Chakra Wisdom Oracle - A First Look

This week I'm going to be looking at the Chakra Wisdom Oracle Cards by Tori Hartman (Watkins Publishing 2014). I'll give a full review of the deck at the end of the week. 

I thought I'd dive right off the deep end with this new deck and use a spread from the back called 'Is Your Intention Authentic?' This spread is designed to help you look more closely at your goals.

1           2

3           4

1) Your intention

2) Your motive for wanting this

3) The journey ahead

4) The potential outcome

I thought I'd look at some of my recent intentions using this spread. The cards are colour-coded to the seven chakras. The key words are sometimes curious. The images on the card come from stories that the author says were dictated to her by angels over a period of five years, following a hospital stay during which they first started to speak to her. The stories lay in a drawer for 20 years until she realised what to do with them -- create an oracle deck. 

1) Rejection - This card is from the suit of 7th chakra (crown chakra), seat of universal consciousness. The story, like many, is impressionistic and 'muddled' -- there is no clear beginning, middle and end, no clear meaning. It has to do with an artist who is summoned to jury duty but is rejected because he is too unconventional. It's true, my intention comes from not feeling that I fit the mold. 'The ivory tower beckons,' says the companion book, 'a place of no judgement. You have finally found your way home.' This is certainly the basis for my intention. 

2) Prayer - This card is from the suit of 3rd chakra (solar plexus chakra), according to this deck, the seat of the intellect. This surprises me, as my concept of the solar plexus chakra is that it is the seat of personal power, the hara. The story of the card is a grandfather sipping lemonade with his grandson, telling him how when he was a young man he intended to leave the farm, but his father died suddenly and so he stayed, but has never regretted it. To be honest, I was perplexed by this card until I caught the sentence, 'Having all you desire begins with taking what you need at the right time.' My motivation, then, is that I recognise in the hara that this is the right time.

3) Mysticism - This card is from the 6th chakra (third eye chakra), seat of intuition. This journey is about trusting my intuition. The figure in the card is called Aubergine, and her clinging represents my own fear, which I must meet. It sounds pretty exciting. 

4) Perfection - This card is from the 1st chakra (root chakra), seat of grounding and vitality. The potential outcome has to do with feelings of perfectionism. It's an odd one for me, because it talks about being worried about how one appears, the 'conflict between wanting to look good and having compassion for others.' I haven't perceived that as a problem for me. The figure in the card is called 'Raspberry' and described as always wearing make up because she is concerned with her appearance. I never wear make up and am really not a pretentious person at all, so maybe the make up represents barriers or some sort of boundaries or 'masks' put up between myself and others. That I can see. The journey, then, will involve breaking down barriers between me and other people. 

This is a deck that is challenging and very personal to its creator; it requires thought to use, and as you can see from this reading, the results are so personal that it might be one you only want to use for yourself, not in public forums. In order to make sense of the cards, you are forced to delve deeply, and that might not be particularly easy to do outside a private journal, and for clients, this probably wouldn't be the deck to use for those 10-minute hen night readings!