Sacred Feminine and the Tarot
Lesson Two – Deepen Your Study
“One day a friend came over and showed me a Tarot deck—my first. As she demonstrated how to use it, I asked questions about my life and she interpreted the cards I chose. I was smitten—clearly, I had found my psychic path. The cards my friend gave me were the “Waite-Rider” Tarot cards, designed by Edward Waite and painted by Pamela Smith in 1910. Even in this medieval, male-oriented set of images, I could see that the Goddess was remarkably present. I understood that my research on the ancient Goddess was somehow contained in the esoteric wisdom of the Tarot.”
Vicki Noble Motherpeace
In a well-read, fiction best-seller by Dan Brown, titled, The Da Vinci Code, the protagonist in this murder mystery struggles to unravel a plot involving buried Vatican secrets. On p. 92, in a conversation with the primary female character, Langdon, an American Harvard University professor of symbology and cryptology, has the following exchange,
“The pentacle has meaning to you?”
“Yes, I didn’t get a chance to tell you, but the pentacle was a special symbol between my grandfather and me when I was growing up. He used to play Tarot cards for fun, and my indicator card always turned out to be from the suit of pentacles. I’m sure he stacked the deck, but pentacles got to be our little joke.”
Langdon felt a chill. They played Tarot? The medieval Italian card game was so replete with hidden symbolism that Langdon had dedicated an entire chapter in his new manuscript to the Tarot. The game’s twenty-two cards bore names like The Female Pope, The Empress, and The Star. Originally, Tarot had been devised as a secret means to pass along ideologies banned by the Church. Now, Tarot’s mystical qualities were passed on by modern fortune-tellers.” (the bold italicized was italicized in the text only)
Dan Brown is suggesting in his book that the Tarot couriered hidden symbolism related to the mysteries of the sacred feminine; a concept, affirmed and cherished among Tarotists.
It wasn’t until the mid ‘70’s however, that the idea for a “womyn centred” deck was born among feminists who were also avid Tarotists. Feminist scholars and adherents of the Tarot were becoming increasingly frustrated by the patriarchal, hierarchal and masculine dominated images, interpretations and associations in prevalent Tarot decks and writings. A collective movement was launched to revamp Tarot into a system of divination that honoured and elevated the sacred feminine into a position of prominence in the field.
It’s difficult to ascertain just who began this movement, because like the invention of so many innovative and profoundly useful tools, a concept that’s “time has come” strikes many souls simultaneously. A collective of consciousness raising wimmin gather to create the Daughters of the Moon, inviting another like-minded womyn to join them, Flash Silvermoon, and another womyn, Vicki Noble and her partner Karen Vogel also launch their project, the Motherpeace. The Motherpeace was the first to get self-published in 1981, and in 1983 picked up by U.S. Games for mass production. The Daughters of the Moon project was launched for independent publication by 1985 and Flash Silvermoon with the Wise Woman Tarot didn’t get into full publication until 2002.
Feminist Taroists as a group have always been set apart from the main Tarot stream and are the leaders in a movement that continues to snowball and gather speed and power as it goes which is one whereby a group will not support or adhere to a Tarot image and interpretation that does not fit with their political/spiritual beliefs period.
Lesson Two – Deepen Your Study