Welcome to #Decklust! This is our newsletter beaming out regularly to tarot lovers across the world. To get #Decklust in your inbox and be the first to hear our news, subscribe here.
Hey, friend.
How are you holding up?
As usual, there are shop updates further down this email, along with some great free tips and resources for your tarot practice :) And – exciting news – Cathou is back with a gorgeous spread to help you express yourself in scary times.
First, I just wanted to check in with you – the community of tarot lovers who support this tiny shop and the many independent artists and creators we stock.
Every so often, I forget. Lost in a task or a dream or a tv show, I’ll be completely unaware for 5, 10, 30 minutes of apparent normality. Then, with a jolt, I remember. And so I check the news again.
What we are living through is momentous. And however you’re feeling about it – is okay. I’m bothered by the moralising I’m seeing online, the huge numbers of people using their platforms to tell us what we should or shouldn’t be doing with our time. You need to scroll your way through this? Do it. Netflix keeping you sane? Great. Decided to pretend it’s a retreat and write your novel? Good for you. Ill and sleeping? You keep safe, friend. Glad of a little downtime? It’s okay to enjoy it. Constantly Zooming your friends? You do you.
However you’re getting through life in lockdown, you do you, and know it’s okay. There’s no one right way to do this, and no one right way to feel about it.
Here in the shop, changes are of course afoot.
The UK has been on lockdown for three weeks. Hele no longer comes to work – what she can do from home she is doing; I’m back packing orders (a job I adore – It’s like the old days!) I’m glad for the distraction – wrapping beautiful tarot decks and boxing them up, decorating with little stickers and sending out into the world – this is a soothing, gentle job and I’m grateful for it.
Many countries are experiencing delays in delivery service – as I wrote on the blog today, everything is just taking longer right now, and we all have to accept that. We have upped UK orders to First Class (at no extra cost) to help you get your tarot goodies that little bit sooner. Tips are taped to the front door every morning for delivery workers (though Royal Mail won’t take them).
Our Isolation Tarot Love Packs raised £1000 for QueerCare, Slutist Tarot seconds have raised £300 for SWARM’s sex worker solidarity fund, and Alternative Tarot Course students have raised £1200 for Refugee Community Kitchen. Going forwards, 50% of all proceeds from this course will go to Safety4Sisters, who support migrant women in the UK. I’m busy thinking of other ideas for how Little Red Tarot can be of service at this time.
For updates:
- This dedicated page is updated regularly with a summary of info for customers.
- As we respond to the pandemic and – I hope – practice intentional adaptation, I’ll share blog posts here.
In the shop…
Coming soon!
We’ve got a lot of new things coming in over the next month or two – by popular demand, the following are available for pre-order now.
Way of the Panda Tarot
These irrepressibly cute decks, the creation of panda-obsessed Kimberley M Tsan, are expected in stock in May (though this could still be delayed). Yes, we also have the guidebooks, pouches and altar cloths coming too! View the whole range and pre-order here.
Spacious Tarot – First & Second editions
Pre-orders are open for the all-new second edition of this beautiful – and super-popular – deck – but we’ve also got one last batch of the unique first edition (complete with typo!) on the shelves now. View both here.
Also on pre-order:
The Forager’s Daughter Tarot
A lovely, nature-inspired tarot in muted tones – I know many of you have been awaiting this for some time. We’re expecting them in stock and shipping in summer. You can reserve your copy here.
Starchild Tarot First Edition
Danielle Noel has re-published the first edition of her cult hit, the Starchild Tarot. Expect Danielle’s signature shimmering dreamscapes, mystical portals and lush pastel motifs in this original deck. Expected May/June. Reserve your copy here.
Back on the shelves…
After a long wait, you’ll find a few old favourites are back (or returning soon!)
The Guided Hand Tarot (now with zine/guidebook!)
The Ophidia Rosa Tarot (arriving soon)
The Many Queens Tarot (arriving soon)
The Apprentice Tarot (arriving soon)
Due to all the disruption in delivery services, it’s taking much longer for stock to arrive at the moment. Your patience is appreciated as we restock these and other faves.
Want to do something really supportive & totally free?
Leave us a review!
Reviews help to boost our shop, and help other tarot lovers decide if a certain deck is right for them. We would LOVE your honest, brief reviews of decks you’ve bought and loved.
Simply head over to the shop, search for one you know and love, and leave your thoughts in the review section below :D
Sending a Gift?
Now is, obviously, a great time to send one of our beautiful decks to an isolated friend ;)
Our packages are already pretty gorgeous, but if you’re sending a gift to a loved-one, add Gift Wrapping to your cart and I’ll make it even fancier with pretty wrapping paper and extra stickers. I’ll also include a tarot card drawn especially for them from our lucky dip box, along with your personal message on a sweet little gift card. Pay what you like for this service, all proceeds will be donated to Safefy4Sisters, who support some of the most vulnerable women in the UK.
