The Mystic Soul Tarot comes into the world with sparkle and colors. It’s a joyous deck with playful energy, although it’s not necessarily light-hearted. This deck was a gift to me from its creator, my friend and a former Phoenician, Christina Mitchell of Moon and Cactus. There’s real love behind this deck, and that emerges in not just the gifting of it between friends but in the cards themselves, as we’ll get into in a minute.

But first, I just have to say how funny it is that this new round of deck interviews is just conversing about me and around me. The Mystic Soul Tarot deck interview builds off some of the ideas of my interview with the Bee Tarot, which built off the Apothecary Spirits Oracle deck interview! I guess I’ve learned at least part of the lesson of those last two though because the Mystic Soul Tarot flips some of these ideas on their heads, quite literally with the reversed 3 of Cups and the upright 6 of Wands, as well as the flipped positions of the 6 of Pentacles and 6 of Wands. How wild! There’s a turning and a cycle, and look! There’s the Wheel of Fortune.

So let’s get into it.

As always now, I used my own deck interview spread, which you can find explained right here on my blog.

Interviewing the *Mystic Soul Tarot*

**What major lesson are you here to help me learn?** *3 of Cups (reversed)*
**Through which divine energy can we best communicate?** *6 of Pentacles*
**In what area can you aid me to help others?** *2 of Cups*
**In what area could your guidance be easily misunderstood?** *King of Wands*
**What can I do to keep our communication clear?** *The Fool*
**How can I use your guidance for the highest good?** *The Wheel of Fortune*
**How will I know when we’re ready for a new lesson?** *6 of Wands*

According to this spread overall, the Mystic Soul Tarot offers an exchange of energy. If you enter into the contract of your reading with love and openness and honesty, you’ll get the same (and more) in return. Of course, if you’re down and disheartened and dispirited, it can give you a little love and tenderness, but it won’t make you feel as though you’re on top of the world unless that’s where you’re supposed to be. And that’s good. Honesty in a deck is vital if you want it to be functional and not just a bandage on a weeping wound. It’s easy for a deck with such vibrant and good-vibing imagery as the Mystic Soul Tarot to sometimes lead to readings that are unfairly positive. Life isn’t all sunshine and roses, and a tarot deck shouldn’t pretend it is. The Mystic Soul Tarot offers that balanced approach while still feeling optimistic and loving overall. We have the 2 of Cups in a key position after all. It reminds me of Christina, the creator, in that way!

When looking at the individual cards for this deck interview reading, I see messages of connection without always needing to be in celebration mode. There’s something thrilling and celebratory about all the dazzling light in the illustrations, but it’s personal and intimate, not group-oriented. And that’s part of the emotional honesty of the deck and its illustrations.

That’s there in the first card, the reversed 3 of Cups, but it’s also there in the fourth-position King of Wands, which offers the reminder that we’re not going to be fluffed up into something we’re not with this deck. The King is powerful, but he’s a performer, and wearing the crown as a costume is very different from wearing it as us. He’s basking in the light of the sun but also turned away from it, much as the Fool is. But she’s ready to leap for it. He’s happy to just soak up what he assumes is for him. By the way, this isn’t how I would normally read the King of Wands—it’s just how I’m seeing him in this position and related to all the other cards. The other performative card, the 6 of Wands, is at the end of the spread, suggesting where my relation-ship with the deck is headed but not where it is.

(Did you notice that the spread is subtly ship-shaped? Ship shape? What a bizarre phrase that is when you think about it.)

But the strength of this celebration of self in oneself or in intimate company (2 of Cups) is most visible to me in the dancing of the Fool as she reaches toward the Wheel of Fortune. She isn’t afraid to take up space with that flowing dress billowing around her, and she’s happy to skirt right past the King—potentially the only man in the spread. She doesn’t need the person we might assume she’s supposed to desire (the charismatic King), even if this deck interview is rooted in the potential for helping uncover love (2 of Cups). In combination, it all feels very much in the mode of loving oneself in order to be available to others when they need it (6 of Pentacles).

You might expect that kind of balance to be mirrored through Temperance or Justice, but the balance of Sun and Moon (external purpose and internal care) are there in the Wheel of Fortune. And the figure holding the Wheel has a real love for it. Much like the dress of the Fool, her hair is expansive, flowing around and pulling in all the potential behind her to consolidate that energy on what’s most precious. And of course, the Wheel of Fortune is Jupiter in astrology, the planet of expansion, so it’s clear that personal growth is the highest function of the deck, at least in how I would use it based on this interview.

Deck interviews are readings about decks, but they’re also readings for us about ourselves and how we work with divination in that moment. People sometimes ask why I interview decks. Don’t they all essentially do the same thing? Aren’t I just pulling on my interpretation of the deck rather than the cards themselves? Maybe. But they give me a chance to let a deck speak for itself. And sometimes a deck surprises me.

More importantly, it gives me an excuse to check in with myself. When I do an interview each month, it becomes a benchmark for me. Where am I? How does the deck I’m interviewing, often one that is relatively new and unfamiliar, help me uncover new truths about myself?

The trajectory over the past three months of deck interviews have made the connection between decks and between my own journey apparent. They tell a story of collaboration, of celebration, and of a return to self-love and quiet intimacy to be a better guide for others. There’s a journey to life and to the interviews, turning like the Wheel, up and down, or going out and coming back in again, as with the flipping of 6 of Wands and 6 of Pentacles.

For me, it’s a temporary return to an older model of surrendering to the Divine rather than trying to force something and party on. We’ll get back to that, but for now, there’s a return to seeing all of me, outside of others, in communion with something karmic and larger than life.

Deck interviews map the reader’s reality. That’s true. But there’s such a different perspective on that reality. I’m glad I’m allowing myself the pleasure of them and of getting to play with them. The Fool loves to play, so let’s not focus on big ambitions just now. Instead, love the love, and let that be enough.

The Mystic Soul Tarot is an independently published deck through Moon and Cactus, and it was a gift to me by its creator, my friend and a former Phoenician, Christina Mitchell.

Deck Interview: Mystic Soul Tarot