Tarot of the Hidden Realm Six of Wands

Tarot of the Hidden Realm by Barbara Moore (art by Julia Jeffrey)

I actually forgot I owned this deck.

I joined a Facebook group about the fae and started thinking about faerie decks and saw images of this one and thought...I thought I bought that. Did I buy that? I think I remember taking it out of my shopping cart. But I got up and checked and there it was. Not with my other decks, but tucked elsewhere (because where I store most of my decks was full).

Shuffling the deck this morning, this card fell out, the Six of Wands. Like most cards in this deck, this one has a backstory that you're unlikely to come up with without reading the book. Apparently this lass has come out to the woods in the dark of the moon and stands there until a 'spark of starlight' enters her heart, then she dances and a bunch of fireflies fly out from her fingers. Yeah, I'd have come up with that. The divinatory meaning given reads, 'If you put yourself firmly in the situation, quiet your mind and still your heart, then you will find what you need.' This is different from the usual 6 of Wands, which shows the struggle over, the fight won, and the victor returning in glory. Not a wand in sight in this card. But at least you get boobies.

I can see why this deck got tucked away in a separate place. I think I'd really have to be in the mood to read this one. There are too many people in it, depicted in close-up, in poses that are a bit too ambiguous to be of much help. Style over substance, and Froud did it better.

I went ahead and drew another card, and got Ace of Wands. This card shows a close up of a fox. While the book describes how a fox can hold as still as possible (which seems to echo Six of Wands), the divinatory meaning says, 'an opportunity, one that will require swift action.' So...not much holding still, then. I guess it's about being vigilant for the moment when you should strike.

But you know, I don't like decks that make you do a lot of twisting of what's there to make it fit. It feels like the person writing the book had to try too hard to get the images to mean something. Sometimes writers are commissioned to do this. Sometimes they work in collaboration with artists. I generally suspect when interpretations puzzle me by not being wholly reflected in the image, that the writer was given finished images and told to make something of them. And I get that feeling with every card in this deck.

Oh well, off to work!