Today, I received this lovely deck of oracle cards. I received the book last year and actually met the artist. Next month, I hope to meet the author. So, the booklet included states,

The words on the cards and in this booklet provide suggestions for interpretation, some purposefully contradictory, some mystic and ambiguous. In the spirit of the book and the literature it celebrates, this deck plays with language and imagery and invites you to do the same.

The images of these cards really speak to me.

Also today I picked up a book on the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck. The book focuses on the Pamela Smith and her art that made the cards so famous. So far I’ve liked reading the history of the symbolism Smith used.

Now though I’m thinking about word choices. My mother gave me my Tarot deck when I was 14, and the word Tarot has meant a lot to me ever since. There are, however, also oracle cards, and I’m wondering if the word oracle better suits me.

Oracle cards have less structure. A deck can be any number you want. 22? Sure. 202. Yep. But Tarot usually must be 78. The imagery is stricter too, with the minor and the major arcana and everything captured so well by Pamela Smith.

And in odd coincidence, in my sci-fi fairytale manuscript, there is a character known as the Oracle.

Actually, just writing about this is giving me ideas…