The Jolanda Tarot is a European* tarot deck illustrated by Hans Arnold with the art reprinted from his work on the Swedish Witch Tarot originally designed by Jolanda den Tredjes (a pseudonym). A wonderful Instagram friend in Sweden (Sylvia) sent to me as thanks for the work that I’ve done with my tarot challenges because they’ve been so impactful. It’s a joy to read about Sylvia’s experiences, which you can do on her @bud.fran.ratatosk Instagram feed. (The art tag is also from her, which you can find featured on her art Instagram account, @scrapomantic.) The deck can’t really be bought online in the U.S., so I was thrilled to receive it in the mail as a little surprise. (I mean, it can be bought in the U.S., but it’s absurd. I’ve found it for almost $1,000, but that might as well be a blood sacrifice. It’s just a deck of cards, people.) Sylvia may have some more copies . . . Just sayin’.

For some reason I thought that this deck was Thoth-based, and I think it’s because of some of the imagery that I’ve seen from the deck: Temperance as an archer, the Ace of Wands showing the three fire signs of the zodiac, and seeing a woman on a chimera’s back for Strength are a few examples of Thoth-like imagery without the appropriate titles or structure. But as a result, I expected the cards to all be read as upright, so I turned any reversals before I registered their orientation. Good thing I set that intention. It’s possible that some of the meaning of the reversal came through subconsciously anyway as you can see in the reading where some cards seem to be read arbitrarily as “negative.” That’s the beauty of intuition.

*I know that Europe is a big place and that the EU isn’t its own country, but the designer was born in Switzerland, he lives in Sweden, where the deck was purchased (I assume), and the deck was printed in Belgium. Hence, it’s “European.”

As is now the norm. I use my own spread for this reading. You can read about it over in the blog post dedicated to that deck interview spread. May you find it useful for your own deck interviews.

Deck Interview spread with Jolanda Tarot — INTERVIEWING THE JOLANDA TAROT

**What major lesson are you here to help me learn?** *The Devil*
**Through which divine energy can we best communicate?** *10 of Wands*
**In what area can you aid me to help others?** *Page of Pentacles*
**In what area could your guidance be easily misunderstood?** *9 of Pentacles*
**What can I do to keep our communication clear?** *8 of Swords*
**How can I use your guidance for the highest good?** *Page of Pentacles*
**How will I know when we’re ready for a new lesson?** *8 of Pentacles*

I read here, in this deck interview, a focus on shifting from material desires to really understanding what’s at the heart of those desires. I’ve mentioned before about my difficulty with abundance mindsets, but I’ve also recommended creating prosperity talismans or mandalas, and I justify it by emphasizing that set of end values for which material desire is often just an intermediary. Some of the cards more immediately convey this idea than others.

The Devil is an obvious starting place as the major lesson the deck can help me learn: it’s about the role of material pleasures, their limits, and the limitations they impose. The 9 of Pentacles, as a card of material prosperity and independence, is a card whose values can easily be misunderstood. Is it the stuff that is so powerful? No. It’s the freedom and resources to do what one wants. You need a base level of material security for that, but after a certain point, stuff doesn’t help one achieve freedom to fulfill one’s actual desires. Whereas the 8 of Pentacles and the Page of Pentacles both suggest a desire to experience the material as a journey or landscape for learning.

But even the others have something to offer that went beyond their card meanings. Put in woo terms, you could say that I experienced clairaudience. For the 10 of Wands, I heard “the Martyr,” which isn’t all that shocking given the card’s imagery. (There’s a definite energy of the Dying God to this card since its the last decanic minor of Sagittarius, which ends with the Winter Solstice.) And for the 9 of Cups, I heard “Be careful what you wish for” even though this is the “Wish Card” for some readers. These fit in neatly with the Devil—a lesson about material trappings—and the 9 of Pentacles—a warning that the deck won’t be great for seeking fabulous wealth—as indicators that this deck and I will be looking at ways to move past superficial notions of success or luxury (not to be confused with actual material need). It’s an advanced lesson albeit practical, as shown by the high numbers of the cards, especially the minor arcana.

With the querent effectively in the position of the Page of Pentacles (where the deck can help me help others), there’s a lot of opportunity to help others learn from experience. This could include learning better financial management, such as budgeting, among other boring but sometimes life-saving tasks of adult life in capitalism. But I think it’s about approaching the material world with more curiosity and a desire to marry matter and spirit together, to really think about what things mean and how they fulfill your wishes (9 of Cups) as opposed to how they look in a bank ledger (9 of Pentacles). This marrying of matter and spirit comes through all of the Pentacles and even the Devil since these are all material embodiments of Spirit. After all, Pentacles are magical symbols associated with connecting to the spirit realm, and they place spirit above the material world in the upright five-pointed star.

The card that stands out in this spread is the 8 of Swords, a card that is rarely about mental clarity, in the position of clear communication. It’s just so unexpected. How can a card of interference and self-sabotage actually help one in any way? It slows down our actions, even as it ramps up our thinking. Usually this results in analysis paralysis, but that can be a good thing if we’re acting without intention. So often when we look for certain things in life (and I use “things” literally, as in “objects”), we’re looking for aspects of life about which we care much more strongly; the things are just placeholders. That period of mental confusion seen in the 8 of Swords and the feeling as though we can’t decide or move forward because we’re trapped by our own options can be really helpful in making us stop and see when there aren’t real, substantial differences between all things. If you can’t decide between this thing and that thing and the other thing, it’s probably because none of them is actually going to give you what you want. (If they all fulfilled the same value needs, you’d pick the best bargain.) Either you have to buy all of them because none of them is sufficient, or you end up buying many similar things because none of them actually delivers what you hoped, yet you still hold out hope for the next iteration of the same thing.

I realize that this has become a tangent largely unrelated to this tarot deck, and I will easily admit that I buy my fair share of unnecessary things that do not serve my long-term needs. But I don’t hate that this deck is already reminding me of those points of failure (some bigger than others) before I’ve even done a full reading for myself with it, and I’m looking forward to more lessons. And if it can help me redirect people from the Devil to the 9 of Cups, then I’ll be thrilled. Bearing all those burning wands, as seen in the 10, might be a more challenging prospect, but I’m glad to be able to tap into the Dying God archetype and my own fire-loving Vulcanesque guide for assistance.

To end, I want to highlight the rough bark chunks at the edges of the image: these are my runes, inspired by previous studies into Norse mythology as well as my growing friendship with Sylvia. It never occurred to me to make my own until she made her own. (She did hers the proper way. I did mine a little differently.) I associate my work with runes with the 8 of Pentacles, largely thanks to the runes used in the 8 of Orbs in the Spirit Keeper’s Tarot. But it comes up pretty consistently now. Magic.

Deck Interview: Jolanda Tarot