The Primal Tarot

beatles1318

I really really really like this deck! If you publish it, I will buy it. But two things that I wanted to address. One, I think Death, Star, and Moon are a little bare and simple. For the moon, maybe like some tree branches or some stars could give it more life. Second, I think it'd be cool if you had two different versions. One being the original pencil sketch version and a faded color version.

But really, I do love the artwork. If it's not too costly, I will definitely buy this deck when finished.
 

Aina

I wish I could draw like that! Love the dark and love the mood. It wouldn't be the everyday mood, but sometimes it would be cool to do a reading with these cards. Love the mood, the hermit, the moon and the beaver. For personal reasons :)
 

Aina

I really really really like this deck! If you publish it, I will buy it. But two things that I wanted to address. One, I think Death, Star, and Moon are a little bare and simple. For the moon, maybe like some tree branches or some stars could give it more life. Second, I think it'd be cool if you had two different versions. One being the original pencil sketch version and a faded color version.

But really, I do love the artwork. If it's not too costly, I will definitely buy this deck when finished.

I agree. If there was more action in the star and death image, would be better. The moon feels OK because it's big and usually that's how the moon looks like. Beautiful as it is. The star felt way too small, very faint. But if it wasn't like that, there wouldn't be that mood that it is there lingering in the emptiness.
 

beatles1318

If you need a special spread for your manual, you can use one of mine!
 

VGimlet

I like this deck, and will probably purchase it if it's available. I am usually not a fan of black and white decks, but have many exceptions to that, and this looks like it will be one too. :D

My only question is about the story-teller, who appears to be in a modern setting, where the other images seem to be from a more primitive or natural setting.
 

Cedar Wolf

Hmm. Something prompted me to take a look on this site, which I haven't been able to visit for a while, or post anything from the Primal Tarot, or...

I must have been kidnapped. It's the only explanation.

But they let me out. Hurray! (My family ain't all that rich, and my boyfriend is dirt poor.)

Not much time to write now, but thanks for the attention. I have more images to post soon, and I plan to respond to comments. But really, the exciting part about my absence is that it's because I've been focusing a lot of attention on the deck. It's getting closer, and we are shooting for a (not yet specified) date toward the end of the year for release. Wish us luck!

-A
 

McFaire

... the exciting part about my absence is that it's because I've been focusing a lot of attention on the deck. It's getting closer, and we are shooting for a (not yet specified) date toward the end of the year for release. Wish us luck!

-A

Good luck!

The art is beautiful. I love it. Personally I love the minimalist star and moon. If you do decide to change these, it might be an idea to include these alternate original takes.

Also really love the take on the Initiate.

I agree with VGimlet about the Storyteller -- in a built chair wearing what looks like slacks and a t-shirt, and modern-looking skeins -- seems out of era with the primal theme. Is the Storyteller from the same tribe as the characters we see in the initiate? Love the simple motif of the stars in her weaving.

You mention that you don't follow a traditional system, especially in the pips. Are you developing a new system? Or is it more free-form, unstructured?
 

Cedar Wolf

More Card Images!

Well, it's been an interesting summer, what with forest fires, evacuations, and writing-in-exile. And yet, here we are again.

Here are some images for the Earth suit, symbolized by Bones. I always thought Coins/Pentacles got a bad rap -- there's more to Earth than money and work. For me (and for indigenous people), the physical is the absolute anchor of our spiritual experiences. You can't separate one from the other. Some of our spiritual experience, too, is anchoring, and enables our drawing from and journeying to other realms, much like the skeleton of the body enables us to use muscles and blood and viscera to dance and swim and smell the first rain of the autumn. This deck reflects that in its entirety, but the foundation is here in the Bones.

One of the primary ways in which I depart from the traditional structure of Tarot is deciding not to invite numbers into the Primal Tarot. I don't arrange the Minor suits in any sort of order or assign them numbers, nor do I put the Kindred (Court) cards in a hierarchy. You're given the opportunity to see how they interact and order themselves for you.

This also means that the meanings of the Minors don't derive anything from numbers -- or, for that matter, Kabbalah or astrology. There are plenty of reasons for this, which I can go into if anyone is curious. The implication is that I wasn't constrained to use the meanings that other decks had before, and found that the freedom let me imagine what sort of symbols and meanings would be important in a deck that prized the life of every living creature, that emphasized the just-another-animal quality of Primal cultures that let them live in real, sustainable balance with the land for tens of thousands of years.

There are plenty of Minor cards with similarities to the Waite-Smith deck (and I'm sure others, though I don't know Thoth or Marseilles very well), but there are many that depart from tradition -- really, many traditions, because the Tarot has been changing all through its five-hundred year history.

The Hearth, the Basket, and the Root are all cards that go in different directions from the concerns of classic Tarot. I hope you like 'em.

P.S. I don't think I mentioned this yet, but the I found out that the monitor I'm using to edit the art was showing me something different from most monitors; I didn't know this until I looked at them on another computer and swore. Just think of all these images as works-in-progress.
 

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Cedar Wolf

Storyteller

VGimlet & McFaire:

Yes, the Storyteller is somewhat different in tone from the other cards posted, though she's not the only one. It's never been our intention to pretend that the modern world doesn't exist; really, one of the goals of this deck is to bring the light of ancient symbols to bear on the state of the world today.

The symbols can't teach us anything if we insist on seeing them as part of a world that remains trapped in the past, as many moderns see indigenous people as having vanished with the passing of time, rather than right here among us, talking to us, trying to get us to see that yesterday's lessons still illuminate this moment.

It might seem a little aesthetically disjointed, but to us it's more spiritually coherent.
 

Cedar Wolf

On we go into Water, symbolized by Resin in the Primal Tarot. Water is the lifeblood of the planet, its circulatory system. Resin is the crystallization of sap, the lifeblood of trees. Water conveys, water divides, water regroups, water rushes in, water is still.

I've never been satisfied that the symbol for Water is usually what it's contained in -- Cups, for instance. Water takes on different characteristics according to what holds it: a cup, a riverbed, pores in the subsoil, clouds. It's also more than its containers. This deck's suit symbols are taken from natural objects, and also influenced by the Collective Tarot's idea that they all are things you could put on your altar. But what stands for water in the natural world? Everything that's like water is water. There are many natural containers for it, but each one sort of limits the mutability of the element. Resin finally presented itself, a reminder of how water flows through everything.

In these cards, the Abyss shows water's boundless, engulfing aspect; the Dance presents its energetic side; the Kill Rites tell of water's ability to heal and make amends.
 

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