Gaian Tarot...the good, the bad, the anything else

Bhavana said:

I'd be interested, Griz. We drove across the Olympic Peninsula in Washington and stopped in all these small towns, where the cafes and general stores had all these cool old photos of the loggers...lots of interesting history, and I'd imagine that way back when, the people who left the comfy east coast to work and live in the west were of pretty tough stock - as were most of those who went west. I picture something not too dissimilar to the Prairie tarot...

Click to expand...

Yes, tough stock is right. My family were all loggers and log truck drivers, cat mechanics, ranchers, mill workers and farming people. My father's family came here from England and settled here before Oregon was a state. My great-grandparents on my mother's side were pioneers, too, to Kansas, where they built a sod house and raised 13 children, all born at home in the "soddy".

Oregon isn't what it once was. We were always good managers of the forests and making sure they grew back once logged. Then people who weren't native here decided they didn't like seeing the clear cut areas and got the government involved and now our forests are not only not as healthy, they're also not available to help our economy. I'd definitely make the deck depict the time period back when there was still all the logging going on.

I'll give it some serious thought because it would be kind of a neat way to honor my Oregon heritage as well as being kind of fun once finished. What a huge undertaking, though! It would probably take me a very long time to get a deck done.

The people in the Gaian don't bother me at all; I can dang sure relate to them better than I can dark angels, fairies, vampires, or people dressed in steampunk costumes. I bought the deck because I wanted one that was nature-based, and it fits the bill. I love it because it brings so many animals, plants and trees into the cards, and for me it does give good readings.
ETA: I'm not from the Northwest, but from farming country in the Deep South.

BodhiSeed said:

The people in the Gaian don't bother me at all; I can dang sure relate to them better than I can dark angels, fairies, vampires, or people dressed in steampunk costumes. I bought the deck because I wanted one that was nature-based, and it fits the bill. I love it because it brings so many animals, plants and trees into the cards, and for me it does give good readings.
ETA: I'm not from the Northwest, but from farming country in the Deep South.

Click to expand...

You have articulated my sentiments exactly! Especially "I can dang sure relate to them better than I can dark angels, fairies, vampires, or people dressed in steampunk costumes."

For what it is worth, I mentioned in a prior post that I didn't think the Gaian Tarot is location specific. That isn't exactly right. Anyone familiar with the Pacific Northwest will immediately recognize it in the Gaian Tarot. But trees are trees, clouds in the sky are clouds in the sky. You get the picture. Most of us can relate to nature images regardless of a deck's setting.

Grizabella said:

Yes, tough stock is right. My family were all loggers and log truck drivers, cat mechanics, ranchers, mill workers and farming people. My father's family came here from England and settled here before Oregon was a state. My great-grandparents on my mother's side were pioneers, too, to Kansas, where they built a sod house and raised 13 children, all born at home in the "soddy".

Oregon isn't what it once was. We were always good managers of the forests and making sure they grew back once logged. Then people who weren't native here decided they didn't like seeing the clear cut areas and got the government involved and now our forests are not only not as healthy, they're also not available to help our economy. I'd definitely make the deck depict the time period back when there was still all the logging going on.

I'll give it some serious thought because it would be kind of a neat way to honor my Oregon heritage as well as being kind of fun once finished. What a huge undertaking, though! It would probably take me a very long time to get a deck done.

Click to expand...

I think the hardest part about any deck is coming up with the theme/idea for each card. 78 times. That's a huge undertaking. How cool to have that sort of family history, though!

Now a "Tree Huggers Tarot" - that could be a really funny deck to do...though it might look an awful lot like the Gaian!

Bhavana said:

Now a "Tree Huggers Tarot" - that could be a really funny deck to do...though it might look an awful lot like the Gaian!

Click to expand...

