The WildWood Tarot - Stand Alone/Individual Deck/Positive Reviews

VanillaLatte

I was doing my daily draw as normal, asking advice for the day. Couldn't help it but my mind got clouded with thoughts of jealousy, envy and unfairness while shuffling. Guess which card came up? Three of Arrows, the jealousy card. Feeling pretty incredible ;)
 

Eyebright

I don't know why I have never posted in this thread before, but I love the Wildwood Tarot! I have recently come back to it, as part of my Deck of the Week group participation and I find myself wanting to stay working with this deck instead of moving on again.

I have never worked extensively with the deck even though I find I get great readings using it. I'm not considering doing a more in-depth study of the deck seperate from DOTW :)
 

Wintergreen

Discrimination against older women in the Wildwood

I'm not sure if I should have started a new thread for this, as its a negative observation, but I thought it fit in context of being the thread about the deck as a whole. If it needs to be moved, then so be it.

I've been working a lot with the Wildwood, and have come to a very strange realization: there is a complete absence of any depiction of older women. No middle-aged women, no mothers, no crones. There are men of every age, from boys to young and middle-aged men to graybeards. But oddly, no wise-women that fit in categories other than sexy young things. When a woman is paired with a man, she's adolescent to early twenties, no matter what the context.

I find this strange because the creators had a spiel in the book regarding gender equality, and there's a lot of gobbledygook about archetypes, accessibility, cycles of life, holistic views, human experience...

To quote them: “Within the forest mythos, every human trait and condition is stored and cherished for future explorers to wander along the path, absorb, study and meditate upon as they choose.”

So... how come no mothers, no depictions of women in their prime, no crones?
How could they overlook such an integral segment of any population?
Is it because they're uncomfortable or fearful with women who are powerful, who cannot be manipulated through sexuality, who are equals in every way to the men they stand with?

The author posits that he'd like people to use the deck as “a meditation tool that can provide major healing and evoke untapped layers of wisdom. Understanding and respect must replace fear and dogma”, but how can this be if you just eliminate the aspects of womanhood that you don't understand or that make you squeamish?

I'm really disappointed with a deck I had high hopes for, because I love the art and the whole concept. But this glaring imbalance makes it nearly impossible to do a holistic reading, because an integral part of human experience has been amputated from it.
 

vee

Wintergreen, I've noticed that too. It occurs in a lot of decks that I otherwise love. It's such a pervasive thing in our culture that women *must* be young and beautiful, while men can still have value at age any. Pretty gross. Sad to see it reflected in so many decks, but I don't think it's a conscious decision on the part of the creators, just a lack of one! Still love this beautiful deck.
 

Wintergreen

vee said:
I don't think it's a conscious decision on the part of the creators, just a lack of one!
Click to expand...

It's exactly this lack of conscious decision that horrifies me, because there's no excuse for this kind of ignorance in this day and age.
 

vee

Wintergreen said:
It's exactly this lack of conscious decision that horrifies me, because there's no excuse for this kind of ignorance in this day and age.
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Hrm, I both agree and disagree. On the one hand, if we grow up within a culture that pushes one image of women, we can hardly be blame for mimicking it. On the other hand, I believe it's the responsibility of creators/media makers to examine critically the content they are creating and the choices they are making. People may call this "political correctness", but I think that's just a way of dismissing something you don't want to talk about. An artist who truly cares about their craft is always going to be interrogating their work and trying to understand their choices & what those choices convey--including the representation of women. If we can ask why they choose specific trees and colors, why can't we ask why they choose specific body types and ages?

It's too bad the deck creators aren't around to answer those questions! I know it can be awkward, but when Ciro came here to engage on these issues, it was quite fascinating and raised him in my esteem even though I disagreed with him on some matters.
 

Le Fanu

I'm racking my brains trying to think of youngish men in the Wildwood. I can picture bearded "wise" ones. I'm sure there are some younger ones (can't think off the top of my head and I don't have my deck at hand), but what I'm thinking is that maybe there aren't younger men depicted either. So that gender equality could just as well relate to them and swing both ways.

I would say that with the Wildwood (and I speak as one who dislikes this deck intensely but that doesn't belong here) animals are in the majority so I kind of look at it from that end. Few humans but many animals, which is a combination that I like and you don't get in that many decks. I suppose I'm looking at from another angle and being positive... :)
 

Wintergreen

Le Fanu said:
I'm racking my brains trying to think of youngish men in the Wildwood. I can picture bearded "wise" ones. I'm sure there are some younger ones (can't think off the top of my head and I don't have my deck at hand), but what I'm thinking is that maybe there aren't younger men depicted either. So that gender equality could just as well relate to them and swing both ways.
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The courts are all genderless animals. The author states in the book that this is so that everyone can relate to them.
Young men: Ten of Bows, some in the group in the Eight of Bows, The Green Man (at least, he has no wrinkles around his eyes, so I assume...), Four of Arrows, 3 of Bows, 2 of vessels, the lovers
Middle aged: The Woodward, Seven & Eight of Stones, 9 of Bows

Without going crazy with trying to be inclusive, there are many places where it could have been appropriate to depict older women.

