to the best of my abilities, I had to type them up over the span of a few days. By no means am I sorry about this. There is a trust being built with a client and their reader and the last thing I want to do is rush that and do a piss-poor job, especially if I plan on offering readings as a service, and as a way to help pay for school.

    Paying for school, this is a ball game I lost miserably the first time a few years ago, and I'm trying to do things a little differently, okay, a lot differently this time around. 

    Without going into to many useless details, things turned out to be much more expensive than originally known, where what I thought was going to be the price of three classes, turned out to be the price of once class. So, it's a bit of a set back as I'm only taking one class now, and I was initially upset, it showed me that I need to do more in other ways to get where I need to be, and the one thing that I really have at my disposal right now is Tarot cards.

    I have learned a lot this week reading for people, and I know I still have a lot to learn, but there is a point where reading isn't enough and you have to learn by doing. In this process I do hope to be able to open an online store, perhaps Etsy, to offer a few readings at affordable prices. If it comes to the point where this happens to be successful (one reading will count as a success I think) I plan on using every penny to help pay for future classes. That's not to say I'm not pinching pennies elsewhere, but again, every little thing helps and I cannot rely on anyone without helping myself first.

    This is one of those huge-small victories for me! I'm tired of hanging on the past and I don't think I've ever wanted to move and keep pushing forward as much as I do now. Anything and everything I do anymore, no matter how small, is in the hopes that I attain my goals. Goals such as furthering my writing career, one day being able to travel and hopefully not be stuck in such a bottomless pit.