Gulf Coast Tarot

I'm plodding through the creation of a 78-card tarot deck with a theme close to my heart and home - the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast. 

This means varmints and food; big personalities and the blues; the foreboding beauty of swamps and refineries; local lore and the take-it-or-leave-it novelty of widespread stereotypes. As I complete each card, I frame prints and sell them. They're available in my upcoming online store, and at the best little stationery shop in Texas, Letters to Zoe.

There are two things I don't discuss: religion and politics. Here I make no exception; I don't believe tarot is a divination tool. 

I believe tarot can be used as a tool in reframing my own perspectives, not in divination or in any magical sense. I am a believer in Christ. I believe that routine, ritual, incense burning, prayer and similar actions move many folks into a meditative and spiritual state of mind. Tarot was a card game invented in Italy in the 1430s, with zero nefarious or magical intentions. Modern fortune-telling tarot is based on Venetian adaptations from around 1780.

Not unlike a deck of particularly thought-evoking flash cards, tarot incites critical thinking about day-to-day obstacles and achievements, not to mention gaining new insights on bigger topics. By posing a challenge or question, in the form of whatever cards are drawn, it's a powerful practice which asks a person look within for wisdom. I believe such a game helps us to dust off our sense of mindfulness, to live in the moment and move past external distractions. To me there is plenty of space for God here.