Decks with aged women/crone energy

[Mokona]

I find old men represented a lot in tarot decks but old women rarely. I'm looking for both oracle and tarot decks with old women represented in them. I have the Textured Tarot and the Literary Witches Oracle but that's about it.

I've come across decks like the Faery Forest Oracle which are full of beautiful young people and ONE ancient/crone card with an old woman. That's better than nothing, and I would like to know about such decks too. But I'd be even happier with decks where it's not the exception to the rest of the deck, or a one-off thing. 

Edited May 21, 2021 by Mokona

[-fenrir-]

You mean something like this?

https://www.saltcreekapothecary.com/products/sacred-hags-oracle-by-danielle-dulsky

[vulprix]

The Tarot of the Crone by Ellen Lorenzi-Prince is the most obvious, fitting deck for your wishes, but it is OOP.  The Dark Goddess Tarot by the same creator has PLENTY of crone energy going on, and should be available in a mass-market edition through Schiffer.

 

Mass market decks that include at least a few cards with older persons, including women, on them include the Anna K and the Green Witch Tarots.  The Green Witch Tarot is a young-skewing deck overall; the Anna K is pretty good at representing a broad spectrum of ages.

[Raggydoll]

I think Tarot of the crone is being reprinted, and it’s a deck I really recommend. I agree that we do not see enough of older women in decks. It is something I have kept in mind as I’m working on my own deck (maybe I should specify that my deck is in progress and I’m not trying to sell anything, just adding my thoughts to the conversations!) 

[gregory]

Mary-El, too.

[katrinka]

5 hours ago, Mokona said:

I find old men represented a lot in tarot decks but old women rarely. I'm looking for both oracle and tarot decks with old women represented in them. I have the Textured Tarot and the Literary Witches Oracle but that's about it.

I've come across decks like the Faery Forest Oracle which are full of beautiful young people and ONE ancient/crone card with an old woman. That's better than nothing, and I would like to know about such decks too. But I'd be even happier with decks where it's not the exception to the rest of the deck, or a one-off thing. 

I have the Literary Witches, it's very well done.
Something I really like about it is that it's about women writers, and things like age, sexual orientation and race are incidental. It's not self-consciously inclusive, it's more like what you see IRL (except for the fact that most people can't write like that!)

I think we'd see a lot more decks with old women if we stopped using the word "crone". It comes from old French and Dutch words for a rotting carcass. Publishers probably don't see a lot of mass market appeal in that. 🤣

 

[Mokona]

@-fenrir- Yes! Thank you for bringing that deck to my notice, I've added it to my wishlist.

@vulprix The Dark Goddess Tarot seems amazing, thank you! I hope the Tarot of the Crone gets a reprint eventually. I usually avoid Llewellyn because their card stock irritates me, so I'll pass the Green Witch Tarot. I think I want the indie Anna K.

@Raggydoll I sure hope Tarot of the Crone gets reprinted. I also look forward to your deck, I've been following her progress on Instagram. I really want to see more older women in decks.

@gregory I was disappointed with the card changes in the second edition of the Mary-El, but I have my eye out for the first edition. Although it probably won't be affordable for me it's an amazing deck.

@katrinka A lot of common terms for women, including old women, are degrading terms or at least were. Some of them have been reclaimed and 'crone' feels like that for me; at least in the spiritual community the word is used with positive connotations. I mean, 'witch' was a negative word, sometimes still is used negatively, but it's been adopted by the spiritual community as an empowering one. The Sacred Hags oracle -fenrir- recommended empowers the term 'hag' which was used to denigrate women.

Plus I feel like and all terms for women are loaded. Thanks, patriarchy. There are no neutral terms. Not even 'womxn'.

[Raggydoll]

I know that the plan was for both the Dark goddess tarot and Tarot of the crone to be reprinted. The Dark goddess, as you probably know, got reprinted and massproduced by another company, but the word was that Ellen would re-print the Tarot of the crone herself again. I tried looking into it and it seems as if she might have changed her mind. On the Little Red tarot site it says "In November/December 2020 we had hoped to get a small number for our customers, but this was not possible. Sincere apologies for the raised hopes and disappointment." That is sad indeed. I hope that Ellen is still working on that new deck that she was eluding to when she took her old decks off the market. If that is the case then I am sure we will have another brilliant deck with lots of older women in it coming soon. 

