The Earthstar Tarot Is Live!

The Earthstar Tarot is now live and I hope you’re enjoying it! Actually, it’s been live for the last week or so, I’ve just been slack with the announcement so sorry about that. 

It’s a collab between the artist Lauren Over + me and yes, it’s taken forever. I drove Lauren nuts with emails like “Upon further research, this card cannot be a Poppy, sorry can you can change it again?” and myriad screenshots attempting to parse why one ancient source attributed a flower to the Fire element and another insisted it was Air.

I love Lauren’s art: she is a classic little-bit-country/little-bit-urban Gemini, bona-fide 5th house woman, cat-lady, green-fingers and aspirant artisan of everything. She also has vibe – some sort of weird witchy bloodline no doubt.

I have a giant blow-up version of The Star card illo on a center wall and it lifts everything.

Some of the associations may seem random but it’s all legit connected. It works for me as I can get too much into my head and the Earthstar being so, well, earthy and botanical feels nourishing. The cards I pull are apt but they often inspire me to go do something sensual and nature-aligned, which is brilliant on multiple levels.

I’d actually like to do a hard-copy Moon Diary with Lauren’s art, all the astro, star-rise times and the right growing info. It wouldn’t be complex as my gardening is – at best – intuitive but it could include the old-fashioned Moon rules for when to plant, weed, prune etc and be adapted for your zone.

It can also be interesting to ponder the zodiac degrees on the cards: the Eight of Water, above, incorporates the first ten degrees of Pisces which is of course where Saturn has plonked his leaden self right now. If you got this card – see delineation below – you could also think about which sector of your birth chart incorporates Zero to Ten degrees of Pisces or specific people born in the first third of that sign.

The Eight of Water

Many people would be fulfilled by a structure or convention you’re preparing to leave behind – perhaps even the you of a short time ago. But you’re picking up on a metaphysical message or line of inspo and you’re heeding it. The Eight of Water resonates with Pegasus, the winged horse constellation – it’s Druidic Lunar Mansion is Aituarios – Nobility, Knowledge, Steadfast. Water Lily is your plant muse for serenity under transformation pressures – the flower floats in transcendental beauty, having turned gunk from the bottom of the lake or pond into whatever is required. You prevail.

The Earthstar Tarot draws off both the Hindu nakshatras – or lunar mansions – and the lesser-known Druidic lunar mansions. There is a lot of cross-over between them. It’s a discussion for another time but FYI, ages ago I interviewed Deepak Chopra and he absolutely thought they’d been integrated.

A Libra with Mercury, Mars and Jupiter in Scorpio/the 8th house, he started out with some soft tinkly patter about the pleasures of a ‘peaceful psyche’ and then amped up into a hyperbolic genius rave re the etymology of ‘druidic’ and ‘vedic.’

Annoyingly, I was a cadet reporter with a brief to mine him for snazzy quotes about quantum dieting techniques. We were in a plush but crowded hotel foyer bar and the infuriating Sagittarian newspaper photographer kept leaping around to ‘check the light’ and hissing ‘get him to fuqing levitate‘ in my ear.

Anyway, the Druidic component is cool and while researching I discovered the best translation of the Nine Herbs Charm/Spell: most versions are wrecked with an utterly inaccurate Christian overlay but this one is just magic. Warning: if you have an esoteric mindset or like to research metaphysics, the site is a beautiful labyrinth.