Cathou is back!
Many of you will remember the one and only Cathou from the old community blog – her series Fat Tarot was literally a post-by-post revolution in embodied, inclusive tarot. (She’s also just a bloody gorgeous person – as her Instagram followers know!)
I’m so excited to say that Cathou will be sharing a monthly-is post on the LRT blog!
We kicked off last week with a tarot spread for self-expression (highly recommended if you’re bored indoors right now and want some creative inspiration.) Cathou also carried out a tarot reading for our community. If you like this post, please welcome Cathou back to the blog by leaving a comment!
Learn Tarot
Stay home, stay safe …and deepen your tarot practice!
The LRT website is packed with resources to inspire you:
The Library
Did you know there’s a whole free library of my personal tarot card interpretations right here on the LRT site? Bookmark it so you can look up cards next time you’re doing your daily draw, or browse through cards as you wish.
Tarot tips
I post ‘learn tarot’ tips and tools here on the blog – I’ve not done as much of this as I’d like in recent years, but with more time on my hands, I’m excited to share more in coming weeks and months. Check out our existing resources here!
Want more? Over on the Community Blog Archive, you’ll find seven years of ideas from across our diverse and beautiful community (best put the kettle on and settle in for a long one…)
Online course
The Alternative Tarot Course is an eight-week (or your own pace) journey into the tarot, teaching you not to memorise card meanings, but to discover your own, through creating a deeply personal relationship with your cards. It’s packed with engaging exercises that have helped thousands of tarot lovers to find their way into tarot, or deepen an existing practice. At a time like this, it offers a ton of journalling, blogging and tarot reading inspiration. I’m super proud of it.
Prices are fully sliding scale – you’ll see options at checkout, and further discounts on request if needed.
50% of all proceeds from this course will be donated to Safety4Sisters. In the last weeks of March, I’m proud to say we raised £1000 for Refugee Community Kitchen! Let’s keep this going guys.
After the last #Decklust newsletter, my inbox overflowed with stories from different corners of our beautiful community (I’m still slowly working through, replying to everyone. Some of you are strictly isolating because of underlying health conditions, some of you are having to go out to work, some are lucky enough to be working from home. Young and old. With kids, or with partners, or with housemates, or without. You’re doing so many wonderful things to help out – mutual aid groups, community herbalism, writing to friends. Some of you are scared, some are grateful for a moment to pause, most are feeling a million different things at once (me too).
The grief comes in waves. So do the flashes of beauty and joy. Em’s birthday. Evening sunshine on the back yard. Baths. Seedlings coming up. Audiobooks. Hilarious memes. Wild garlic.
There is so much to grieve. Even those of us who are lucky not to have been personally touched through illness or that of a loved-one can feel it. The grief of not being able to hug our friends, the grief of not knowing when we will next see our parents, the grief of the never ending, ever-worsening news cycle, our health services in crisis, the sickness, the deaths.
This is also a time when we see all the more clearly the priorities of the corporations that shape our lives under capitalism. Amazon, ever excited to maximise the profit potential in a crisis that keeps millions confined to their homes regardless of the safety of its lowest-paid workers, this month sacked an employee who dared to stand up for his colleagues’ lives. As the author of that piece points out, Jeff Bezos would remain a billionaire even if he chose to pay every worker a decent salary, healthcare benefits and a pension. “But doing so would require a slight reduction of his world-historical wealth and be a violation of the iron law of greed: more is always better.”
In the last newsletter I drew a card for us, a word of wisdom for the collective. I’d like to do the same today – though this time I’m going to borrow Cathou’s words on Queen of Swords, from her beautiful community reading. I’m drawing from the Many Queens deck:
Cathou writes:
The Queen of Swords reassures us.
The truth won’t destroy us. She sees balance between ambitious creative endeavours and healing process. She bridges the gaps. She also knows how to set strong boundaries between our personal stories and the stories we’ll put out there when needed. She helps us handle sharp, double-edged swords … and she suggests we use tools that are more modest every now and then. It’s not our individual task to save the world. Only to take part to some transformation.
I love Cathou’s note on finding balance between creativity and healing processes. It is possible to be healing right now, in the middle of all this harm. It’s possible to be creative and compassionate in the face of truth. The Queen of Swords is a person who has seen some rough times, to be sure. But those rough times have transformed and shaped them, deepening their sense of self and their commitment to truth and beauty. So much is being burned away right now, leaving glaring truths. The potential for transformation for each of us is ever-present.
For more tarot inspiration…
- Try out Cathou’s beautiful self-expression tarot spread.
- I also shared a post last week on finding support and inspiration in the tarot.
- And here’s one on embodying a card: “I am” – a practice of feeling into a tarot card.
For now, stay well, stay safe, and thank you for being here,
Beth xx
PS – my friend just sent me this, I think it’s perfect
Via @radicalemprints