 

And YAY - thank you for following my deck progress on instagram  

 

[Rupicapra]

1 hour ago, Raggydoll said:

I know that the plan was for both the Dark goddess tarot and Tarot of the crone to be reprinted. The Dark goddess, as you probably know, got reprinted and massproduced by another company, but the word was that Ellen would re-print the Tarot of the crone herself again. I tried looking into it and it seems as if she might have changed her mind. On the Little Red tarot site it says "In November/December 2020 we had hoped to get a small number for our customers, but this was not possible. Sincere apologies for the raised hopes and disappointment." That is sad indeed. I hope that Ellen is still working on that new deck that she was eluding to when she took her old decks off the market. If that is the case then I am sure we will have another brilliant deck with lots of older women in it coming soon. 

 

And YAY - thank you for following my deck progress on instagram  

 

The Tarot of the Crone has been reprinted in December, it was only a small run, 250 or so, and sold out in no time. The website says there will be no other reprint. 
 

@Mokona the Everyday Enchantment has old women in it. In general, a lovely, modern, inclusive deck.

 

[Raggydoll]

11 minutes ago, Rupicapra said:

The Tarot of the Crone has been reprinted in December, it was only a small run, 250 or so, and sold out in no time. The website says there will be no other reprint. 

Oh I see, thank  you so much for clearing that up! Now I am glad that I did buy a spare copy when it was first notified that it would be going out of print. I have almost no back up copies of decks anymore (sold most of them off), but this one is special to me and it sees a lot of use. I am sure there will be more decks like it in the future though. I think the tides are changing. 

 

[Mokona]

It's a pity that there won't be a reprint of the Tarot of the Crone ever again. 😞 There isn't another deck like it, it's in its own category.

@Rupicapra I have the Everyday Enchantment and I love it! I love how the cards are oracle-sized so I can really look at the wonderful art. And I love how well thought out the deck is with its characters and scenes. 

[katrinka]

11 hours ago, Mokona said:

A lot of common terms for women, including old women, are degrading terms or at least were

 

True, that.
 

11 hours ago, Mokona said:

Some of them have been reclaimed and 'crone' feels like that for me; at least in the spiritual community the word is used with positive connotations.

 

They're trying to reclaim it, but the thing is that it's always had some positive connotations: the crone has power. But she's hideous, and she sometimes eats people - think Baba Yaga, etc. She's supposed to be scary. Old people are often targeted for crimes because they're not as physically strong or fast as young people, so it's good for an old person to be a little scary. But they won't accomplish that by calling themselves "crones". It's all pretty silly.
 

11 hours ago, Mokona said:

I mean, 'witch' was a negative word, sometimes still is used negatively, but it's been adopted by the spiritual community as an empowering one. The Sacred Hags oracle -fenrir- recommended empowers the term 'hag' which was used to denigrate women.

 

The thing about reclaiming is that only some members of a group reclaim the word - there are plenty of Black people who don't use the slur word and don't approve, for instance. Something else is that outsiders are NOT welcome to use the slur. That would certainly include card publishers.

If anyone wants to reclaim hag, crone or witch, let them. But - with hag and crone particularly - they are a very small percentage. I think that most would object. I've known some who would surely whack the offender with a shoe if they were called that. 🤣

 

 

[Wyrdkiss]

My Barabara Walker tarot is sealed; how do you all think that pack relates to this post?

[katrinka]

I can't comment on her deck, as I've always avoided it. She has a knitting book, and it includes swastika patterns. I'm told that she's going off the original intent, but if a person were to wear a swastika sweater, I doubt the first thing that occurred to people would be sun wheels or Buddhist iconography. I'm sure Ms. Walker must have been aware of that too.
If you can enjoy the deck, by all means do so, but as for me - no.

[Mokona]

I found and ordered the Wild Kuan Yin Oracle when I saw BetterWorldBooks had it in stock. They ship to my country! The deck will take a month or two to reach me, so I'm going to share a couple of images I found online, of cards with old women in them. Wang Yiguang's art is beautiful and the sole reason I bought this deck.

