Tarot Kier
Elvisa Schimke
The Hoodwitch offers everyday magic for the modern mystic. Those who know that we posses the ability to shape the world in which we live in. With intention, love, and respect for our planet we are capable of all things.
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I cleanse every crystal before sending to you, and since crystals may absorb vibrations from the environment where they are located, your crystals should be cleansed as often as necessary to maintain positive vibrations.
Please note that all crystal/ stone properties listed are obtained by my own personal research as well as folkloric beliefs. Crystal healing is not a substitute for professional medical treatment, but can be used as an aid in conjunction with it.
Devany: My journey started when I was a child and I fantasized about being a gypsy witch and I performed oracle readings with my crystal ball to friends and stuffed animals. It was my secret world that I would return to night after night when I was finished at school. I felt most at home there than anywhere else. As I grew up I became a bit disconnected from that part of myself, trying different identities on for size, until my late twenties when I returned to a sense of comfort with my magical roots. I began delving into tarot studies simultaneously alongside the development of my tarot deck. I would learn about a card and then create it. It was a long process, and a very rewarding one. I have been reading professionally for a year and a half.
DW: Thank you so much! It is funny to hear you say 'stimulating', as that is certainly one of the words I associate with my work, and my general way of being. I am deeply inspired by the richness of history, culture and symbols as they have endured and evolved over time. Tarot is a very old practice, and it has evolved in such an interesting way - there are thousands upon thousands of decks using all kinds of imagery to represent the very still and unmoving symbols of the archetypal experiences which are associated with each tarot card. They all hearken back to the same thing, the same idea. It is fascinating! So I certainly find this inspiring - being part of an ancient lineage of creators and creatresses making tarot. I am also greatly inspired by the mystery of landscape, mindscape, heartscape - how to fold them all together. It is an endless process and an ongoing puzzle. Visual art is very sensual. Its mystery drives me on and on. I don't think I could ever grow weary of it.
DW:One of the very first decks I worked with was "Tarot of a Thousand and One Nights" - I couldn't believe the artwork. All of those intricate, amazing paintings! I also worked with the Haindl deck in my early stages. Thoth is a staple, and a constant inspiration. I do occasionally work with Rider-Waite as well, but not as intensely. I am head-over-heels for a Qabalistic deck called "Tarot of the Sephiroth" and another painted occult deck called "Via Tarot" - that one is very rare and I do not own it yet. I have begun working with an oracle called "The Book of Doors" and hope to obtain the "Egipcios Kier" soon - two ancient Egyptian themed decks.
DW: The meanings actually more closely follow Thoth than Rider-Waite. I am a traditionalist when it comes to hearkening back to old systems of the tarot, so despite the fact that my artwork is interpretive, the heart of serpentfire is very much in Thoth. My upcoming deck, Eternal Horizon Tarot, will have its heart in Sephiroth + Via - very Ancient Egyptian-themed. And my other upcoming deck, She Wolfe Tarot, will have its heart in the Motherpeace tarot - another Goddess-themed deck. Perhaps someday I will develop my own system, but only when I feel I have completely mastered the practice and the art of tarot inside and out! For now I am content to explore many of the pathways which were paved by brilliant journeyers into the esoteric, and pay homage to their amazing visions.
DW: I don't actually use tarot on a daily basis, unless I am conducting a reading for a client. I try to limit my own readings to when I feel I greatly need one, which only tends to be once a month or even less. It is such powerful medicine to receive and I find the themes I incur are enough insight and fuel to last quite a while. My personal deck resides in a beautiful leather-engraved box created by my friend and collaborator Obsidian Monarch ( ) and this deck gets cleansed every so often by the light of the full moon in a nice bath of sea salt snuggled up to some of my favorite crystals.
DW: That is an intense question. I think I would want to read for Anne Boleyn, before she became ensconced in her love affair with Henry VIII. I would hope that the message of the cards would dissuade her from going through with such an ill-fated destiny. But as history seems to suggest, she was at least somewhat obsessed with being a person of power herself, so perhaps it wouldn't have made a difference in the end!
DW: Yes! As mentioned, I am working on two more tarot decks - Eternal Horizon and She Wolfe Tarot. I am also currently developing a colouring book based upon my own designs and visions. My fashion collaboration with the lovely Tysa Designs ( ) is also coming out in January of 2016. Many more things are on the horizon as well, but are so nascent at the moment.
DW: I believe it is as simple as finding a deck you resonate with, and a companion book that speaks to you. The language of the book needs to really get inside of you, and the artwork needs to send you to another place. In order to actually learn the tarot, you will probably want a deck whose visual symbols are easily understood and can translate into the meanings. Start out by reading for yourself on a regular basis, then offer to read for friends. There are even a few courses out there that can help you learn the cards and provide you various systems for engaging easily. As you learn one deck try moving onto another, as the visuals will be so different, and will probably shake up your 'triggers' which you have used to learn the cards. Once you have a grasp of 3 decks you've set a great foundation and can probably easily read any deck!
@1370. Mamluk style playing cards enter Italian and Spanish ports. Arabic design is Europeanized to become the suits of swords, batons, cups and coins (the Italian suits) and the court cards become king, queen, knight, valet.
1422 & 1423. Account books of the painter Sagramoro of Florence show him being commissioned to repair decks and to create luxury decks decorated with gold, lapiz lazuli, and brazilwood dye for the Marchesa Parisina of Ferrara. She was an enthusiastic purchaser of cards but had to go outside Ferrara for them for at least another decade. Sagramoro was still supplying the court of Ferrara with cards in 1456.
1442. According to the account books of the Marchese of Ferrara, he purchased two packs of carte da trionfi for his younger brothers. He bought them from a merchant for a small amount of money, showing that tarot was a mass-produced, easily purchased commodity.
1450. Francesco Sforza is crowned Duke of Milan. Possibly the occasion of commissioning the Pierpont Morgan Bergamo deck, as it has Sforza and Visconti emblems. Replacement (or additional) cards were made in Ferrara about 1470.
1456 & 1457. Count Borso commissioned the artist da Vicenza to create two very luxurious packs of carte grande da trionfi with 70 cards. This was either a different trionfi game than tarot, or it shows that some tarot decks had only 14 trump cards. Da Vicenza produced several decks a year for the court of Ferrara through 1463.
1470. Earliest possible date for the Steele Sermon, the Sermones de Ludo Cum Aliis, written by a priest preaching against dice and card playing. He listed the tarot trumps in essentially the same order we still use.
1480. French suit symbols appear. Most card games convert to the suits of hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades which are easier to stencil onto mass produced cards. Italy clings to older suits especially for the games of Trionfi and Minchiate.
@1500. Earliest examples of printed wood block cards that survive. They were preserved as uncut sheets of cards used in book binding. Some were found in a well at Sforza Castle in Milan. Some cards have typical Tarot de Marseilles imagery.
1527. Venice. Teofilo Folengo (pen name Merlin Cocai) wrote four sonnets based on tarot trumps that describe the poet being led into a room where four people have drawn cards related to their fate then ask for poems about them.
1570. Pavia. Giambattista Susio wrote appropriati poems associating the trumps with ladies of the court. He gave the names and the Lombardy order of the trumps, which is almost the same as the Vieville deck created in Paris a century later.
1576. France. Poems in a series of stories called Facetious Nights. In each stanza a trump figure who is playing a game of tarot loses the trick to a suit card that kills him. At the end, all the slain trumps are resurrected by shuffling the deck.
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