Divination has been an important part of my practice in the 15 years I’ve been doing witchcraft. Recently, however, I got bored of tarot, but have been having trouble finding something equally versatile. I think I have found it in the form of the Seed & Sickle oracle deck by Fez Inkwright, with my own twist. In this post, I’m going to review the deck as well as tell you how I’ve put my own spin on it.

Why oracle cards?

An oracle deck is used in divination, but unlike a tarot deck, every oracle deck is different and has a completely different vibe. While most tarot decks have 78 cards and consist of a major arcana and minor arcana, oracle decks can be set up however the creator desires. There are infinite variations, meaning you could experiment with a new one every day and never run out of new experiences!

There is a popular assumption, unfortunately, that oracle cards are somehow lesser than tarot– that they are supplemental, less “spiritual,” or less in-depth. However, I believe they are powerful enough to stand on their own, especially if you find a deck that works for you.

Why the Seed & Sickle deck?

First of all, the art is beautiful.

Secondly, I felt that the two guidebooks provided an interesting roadmap for interpreting the cards. This is the main selling point of the Seed & Sickle deck: it comes with two guidebooks, labeled “dawn” and “dusk.” Dawn is for readings about beginning projects and potentialities, and Dusk is for introspective readings. I felt that this was a really interesting development and could lead to great daily readings.

Thirdly, I wanted an oracle deck that would be versatile to the point that it could replace tarot. Tarot has cards that could represent just about any situation, but many oracle card decks are restricted by their themes.

How I’m Using It

I am actually not interpreting based on the guidebooks at all at this point. Instead, I am using my intuition– and these have been some of the most powerful divination experiences I have ever had.

Here’s how I did it: I made a gigantic chart in my witch journal that included 4 columns and enough rows for each card, and about 8 lines each. (It took like 15 pages, so if you want to do something similar, you may want to do it digitally or in its own dedicated notebook!)

I went through each card in order and wrote down my intuitive interpretation first, based on the art on the card and its general vibe. Then I researched the folklore and correspondences of each plant and wrote those in the third column. Finally, I split each box of the fourth column into two and recorded the Dawn and Dusk interpretations from the guidebook.

If, during my readings, another interpretation crops up, I will write it down!

A Note

This is not a criticism of the deck at all, but someone who was more well-versed in plants might have an easier time with these cards than I did. On many of the cards, there are no symbols other than just the featured plant and often I struggled with an intuitive interpretation of these cards. I should have known from the creator’s bibliography that it was an herbalism-based deck, but honestly I bought it on a whim and didn’t do too much research.

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