- The Great Goddess Oracle
- By Lucy Cavendish and Art by Jake Baddeley
- Published by Blue Angel Publishing
- RRP: $36 AUS | $30 US | £25 GBP
- ISBN: 978-1-922573-99-5
- Reviewed by Mayra M.F. Swann
Lucy Cavendish is a free spirit, witch and writer with great knowledge of sacred sites and rites, witchcraft, magickal history, folklore, alternative spiritual practices and intuitive traditions. Lucy lectures and teaches around the world and is renowned for her vision, compassion wisdom and humour. Lucy grew up in Sydney, Australia, and she has lived in Paris, London and the United States. Some of her books include Witches and Wizards, Spellbound: The Secret Grimoire of Lucy Cavendish, The Lost Lands: A Magickal History of Lemuria, Atlantis and Avalon, White Magic: A Guide to Living an Enchanted Life, and the trilogy Witchy Magic, Faery Magic and Mermaid Magic. Her oracle decks include The Faery Forest: An Oracle of the Wild Green World, Oracle of Shadows and Light, the Oracle of the Mermaids, the Oracle of the Shapeshifters, Les Vampires, Wild Wisdom of the Faery Oracle, Oracle of the Dragonfae, and more.
Published in Australia, 2024, the deck, as the title suggests, has a theme based on goddesses from around the world. In total, the deck uses 3 goddesses from 7 different pantheons, one for each aspect of the feminine: the maiden, the mother and the crone. Each of these goddesses has two cards, one representing a blessing from the goddess and one an invocation. This totals 42 cards in the deck.
The art by Jake Baddeley is very detailed and captures the essence of each goddess, as well as illustrating the differences between blessing and invocation cards. I’m certain that the more the reader uses the deck and gets acquainted with each card, the more the details on the card illustration make sense to the reader.
The art is very detailed and uses a background that looks like parchment, giving the images an almost historical look. The images are framed by a thick black frame with golden motifs, the number and name of the card, the area the goddess acts upon, if it’s a blessing or invocation and if the goddess is categorised as a Maiden, Mother or Crone. It is a pity that, though pretty and informative, this boarder does make the illustration rather small on the card, which makes it difficult to see all the details on it.
The symbolism in the cards is very interesting. Jake did an amazing job adding symbols everywhere in the cards, from the frame, to their scenery, to the goddesses themselves. All goddesses have a frame with Celtic designs and a runic wheel I believe spelling the name of the goddess. Other symbols are present in the cards, and I believe they would become more apparent when the reader becomes more familiar with the individual goddess and what they represent. The illustrations seem to mix elements from all pantheons in the deck, from the papyrus looking background and two-dimensional illustrations that remind us of Egyptian hieroglyphs, to the Celtic designs and Nordic runes.
There is a clear differentiation between the goddesses in their blessing form and in their invocation form. In their blessing form they seem more calm and inviting, while on their invocation they are ready to act in behalf of the reader.
The oracle is its own system and not based in any existing oracle. The guidebook, which is 168 pages long, offers a comprehensive overview of the author’s vision for this oracle as well as detailed instructions on how to get better acquainted with it and how to do readings with it. It contains two pages dedicated to each card, with an image of the card and a message from the goddess or a body of text invoking the goddess, as well as a short description of the card.
In the guidebook, the author proposes spreads to be used when reading for oneself or others, such as a “Past, Present, Future” spread; a “Maiden, Mother, Crone” spread; The Temple of the Great Goddess Spread and an adaptation of the Celtic Cross by the author. The author does also explain how to use reverse cards in a reading, but the back of the cards is not reversible, meaning if a card is reversed you can see that from the back.
Though the guidebook is very informative, reading the deck can be slightly difficult as each card has only a message from the goddess or an invocation, and no reference to what they represent in simpler terms besides a simple description of the goddess realm of influence. Some of the goddesses are quite plural, like Freya that bestows upon the reader affection, desire, and the courage to never back away from any battles. This makes a reading more difficult, and I would recommend readers getting acquainted with the goddesses before attempting readings with them.
Each goddess brings a message, like a blessing, and I’ve followed the author’s suggestion to draw a daily card to get acquainted with them. I feel as if the goddess of the day is lending me her strength to face the day ahead. When doing a reading, each goddess speaks to you in a very deep and intuitive level, they are great for giving you understanding of the situation and giving you strength and courage to face what needs to be faced, but for me, it is quite difficult to arrive at any predictions or advice from the cards, specially when, during a “past, present, future” reading, you draw the Norn’s blessing as the “future” and the card description includes in itself past, present and future descriptions. Maybe this is something that can change with use and as the reader’s familiarity with the deck improves.
The card stock and box is of good quality, the cards being gold foiled and have a velvety finish to them. They don’t stick together, but are rather big, which means they may bend easily if shuffled using the Riffle shuffle and can be hard to handle. It is also difficult to overhand shuffle, as the cards don’t slide between each other that easily.
Overall, I’m very impressed with this oracle. I’m not a big oracle fan, as I find it hard to have to learn a whole new system every time, but this one is a must add to anyone who enjoys the different facets of the divine feminine and how they are represented in different cultures. Though I don’t feel this is an easy deck to learn, I think it has a lot to give, and it comes with all the tools required to make the most of it. All you need is time and practice, getting familiarized with your deck and the goddesses, and they will have wonders to tell you.
To finish this review, I’ve drawn a goddess card to leave a message for the readers: A blessing from the Sumerian Maiden Goddess Inanna, Lady of Rapture.
Inanna speaks: “I am the moment when mind and ego and self are consumed by the constellations of pleasure… But I am also many other things. I am courage and ambition, desert fire and storm, hungry for all I can consume. My nature is the willingness to do to extremes, to have more than enough, to keep reaching and searching and taking. I am voracious. I am never satisfied or still… I come to you now to raise all of you up, for there is no part of yourself that is to be feared.”
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