Mystery Portal: Integrating the Tarot

If you use the Future Ancestor Tarot, this figure may look a little familiar to you. That’s because it is in fact the exact illustration I illustrated and scanned to use for the Maker of Candles (aka the King of Wands) 🔥

This isn’t the only element from my deck that were embedded in my current show, Mystery Portal, actually.

While putting the pieces together, I stumbled upon the box of elements I made for my tarot deck and felt like it was just the perfect time to pull them out and give them new purpose. Tarot has always been a grounding ritual I’ve leaned on when life feels too uncertain and overwhelming, especially during my pregnancy (the chapter that sparked the term “mystery portal” for me)  and so incorporating the pieces from my deck felt like a full circle moment.

I first went through each piece in my box intuitively, picking out figures that caught my eye. When I realized which card they come from in the Future Ancestor Tarot, it made sense why my soul was gravitating toward these exact ones.

When we are swimming in the Mystery of life, there’s a few helpful things steps we can take. Here is what have helped guide me, and I hope they resonate with you, dear one.

Take this piece, for example. I titled it “Alchemize”. When we are moving through a mystery portal, I wonder how helpful it might be for us to transmute our feelings of anxiety and tension and bring in more curiosity and wonder. When I am drowning in the uncertainty, one thing that has helped me has been illustrating my anxieties onto paper or writing it all out. This simple act helps to reshape my current state with more agency and observation.

For this second piece titled “Metamorphosis” I used the character from the 4 of Needles. The lesson from this card is to give yourself the gift of resting your weary mind from all of the thoughts that may be swimming in your brain. I love card and the way it reminds me to pause and remember that my thoughts are merely thoughts. Being in a transitional period of the Unknown can feel scary when our brains can automatically be fueled by fear and “what ifs”. This piece reminds us it’s ok to rest.

The figures from this piece come directly from The Justice card in the Future Ancestor deck. When I created this image in 2020, I had been grieving the loss of my grandfathers, which guided me on a journey to contemplating what it means to be an ancestor and future ancestor. This image depicts a woman (left) looking into the eyes of her future self (right)- or is it a present self (right) looking into the eyes of her younger self (left)? I love to keep this interpretation open. Where Justice comes into play is that we must remember that our actions will affect our future self and future generations, whether we intend them to or not. Remember this balance of staying true to your past, present, and future selves and justice will follow. When moving through the Mystery, this piece acts as a reminder that we are simply weaving part of our life story that includes moments of clarity, moments of mystery, and everything in between.

These final two pieces, “Integration” and “Becoming”, do not include images from the tarot deck but are figures I painted and cut out in 2021 around the time Isa was born. They symbolize the utter satisfaction and empowerment I felt after giving birth and stepping into motherhood. Both pieces express the moment you integrate and accept all the parts of ourselves and nature. They remind me of the moments I’ve been able to fully trust in the flow of life, and that everything is temporary.

All of these pieces are now on view at Ghost Gallery in Seattle, WA. Please join me at the art reception this Saturday, June 15th from 5-8pm if you can make it, and I’d love to know your thoughts on this latest body of work.