Deck Interview: Lost Hollow Tarot
James Brothwell (@PixelOccult) has completed another successful tarot deck Kickstarter, and this time I bought two decks, one regular tarot size and the other a smaller “pocket size” version. I’ll be gifting one of them on Instagram in the not-too-distant future, so be on the lookout. Like the earlier Wayward Dark Tarot (you can find my interview with that deck here), the Lost Hollow Tarot is a boldly illustrated deck that offers a touch of darkness and Otherness to the tarot in a setting that feels like a haunted place you might be able to visit in our world. I love the strong black & white line-art accented by a pop of color (red for this deck) that is a hallmark of other decks by Pixel Occult, and I appreciate the blend of influences in the imagery, much of which include more recognizably human figures than the Wayward Dark. Plenty of the figures have horns or other unusual growths, and some are missing heads, but they feel more relatable to me. It could also be that I just really like the red and black ink aesthetic, especially for a poker-size Pocket Edition shown below (red and black for poker/playing cards). PixelOccult has just made really great art that often combines Smith-Waite imagery with Thoth imagery before the artist then adds in his own take. (Adjustment probably shows that better than any other card in this deck interview, but it’s not a great example.) There are plenty of novel deviations, however, and I love most of them, such as Lovers with its exploding mirror of possible identities.
There is a bit of a mishmash of Waite and Thoth systems here (a designed “fusion”) that might confuse some folks but which I actually really like. You have the Waite suit of Pentacles and more Waite-specific major names (Strength, Temperance, and Judgement), but then you have the Thoth’s Princes and Princesses instead of Knights and Pages, and all of the minor pips have one-word titles as in Thoth (not all the titles are the same as Thoth though!). There are even two versions of Strength (VIII or XI) and of Justice (XI)/Adjustment (VIII), so you can pick your preferred card ordering and nuanced interpretation. (There’s really not a wrong choice since all four cards are stunners.) The Kickstarter version also offers a second Death option, but I’m not sure if that’s available to later orders.
Anyway, that’s enough about the surface. There’s far more to the deck when you actually use it, so let’s dive in. As always, I’m using my own deck interview spread, about which you can read more here.
INTERVIEWING THE LOST HOLLOW TAROT
What major lesson are you here to help me learn? Lovers
Through which divine energy can we best communicate? Truce | 4 of Swords
In what area can you aid me to help others? Change | 2 of Pentacles
In what area could your guidance be easily misunderstood? Magician
What can I do to keep our communication clear? Judgement
How can I use your guidance for the highest good? Tower
How will I know when we’re ready for a new lesson? Adjustment
This is a deck of major changes and of big energy, as you’ll see from the five major arcana (I typically shuffle the whole deck again before drawing the next card for these interviews, so it’s definitely not a shuffling issue). It’s surprising that the card of divine connection is Truce, the 4 of Swords, given all the excitement around it, but with Adjustment as the final card, I think this is a deck of navigating the extremes to find one’s center, one’s core. And with that goal, I will definitely need to be calling on centering forces as I try to make the most of the deck’s insights.
The initial card of Lovers shows the potential fusing and then disintegration of merged identities. That’s fitting for this deck, but it’s also fitting for my own current state. I’ve been trying to understand how I can best position my own tarot identity—the Hermit is often misunderstood—and who I am now in the wake of all the past life work I’ve been doing. The Lovers is almost always about choice and identity to me (as Self beside the Other), but there’s also the call to partnerships. Collaboration is increasingly a part of my professional development, so it will be enlightening to see what this deck has to say about those collaborations moving forward.
I see the cards offering guidance on where best to have a positive impact, Change (2 of Pentacles) and Tower, as real signs that this deck will be best for game-changer readings. When something needs to give, when you need advice to just lean into the forces of fate and change, a quick little reading with the Pocket Edition, even just in a Short & Sweet Reading, could set off a necessary explosion to help shift things. Well, it’s a visually bold deck, so I guess that’s a pretty great match for those asking me to use it in their readings!
Last, there’s some additional guidance about how best to use the deck (or how not to use it), which comes through the negative advice of the Magician and the clarifying of Judgement. Surprisingly, I saw the Wayward Dark Tarot as a deck of magical manifestation for myself, one that I could very easily misuse. So to see the Magician here as the sort of anti-advice, I immediately recall that interview. But with this deck, it’s not about charting your own way forward by what you want to do. This isn’t about creating something for yourself after being shattered by the Lovers. It’s not about making a decision to be someone or some way. This duo tells me that my work with this deck must resist the urge to direct energy and instead to just listen (or watch) for the call that comes from beyond (or beneath) my conscious desires.
The cards pictured here are from the Lost Hollow, created by James Brothwell © 2020. This Pocket Edition is from the Kickstarter campaign, but you can find the larger edition (and presumably the pocket version) through the Pixel Occult Etsy shop. All rights reserved.