- The six of stones shows an older man with a young girl. This could be his daughter, but could easily have been an woman the same age as a man, to show the suffering of exploitation.

- Eight of Bows shows a hearthfire with several men, and only one young woman: could have shown women of similar ages to the men.

- Greenwoman and 7 of stones: I always thought of the Greenwoman as being a fertile older mama type

- there are 4 cards that depict men, but not necessarily male energy that could have been women

- THE KILLER FOR ME FOR THIS DECK: There are 13 cards that show young women that could easily and in some cases more appropriately depicted an older woman (30+ yrs) or a crone. This is not to say that young women can't be powerful, but it shows a limited and limiting vision (Hi Mi'Shell :)) of the whole by making less appealing women invisible. For a young woman, this would not be a very rosy future to look to.

This deck purports to me a tool of personal development, with a very global view, but for me it fails. I don't know if it's going to be a usable deck for me.
 

Mi-Shell

Wintergreen said:
I'm not sure if I should have started a new thread for this, as its a negative observation, but I thought it fit in context of being the thread about the deck as a whole. If it needs to be moved, then so be it.

I've been working a lot with the Wildwood, and have come to a very strange realization: there is a complete absence of any depiction of older women. No middle-aged women, no mothers, no crones. There are men of every age, from boys to young and middle-aged men to graybeards. But oddly, no wise-women that fit in categories other than sexy young things. When a woman is paired with a man, she's adolescent to early twenties, no matter what the context.

I find this strange because the creators had a spiel in the book regarding gender equality, and there's a lot of gobbledygook about archetypes, accessibility, cycles of life, holistic views, human experience...

To quote them: “Within the forest mythos, every human trait and condition is stored and cherished for future explorers to wander along the path, absorb, study and meditate upon as they choose.”

So... how come no mothers, no depictions of women in their prime, no crones?
How could they overlook such an integral segment of any population?
Is it because they're uncomfortable or fearful with women who are powerful, who cannot be manipulated through sexuality, who are equals in every way to the men they stand with?

The author posits that he'd like people to use the deck as “a meditation tool that can provide major healing and evoke untapped layers of wisdom. Understanding and respect must replace fear and dogma”, but how can this be if you just eliminate the aspects of womanhood that you don't understand or that make you squeamish?

I'm really disappointed with a deck I had high hopes for, because I love the art and the whole concept. But this glaring imbalance makes it nearly impossible to do a holistic reading, because an integral part of human experience has been amputated from it.
Click to expand...

I agree and personally have good reasons to assume, that the lack of woman Elders is / was the full intention of the deck creators, especially Mark Ryan. His vision of the greewood and so the Wildwood Tarot is more focused on the time of Robin Hood and his swashbuckling horde of Sherwood forest heroes and their forest guardians....
The book however is largely just a bad copy of the text that goes with the Greenwood Tarot. For quite a few cards the text and image do not match at all. We had a long thread about that on this board....
 

Melia

Wintergreen said:
Without going crazy with trying to be inclusive, there are many places where it could have been appropriate to depict older women.

- The six of stones shows an older man with a young girl. This could be his daughter, but could easily have been an woman the same age as a man, to show the suffering of exploitation.

- Eight of Bows shows a hearthfire with several men, and only one young woman: could have shown women of similar ages to the men.

- Greenwoman and 7 of stones: I always thought of the Greenwoman as being a fertile older mama type

- there are 4 cards that depict men, but not necessarily male energy that could have been women

- THE KILLER FOR ME FOR THIS DECK: There are 13 cards that show young women that could easily and in some cases more appropriately depicted an older woman (30+ yrs) or a crone. This is not to say that young women can't be powerful, but it shows a limited and limiting vision (Hi Mi'Shell :)) of the whole by making less appealing women invisible. For a young woman, this would not be a very rosy future to look to.

This deck purports to me a tool of personal development, with a very global view, but for me it fails. I don't know if it's going to be a usable deck for me.
Click to expand...

The six of stones - the female is decidedly shorter than the male and the fact that she seems much younger than him, to me, depicts the theme of exploitation even better than if she had been an older female of the same height.

The eight of bows depicts 8 men of varying ages but all with beards, so there are no females depicted on this card.

The Greenwoman depicted isn’t an old ‘unappealing’ woman, but neither does she look to be a young, androgynous 18 y.o. The empress in the Rider Waite is no crone either.


The Wildwood is a card deck depicting three people’s creative endeavours. I don’t find the apparent lack of older women depicted in this deck of great concern. The deck really does read well for me. I think the reality is a female determines her own future. No female has to allow herself to be manipulated through sexuality, nor does an older woman have to be nor consider herself ‘unappealing’ or invisible just because she is no longer a teenager. It’s not up to another person to determine who we are.
 
Which rider waite is the most intutive deck?? Albano Waite