the Everyday Tarot - truly my everyday deck. it's what i read for others with and since it's so sturdy it lives in my backpack most of the time. i love the simplified Rider-Waite imagery.
the Wild Unknown Tarot - my first real deck and now my sister's. one of my more mean decks - it'll tell it to you straight.
the TrueBlack Tarot - back when i had an altar, i used this as my ceremonial deck.
the Wayhome Tarot - my favorite for personal readings.
Postcards from the Liminal Space - companion oracle deck for the Wayhome, seemingly out of print.
the Oriens Tarot - very high on my favorites list; i backed it on KickStarter.
the Little Monsters Tarot - the illustration style is just so good.
the Pear Tree Oracle - companion to the above.
the Angelarium Oracle - very first deck of cards ever. i've been obsessed with Peter Mohrbacher's work for years.
the Cat Tarot - a gift! extremely cute. the devil is a golden retriever and death is a vaccuum.
the Marigold Tarot - because you always need a black and gold deck.
the Mesquite Tarot - really enjoy the book that came with this one. out of print maybe?
the Night Sun Tarot - i don't vibe with these enough to read with them but i do enjoy them as part of the collection.
the Tarot of the Unknown - a gift. Over The Garden Wall is a masterpiece, enough said. out of print.
the Binding of Isaac Tarot - another gift. i do enjoy binding me some isaac from time to time, but i can't find this deck online anywhere.
the Welcome to Night Vale Tarot - pretty sure this was my first fandom deck and i don't play with it enough.
over the 2024 halloween weekend i hosted two almost back-to-back tarot nights where i read fortunes for dozens of people at a packed college bar. here are some highlights:
i performed as Madam Moth in a costume i made from scratch. i found a blackout curtain at a thrift store and turned it into a wing cape with painted details. obviously it had to have big eyes on the back, so i sewed on a couple of red safety reflectors as the pupils so they could catch the light. the curtain had a white lining so i added some designs with a sharpie - this was the last-secondest addition and i like how it came out but i think i definitely could have done better with a bit more planning.
the headpiece was cobbled together with a headband, battery tea lights, and plumes from a feather duster. the lights are my favorite part. unfortunately it was a really warm couple of days so the cape didn't get much wear while sweating in my booth, but i did get to go out and catch a local band between events and dance around with my wings out, which was fantastic.
everyone was so lovely and sweet! i was a little worried that someone would take offense (this is the Deep South after all) but even the people who were uninterested were politely so. i have no idea how many people came through the booth - it had to have been close to a hundred over both nights. they were flash readings, just three to six cards, but they were a lot of people's first reading ever.
i'm not in the business of giving out bad news based on a deck of cards, so readings this quick and contextless are essentially a mix of motherly encouragement, exuberant hype, and gentle life advice. i pulled eight of pentacles for a lot of people and told them all that i was proud of the hard work they'd been putting in. three of cups was a reminder that they were loved by their friends and so worthy of that love. the magician was a celebration of their competence and the tools at their disposal. some of them really needed to hear it, and told me so. some of them welled up a little and some sat in the booth stunned for a few seconds before rejoining their friends.
the very best customer, though, was a dachshund named Benny, wearing a bear costume and held in his owner's arms like a football. i pulled king of pentacles reversed and told him that he was the little king of everything and he would never even know it.
the venue provided a tablecloth for me on night one, but since night two was an unplanned encore, they didn't hang onto it. i needed something a little more aesthetic than a stained wooden table, so i improvised. since it was too hot for my cape anyway, my wings became my tarot cloth. it wasn't ideal, but i think it was poetic, and there was a lovely gravity to packing up my props at the end of the night, then sweeping the cape off the table and onto my shoulders like a traveling gleeman.
i absolutely want to do this again, certainly next halloween but maybe sometime in between. i have service industry friends in a couple of different bars nearby who might host me. i absolutely want to make another cape regardless - my wings are cozy and warm, and it would be rad as hell to have a handmade, custom decorated cloak for the winter.