Witches, Women and Elderberry Tree

One of my favorite tarot decks, The Deviant Moon deck created by Patrick Valenza. Here is the 7 of Pentacles, with a woman as witch, beneath the branches of  an elderberry tree. Women, witches and the elderberry tree have a relationship in lore:

She may provide a potent link with the Mother Goddess and facilitates contact with spirits of other trees. In a sense she acts as a mother figure within the woodland. She carries the wisdom of the Crone, and is mistress of the deepest magic. 

Witches were said to be able to turn themselves into elder trees. Gypsies believe that it is very bad luck to cut down and burn elder wood and that the Elder Mother will take revenge. This superstition arises from an instinctive realization that a lack of respect for Nature is dangerous, ultimately, to the human race. Elder's unruly growth hints at the untamable aspect of Nature, the black heart of the earth to which we owe our being. 

Elder fairy has an aged, feminine wisdom, too long mispriced in our culture, but with a little respect she will act as teacher.

The Fairy Bible, Teresa Moorey/

The Goddess Tree.com 

Reading at Eugene, Oregon Pagan Pride Day

Eugene is having a Pagan Pride Day! I'm honored and excited to know I'll be one of the tarot readers at the fair. If you're in the area, please come! Contact eugenepaganpride.org for info.  Here's their poster:

Deck Snobbery

Readers have their tastes. I really like the Deviant Moon tarot, (and it is a popular deck) but I know others who do not like it all. Doreen Virtue's Angel tarot is another deck I like, even though I have some minor issues with it. Others I know find the deck too sweet. And that's fine, of course. There are thousands of tarot and oracle decks out there, to fit all kinds of tastes and philosophies.

But then there are "tarot snobs" and I admit, I was guilty of such snobbery myself. Someone very close to me, who's also been reading cards for a good forty years and more, hates, and I mean detests, the Rider Waite Smith tarot. He's gone so far as to say he wouldn't respect any reader who uses that deck. I used to think that as well, to a point.  But funny thing about opinions; often we have them and aren't sure why, and often, they change.

I've had a mini Rider deck for years. Almost have given it away at times, but couldn't bring myself to do that. Lately I've been reading with the deck, and I had to wonder why I had negative opinions about the deck. As with many of us, when I first began to explore the tarot, the Rider deck was the one I used. It was the first tarot deck I was introduced to -- my mother had the same deck. Reading with the deck lately I had not only good readings, but good energy around using the deck, and those readings.

So I've been looking for a deck similar to the RWS deck. I wanted something very close to the "original" but, slightly different. I finally found it! The Diamond tarot. Unfortunately, it appears hard to find, and is very expensive. Amazon has the decks ranging from about $70.00 to over a $1,000.00! Good time to practice my manifesting mojo and see what comes.

The cards are very much the traditional RWS cards, but the borders add a psychedelic energy to the cards that I like. The wide and colorful borders frames the images in a new way. One of the criticisms about RWS from my friend is that the images are too "obvious" and put assumptions into the client's head. (Hmm. That happens anyway, doesn't it, and the role of the reader is to facilitate the interaction between both…) At the same time, the borders and coloring do add something fresh to the tradition, and I like the interplay between the new and classic.

From The Wild Hunt: article on coming out as pagan in the workplace

From Manny Tejeda-Moreno, at The Wild Hunt, on workplace "micro-aggressions" in the workplace towards pagan co-workers.

Column: Religious Discrimination in the Workplace | The Wild Hunt: For me, this raised questions about the experiences of Pagans in the workplace. Pagans are, essentially a rarer find in the social fabric of faith where the most common thread is Christian. In other words, when an individual says “I’m Christian” in the United States, most people think some variant of “you and 260 million other Americans.” With less common faiths, such as Judaism, individuals may be marked by stereotypes, but are also recognized as present in the mainline religious experiences. However,if someone says “I’m a witch,” most people – almost exclusively those unfamiliar with Paganism — are just left with Halloween imagery or TV episodes as a way of understanding the statement. That left me with questions about the kind of discrimination potential that could occur when someone discloses their Pagan faith. In other words, what happens when someone’s actual identity collides with the identity society expects us to have? (Manny Tejeda-Moreno, The Wild Hunt)

Micro-aggressions is a term social scientist Tejeda-Moreno used in the article. It's like teeny moments of passive-aggressiveness. A few years ago, at work, a co-worker "teased" me about being a "crystal cruncher." I took it with good humor and never made a thing about it, but this comment was uttered often, in front of others. (Can you imagine calling someone a "crucifix cruncher" or some such?) Those comments about my being a "crystal cruncher" were forms of micro-aggressions. Those of us open about our pagan and/or witchy ways expect such responses, I suppose, but then again, we are always faced with the issue of hiding vs. coming out. It's something each of us need to decide for ourselves. For myself, I am who I am and find myself very unhappy trying to suppress myself. That's just me however. I would never tell anyone to come out, or, not.