Autumn Beloveds Day 1: The Uncommon Tarot

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

For the entire month of October, I will be posting daily to Luna Luna about all things magical, witchy, spooky, and spoopy. From books and tarot decks to films and random research or rituals I happen upon, I’ll be offering up a little taste of the shadow.

First up: The Uncommon Tarot by Shaheen Miro and Theresa Reed (who wrote Tarot for Troubled Times together), which is out today.

This incredibly reimagined tarot experience — and that’s what it is, really — offers 78 cards worth of Miro’s incredible artwork alongside Theresa Reed’s brilliant authorship.

The artwork is Miro’s interpretations of the classic cards done in delicious, zesty, spiritual collage-style with all sorts of symbols, mysticality, and hidden meanings bursting forth or waiting to be discovered. The deck is new to me, so it’s going to be a bit of time (forever, really, like any deck) before I really decipher what sort of essence or spirit this deck brings to my life. But right now, it feels incredibly fresh and energetic; it reminds me that we all have stories — and that they’re all beautiful and complex and divinely-touched) and that we ourselves are breathing archetypes functioning within this world, inspiring others around us, and adding to the mosaic of this life. It also tells me that we all can learn from one another’s beautiful stories, cultures, and energies.

That’s not the feeling I always get from other decks; in fact, this is really the first deck that makes the seeker, the storyteller, and the poet in me come out to play in full force. Not only are the images so completely unique and lush, but they also evoke all the elements of the human condition. You’ve got to hold it and be in its presence to feel that.

Theresa Reed, whose work with tarot (and everything she does) is super rooted in the shadow and human development, shines through here. I feel safe, understood, and like my journey is well-anchored with her at the helm. Her words are a balm, a salve, and a gift.

This is a true gift for the contemporary tarot reader or enthusiast.

You can pick up the glory here.

Poetry by Britny Cordera

BY BRITNY CORDERA

Revelations

Beside your distance, the sound of rainbow

trout stilled in a river warmer

than the bag & tent we are sleeping in,

the current like birdsong we’ll never

put a name to that might begin to ascribe

a secret note for the end of this world

& how it will happen: a continent on fire

begets the floods begets the drought

begets the tornadoes begets the locusts

begets a branding iron burning our lungs,

these titans. Want to say something:

great horned owls duetting

to each other from one stolen nest

to another, the snore of the tent

dwellers next door, & what of yours;

a deep breathing that skips over

saliva, like the flat-stone rocks

we tossed in that tepid current

to watch jounce across the water’s surface

& the remainders of autumn––

white oak smolders gold in the fire

we could have waited a little longer to burn out.

Sagittarius Season

Since the Earth is having fever dreams this year

before her long sleep, the pin oak leaves

heavy with gold have not fallen yet

and the falcon’s scream reverberates

to cleanse the Earth’s body before burial.

Here in a small town called Huntington,

the first sight of autumn is never lost

to the hunters eager to wear their camouflage

of summer’s crisp detritus. The towering pale

men are never hunted in this shrinking town

where red-tailed hawks hook themselves

to crackling electric poles. One of the men

stops at a gas station before going into the forest, finds

exotic game to mess around with; a woman with antlers,

a nest of black-widows trailing from her hair,
 

northern copperheads springing from the crown of her head

and their ratty remains, hollow bones for tight coils,

a true daughter of Horned Serpent and Cernunnos,

who just walked into a Circle K to buy hiking snacks.

The dark woman who is only seen in the shadow

of fall is spotted; a staredown with the hunter

has her paralyzed in line as he stands behind her.

He ushers her towards the line to go first

looking but barely touching the ruin on her head

with his breath. She thinks he’s going to say

wow, amazing hair to which she’ll reply in stutter

thanks, I grew it myself, but this time it doesn’t happen.

Cordera is a two-year Pushcart Prize-nominated poet. She is a proud Black writer and Louisiana Creole poet, descending from African, Indigenous, and French/Spanish ancestors. Her poetry can be found or is forthcoming in Rhino, Xavier Review, and Auburn Avenue. Currently, Cordera is an MFA candidate at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and poetry editor for The New Southern Fugitives.

