About the Radiant Threshold
The Radiant Threshold is an oracle deck comprised of 60 symbolic photographs intended to be drawn and read similar to a tarot deck. Each card is a symbol that addresses a concept I feel is important to life and growth as a creative, sensitive human being. The deck works with the themes of cyclical change and desires and explores how these things weave their ways through our lives whether we are aware of it or not. (Click here for more images of the deck)
This deck is an opening, a doorway between the profane lives we lead every day and the luminosity of our mysterious higher potential. This card deck serves as a veiled doorway into the other: a different perspective, a new insight, a shimmering glimpse into something beyond what we see in the day-to-day. The messages that come through the threshold are to help you, to guide you down the path set in front of you by your higher power and help to bridge the paradox: you have a destiny, but it is your own choices that lead you toward that fate.
The Radiant Threshold is printed in an edition of 50 and includes a custom storage box and guidebook that describes the meaning of each card and how to use them. Click here to pre-order the Radiant Threshold.
I personally believe these cards allow for some kind of communication between the self and the higher power of your understanding. However, you do not need to feel this way for the practice of card reading to be effective! They are visual tools that help you engage with your problems/questions from different angles. Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies are a type of oracle deck. Using the random as a way to work out a problem and opening yourself to allow chance to guide your thoughts can clear out major blockages. You don’t have to think they’re magical for them to be beneficial. But if you do, you’re in for a treat. This is a tool that helps give you sideways access to your buried, unconscious thoughts, feelings, and power. Trust your gut as things shift and change.
Use this deck when you are wondering. When you feel stuck. When you are unsure. When the choices are many, or it feels like there are none at all. Use these cards when you are looking for a message outside of yourself. Use them when your friends come over with a bottle of wine, or on those nights by yourself when you don’t know what to do. Use it when you want to look for the path to your own joy, and the path out of your misery.
What’s the difference between the Radiant Threshold and tarot?
The Radiant Threshold is an oracle deck, not a tarot deck. Tarot is a deck of 78 divination cards that follow a standard set of symbols divided into major and minor arcana (such as the High Priestess, The Fool, or the 3 of Cups). Cards are shuffled and drawn, and the symbols are used to interpret inquiries. Oracle cards are similar in structure, as they are also a card deck used for interpretative reasons, but not constrained to the symbol system used in tarot. The Radiant Threshold doesn't have a one-to-one overlap with tarot symbols (though some may be familiar), instead working with symbols I, as well have others, have found powerful in their current lives. Oracle decks can be a great alternative to using tarot or a supplement to a tarot practice. It doesn’t have to be a one or the other scenario. Different decks can be used for different things! I find that this deck is helpful for creative pursuits and personal work, you may have different experiences.
Because the Radiant Threshold does not have the same symbolism system as tarot, I have included a booklet that describes each of the cards and how to begin to interpret them. Working with the cards will deepen your own personal meanings of each of the symbols, the guidebook is simply a jumping off point. Each entry also includes a suggested ritual that supports the message of the card. See below for the guidebook entry for card #35, Release:
35: Release
The sun sets behind a mysterious dark form. Silhouetted against the light of the sun you can see tendrils of greyish brown lifting from it, moving off and away and blending into the sky. It is only with the help of the sun that you can see this releasing of energy. What is being let go? What remains?
We often find ourselves holding onto things that no longer serve us. This is normal, its human, for the primal part of our brains is very wary of change. It is often easier to wrap our minds around a bad but known situation than an unknown one. It is easy to imagine the worst case scenario of any possible change. However, that fear that keeps us frozen with a death grip on what is, instead of what could be. This tends to make things worse and worse until it becomes clear: it is time to release.
“Let go or be dragged,” a friend once told me casually, but at that moment it was a world-shattering concept. I could feel it in every aspect of my life: how my fear of letting go was pulling me through the dirt and gravel of my existence, harming me and taking me places I didn’t want to be.
When the Release card appears in a reading its message is unambiguous: it is time to let go. More importantly, it is safe to let go. There is something in your life that is no longer serving you, and the longer you hold onto it the more damage it will cause you. This could be anything: a long-entrenched thought pattern, a toxic relationship, a bad habit, a job you hate, those well-meaning but awful gifts from that relative. You know what it is you need to let go of, this card is just a signal to you that it is time to do so.
Ritual: Magical Closet Clearing
Sometimes doing a piece of mundane practical work in your life can stir up the energy to create larger spiritual change. Set aside some time to clear out your closet of all items that give you a sense of low worth, that no longer look good or makes you feel good. Everyone has their own method for doing this, but if you’re stuck here’s one suggestion: Pull everything out of your closet or dresser. Look at each item one by one, and ask yourself if you want to keep it. Definite yesses go into one pile, definite no’s that you are able to donate go into another, and things that can be turned into cleaning rags or thrown away go into a third. If you are unsure about any of your items, just put them into a fourth “maybe” pile. Once you have sorted everything, try on all your “maybes.” Do you feel good in them? If yes, keep. If you aren’t sure, get rid of it. You won’t miss it.
Once you’ve sorted everything, put back your yesses. Package up your no’s for donation (and actually donate them!) Maybe you have some items a friend would love? It’s fun to see your clothes take on a new life with someone else. Burn some cedar or other clearing herb/incense to energetically cleanse the new openings in your closet and your life.
Click here to purchase the Radiant Threshold deck