About

Hi, I'm Kristen and I've been blogging for what seems like eons now. I've also been doing divination and reading oracle cards for even longer. My passion is symbolism in every form.

I love reading cards, although I've dabbled in runes, tea leaf readings, dice reading, and dowsing too. I got my first tarot deck when I was in college and since that time, I've owned and parted ways with over 200 decks. I've been reading tarot for more than a quarter century now -- in fact, I remember when Tarot Passages was the only tarot website online and it was hosted by its creatrix, Michele Jackson.

After studying tarot for many years, I tried my hand at reading regular playing cards and eventually designed my own methodology. At that time, there were very few resources on cartomancy and slim to none on reading playing cards so I started my own website on the now defunct Geocities platform. In the late 1990s, I was pioneering cartomancy instruction on the web. I wrote a book on the subject (it was purchased by a small handful of people) and started a yahoogroup course on the topic. In 2009, ooCities.org archived websites on the Geocities platform that  were considered "historically interesting or just representing the 90's website culture and style." Luckily, my original website, Twelve of Hearts Cartomancy, was one of those archived. You can also find most of my original website information copied (without attribution) in many places around the web including here:

http://playingcarddivination.weebly.com/

http://www.gaiaonline.com/guilds/viewtopic.php?t=6496139

Since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I guess I should be flattered.

The original print out of my book, Everyday Cartomancy

I burned out and I took a looooong break from the internet to pursue some of my other passions. I was still doing divination and along the way revised my playing card system. I updated, remixed and synthesized my original ideas into a simpler method of reading playing cards for prediction, advice and self-discovery. 

And in 2012, I came out of the shadows. By that time, there were many playing card divination systems around (Kapherus, Hedgewytchery, Personal Prophecy). I decided to put my revised playing card divination into a new course on Udemy.com, called Your Future Is In The Cards (read a few wonderful reviews here and get a coupon code). I also started the Twelve of Hearts Cartomancy blog to help spread the word about the course and to share my collected posts on cartomancy, tarot and divination tools. By the following year, I stopped blogging simply because I had shared all I had to share on the subject of divination (or so I thought). 

One of the things I hadn't planned on blogging about was my development of oracle decks. I have been looking for the perfect oracle deck for ages; I even have dreams about finding it in strange places. Unfortunately, I haven't actually found the perfect deck so I've begun to create my own.  

After I started the Twelve of Hearts blog, I discovered images on OldBookArt.com from the book, The Real Mother Goose, illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright. This discovery marked the beginning of my oracle card decks. I originally shared the old book art illustrations that I used to represent tarot Majors and Minors so I wouldn't have to use copyrighted images. But my readers started asking where they could buy the decks. That forced me to think about what deck I truly wanted to create and share with others.

I love the Mother Goose images which evoke pleasant childhood memories and match my vision of the perfect oracle deck. I have used the images to make prototypes of a variety of different decks, including a tarot deck, Lenormand-style deck, and a guidance deck. But everything finally clicked when I put the images on the back of playing cards and added keywords used in my playing card divination system. I think I finally have the deck of my dreams with the Over the Moon Oracle Cards -- a merging of many divination paths.

The Cat and the Fiddle from The Real Mother Goose

 Hey, diddle, diddle!
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed

To see such sport,

And the dish ran away with the spoon.

I decided the phrase, Over the Moon, from the rhyme accompanying the image above, would also be a great name for the deck and the website. Unfortunately the image never made it into any of my decks but the inspiration is there nevertheless. I'm really excited to take playing card divination to the next level - by merging it with oracle cards. It will be a new adventure for me. Although a new divination blog was not in my plans, blogging is really my journaling process, my way of learning and experiencing. So I hope you'll take this journey with me and we can explore this unique deck (and other unique decks in the works) together.

~ Kristen