Ophidia Rosa Tarot

Ophidia Rosa Tarot by Nicole Rallis

A new deck has found its way into my sub-collection of botanical-inspired decks. I love these kinds of decks both for their artwork and the energy that the plants bring to readings. Perhaps the most well-known is The Herbal Tarot by Michael Terra. This is a lovely deck that is very RWS influenced but with the addition of plant medicine for each card. The colors are bright and bold and the illustrations have a simplicity and purity to them that makes them easy to read.

This latest deck, the Ophidia Rosa Tarot is done by the same artist, Nicole Rallis, who did the Pythia Botanica Oracle which came out last year and there is even more attention to detail in this Tarot deck. The packaging is gorgeous. The box is sturdy with lovely white ink drawings on a black inside. From the moment you open this deck you have the sense of its refined, elegant feminine energy.

All the cards are tea stained (as is the case with her Pythia Botanica Oracle) and the pen and ink drawings are beautifully subtle with just the hint of color here and there in deep roses and dark teals. The hand drawn borders just right, card stock is a good thickness and she's gone the extra mile by having it edged in matte gold. This last detail gives such a graceful, vintage feeling to the deck.

The overall effect is one of quality, subtlety and beauty. It arrived on the Full Rose Moon and this synchronicity was not lost on this Rose. I worked with her for a full Moon reading that night and the simple three card spread has stayed with me.

Full Rose Moon reading ~  Ophidia Rosa Tarot

A beginner would be challenged by this deck. And even seasoned readers might struggle with the lack of obvious symbolism. There is not much of an LWB, just a small pamphlet with a few poetic lines hinting at the essence of the card's energy. The plants aren't identified and at first I was put off by this. But a wonderful thing happens when you are forced to rely on a different layer of intelligence to receive the message.

Ophidia Rosa Tarot Majors

You can see the some of the Majors to the right here and how they are quite intuitively rendered. The creator describes it on her website like this :: The Ophidia Rosa Tarot came to be over a year-long period, cared for and pondered through four seasons of natural change. While framed by the tarot's ancient tradition and structure, my botanical world―full of such transformation, from the soil to the seedling, the sprout and the bloom―placed an emphasis on change bursting forth all around me. 

Something more intuitively tangible was born of the tarot, where even the phases of the moon and the mysterious, serpentine movements of creatures in the garden brimmed with a power for prophecy, contemplation, redemption and a quest. Each of these 78 cards―the full Major and Minor arcana―draws on the tarot's timeworn truth carried closer to home. There's always something growing in our hearts, transforming ourselves and our visions, from the soil to the stars.

Her description very much conveys the atmosphere and energy of the deck. It’s a bit like coming upon an old wooden gate, covered over with trellised roses and vines and pushing it open to step inside a wild landscape that lives according to the ancient rhythms of light and shadow, rain and wind. I've been working with the deck for a couple of weeks now and am very much enjoying my readings with it. They are definitely not traditional interpretations of the cards, and yet something of the energy of the card remains.

Morning tea with the Ophidia Rosa Tarot 

It lends itself beautifully to intuitive readings, guidance that one wouldn't normally get from a traditional deck. For example last week I was feeling fairly off. I'd taken a Tylenol earlier for a headache that was hovering around the edges but it wasn't really doing it. I had an event of my son's to attend later that night and I needed to feel my best in order to support him. So I decided to consult the cards on what might be needed in the moment.

Looking at this Five of Pentacles I was immediately drawn to the flower at the base, it's roundedness and solidity. I had the sense of pulling my energy in and down, creating a little haven to sit and breathe in. 

Root chakra yoga came to mind and so I closed the door to my office, pulled out some root chakra singing bowl music and spent a bit of time breathing into the earth of my body, drawing the energy away from my head.

It worked beautifully and isn't the guidance that I'd normally get reading this card with its image of a church and two ragged and destitute figures struggling to get by in a cold and unforgiving urban snowscape.

All in all I'm very happy with this deck and feel it will be one that will be in regular use...as regular use as is possible with a lot of decks in one's collection. Further information on the deck including how to purchase it can be found here on the artist's website, LeilaOlive.