The Green Witch Tarot

The Green Witch Tarot

By Jewel

The Green Witch Tarot, by Ann Moura, was published by Llewellyn in 2015.  It is a Pagan deck based on Green Whitchcraft which is focused on physical realm and the Earth in which the witch lives.  As noted in the introduction of the companion book this deck “… is based on a personal relationship with nature, earth magic, the elementals (earth, air, fire, water) and the power of the immanent Goddess and God in their many aspects, and to the faeries, spirits, and entities of earth, otherworld, and underworld.”  The soul of this belief system and reverence of nature is beautifully captured by the artist Kiri Ostergaard Leonard.

The art of this deck is palpable and draws me into the cards as well as into the meaning of the deck.  It makes me want to go into nature and experience its magic with every part of my being.  The colors are as rich and deep as the context.  One of my favorite aspects of this deck is that it is borderless.  The card titles are contained in a green scroll at the bottom each card which blends in nicely without detracting from the imagery.  The faces on images that portray people are expressive which assist the reader in understanding the meanings of the cards.

As someone who really loves Pagan themed decks, I have to say that it is clear that a lot of thought, care, and spirituality went into the creation of this deck.  From the renaming of the suits from traditional cups, wands, swords and pentacles to the magical tools of the Green Witch: Chalices, Wands, Athames, and Pentacles to the re-naming of various majors which I will cover below.  The reverence for the subject matter is clear.  Elemental correspondences are your traditional Chalices/Water, Wands/Fire, Athames/Air, Pentacles/Earth.

The imagery of the Major Arcana is quite different from the RWS, but have aspects of the traditional RWS meaning as it applies to Green Witchcraft.  Many of the names of the Majors have been changed:  The Fool becomes The Greenman, The Magician becomes The Witch, The Empress becomes The Earth Mother, The Emperor becomes The Horned God, The Hierophant becomes The High Priest, The Lovers become The Lady & The Lord, The Chariot becomes The Battle Wagon, Strength becomes The Crone, The Hermit becomes The Holly King, The Wheel of Fortune becomes The Wheel of the Year, Justice becomes The Standing Stone, The Hanged Man becomes The Oak King, Death becomes The Lord of Shadows, Temperance becomes The Sidhe, The Devil becomes Nature, The Tower becomes The Wild Hunt, Judgement becomes Harvest, The World becomes The World Tree.  Though the variations seem great when you start working with the deck you quickly understand that they are a translation of the RWS to fit the context of this deck.  It is brilliantly and seamlessly done.  I could write an entire article comparing and connecting the two. 

The Minor Arcana (numbers 1-10) closely follow (though there are some variations) the Raider-Wait-Smith (RWS) system. The Court Cards follow the traditional RWS naming, Page, Knight, Queen, King, and are one of my favorite parts of this deck as I can discern personality in them making them easier to understand in readings.

The cards are typical Llewellyn card stock, which many consider a bit flimsy, but I find it thin but of good quality and great for those of us who riffle shuffle.  They do not stick nor clump. They measure about 4.5” X 3.70”, a great size for all sized hands.  The backs of the cards are of a blue/green wooden fence with a fuzzy white pentacle enclosed in wreath of red roses.  Because of the pentacle design they are not reversible.

The deck comes with a 240 page companion book written by Ms. Moura.  The first 14 pages of the book provide an introduction to Green Witchcraft, a brief history of Tarot, Green Witchcraft in the Tarot – here she describes the deck structure, changes in the Major Arcana, the suits, meanings of patterns where numbers or card ranks appear more than once in a spread.  The next pages cover reversals, reading the Tarot, consecrating your deck, grounding and centering, beginning a reading, doing the reading, and more uses for the Tarot.  The remainder of the book is dedicated to the cards.  For each Major Arcana there is a lined page provided for note taking.  Each card includes a description of the card, meanings, reversed meanings, and key words.

I found my readings with this deck to be very grounded and down to Earth.  The language was simple and straight forward.  Though the backs of the cards are not reversible I also found this deck to beg to be read with reversals.  I obliged and my readings were the richer for it.  This is a deck I will use and enjoy for many years to come.

This deck is a true delight for those following earth based religions, and I would recommend to all levels of experience with the Tarot.  Despite the changes in the Majors, I would not hesitate to recommend this deck to someone just starting out in Tarot because the book is that good, the images that evocative, and the tie into the RWS is there just translated from esoteric symbolism to the language of nature based spirituality.