Alterhuman Tarot/Oracle Decks
SatuSepiida - 2019-12-21 08:12:57
So we are getting into cartomancy again and wanted to chat about decks. Most of our decks we got before we had even realized the extent of our alterhumanity, and though they are wonderfully inclusive in many ways, those ways don't always feel representative of our alterhumanity.
So, are there any decks you feel represented by as alterhuman?
Our most alterhuman deck is probably Tarot of the Silicon Dawn by Egypt Urnash. She's postfurry and so is the deck. By sheer luck we picked it up as one of our first tarot decks. We grabbed it for the queerness, and the cards became very resonant before we even really knew why.
We have Tarot of Trees by Dana O'Driscoll which is a pretty deck with no humans, just trees. We don't really recomend the book for it (which is sold separate anyway lol), it's basic and kinda normative.
We are lucky to live in a city with an occult shop with very many demo decks, including one of the Otherkin Tarot. That deck doesn't really call to us though. But we did just order the Wild Unknown Tarot and eagerly await it's arrival after the holidays. We're also still searching for our ideal dragon deck.
The_Flock - 2019-12-27 07:30:15
(Oh man, I know Magen is jealous of you having a copy of the Silicone Dawn, it's the only deck she wants right now :P)
I have decks that definitely speak to me on alterhuman levels, but they might not be universal. Take for example the Homestuck Tarot (1st edition? I think there's been an updated version), Definitely relevant to one of muir facets as a Homestuck fableing, but otherwise might not resonate with others as alterhuman unless you connect to Homestuck in that way.
The Neon Moon tarot is very cyberpunk and queer and radical, and I like that. It features a lot of cyber body mods, but the most alterhuman feels I get come from the robots portrayed in the cards. Especially the Lovers, which is two feminine-looking robots about to kiss, the flavor text being
We were built to feel love and pleasure and they hate us for it, and they'll kill us for it. But after the misery of living in their world, we can yet find each other and call our little corner of life worthwhile.
Which obviously parallels social attitudes toward queer people, but there's hints of nonhumanity there that I really appreciate.
And there's an oracle deck I got recently called the Pathfinder Oracle, which features nature imagery from many great National Parks in the USA. The deck's novelty is in the cards being squares/diamonds, and all four points having meanings instead of just having uprights/reversals. The animal and nature imagery speaks to me in different ways from human-focused imagery as in many tarot decks, that's for sure.
marron - 2019-12-31 16:51:18
I don't own any that are explicitly alterhuman, but I own a mix of nonhuman decks (e.g. The Dragon Tarot; all dragons, probably great if you're dragonkin) and fiction-based decks (The Yugioh Tarot is a treat for sure) with a couple more conventional decks.
I really want to find a tarot of machines… maybe I should start work on one >_>
Vyt - 2020-04-14 15:22:54
I bought the WIldwood Tarot due to the associations with natire and animals, but honestly it hasn't really "clicked" or had an impact on me in that way.
A home-made oracle deck was actually what kickstarted my identification as a therian. I had been aware of therian/otherkin spaces previously. And they had felt relatable enough to lurk, but also I had certain problems with them (and my own self-consciousness and self-judgement) that kept me from accepting the label for myself. I got into tarot as a method for self-reflection rather than divination; and got the idea to make an animal-themed oracle deck for msyelf. It was rather crude, all plain paper and colored pencils. I essentially chose animals based on my own archetypal interpretations of them (e.g. ants as diligent, cats as independent), then would draw a card by referening and onliune photo. "Dog" was one of my choices. I googled the generic word, getting multiple breeds in the results. One image in particular (of a red australian sheperd) struck me so completely that it felt like a bolt from the blue.
In seeing that picutre it was the most strong jolt of self-identification and that's me, that's me, thats what I would/should look like as a dog I had ever felt. And I had no "rational" explanation for the strength of those feelings- I liked dogs, but not as a favorite animal, and had never owned or had special experiences with an aussie. It didn't immediately make me go "Oh, I guess I was wrong, I am a therian", but the feelings were profound enough that I felt I had to do something, and resolve the question once and for all. So that's what led me to seek out therian forums as a questioning person, and meeting other therians on forums led me to accept myself as one.
I still have and love that oracle deck. Being a hommeade sort of thing (and me being not a professional artist by a long shot) it's not something I can link to or offer to other people. It's been three years and I found border collie fit better than australian sheperd. But it remains important to me as that watershed moment of my own therian identity.