I'm going to ignore that Alana Fairchild appropriated the art to be about Kuan Yin, because first of all this is art of Tibetan people and scenes, and second of all the artist never intended this art to be about Kuan Yin, and third of all the imagery has NO relation or resemblance to traditional imagery of Kuan Yin. Alana Fairchild shouldn't have tried to make this deck about Kuan Yin at all. But I digress. The art is breathtaking, I'm happy that there are cards with old women in them. It's a beautiful deck and I look forward to developing my own way of reading with the cards. I have a lot of personal work to do regarding tradition (especially in shadow aspect as the burden of tradition), family, generational issues, my relationship with my own culture... and this seems like the perfect deck for that kind of work. This looks like a versatile deck going by its art alone: it's great for meditating on freedom and oppression (if one does due research on Tibet's experience), honouring and loving the natural world, inner child work about wildness, playfulness and trust. I will read the guidebook just to give it a chance, but I'm sure I can read with this deck even if I decide to disregard Alana's guidebook meanings entirely.

 

@katrinka That's a very good point. It differs from person to person whether they want to reclaim a word or even feel that they can. And reclaiming is a wonderful way to reclaim power, but it's also not that simple to do... 

I also didn't know that about Barbara Walker. I'm an Indian so I see the Swastika around a lot, but I STILL think of Nazism as the first thing that comes to mind. Even though I have grown up seeing the symbol so often, and not in a Nazi context at all, Nazism is the first thing that it brings to mind for me, so I would certainly assume that people in the West would think of that too. And that it might be the only thing that comes to mind for them. Most of them won't know about any other contexts for the symbol.

I previously bought Barbara Walker's ebook version of her tarot book. It's sitting in my kindle right now... I feel conflicted.

 

[katrinka]

The Grandmother and Granddaughter are especially beautiful. I hope to find a print in a non-Alana format. 🙂 They'd be wonderful on the wall!

[Mokona]

@katrinka Yes! It'd be so beautiful in the centre of a wall! Let me know if you find a place to buy his prints. Part of why I collect decks is because they're the most affordable way for me to collect art.

Edited May 24, 2021 by Mokona

[katrinka]

Will do!
This is the artist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Yiguang

 

[Mokona]

Thank you! I found his Facebook as well.

 

I've done some more digging and found another deck called the Lantern Oracle which has around eleven cards with old women in them. Eleven cards out of forty-four, that's pretty great. Apparently the cards are also categorised into 'phases' in the guidebook, Maiden, Mother, Guardian, and Crone. 

Here's a picture of two 'Crone' cards I found online.

[Bodhiseed]

This is not really an oracle or tarot, but might be used as an oracle:

https://www.wisewomenink.com/wisdom-of-the-crone/

 

From the description:

Wisdom of the Crone is a deck of 54 wisdom cards, each bearing the image of a woman between the ages of 50 and 100, with words of wisdom on the back.

Edited May 27, 2021 by Bodhiseed

[katrinka]

7 hours ago, Bodhiseed said:

This is not really an oracle or tarot, but might be used as an oracle:

https://www.wisewomenink.com/wisdom-of-the-crone/

LOL, the women in two out of three sample images look about 40, though one is prematurely grey. Wisdom of the Middle Aged, maybe?

If they're going to call it a crone deck, they need decreptitude.


 

[Mokona]

I stumbled on a really beautiful deck called the Weavers' Oracle which I could never afford with shipping to my country added in – but it's so beautiful I'll absolutely ogle it online and in walkthroughs.

[Raggydoll]

On 5/27/2021 at 2:16 AM, katrinka said:

LOL, the women in two out of three sample images look about 40, though one is prematurely grey. Wisdom of the Middle Aged, maybe?

If they're going to call it a crone deck, they need decreptitude.


 

Love her! 

[katrinka]

3 hours ago, Raggydoll said:

Love her! 

Me too. She's unapologetically old - and tough. She knows she can't be much longer for this world, but she faces that down with the hint of a smile.

I think a major problem - not just in Tarot, but in everything - is depicting "old people" as young people with silver hair. There was a TV commercial back in the 90's, I don't remember if it was for Rogaine or Viagra or what - but all the "old" people were having a party. You could see surfboards and muscle cars. The men were playing electric guitars and the women were dancing, vying for their attention. Everybody was slim, toned, fashionable, unwrinkled and energetic. They looked like prematurely grey 30-40 year olds. It was denying age to a point of absurdity.

[SilverBirch]

Hello to all who will be reading this,

 

If you are looking for a great Oracle deck with older women, crone and hag energy, try the Weavers Oracle by Carolyn Hillyer, the deck is an amazing collection of her artworks, The cards are large but surely provide as a suitable deck for deep personal work and journeying. 

 

bright blessings

Birch