Dear Wonder-folk,

We’re all mysteries to ourselves at times — bundles of inarticulate fears and misunderstood longings. That’s why for more than 40 years, I’ve kept a deck of Tarot cards in my nightstand drawer. They’re not a regular part of my life, but I use them off and on when I’m stuck in a dark place and can’t find the right words to explain to myself, let alone anyone else, what’s going on.  Sometimes an image can throw open a door in a way no amount of talking or thinking can.  

This week’s episode with Sharon Blackie has me thinking again about the power of symbolic language. Tarot cards work because of the way the images tug at the subconscious. They don’t have precise meanings, but they feel vaguely remembered, like something you maybe dreamed once, or heard in a story or a song. Fairy tales work that way too. The unforgettable images that animate them — like the red shoes that dance on and on; the selkie’s stolen skin; Baba Yaga’s hut, which runs through the forest on chicken legs — can also lend themselves to self-reflective and active imagination practices.  

Sharon recently designed her own Fairy Tale Heroine Oracle deck and I spent some time with it this week. Illustrated by Amanda Clark, it’s a set of 48 cards in four suits — tasks, places, guides and tools. The cards have names like “The Nettle,” “The Enchanted Forest,” “Frog,” “Mirror,” “Kiss.”  When I asked Sharon how she uses the deck, she stressed that the cards are not intended for divination or fortune-telling but for “sense-making.”  

“The cards are a way to capture these archetypal images so that you can, by trusting that you’re choosing an appropriate card, be aware of whatever archetypal energies are present and active in your life right now. So, there’s an image in there of the glass mountain — it’s an image that’s been important in my life and I know what it means. If I were to pick the glass mountain card, it would tell me that there’s some energy in my life, something that looks impossible – the ‘beautiful impossible’ — that I need to find a way beyond. It’s often as unspecific as that. And then you need to let the image go to work on you. You need to sit with the image, look at it and let it reveal what it has to tell or teach you.”

I’ve enjoyed getting inside some of these fairy tale images – the experience is a bit like spending time in a magical, secret garden. This afternoon, out of curiosity, I picked up the deck, held it and asked “What could Wonder Cabinet offer to listeners?” I shuffled, waiting until I felt a tiny buzz of “this one,” and turned up the top card. Take a look:

That’s my moment of magic this week. I wish you plenty more.

 — Anne