Flashes of Insight

The Wise Woman’s Tarot by Flash Silvermoon

I will be offering a new feature for Pagan Ways. Grannymoon has asked me to do a 3 month reading for all the signs of the zodiac so that each of you can keep up with your shifts and changes during these ‘interesting times’.
I will be using my Wise Woman’s Tarot so I thought that it would be best to give you a little taste of the Divinatory Tool itself;
Meet The Wise Woman’s Tarot…….

The Wise Woman’s Tarot is a multicultural, matriarchal book with colorful companion deck. It celebrates the global female lineage in 78 powerful images. (read on…)

Around the early seventies it became apparent to me that my lesbian feminsim also needed a spiritual path that was congruent. I had been reading and studying about Witchcraft and for everything that I read this seeemd to fit my more anarchistic ways. Not a lot of rules there and they honor a Goddess hmmm sounded good to me and yet I was yet to have a real circle of women who believed as i did and I longed for that.
I remember that I first heard of Z when she was arrested in LA for reading Tarot Cards, or so they said. At the time I was also making my living on the East Coast reading Tarot Cards and starting women’s Kozmic Consciousness groups beacuse I didn’t think they would buy Coven’s just yet.

Sept 1975 NYC in the loft of artist Carol Clemments, I actually met Z and we shared Tarot readings on the floor over boxes.By this time,Z had become my Hera for standing up against the establishment to try to actually have Church status like the other religions and not have to pay taxes, she was very savvy and that was of course why they came down so hard and what led to her First US Tour to market The Feminist Book of Lights and Shadows..hence my meeting her in NYC.

(read on…)

The Wise Woman’s Tarot by Flash Silvermoon

I will be offering a new feature for Pagan Ways. Grannymoon has asked me to do a 3 month reading for all the signs of the zodiac so that each of you can keep up with your shifts and changes during these ‘interesting times’.
I will be using my Wise Woman’s Tarot so I thought that it would be best to give you a little taste of the Divinatory Tool itself;
Meet The Wise Woman’s Tarot…….

The Wise Woman’s Tarot is a multicultural, matriarchal book with colorful companion deck. It celebrates the global female lineage in 78 powerful images.
Flash Silvermoon’s scintillating text and densely symbolic card designs are rooted in the body of ancient esoteric knowledge. Together they make r/evolutionary inroads into the very structure of the Tarot itself. In short, Flash’s work forges a sacred marriage between ancient wisdom and progressive thinking.
An accessible tool for divination, The Wise Woman’s Tarot will deepen your understanding of the Ancient Mothers’ wisdom. Speaking clearly to beginners, longtime Tarot enthusiasts and adepts alike, The Wise Woman’s Tarot strives to raise the evolutionary bar for all!
The Wise Woman’s Tarot has been developed independently over some 25 years and is a completely woman-identified Tarot deck & book (read on…)

How Far Out of the Broom Closet and into the Streets

Part of my “outness” is just me being me and if that helps another to be themselves more then part of my job is done whether as a witch,a lesbian,a feminist,,whatever closet you inhabit, I suggest that you feel around for ways to be more comfortable,more you whatever that is, , to test those boundaries and expand them and bust out as much as is comfortable and then in time push a little further.

My job is being a Priestess and that for me is my full time job which includes Divination, Astrology, Sacred Stones, Vibrational Healing,Animal Communication, teaching playing music and on and on so I am fortunate to love all that I do and not need to occupy a closet for any of these things.

Of course at times I have paid a price for my freedom and this was my choice to make.

(read on…)

Flash Silvermoon Interview..for Pagan Pathways
Date: 10/2/2007 8:36:01 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Thank you so much for agreeing to share with us! Please do tell us about yourself and feel free to be as in depth as you like!We would love to print your picture too!

ok I will pick a couple for ya

Where were you born and raised and what are some of your earliest memories?

I was born in the presence of my mother on March 18, 1950, in Jersey City, NJ. I am quite sure that my room must have faced the Statue of Liberty because I have been a freedom fighter for as long as I can remember. They tell me that after singing Happy Birthday to me on my first birthday, I smiled and put my fist through the cake!

My first Feminist action took place in kindergarten at 4 yrs of age. I had been participating in the rhythm band for a couple of weeks just waiting for my turn to play the snare drum. I had clicked the claves and clanged the triangle but that magic moment when my sticks would strike the skin of the DRUM was awaiting me that morning or so I thought. I was not raised to think that girls were inferior to boys so imagine my surprise when I had the sticks taken from my hands and was told that girls could play anything but this and that I could go to the back of the line again.

My little egalitarian heart was breaking but I screwed up my courage to tell the teacher that this was unfair and was there something else that I could do during this time as I didn’t want to be a part of something so unfair. She told me that I could fingerprint and so I stood in the corner for the rest of the year and finger-painted during the rhythm band time.
This theme and connection with the drums has followed me all the way through adulthood and today am appreciated as an accomplished percussionist. (read on…)

A Tale of 2 Decks:The Wise Woman’s Tarot /Rider Waite Smith

I started reading cards with the Rider Waite Tarot and it is a good primer, used it for years and was only going to write a good “how to book” for it’s use when the Goddess took control and turned my few pages called “Visions for a New Deck” into a 25 yr. lifework called The Wise Woman’s Tarot.

I definitely was influenced by RWaite but I felt like I wanted to create images that were relevant to all races and that were also very Goddess oriented.

Some people have used the Tarot as a way to offer Feminist rhetoric but I have found to my delight that no one need put such an overlay on the Tarot because feminism, and a woman-centered magical philosophy was already present if one wold but look more deeply,which is exactly what I did. (read on…)