Yes, I think you've just renamed this deck for me! It's now the Tree Huggers Tarot! (I am a tree hugger. Hubby has taken several pictures of me hugging trees. )

BodhiSeed said:

The people in the Gaian don't bother me at all; I can dang sure relate to them better than I can dark angels, fairies, vampires, or people dressed in steampunk costumes. I bought the deck because I wanted one that was nature-based, and it fits the bill. I love it because it brings so many animals, plants and trees into the cards, and for me it does give good readings.
ETA: I'm not from the Northwest, but from farming country in the Deep South.

Click to expand...

This is a big part of what attracts me to the Gaian. And I'm from farming country in the Deep North.

I love my Gaian, but I don't love it as much as I thought it would. Some cards seem to "move" for me: Two and Three of Fire, Explorer of Air (I can see the tree branches swaying in the wind). I really like the court cards, I find it easier to relate to them.
On the other hand, in terms of earth-based decks, I actually prefer my Mythical Goddess. It's also very new age-y, but the scenes: a community gathered around a fire, a woman carrying a basket of fruit on her head, a withered tree, many cards that don't contain humans at all, these say "earth-based" to me more than the Gaian.

I also didn't like how the companion book seemed to stress transcending the "mundane" material world. It seems to me an earth-based deck would be more about living *in* the world instead of trying to escape it. (Also, in light of other comments in this thread, the anti-materialist message is kind of lost on me.) In short, it seems like a very New Age, middle class kind of earth-based ness.

HighPriestess said:

I also didn't like how the companion book seemed to stress transcending the "mundane" material world. It seems to me an earth-based deck would be more about living *in* the world instead of trying to escape it.

Click to expand...

For me, the book was the weakest aspect of the deck. The descriptions didn't begin to describe what I was seeing in the cards. I think the cards speak much more eloquently on their own - especially since we are all part of the natural world, and the ostensible purpose of the deck is to help us to engage with it.

Carla said:

Yes, I think you've just renamed this deck for me! It's now the Tree Huggers Tarot! (I am a tree hugger. Hubby has taken several pictures of me hugging trees. )

Click to expand...

Good Lord, Carla, that is a BIG tree.

I like trees. Trees are good. I like to touch trees, especially older big trees. They feel so...I don't know...rooted, I guess. So strongly attached to the planet. I've hugged a few trees - mainly trees that were scheduled to come down, and were somehow saved, either by public outcry or something along those lines. And it makes me really sad when I see people chopping down trees, or when they are lost to storms.

The Wheel of Change is kind of a tree hugger deck, too. I find it to be very earth based, even more so (and more worldly) than the Gaian because it touches on other cultures. Lots of people hate the book, supposedly very preachy - but I really haven't read it. Just looking at it, it's so thick and wordy - puts me to sleep. I like the deck, though. And in spite of it's faults, I still want the Gaian and think I will enjoy using it!

I adore trees! I've spent my whole nearly 67 years in the rain forest area of Oregon so it's my home and I love it above any place I've ever been. I've hugged tons of trees myself, speaking of actually putting my arms around a tree and loving it up. But when I say "tree hugger", I'm referring to the people who chain themselves to a tree----say in our downtown area here in Oregon---when they hear it's going to be cut down due to disease or whatever. Sometimes they do it in the woods, too, if they happen to decide they don't want a particular timber sale to proceed. But a lot of the "tree hugging" types here belong to a group of people who are pretty nasty. The forest service has actually had to shut down areas of forests to clean them up when these people leave because they infest the sites with vermin when they've been camping there and leave them strewn with garbage and feces and stuff. They come en masse sometimes to our hospital ER for treatment of scabies and such things. They're just not what you may think of when I use that term. Now, having to shut down an area of a forest because it's so vermin infested that other campers can't even go there till the area is cleaned up is pretty nasty, I think anyone would have to admit. These are people who capitalized on the concern for the clear-cut logging by using it as a way to camp illegally and just generally cause a problem----they decided to call it something it wasn't primarily. And when I say "forest", you can just about capitalize the word because we don't have small stands of trees we call forests, we have millions and millions of acres of dense forest wilderness where small planes go down and are never found. Now THAT is a FOREST!

So anyway, hug your trees. That's fine. Didn't mean to upset anyone who loves trees.