Read an Excerpt
How to make friends, influence angels, and read oracles
First Steps into the Otherworld
The first thing I always tell my students about oracles and tarot decks is: Don't read the book.
This book, of course, is different...
This book is about the living oracle of the faeries a set of cards and a way of seeing that is different from standard human tarot and oracle cards. Brian once began to paint a human tarot with faery in it, but that wasn't what the faeries wanted him to do. They wanted him to make their own oracle cards, as nearly as he could without being able to paint in light instead of pigments.
This book is also about a different, intuitive way of reading the cards. It starts by helping you to discover your own meanings and insights in the cards instead of telling you mine. Later on, in Part Two, I'll give you the "starter" interpretations as I (and a few others) see them, but right now you need to be aware that any oracle has many possible valid interpretations. These "meanings" change from moment to moment and person to person. Like the faeries, the definitions are changeable and mutable, depending on how you see the world just now and on what the faeries would like to communicate to you. Here we will focus on discovering you¹re own individual interpretations and your special pathways and connections with the Faeries' Oracle.
So, what I really meant when I told my classes not to read their books was: Don't read someone else's definition of the cards until you already have some idea of what they mean to you.
Discovering what the cards mean to you, actually looking closely enough at them tobegin to find sonic of the faery secrets they hold, will give you a completely different and far more magical and intuitive approach to reading the oracle than memorizing a bunch of definitions. To help you to find your own insights, let's start here with some of the things that you will find useful to do and to understand before you read the second part of this book.
First, take a good look at your attitude. Are you really serious about this? Do you believe you will need to work hard with the cards?
If so, please, don't be like that. As much as you can, let yourself approach the cards and the faeries with a light and playful heart. Consider lightheartedness. We usually think of it as the opposite of having a heavy, sad heart, but the faeries also see it in terms of illumination. A light heart is not only not heavy it is glowing with joyful light. It allows us to see things in a different light. Be prepared to have fun with this. Be ready to enjoy the inevitable faery jokes and games. This lightheartedness will illuminate the Oracle for you, making your insights brighter, the concepts embodied in the cards more luminous, and your heart capable of holding even more light.
Now, with a healthy, playful mind-set, take the deck of cards and randomly spread them out, faces up, on a table or on the floor if, like me, you prefer a lot of space for working. The first thing you will notice, if you have any experience with tarot or oracle cards at all, is that this is not like any other deck. Well, it wouldn't be, would it? This is a faery oracle, and as unique, unpredictable, humorous, profound, and beautiful as you would expect something of Faery to be.
you will also notice that there are different types of pictures, and I'd like you to begin by dividing the cards into groups that seem to go together. Set your own criteria for selecting them and begin to notice how the different images and beings shown on the cards might relate to each other.
For example, you may sort into one group the cards that look rather abstract, while the other cards form a group showing scenes and beings that appear more detailed and realistic. As you try to divide the cards into these two subsets, you will find that there are a few that don't quite fit neatly into either but have qualities of both. They form a third set of their own.
Another way of sorting the cards is to divide them into a set that only shows one individual on the card, and a set that shows two, and another set that shows three or more. Or you can divide them into the faeries who look beautiful, the ones who look funny or amusing, and the ones who may appear menacing or threatening to you.
you might sort them by the what is on the heads of the principle faery in each card. Some wear wreaths of flowers or leaves. Some wear floating crowns of stars. There are woodland-style acorn caps, salmon hats, and many others. There are even the bareheaded faeries. What, if anything, do the members of each of these groups have in common? Can you find a kinship between them?
Use your imagination and intelligence and find a variety of ways to compare and relate and differentiate between the cards. There is no right way or wrong way to do this. It is just practice in looking at the cards and seeing the similarities and differences between them. Be inventive and creative and playful about it. The more you do this, the better you will begin to understand this Oracle and Faery itself.
I hope that you are already doing this and not just reading my words. Very shortly we are going to be discussing things that won't make nearly as much sense if you have not done these preliminary steps.
Please practice this for a while, before you go on.
Copyright © 2000 by Brian Froud and Jessica Macbeth