Review: The Oracle of Rewilding
Review: The Oracle of Rewilding
ORacle Deck by Alexandra Eldridge & Sherry Salman
Quote from their publisher’s listing found here
The Oracle of Rewilding
The Oracle of Rewilding oracle card deck is a beautifully whimsical nature-centric divinatory tool featuring art that alls upon its gazers to rewild themselves in a world where our existence is threatening the very nature we need to survive.
This Oracle Deck expresses its messages through the art of Alexandra Eldridge that mixes glass plate negatives from the 1880s to 1920s into her paintings. These works mix the technology of an era where human intrigue with animal was at an all time high, as was their intrigue with mystery, seance, and the occult. This mixture of the contemporary technology of that age with the fantastical and whimsical nature of the beasts placed around the photographs captures the energy of the liminal and shapeshifting boundaries between corporal, ethereal, and beastial. We all have lessons to learn from the natural instincts and archetypes we see all around us. These cards beg to connect us back to our kinship with our primal animal instincts and the spirit of the wild. Each of the cards features art of humans shapeshifting into animals or people and their kinship with certain animals or mythical creatures and beasts that all bore a warning or message alongside them.
Therians will love this deck
The Oracle of Rewilding is all about tapping into animal instinct.
It is human nature to find kinship with animal. Since pre-historic times, the earliest cave paintings find us cohabitating, or fighting with the beasts the lie around us. Yet the world we as humans have always known, living alongside the animal world is in danger.
The story of these cards cries out as the devastating effects on the environment we’ve had over the last century become ever more apparent. How much loss of the modern ecosystem we’ve seen due to the demands we have on mother earth. Yet at the same time, we reach out for connection to these realms through our digital screens and any morsel of animal contact we can muster.
The process of “rewilding” is an ecological movement focused on maintaining biodiversity, allowing nature to heal by restoring natural balance, and allowing species populations to regrow through less moderation of their numbers. This deck speaks to the rewilding of the self, begging you to (re)connect with nature and lessons learned through the cycles of life and the ecosystems around you.
On a practical level:
The Oracle of Rewilding comes packaged in a rather large box. The decks box opens by removing the lid, and inside you’ll find the guidebook, the cards, and a ribbon underneath.
The cards sit inside its little hidey hole within the box. There is a ribbon inside of the box that the cards sit on top of so you can pull the ribbon and lift the deck out of the box for ease of access.
So I lift the book out of the box and I’m met with a white Raven. I’m smitten at this point. As if the Raven folks on the front of the box weren’t cool enough 😆
The deck is beautiful. It seems like tarot & oracle cards are being made differently by Weiser than I have ever seen before? I’m not sure if this is new across the board or proprietary to Weiser but they just feel different. They’re thinner and more flexible, not made of traditional cardstock like most of my decks. They feel like they’d be less threatened by moisture than traditional cardstock tarot cards, but that’s not something I want to test.
The deck has silver gilded edges giving them a sleek and fancy finish… and I will always swoon for a deck with gilded edges. One automatic ⭐️ for silver edges 🤣 The edge gilding doesn’t photograph well though, unfortunately.
This deck comes in alphabetical order out of the box. This gives you the opportunity to analyze them in the same order in which they appear in the guide book. Take advantage of this when you first open yours before you shuffle.
Upon my first run through of the cards, I quickly sorted through them all to get my first impressions without looking at the book. Each of the Oracle’s keywords seem like they’d be helpful and insightful for most typical reading inquiries.
The Guidebook
The Oracle of Rewilding’s guidebook is pretty big and substantial compared to other oracle decks I’ve owned.
Sitting at 176 pages – She’s a hefty one for a guidebook. Although, I do notice Oracle Decks often to come with more substantial guidebooks since they have to explain their cards more in depth than Tarot. Nonetheless, this one is one of the largest ones I’ve ever gotten.
It’s got introductions, instructions, and some sample spreads in the beginning
They are very careful around the subjects they project and making sure they’re inclusive despite the binary gender language they use in their explanations
Each card is printed largely in the book and followed by some background information and meaning.
The whole book is used for the explanation of all 40 cards in the deck. There’s no pages for other language translations in the back like you see with a lot of tarot decks.
My First Card Pulls with the Oracle of Rewilding
I asked: What’s a message I should see from this deck? Kept it simple and wide open just to get acquainted.
I pulled: Grounding
Abridged meaning from the guidebook:
This card depicts an electrified moment. A shooting star appears behind a woman who holds two leopard with a soft line. The ancients believed such stars were messages from the gods, signs that your desires may become manifest, that wishes may come true, that something special is about to happen. The one winged woman has the ability to recognize the moment coming from above and the strength to receive this remarkable gift because she is grounded by the animal power of the leopards. Leopards are known for their patience when stalking prey, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Their majestic appearance and graceful movements have led them to an association with nobility and royal authority. Yet at the same time leopards draw the chariot of Dionysus, the god of intoxication and ecstacy, suggesting that even the gift of ecstacy requires a strong, steadfast, and patient foundation to be well received. Something very special is on its way to you. Be prepared to bring it to ground and be prepared to stay grounded as you help it manifest. Practice regular grounding exercises and remain patient… And as you wait, stay humble. When the electrified moment comes to ground, be ready to use what is received gracefully and wisely
I asked: What’s a message I should share with my followers from this deck?
I pulled: Balance
Abridged meaning from the guidebook:
Flamingos are elegant and graceful, an embodiment of poise and balance. They regulate their body heat by standing around switching from leg to leg, otherwise standing still in stability strength.
In this card, the flamingo appears between two men who are having an argument. The young men despite this argument are both at ease with one another and in perfect symmetry with one another. They are a pair, but a pair with tension. There are drastic consequences of actions taken in times of intense emotion. If the tension between pairs is suppressed or actively shut down, the result is disequilibrium with nowhere to go other than mental illness, war, or even catastrophic destruction.
If communication is allowed to flow, then the discomfort and heat generated by the tension of conflicting emotions and points of view will give birth to something that transcends both, something larger, more stable, and harmonious, a fresh perspective.
It is seductive and almost compulsive to try to shut down one side or the other in an argument. As the stakes rise, it is hard to keep the tension alive in a dialogue. It can get very heated. So no matter whether the opposites are in oneself – in the form of conscious and conscious desires – or between yourself and another person, between groups, or within an institution, don’t give up. It takes patience, getting wet, getting anxious, getting your hands dirty. But that is the only way through to real equilibrium. Trust the struggle and the strugglers, and know that what can emerge will provide a better kind of balance than the push-pull we find ourselves in. So take a breath and get into it: keep working, talking, resting, and shifting your own positions.
When using this deck, I find this deck to be very beautiful and very useful. I will say, after using it for a little bit, I do find the way the definitions of the cards are written a little… flowery? The archetypes and meanings of the cards are well represented but some of the backstories seem a little all over the place. I find myself having to read and reread them to really grasp what’s being said. Which, maybe that’s the point? I haven’t come to any meanings that really strike me as indeterminable at all, which is a plus. So, I’m also giving them a grain of salt that maybe it’s my own lack of comprehension practice with this deck that makes it a little difficult to decipher? Time and continued use will tell. I’ve been giving card pull updates to my Coffin Club Family every could days on Discord to get better acquainted with the deck. Maybe after continuing to use it for a while I’ll come back with an update to this post.
But for now, I will say I recommend this deck. You can get your own copy here!
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