INNERVIEW: Joanna Powell Colbert and The Gaian Tarot (with Carolyn Cushing)

I attended the 2011 (Tarot) Readers Studio at the end of April 2011. A longtime interest in Tarot led me to sign up for the three-day event in New York City, and I met Joanna Powell-Colbert there. A member of the local Pioneer Valley group, The Massachusetts Tarot Society, Carolyn Cushing (Art of Change Tarot) also made the trip to N.Y., so I asked her if she’d participate in the INNERview as well. Carolyn has been using Joanna’s Gaian Tarot from its publication in March 2010. -- Paris Finley

PARIS: Joanna, you’re a successful, internationally-known artist already, famous for your work.  You didn’t really need to put yourself through the long hours and hard work involved in researching and creating a Tarot deck. Whatever possessed you?  Did you have some connection to Tarot before the idea of the deck entered your thinking?

JOANNA: “Whatever possessed me?” Good question! Sometimes throughout those nine years of working on the deck, I really did think I was possessed. Or crazy.  

But the truth is, I felt like I had a mandate. I was called to create the deck. I couldn’t not do it. 

I first started studying Tarot back in college in the early ’70s. I took a detour for a decade or so as a born-again Christian, then discovered the Motherpeace deck and the women’s spirituality movement when I emerged from

the church in the early 80s. I studied tarot intensively for most of the 80s and began teaching it locally, here in the Northwest, in the 90s.

Back then my art medium of choice was pen-and-ink, sometimes with watercolor wash but often just black-and-white. I did think about creating a deck, but was stymied by the idea of producing 78 cards. Then I backed away from tarot and other esoteric studies for five or six years. I moved to a small island, built a straw bale house with my husband, started learning all about the local native plants and animals, and developed an intense, loving relationship with the land. 

I also started studying a new art medium at this time, colored pencil. I took a lot of workshops on the technique and fell in love with it. It is, however, an extremely slow medium, with many layers of color laid upon each other, stroke by pencil stroke. In retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t attempt to do the deck in pen-and-ink. Even though it took me nine years to complete 78 colored pencil paintings, the medium (in my opinion) is so much richer and deeper than pen-and-ink with watercolor.

In the fall of 2000, I flew to Chicago to be the Artist Guest of Honor at a conference. A woman I’d never seen before walked up to my vending table on the first night. She was wearing a T-shirt decorated with a sequined version of the Rider-Waite-Smith High Priestess. She looked straight at me and said, “YOU have to do a Tarot deck!” I heard the voice of the Goddess speaking through her; it wasn’t just an offhand remark. That woman turned out to be Janet Berres, who was the founder and director of the International Tarot Society and creator of the World Tarot Congress. Throughout the course of the weekend, people kept coming up to my table and asking “Didn’t you do a Tarot deck?” By the 12th or 13th time I heard this, I capitulated. Message received.

I also had to decide on a theme for the deck. I didn’t want to do yet another Rider-Waite-Smith clone, because — why bother doing something that has been done so well, so many other times? The same with doing a Goddess-themed deck. I didn’t feel that I had anything new to bring to yet another Goddess deck.

Then I had an epiphany... I realized I could bring together two great passions of mine — my love for the natural world (a.k.a. Mama Gaia) and my nature studies, with my love for the rich, archetypal imagery of the tarot. I brought those two loves together in the Gaian Tarot.

CAROLYN: I am grateful to Joanna for the long work of creating the Gaian Tarot as it combines two of the wisdom traditions that most inspire me:  Tarot and nature.  The deck is rather amazing in the depth and richness of both sides of this equation that Joanna brings to the images on the cards.  She talks about the deck taking nine years to complete because, I imagine, she was moving at the pace of nature and of inspiration rather than pushing through the daily goals.

I’ve been lucky enough to hear many of the stories behind the creation of the deck and the models on the cards. One of my favorite cards is the Wheel, which shows a fiery center from which four trees grow out in a circle, each representing and with the coloring of the season. Joanna went every season to take a picture of one tree to accurately reflect its changes in the colored pencil drawing on her card. Just following the cycle of the year shows patience, but the fall tree took extra time to capture. An early windstorm blew the fall leaves off before she was able to photograph it so she waited a whole year to return to the same tree. 

This attention to the natural world and its rhythms is an antidote to the rush of modern life that causes so much stress. Spending time in nature or contemplating the images of the Gaian Tarot sends me into eternal time, slows me down, and washes away my stress. 

PARIS: “Gaia” — it’s an interesting choice, Joanna. She was the Greek Goddess of the Earth. She personified the Earth itself, and many know her as Mother Nature. But then there’s also James Lovelock’s famous Gaia Hypothesis, that says that all organisms and even the inorganic things around them combine together into a system that, although complex, is what sustains life on our planet. We see in your artwork an interest in mythology; there are images of Greek gods and goddesses as well as figures from Celtic mythology. But what led you to choose a Gaian-themed Tarot for your work? Why an Earth-centered Tarot? Is there a link between your earlier mythology-based artwork and the work you did for the Gaian Tarot?

JOANNA: Oh yes, there is definitely a link between my earlier pen-and-ink work, and the Gaian Tarot images. I always used live models — people that I knew — for my images of goddesses and gods, and I did the same thing for the humans in the Gaian Tarot. I am very interested in capturing a sense of the numinous in the faces and bodies of everyday people. I would often invoke the spirit of a particular being or archetype into the person modeling, before doing a photo shoot. I think that’s why I came away with such extraordinary photographs, which in turn became very special pieces of artwork. 

