Into the Wildwood

When I first started my journey into polytheism and the Pagan world, I never dreamed I would find myself practicing any form of divination, let alone Tarot. I’d had a few readings done for me here and there, by old women at fairs and by my (now erstwhile) Wiccan friend, but it fell into the realm of “silly woo stuff” for me. And then in the winter of 2012 I spotted a few deck images on someone’s witchy Tumblr and a little bell went off. I was struggling with my creative writing at the time and thought, “Hmm…this could be a good way to get my juices flowing”. I started reading up on different decks and I came across The Wildwood Tarot, by Mark Ryan and John Matthews with art by Will Worthington. Despite the warnings that this was not a beginner’s deck, I was fascinated by the imagery and the symbolism and I knew this was my deck.

The Wildwood is a re-imagining of the popular Greenwood Tarot first printed in 1996. It shares many similarities, but as the name implies it is indeed wilder. The premise of the deck is a journey through a beautiful but at times perilous wood, running into its various denizens along the way. It feels very much like you’re the hero of a classic folk tale, and I connect with this deck in a very personal way that I haven’t with any other deck since. It is my personal deck, for looking into myself and connecting with my characters across the veil of the multiverse. It always provides for me, even if its messages are sometimes blunt and even acerbic.

Since we’re moving into Autumn and the dark, fallow half of the year soon I’ve been feeling a pull to make a new study of my old friend, and so I figured a primer post was in order. The Wildwood uses the traditional four suits under its own names: Arrows (Swords), Bows (Wands), Vessels (Cups), and Stones (Pentacles). (The archery focus is something else that drew me to this deck.) It also places each suit and every major into a wheel of the year formation that intersects with different levels of consciousness, with the center being the Heart of the Wood, the middle ring the level of human interaction, and the outer the universal, cosmic level.

The Wheel of the Year

This sets up the relationships between the cards, and one of the aspects I like best about it is that it allows for liminal space where the levels and seasons blend into each other. When I refer later in my journal posts to a card’s position, this is the position I’m referring to. The whole deck laid out in the Wheel formation is gorgeous, if a bit tricky to photograph.

(Don’t mind Biscuit in the upper corner there! I am an adult who still loves her stuffed buddies, and proud of it!)