Sacred Circle Tarot

by Anna Franklin and Paul Mason

published by Llewellyn, 1998

book 322 pages

half traditional card titles

eight: Strength (The Warrior); eleven: Justice  (The Web) 

suits are wands, cups, swords and discs

courts are page, knight, queen and king

no illustrated pips, captions

backs non-symmetrical

     The fun of this deck is the heathen characters we meet in this sacred circle.  The Green Man  leads us into the wheel of seasons.  His primal energy takes conscious form and direction as he morphs into High Priest.  Intuition is added to intellect in the High Priestess.  The Lady  describes the goddess in each of us.  The Lord  reveals the seed in the earth.  These fours ways of knowing, via mind, heart, body and soul, are harmonized by The Druid.  The Lovers  marry; our polarities fuse opposites, becoming whole by choice.  Will power and courage sustain the teamwork in The Chariot.  The Warrior  represents the strength that comes of confronting our fears.  The Shaman  returns to his “wilderness,” whose Greek name is The Hermit!  Here, we come to know the cosmic forces which turn The Wheel.  The Web  names our universal connections which determine our Justice.  Sacrifice  shows us giving up beliefs and defenses.  Death  shows us giving up even our notions of who we are.  The Underworld  shows us embracing our shadows, Guardians of the Gateway to Initiation.  The Tower  crumbles for our protective delusions.  Initiation  depicts the center of the labyrinth, the cauldron/womb of regeneration.  Reformed and reborn, we follow The Star  back to the surface.  This outward impulse is illuminated by the collective unconscious of everyone’s Moon.  Emerging into daylight, The Sun  shines on our eternal selves.  Rebirth  represents our carrying water, chopping wood, not quite as before.  The World Tree, the axis mundi, which links all the realms, is centered in us as pilgrims of the next level of the spiral.

 Wands are surrounded by flames.  Cups are framed in purple waves.  Swords are enclosed in cloudy panels.  Discs are bordered by earth and stone.  The artist describes his process this way, “The Tarot was produced using a combination of photographs (scanned into the Kodak PhotoCD format), pencil drawings colorized and enhanced by computer, and elements drawn and constructed directly in computer graphics applications.  This combination of media was then assembled in Photoshop and the color, contrast, and density of each element adjusted to produce a more harmonious whole.  When the composition was completed, I applied a filter to give a more painterly appearance, varying the degree to effect different parts of the picture.  At this stage, I also applied lighting effects, such as stars and rays of light.  The final aim was to produce a tarot that had some of the naturalism of photography, but also had a magical realism that did justice to the subject.”

     The author continues, “This deck is based on the teachings of the British Pagan Tradition.  Central to our path is a relationship with the land in a real, not symbolic, manner.  We observe and celebrate the wheel of the seasons and become part of their ebb and flow.  The spirits of the land – the Gods and Goddesses, the Wildfolk, the animals and plants – are sought and honored for their teachings.”