The Oracle of Rewilding arrived for review. Wow, this is such a strange, surreal, beautiful thing. Reminds me in style of the Relative Tarot by Carrie Paris (also from Red Wheel, 2021), using vintage photographs as a foundation for the images, although Rewilding is more directly reminiscent of the art of the Surrealists. I also was reminded somehow of the jazz and art of Lhasa de Sela (taken from us by breast cancer far too soon, with two very good and one superb surreal albums).
There is a liminal quality – in between realities, fluidly transitioning between dream, myth, and the natural and human worlds, a style that is both lovely and slightly unsettling. Unlike Tarot, which tells a single story through the progression of the major arcana, elaborated on in details by the number cards, each card here has a name and expresses an aspect of life not necessarily depending on any other card or part of life.
The authors suggest two layouts involving multiple cards – a 3-card past-present-future layout and a 5-card expansion bringing in the conscious and unconscious mind influences. Each card is presented with several keywords and an analysis of its meaning pulling forward associations from the imagery. Meanings are fluid and each description emphasizes the connections and polyvalence of the central concept of the card. The names of the cards, such as Affinity, Ancestors, Balance, Becoming, Courage, Descent, Enchantment, Offering, Rapture, Trust, and so forth, speak to the central concept of each card. The deck is organized alphabetically by each card’s name, rather than hierarchically or following a singular story, and, as well, the discussion of meanings draws widely and eclectically from inside a basically Jungian framework.
I love the liminal and evocative style of the images and the poetic and fluid interpretive style. It is drawing from the connection and interpenetration of nature and humanity but seems somehow ungrounded – this is a more abstract nature, not gritty or heavy, dangerous or painful, with a positive thinking slant and I feel that as a lack. The authors discuss the idea of ‘rewilding’ in response to the mass extinctions now underway, and the human-animal hybrids in the cards’ images as Tricksters opening our imaginations to our suppressed yearning for wholeness within nature. Were-creatures are not human or animal, nor a blend of the two but something different, and greater. Like the goddesses and gods of Egypt such as cow-horned Hathor and bird-headed Horus and Anubis, Pan in Greece, deer-headed Herne in England, this is the Mystery I see this deck exploring.
As soon as the deck arrived, I was drawn to explore it and I feel like I’ll be spending a lot of time with it. There is some powerful insight and mojo in it, as well as beauty.
~review by Samuel Wagar
Words by Sherry Salman and art by Alexandra Eldridge
Red Wheel Weiser, 2025
44 cards and paperback manual £21 / $38 Can / $28 US
