For The Shining Tribe Tarot, a reprinted and slightly remodeled deck of tarot cards, Rachel Pollack changed the name from its original title Shining Woman to Shining Tribe because so many readers wrongly assumed that it was a deck designed for women. In fact, it is a deck for everyone, drawing heavily on nature-based, ancient symbols from around the world. Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles have been changed to Trees, Rivers, Birds, and Stones. Some of the cards contain Jewish Kabbalist symbols, such as the Four and Nine of Rivers, and others display images from Native American rock art (Five of Stones) or ancient Chinese art (Two of Birds). Although she departed from the familiar images, and her artwork is more primitive than refined, Pollack did follow the traditional Tarot structure with 78 cards in two parts: the Major Arcana (which she calls the "map of the soul's journey from birth to enlightenment") and the Minor Arcana (the "kaleidoscope of human experience in all its varied forms"). What makes this package stand out is Pollack's wise and poetic interpretations of each card (approximately two pages of discussion per card). In the Four of Birds, she explains, "We see a woman wearing a bird mask who has climbed a mountain to seek an encounter with Spirits. Despite her dedication, she must stop to rest." Many of us diligently work hard to attain self-knowledge or enlightenment, notes Pollack. Ironically, "the card promises truth and healing for those moments when we stop struggling." In the rear of the book, she outlines a variety of readings, such as three-card spreads that illuminate "Spiritual History, Spiritual Gift, and Spiritual Challenge." She also suggests novel ways to work with tarot cards that involve carrying specific cards with you or incorporating them into altars. --Gail Hudson


About the Author
Rachel is considered one of the Worlds foremost authorities on the modern interpretation of the Tarot. She is also a poet, an award-winning novelist, and a Tarot card and comic book artist. She has published 12 books on the Tarot, including 78 Degrees of Wisdom (Thorsons, 1998), considered a modern classic and the Bible of Tarot reading. Its marriage of common sense, wide-ranging knowledge, and esoteric awareness have inspired many tens of thousands of readers worldwide to a deeper knowledge of the Tarot. She is a member of the American Tarot Association, the International Tarot Society, and the Tarot Guild of Australia. With fellow Tarot author Mary Greer, she has taught at the famed Omega Institute for the past twelve years. She has been conferred the title of Tarot Grand Master by the Tarot Certification Board, an independent body located in Las Vegas, Nevada. As a fiction writer, Pollack has been bestowed many honors and awards, among them the famed Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction (for Unquenchable Fire) and the World Fantasy Award (for Godmother Night). She is a recommended member of PEN International, and has written for numerous publications.


