Graven Images Oracle (Soon To Be Published!)

Love it!

Kat and Natalie,

Congratulations on birthing such a unique and beautiful deck! My husband and I love to stroll through old cemeteries looking at the stone works of art and reading the inscriptions. Many of my friends think our habit is morbid, but I think it is only their fear of death that makes them feel this way. Your idea to produce an oracle with these images was nothing short of creative genius! I eagerly await the publication of your deck!

Many blessings,
Bodhran

Thank you so much for your kind words! It's funny--I've met more and more people in my travels that like to walk around in cemeteries. They really are a place for life. But I've encountered people (ie: one of my nephews!) who think that it's morbid--but I think you're right, they just want to avoid the topic of death. I've really learned and grown alot from working on this project.

For Luna~~I find explaining things to people before doing readings helps ALOT.

One of the things we wanted to put out there as well as that this is an organic tool--we have done interpretations for the images but people are generally familiar with cemetery imagery, and are going to bring their own thoughts, emotions and experiences to the table--thus expanding (tweaking, sharpening?) the reading. I love to ask people what they see or what they feel from the cards that are drawn.

gravenimages said:

Thank you so much for your kind words! It's funny--I've met more and more people in my travels that like to walk around in cemeteries. They really are a place for life. But I've encountered people (ie: one of my nephews!) who think that it's morbid--but I think you're right, they just want to avoid the topic of death. I've really learned and grown alot from working on this project.

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Like you and bodhran, I have always been fascinated with cemeteries.
Whether or not this is a *morbid* hobby is subject to opinion.....
But I think you are correct....it may be a fear of death that scares people
away from such places.

When I was a child, maybe around ten years old, my brothers and cousins and I would often walk through the small, family cemetary that was next to my grandparents' house. Sometimes we would read the inscriptions out loud, or try to find the oldest marker (there were many there from the 1800's and a few from the 1700's). I remember touching the stones and tracing the letters with my fingers.

Other times we even played "hide and seek"....but we were always respectful of the stones and the land itself, as being sacred. We never lost sight of where we were or what it represented, yet we were unafraid and felt comfortable for some reason.

Anyway....I guess that is where it all started for me.

I still find it relaxing and peaceful to walk in a cemetary....no traffic, very
few people, surrounded by flowers and trees.

Of course I should mention....I prefer to visit only in the daytime hours!

Luna

I've been meaning to post a reply but I have a friend visiting from London this week--and have been away from the computer (a good thing?) LOL

There is something about just being in a cemetery that transports you to another world--there is one in particular where I shot some of the pictures for the deck--Elmwood Cemetery in New Brunswick, NJ that is just amazing. It's a Victorian place that is now in the middle of a rather run down and industrial neighboorhood--but once you pass into it, you can't hear cars or people--it's quite eerie. Not so much scary, but a watching feeling--and it's stronger in certain parts. I'm hoping that Kat will register and put some posts up as well--hopefully in the next week!

Natalie

PS--I prefer cemeteries in the daytime as well--actually in NJ the bigger graveyards that are gated are locked, and you're not supposed to go there after dusk--but there's this really small one behind my brother's house...

Glad to see things are on track again. Without forcing the issue again, moderation requires moderation. Sometimes you can be too "busy" and look for things that don't require fixing.

Repeat after me: "Cemeteries are NOT morbid, cemeteries are not morbid."

I understand this feeling of quietude, of being cut off from the world in older, larger cemeteries. There is a fantastic cemetery in Toronto called the Mount Pleasant Cemetery where this happens too. You walk into a corner and then--no sound. It reminds me of The Wood Between the Worlds in the book "The Magician's Nephew" by C.S. Lewis.

My cemetery where I live is like this too. I told Natalie about a particular tombstone that caught my attention there. It's hard to find--cemeteries have these regular rows don't they, but it's like trying to find your car in a parking lot, you think you've got the right row and then...boom you're in a completely new part and all this light and silence hits you, you've lost your bearings, and it all seems like a drowsy dream.

How perfect for a set of cards is that? You can envelop the viewer in the dreamy time warp where there is nothing but light and impression. It's magic.

Nat and Kat, it's like Siegfried and Roy--what a team. I am so thankful that you didn't mess with the look of these photographs and put doodads in the pictures.

I'm glad to see you back darwinia
People these days call the strangest things morbid.
There is nothing wrong with walking in cemeteries. Its not like we're digging up dead bodies.

I'm glad to see Darwinia back too! I think this is within the rules of posting, but if it isn't, please let me know...a great resource for cemetery studies is www.ags.org, the Association for Gravestone Studies. Alot of their work has to do with preservation and geneology, but I found them to be a great resource in this project. I submitted an article to them for their newsletter on how Graven Images Oracle was created. Once I hear back from them, maybe I can post it here? Kat and I also did another article on different encounters we had at some of the sites--is this something that anyone would be interested in hearing? Again, I don't know if this is the appropriate place for it...

XXNat

I think thats the wrong link.
www.gravestonestudies.org/

I would be interested in hearing the stories.

gravenimages said:

I submitted an article to them for their newsletter on how Graven Images Oracle was created. Once I hear back from them, maybe I can post it here? Kat and I also did another article on different encounters we had at some of the sites--is this something that anyone would be interested in hearing? Again, I don't know if this is the appropriate place for it...

XXNat

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I would LOVE to hear more about your encounters, please!
And since it is related to the creation of your oracle, I would think it is
appropriate to post here. If not, the moddies will let us know.

Luna

PS: Welcome back to darwinia!!! Thanks again for introducing us to this deck!

lunakasha said:

I would LOVE to hear more about your encounters, please!

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I would too. It reminds me of a book I had on ghost stories when I was a teenager. Someone was visiting Petite Trianon at Versailles, and when walking they got that silence thing happening, as Natalie describes, like time had stopped. Eerie indeed.

Thanks again for introducing us to this deck!

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I found it listed on Aeclectic as a deck seeking a publisher, otherwise I would not have discovered it. Nat's photography seemed to capture something of the enchantment of cemeteries, and I immediately wanted the deck.