What are Oracle Cards?  “Really, the cards are pieces of stiff paper with images and colours on them. The magic happens when you open to Universal Consciousness and connect to a global knowing of human experience and questing, The beauty of the Oracle is that while each card in any given deck will have a meaning as translated by the author, you, as the Quester, are encouraged to make your own connection to how the symbols and meanings relate to your life.” The Heart’s Journey: Healing Hearts Oracle Cards and Guidebook, Megan Edge.

Many people are unfamiliar with Oracle cards and how the use of Oracle cards can help to guide them through their lives. They have almost certainly heard of Tarot cards, and many have an accompanying misunderstanding of what those are as well. I would like to clear the slate on both the meaning of and use of Oracle cards and Tarot as beautiful and accessible forms of divination and sacred guidance.

You are a human being; you are also a soul being. On this planet and in each life you live here, you are both. You, as a soul being, come to earth to be a human being in a physical body, experiencing a physical life. As a soul being, you bring universal wisdom and truth to being human and as a human being, you provide physical proof and experience of the manifestation of emotions such as love, loss, anger, guilt and a whole host of other complex emotional responses to your soul being. Your physical body allows for the manifestation in physical form, of energy not available to your soul being’s being.

As you navigate this very physical world, your soul being provides you with many tools and techniques to stay grounded in the energy of this world. There is nothing scary about these tools and techniques – they are here to help you remember the truths you may have forgotten by being in physical form.

Tarot, for example, is based on the journey of the human being, starting at the beginning with the Major Arcana. The Fool represents the beginning of the journey with the energy of youth, exuberance, and new beginnings while the World card, which ends the life cycle of the Major Arcana, represents completion, integration and accomplishment. In between are the characters and concepts we meet along our journey.

The Minor Arcana represents the elements of your human existence – Coins for wealth and property, Wands for intellect, Swords for strife and Cups for well being. Each card in a deck of Tarot follows and includes a set of Universal Symbols that resonates the meaning of the card as it appears in your life. So, the Tower always shows some form of dramatic wake-up call, often intense or injurious while the 4 of Cups will include images of clouds and trees and connect you to your own abilities to see the abundance around you through self-awareness.

There is nothing to fear from the images and symbols in a deck of Tarot cards other than life itself. If there is no fear of life, then there is no fear of knowing what YOUR life is all about. Think of the Tarot as the map of your life, providing direction from your self and higher self, and God/Goddess, if you will, that help you get from A to B.

The use of the Tarot goes back in linear time many centuries and its origins are hotly disputed – a deck of pretty cards to keep the ladies of the French and Italian aristocracy entertained while their intellects were being ignored by their society … or the tools of the ancient Egyptians, a secret language of the Priests who held the power over life or death? Perhaps both, lost in time and then re-found. Personally, I believe their origins fade away into the mists of time, buried by the ice and sands that carpet our planet.

Ultimately though, it is the symbols of the Tarot that speak through the ages, not where they came from. Although each life is unique to the person living it, there are so many common experiences we share as human beings that universal symbols such as the sun and moon, moving water or a mountain – are a symbolic language that unites us, regardless of our cultural and ancestral differences. And perhaps this is why so many distrust or fear tools such as Tarot, or techniques such as meditation or channeling – there is such comfort in having an enemy, someone so different and loathsome from ourselves that we couldn’t possibly see our common faults and beauty.

What is there to fear in the quest to know oneself? Responsibility for our actions! Tarot and Oracle Cards and all other forms of divination and sacred guidance insist that we, and only we, are responsible for our reactions and actions. Beautifully, they also provide us with the ways that we can begin to take responsibility for ourselves as human beings – divine guidance.

Oracle Cards differ from Tarot in that they diverge from the traditional journey of the human being from birth to childhood, youth, adult and elder. Back in ancient times, an oracle was someone who offered advice or a prophecy thought to have come directly from a divine source. In modern usage, any good source of information can be called an oracle. Oracle cards embrace the colour, creativity and movement of this human experience in a way that Tarot does not. Tarot is structure and predictability – both valuable and necessary, while Oracle is freedom and expression, and anything goes.

The Universal Symbols are conveyed through both Tarot and Oracle. Oracle represents flow and new energies, change and creativity while Tarot brings linear life experience into the mix. They work together. Tarot holds to the rules while Oracle challenges and celebrates them. Tarot represents the foundation while Oracle holds out for change.

The beauty of Oracle is that there are no rules. Oracle imagery and symbolism rely on intuition to express the human experience. It is never the job of the Oracle to tell you what to do or how to do It. Oracle holds guidance and personal experience as its ideal. The expression of this can be as varied as the person creating a deck of Oracle cards. Some Oracle card decks may be themed on sunsets, colours, fairies or plants and animals in nature. Others may focus on symbols, such as hearts found in nature, stars or mandalas. The possibilities are endless for creatively expressing the human experience through symbols, colours, realism or fantasy.

The ultimate beauty is that whatever it takes to get you to pause in your life, to take a moment and simply stop and listen, to open to your own soul’s knowing of the universal truth of your life is precious and amazing and profoundly helpful to the complete evolution of you, your soul and the souls of everyone around you. Because this life you are living is not about you. It is about you and everyone around you.

The use of Oracle cards, or any other form of divination and divine guidance enhances your ability to know yourself while at the same time giving you the opportunity to help others connect with their own knowing of themselves. None of us are meant to take this walk alone – we need all the tools and techniques available to us.

Megan Edge
Psy-chick Healing Studio
megan@psy-chick.net
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