Excerpted from The Shining Tribe Tarot, Revised and Expanded by Rachel Pollack. Copyright © 2001. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Structure of Shining Tribe Like the traditional Tarot, Shining Tribe contains seventy-eight cards, in two parts: the Major and the Minor Arcana (arcana means "secrets"). The Major Arcana consists of twenty-two named and numbered cards, beginning with 0, the Fool, and ending with 21, the World Shining Woman. Most of these cards bear their traditional names. Four, however, have changed titles. Card 5, traditionally the Hierophant, has become Tradition. Card 10, traditionally the Wheel of Fortune, has become the Spiral of Fortune. Card 20, traditionally Judgement, has become Awakening. And card 21, traditionally the World, has become the World¿Shining Woman. Except for Tradition (ironically), the pictures on the cards remain close to the traditional iconography. The Major Arcana of the Tarot is one of the world's great works of wisdom. In twenty-two highly evocative pictures, it encompasses a vast range of teachings. If we try to synthesize its ideas, we might say that it gives us a map of the soul's journey from birth to the challenges of life, to enlightenment and harmony with the universe. The Minor Arcana consists of the four suits, similar to modern playing cards. Most Tarot decks name these suits after humanmade objects that appear on the cards. Usually these are Wands (sometimes Staves or Rods), Cups, Swords, and Pentacles (Coins in older decks, Disks in some modern ones). Shining Tribe Tarot has changed the suit names to aspects of nature: Trees, Rivers, Birds, and Stones. The Tarot took shape in the Renaissance, when European culture emphasized human achievements as the focus of the material world. The Renaissance saw nature as wild, needing human transformation to fulfill its spiritual possibilities. In our time we have reversed this idea, literally going into the wilderness to find our most basic truths. We have turned to the ways of indigenous peoples, those who seek to live within the rhythms of nature. Such movements as Deep Ecology, or Eco-feminism, or the Gaia Theory have led us to revalue nature, both for itself and as a symbol of our own spiritual development. Each suit contains fourteen cards, Ace through 10, plus four cards with names. In traditional Tarot decks these named cards are the Court cards: Page, Knight, Queen, and King. Many contemporary Tarot creators have found these titles weak or unbalanced, and have changed them to such groups as Mother, Father, Daughter, Son, or Sage, Man, Woman, Child. Shining Tribe removes the Court cards completely, replacing them with the Vision cards: Place, Knower, Gift, and Speaker. These will be explained fully in their own section, but we can describe them briefly as a progression of learning and using the energy of each suit. The Place allows us to enter the suit and feel its power in our lives. The Knower depicts understanding the inner qualities of that suit. The Gift tells us that we have reached the point where we can use these qualities in our lives. With the power of the Gift we become a Speaker, able to share the suit's power with others. This concept of each suit having a particular energy (for the numbered Minor cards as well as the Vision cards) derives from the idea of the four elements. The European form of this widespread idea (we also find it, for example, in China) goes back to ancient Greece, where philosophers argued over the basic nature of all the vast numbers of creatures and objects in the material world. Eventually, this idea of primal elements settled into four: fire, water, air, and earth. We no longer believe in these things as fundamental reality. In fact, we have learned that each of the four elements contains a vast number of substances and chemical reactions. Nevertheless, the image of these elements holds a potent psychological truth. We each encounter life in different ways at different times. The world gives us different experiences at different moments. In astrology and Jungian psychology as well as in Tarot, the four elements help us organize the variety of human experience. One way to recast the elements in modern terms might be to describe the four as states of matter. Fire signifies chemical reactions, and therefore change. Water indicates matter's fluid state and thus the fluidity of emotion. Air indicates the gaseous state of matter, suggesting the invisible quickness of thought and creativity, while earth is the solid state and therefore the realities of nature, work, and wealth. When we cast the four suits as states of matter it becomes natural to look at the Major Arcana as Spirit. Indeed, many Tarot interpreters refer to the Major cards as a fifth element, sometimes called quintessence, or ether (ether was once thought to be an invisible substance that permeated all existence). This does not mean that matter and Spirit are opposed, or separate. Just as all matter was said to move through ether, so spirituality flows through all our daily life and relationships. We see this graphically when we do Tarot readings, for then we mix together the Major and Minor cards.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Human beings have practiced the art of divination for millenia. In some cultures, diviners studied patterns in nature - the flight of birds, the forms of clouds, or the arrangement of the stars in the night sky. In others, they created elaborate divinatory systems such as the I Ching and the Tarot. Drawing from the legacy of 50,000 years of human encounters with the Divine, renowned Tarot scholar Rachel Pollack has created the Shining Tribe Tarot, a revised and expanded version of the popular Shining Woman Tarot.

The Shining Tribe Tarot is steeped in symbolism drawn from culturally diverse systems including Neolithic rock art, Native American and African shamanism, Aboriginal art, the Kabbalah, Jungian psychology, and the traditional Tarot. The name Shining Tribe has a special meaning, says Ms. Pollack: "All of us who work with Tarot form a kind of tribe, one whose roots go back many thousands of years before the actual appearance of Tarot cards. This is the tribe of diviners, those special magicians, shamans, psychics, and visionaries who use cards, or sticks, or trees, or stones, or shells to communicate with the Gods."

The accompanying book includes detailed descriptions of the origin and history of the symbols depicted on each card of this unique deck, as well as explanations of their meanings in divinatory spreads. In addition, you will also learn how to read the cards for a variety of purposes, including divination, advice, and guidance along your own personal sacred journey. Learn how to gain insights into the nightly messages from your subconscious mind with dream readings, and how to activate a card to bring its qualities into your everyday life.

Rachel Pollack invites you to join the shining tribe of diviners and visionaries. As you continue along the sacred journey of self-discovery, let the Shining Tribe Tarot cards shine a path for you.

Author Biography: Rachel Pollack is a poet, an award-winning novelist, a world authority on the modern interpretation of Tarot cards, and a Tarot card artist. Her novel Godmother Night won the 1997 World Fantasy Award. Her earlier novel, Unquenchable Fire, won the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

She has published twelve books on the Tarot, including Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom, often called "he Bible of Tarot readers."Her books have been published in nine languages. Rachel lives in New York's Hudson Valley, where she is working on a book about the inner soul of Tarot.