Shining Tribe Tarot ~ A Healing Journey with Color and Shape

Shining Tribe Tarot by Rachel Pollock

I recently acquired this deck after a several years of not feeling any pull towards it but I'm drawn to working with vibrant color and bold shapes these days. This more primitive form of expression bypasses the mind that wants to analyze and parse and speaks instead to a simpler though no less intelligent awareness. In my experience this art form  has the effect of grounding body and psyche.

There are seasons and cycles for both kinds of imagery and right now the kind of naïve art found in Rachel Pollack's Shining Tribe Tarot is what is nourishing me along with a few other decks in a similar vein. There is a shamanic feel to this deck, which is to say, a feeling of the sacred earth and it potential to inhabit us in various forms through various perspectives, animal, vegetable, mineral and spirit. The figures bristle with life force and the lines, spirals and other universal shapes call out an ancient wisdom that resides in and as our very cellular structure.

The card to the left inspired a night of artwork in response to a question about creativity. The flowing river streaming off the horse's back inspires a similar feeling of flow and freedom, the colors a wave of joy and energy. The chains around the sun have been broken, the inner critic has been silenced, constriction loosens, light shines. The verse heading up the description for this card in the LWB speaks to this sense of freedom and abandon, this thawing of creative fluidity:

The roar of wings,
The ice chains shattered
in the the laugh of the horse.

Minors from The Shining Tribe Tarot ~ Rachel Pollack

To the right are a few of my favorite Minors. Their bold shapes and colors speak directly to a kind of raw pulse of life energy. I'm learning to becoming more in tune with this, listening to its wisdom and responding from there. I think my favorite Minor in the whole deck is that Six of Birds right in the middle.

The suits have been renamed, Trees, Rivers, Stones and Birds which translate to Wands, Cups, Pentacles and Swords respectively. And the Court cards have also been renamed Vision Cards. In place of royalty we've got Place, Knower, Gift and Speaker as Page, Knight, Queen and King.

Place allows us to enter the suit and feel its presence and energy in our lives. Knower depicts understanding the inner qualities of the suit. Gift speaks to the arrival at a certain point in our lives where we can use these qualities. And with the power of the Gift we can, as Speaker, take that knowledge out into the world to share.


The Vision cards are unique to this deck and while the author correlates them with the Court cards in a traditional deck in terms of the progression of a maturing relationship with the element depicted the difference, she says, is that the Vision cards don't signify actual people but rather take us into an experience of ourselves through the lens of the particular element involved.

Vision Cards from Shining Tribe Tarot ~ Rachel Pollack

The Majors have mostly remained the same save for five. The Hierophant has been renamed Tradition, The Wheel of Fortune has become The Spiral of Fortune,  The Hanged Man becomes the The Hanged Woman, Judgement has become Awakening and The World has become World-Shining Woman. They, too, speak to an ancient wisdom-strength. Left to right here we see The Empress, Tradition, The Lovers then second row, Strength, The Hanged Woman, The Tower and third row, The Moon, Awakening and World-Shining Woman.

Shining Tribe Tarot Majors ~ Rachel Pollack

The cards invite engagement on an almost a child-like level, child-like in the sense of not being bound by limit, allowing the imagination to imbue the simple shapes and colors with personal meaning that soars to heights, and digs deep into the depths both.  The imprint of the RWS system is there but almost like an echo. It feels like a deck I'll use for personal readings, journeying and creative exploration.

Four of Birds ~ Shining Tribe Tarot ~ Rachel Pollack

I decided, Rachel Pollack-style, to ask the deck what the nature of its soul was, what card spoke most deeply to that characteristic. I pulled the Four of Birds. The first thing I noticed was the large falcon-like bird swooping towards the bird-woman on the rock. Birds in dream and myth often represent the soul and seeing them here so intimately connected with humanity speaks to the relationship it has with our own bodies.

The card is traditionally one of rest, restoration, healing and these elements are evident here. The verse that goes with it says,

The wind kisses,
the rock sings.
The water shimmers,
the Sun laughs.
The birds touch her eyes,
the bird lifts her face,
the birds sweep her skin.



This is such an evocative description of the healing power of the elements and of conscious bodywork. And of surrender which the bird-woman embodies in her open, seated position on the rock face, on the edge of things, holding nothing back, trusting in the great expanse of the next endless moment. I'm reminded of a line from one of Rumi's poems that says, 'Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom. How do they learn it? They fall and falling, they're given wings.' 

The woman in the card is on a vision quest and has climbed the mountain to seek an encounter with the Spirits. Here we see her resting, one hand in a small pool of water and it is in that moment of rest and ease, of self-care that her vision, in the form of the great Bird Spirit, appears. This card was inspired by the healing vision a friend of the author's had while recovering from a long illness. In it she was resting on a ledge and being supported and healed by all the elements. What a beautiful response from the deck to my question. Its soul nature as that of a verb, a channeling, healing through the elements, through contact with both heaven and earth, through a body at ease and self-care. Perhaps it's because this is precisely where my interests lie right now that this deck speaks so deeply to me. I'm letting the elements teach me, guide me, live in me so I can better offer myself to the world around me as friend.