I chose to do a Gaian-themed deck because I personally practice an earth-centered spirituality. Rachel Pollack says that the Tarot is a Book of Wisdom like the Bible or the Torah or other sacred texts. I see the earth, the world of nature, as another kind of sacred text, one that I wanted to reveal that in these cards. 

I don’t actually remember how the name “Gaian Tarot” came to me. It was just, suddenly, there; and I recognized it as the right name. It honors the Great Mother (or as so many say today, the Divine Feminine), which is very important to me. And it gives a nod to Lovelock’s theory. Even though the Gaia Hypothesis is quite controversial among scientists, it seems to have given us a useful term for referring to a worldview that honors the Earth as sentient, and sacred. 

CAROLYN: Oh, I love having to reflect on the Gaian Tarot in this way!

Yes, the numinous within each person, a glowing beauty in the every day, and the greening power of life leap out of the Gaian Tarot’s images to inspire us. The deck presents a dynamic that certainly is in line with the Gaia Hypothesis of the Earth as a self-regulating and living system.  Here in the Valley we have a direct connection to Gaian theory as UMass Geosciences Professor Lynn Margulis is a contributor to the development of this thinking with her work showing the symbiotic relationships between organisms. Gaia thinking abounds in the Valley!

A great gift of the Tarot for me is that although it comes out a specific culture and time (early Renaissance Europe), its structure lends itself to being a conveyor of wisdom from across traditions and times. There are decks based on Celtic philosophy and Zen tradition, alchemical process and Quantum Physics. It becomes a visual book with pages that can be re-arranged to conveying a multitude of meanings.  Joanna’s Gaian Tarot is a deeply wise guide into earth-centered spirituality.

PARIS: Joanna, you say “I see the earth, the world of nature, as another kind of sacred text...” I sense from your artwork that the world of nature for you goes beyond being “a sacred text” and is itself, sacred, possibly as much so as in the cosmology of Native American peoples. Now you are putting an enormous amount of energy into spreading the images of your cards as far and wide as you can. What are you trying to accomplish for the world by doing this? What change are you hoping to see in people who encounter your cards?

JOANNA: I mentioned that back in the mid-90’s, I moved away from esoteric studies and instead pursued a experience of learning directly from the land — from Mama Gaia herself. I was quite taken with Starhawk’s comment that for Pagans, “nature is our holy book, and most of us are illiterate in it.”  I pursued my nature studies with the same dedication I had earlier given to tarot, astrology and ritual.  Today, I believe that the subject matter of the Gaian Tarot (which could be summed up as “Healing Ourselves, Healing the Earth”) is more important than the deck itself, or tarot itself for that matter. My ulterior motive in creating the deck was to encourage those who call themselves Pagan — people of the earth — to connect with the living earth in a very real way, not just symbolically. 

My deepest hope and dream for the deck is that it will find its way into the hands of people who need it. I hope it will help us to heal ourselves and heal the earth, as we discover the unique gift we each have to offer the world. A lofty goal, I know. But you asked! 

CAROLYN: I think it is just the right time for lofty goals, especially those that serve the healing of people and the planet.  A favorite quote of mine comes from the Indian physicist and global environmental activist Vandana Shiva:  “As our concept of the sacred has become more diluted, pollution has become more aggravated. Purity of water can almost be measured in direct proportion to a society’s understanding of the sacred. The sacred is now a political necessity if we are to resist the colonization of nature that is destroying our forests, our water, and our air.”
The Gaian Tarot, because it points the way back to nature and earth as sacred, is a both an inspirational and a practical tool for these times.

PARIS: Thank you. I most fervently hope we’re up to the task. OK, Joanna, we’re going to put you on the spot! I would like to be better at seeing the energy and spirit in the people around me. How can I do that? Would you please shuffle your cards, draw one for me, and tell me what it says about my wish?

JOANNA: Well, two cards fell out of the deck as I cut it, Paris — the Nine of Water and the Eight of Air. I realized that the two cards form a whole answer to your question. In the Nine of Water, we see a woman alone in a sea cave, having an ecstatic experience of communion with Spirit, as she sings her heart out to the Ocean Mother. She shimmers with radiance. So that is Part One: As you seek ecstatic experiences on a regular basis, through a spiritual or devotional practice of some kind, you will be open to the More-Than-Human in the world around you. But you knew that already, didn’t you?  

In the Eight of Air, we see a group of people sitting in circle, practicing the art of council. One man holds a talking stick and is speaking from his heart. The others give him their full attention and listen deeply.  That’s the second part of the answer to your question. Make room in your life for sitting in council with others, and when you do, listen to them on a deep level. When it’s your turn to speak, set aside any twinges of vulnerability. Speak from your heart, trusting that you will be heard. The sacred circle creates a container where spirit can emerge. 

CAROLYN: Love the reading for Paris! Can’t improve on that. As I said the Gaian inspires us to commune with the natural world that transforms us as in the Nine of Water and gives us practical suggestions for how to thrive in our everyday lives as in the Eight of Air.”

PARIS: Thank you, Joanna Powell-Colbert. I’ve enjoyed doing this interview very much, and I thank you for sharing how you have for “discovered the unique gift we each have to offer the world” in yourself. Carolyn, thank you so much for joining us and adding your experience in working with Joanna’s deck to our INNERview.

— PARIS FINLEY