Poetry by Lauren Davis

BY LAUREN DAVIS

Little Bean

The doctor tells me he found—

in my brain—something. Nothing

to do, but give it a name. Little bean.

Sparrow’s eye. Lost pearl. It is mine.

I made it. Appleseed, my pale bead.

When I am still enough, it sings.

Brain Growth Undiagnosed in the Month of July

Aberration, you will either be

my everything or my nothing.

Once a man I loved raised his fist to me.

He stood close enough I could

smell him. In that moment I felt

a thing close to unknown.

If you grow, my sweet pea,

you will cut the stream.

Or you might disappear like

dew. I could love you either way.

Today, men set off fireworks

because when this country left

its mother, we were happy.

I think you are maybe a gift,

like when noon creeps in

where there’s been always

winter light. I see everything

now. I see the missed moment

I might have held my palms

to the grass. They call

this prayer. Even in the day

I hear a pop like gunshots

but it’s just children playing

with fire. Some say it’s wasteful

to burn sparklers in the sun

but this is not the type of person

I keep in my life. I keep in my life

you—visitor long overdue.

Little wick, lit.

Lauren Davis is the author of Home Beneath the Church, forthcoming from Fernwood Press, and the chapbook Each Wild Thing’s Consent, published by Poetry Wolf Press. She holds an MFA from the Bennington College Writing Seminars, and she teaches at The Writers’ Workshoppe and Imprint Books. She is a former Editor in Residence at The Puritan’s Town Crier and has been awarded a residency at Hypatia-in-the-Woods. Her work has appeared in over fifty literary publications and anthologies including Prairie Schooner, Spillway, Poet Lore, Ibbetson Street, Ninth Letter and elsewhere.

Poetry by Andi Talarico

BY ANDI TALARICO

After Sacrifice

Catholics believe in magic, which is to say 

Transubstantiation, which is really to say sleight 

of hand, which is to say we

Believe a miracle occurs each time the holy man, ordained, 

offers the water and the wine,

Just like that, from up their robes, they

Conjure the body, conjure the blood.

It is pivotal, the difference, the others who see mass as metaphor.

They are just pretending. It is enough to worship the idea.

But not us, see, watch the hands, use your nail,

scratch Papal and find pagan, 

boiling, just beneath,

Denied and demoted like a bastard born son.

But see how far we’ve come, 

Note we no longer need the offering 

of your firstborn to the fire

Don’t have to hurl your kin into the maw of a pit

Don’t have to cut from the finest of your harvest

Don’t have to let go your plumpest sow.

Here, we’re evolved now, humane, now, let 

this ministered man, 

holy enough to be above you,

let him make his magic happen, 

an alchemy of spirit to body

A glamour for the blind

We’ve made it for you.

A glamour so profound

Wreathed in the smoke of incense

Kept behind the altar

Beyond the pale

Between masses, babies, offered up.

We cry, bring us your youngest, your softest, 

all the sons and daughters of Abraham,

And here is the lamb, and here is the slaughter,

The hunger too great, the appetite laid bare.

The sin of lust made greater by the sin of

Looking-away, the sin of never-asking,

The sin of teaching our young that

Sacrifice is the greatest name for love

Because after all, after all,

This is my body, which is given up for you.

Andi Talarico is a Brooklyn-based writer, reader, and witch. She’s the former host of At the Inkwell NYC, an international reading series. She's taught poetry in classrooms as a rostered artist, been a coach and judge for Poetry Out Loud, and her work has been featured in Luna Luna magazine, The Poetry Project, Yes Poetry, Ritual Poetica, and more. Her work has also been published by PaperKite Press and SwanDive Publishing. When she’s not working with stationery company Baronfig, you can find her dishing on astrology and culture on her podcast Astrolushes, co-hosted with Lisa Marie Basile.