Sustain Yourself cards by James Wanless

Has anyone used the Sustain Yourself cards by James Wanless (of the Voyager Tarot)?

I'm experienced with tarot but have never actually used an oracle deck before and I've been interested in seeing how oracle cards might be useful for personal inner work.

I'm afraid I'm very picky about art though and I simply don't connect with the angel and goddess themed oracle decks I find online. The Sustain Yourself cards seem much more my speed and I like the art, but I'm having a hard time finding anything in the way of reviews online.

(The Zen Osho deck also looks interesting by the way -- kind of a tarot/oracle hybrid, it seems? -- but there's no shortage of info about this one online.)

Many thanks for any info or experience you can share!

http://sustainyourselfcards.com/card-a-day/
If you click on the card of the day button it brings up a different card each time.
Less title and keywords of course, these look like the cards that came out of a Soul Collage workshop I took. I like mine better...

AJ said:

Less title and keywords of course, these look like the cards that came out of a Soul Collage workshop I took. I like mine better...

Click to expand...

LOL yes. I like the idea of the cards depicting real things in the natural world rather than complicated fantasy or symbolic images, also the large number of cards (101). I'm not so keen on those interpretations on the website though, it seems like the idea is to pick a card each day to be fed a philosophy rather than to stimulate you to find your own meanings. The Voyager Tarot book is like that; develop a "good quality" every day until finally you have them all.

I have ordered a deck now on the basis that I've been happily reading The Photographic Card Deck of the Solar System and The Photographic Card Deck of the Elements which don't have any interpretations, so it's not as if I have to follow the book.

Thanks for your insights and comments, guys!

I now have the Sustain Yourself cards in my possession and am working on getting to know them. It's my first oracle deck so I'm being a bit cautious and just doing 1-card pulls for now to explore. Really digging the art so far -- multifaceted and it gets me thinking creatively. I'm intrigued by this deck but not 100% in love -- YET. The Breath (Oxygenation) card is pretty damn cool.

AJ said:

....these look like the cards that came out of a Soul Collage workshop I took. I like mine better...

Click to expand...

The Soul Collage workshop sounds intriguing! Details? Was it an online thing, or something in your city...?

http://www.soulcollage.com/

The very best part of the workshop for me was the trunks of magazines etc available to pull our images from
I went to a framers and asked him if he would, in his spare time, no hurry, from his scraps, make me 50 5X8" matt boards. Good size, plenty sturdy to take the glue and not warp. I love my cards, just wish I could run across a trunk of magazines to call my own

You don't need a workshop to do this of course, but working with a facilitator, when we were finished we got a lot more out of our images than even we thought of.
Here is a blog post from 2009.
http://kalamaquilts.blogspot.com/2009/03/soul-collage.html

I hope this isn't going too far afield of the thread. Wanless's cards are just so Soul Collage...I wouldn't be surprised if he hasn't add SC Facilitator to his bag of business options.
If it's off subject mods, just delete it. it is possible a forum search will bring up other SC threads.

I have the Voyager but not the Sustain Yourself. I read te VT as an oracle solely based on the images and the title. I got used to the profusion of images because in each reading one of them pops and it is the dominant/relevant to THAT reading in question. What I'm saying is, if you're visual like me, you do have to LIKE the images in the sense that they communicate well with you. If so, reading is just the follow-up
As to Soul Collage, this is one of my dreams that will NEVER happen. I would LOVE to take part in those workshops but living where I do, it's just a wish and nothing more. I would strongly advise you to check AJ's link. The cards created are simply amazing.

James Wanless also does classes on his oracle deck at many of the big Tarot gatherings like Reader's Studio in NY and BATS (Bay Area Tarot Symposium) in No. CA if you are interested... He is a very awesome guy filled with enlightening guidance and wisdom!

AJ said:

http://www.soulcollage.com/
You don't need a workshop to do this of course, but working with a facilitator, when we were finished we got a lot more out of our images than even we thought of.

Click to expand...

Oh wow, this looks AMAZING! I checked out the page and watched the video and did some browsing and am currently MAD-inspired. I don't think I'll be able to get to one of the actual workshops (I live in Asia), but what they're doing is so cool and I'm keen to try it out myself at home. Now where to get those magazines.....! Thanks so much for sharing this.

ana luisa said:

I have the Voyager but not the Sustain Yourself. I read te VT as an oracle solely based on the images and the title. I got used to the profusion of images because in each reading one of them pops and it is the dominant/relevant to THAT reading in question. What I'm saying is, if you're visual like me, you do have to LIKE the images in the sense that they communicate well with you. If so, reading is just the follow-up

Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing your insight on the Voyager tarot, ana luisa. I recently acquired this deck and while I LOVE the images (love-love-love), I find myself resisting a little the obvious departures from the RWS deck, which I learned on and of which I remain very fond. I think I'll take your advice and approach this deck more as an oracle. xo

Pam O said:

James Wanless also does classes on his oracle deck at many of the big Tarot gatherings like Reader's Studio in NY and BATS (Bay Area Tarot Symposium) in No. CA if you are interested... He is a very awesome guy filled with enlightening guidance and wisdom!

Click to expand...

Thanks for this suggestion! I actually recently found some James Wanless talks/interviews on YouTube and this guy cracks me up, in the best possible way...... It's like if the Dude from "The Big Lebowski" suddenly became a little more enlightened and a lot more articulate and began reading tarot. Stellar guy; he really speaks to me. Ahhhh, NY, Cali....... I would love to visit!

This deck arrived just in time to see if it would add any further detail to an exchange reading I was having a bit of trouble with and I found it read surprisingly quickly and easily just by looking at the images and the words on the cards - I didn't even need to open the book.



The spread was taken from a Tarot spread having the 6 of Pentacles as a predefined card in the centre and I think the idea of the water cycle in the Weather card I drew matches the concept of giving and taking quite well.

In relation to the spread questions the other cards immediately gave the ideas of a giver and taker both growing together, things coming to fruition, helping someone to grow and aspiring to use one's gifts fully, which all fit very clearly.

I'm looking forward to using this deck more.