The Story Oracle - MJS Tarot

The Story Oracle was not designed to be an oracle deck in the usual sense. Rather, these 78 cards were created to help writers craft their stories. However, having seen this deck on Lisa Papez’s You Tube channel, I was drawn to it for its potential as an oracle. As someone who uses tarot cards as writing prompts it may seem strange to see it this way but I cannot imagine using this deck to help me write. However, as a tool to help me uncover and craft my own life story I think it works well. Little disclaimer though, I generally don’t write fiction so that may be why I don’t connect with its as a writer’s tool.

The Story Oracle Cards

The simple artwork style of The Story Oracle employs a limited colour palette. For me, this is one of its greatest strengths. Artist, Laia Albaladejo uses only three shades of blue, three of red, two of teal, a light and dark gold, black and white. The two cards pictured above showcase nearly every colour. Only the light gold is absent.

When I look at a spread I am drawn to the cards with similar colours. I look for the connections between them and how in turn that relates to the situation I am exploring. This has proved fruitful time and time again.

Take the two cards pictured above as an example. Even though they may not appear so in the photo, they have the same colour background. And, with the exception of the navy and the darker gold, they use the same colours. As someone with perfectionist tendencies, together they had a powerful message to share with me. Perfection is an illusion and I think The Perfect Sandwich card shows that well.

That sandwich may have everything on it but no-one could get there mouth around it. Therefore, it isn’t perfect. Rather than letting go of the entire undertaking the aim is to let go of the unrealistic expectations. In this case you can’t put everything on the sandwich so find a combination that works.

The Hidden Agenda and Hit The Road cards provide another example. The man isn’t going anywhere. He has his back turned and therefore his intentions are difficult to discern. Since the background on that card is the same as the road on the following card I imagine he’s lying face down to impede the progress of the car. Those with hidden agendas, including ourselves, slow down our progress along our path.

Of note is that the pants are the same colour as the car. Both are golden. The strapping for the bags on the car remind me of a guitar neck. This reminded me of a friend who showed us lots of small bursts of what he could play without attempting to teach us anything. All I learned is that he is a way better guitar player than me. Sometimes hidden agendas/reasons can be disguised through oversharing. Sometimes less is more. Slow and steady rather than an all in and off we go mentality.

Other times, it may be better to keep what we’re doing close to our chest. This prevents others from discouraging us before we have the necessary momentum. But that is very different to intentionally hiding information that should be shared. Then there is the typical motivator of hidden agendas. Getting someone to do something because it serves us rather than them.

The question asked, the surrounding cards, and the individual situation naturally helps to refine the possibilities. It all comes down to the connections you make. The message could be as simple as move away from those you suspect have hidden agendas.

Even though I am pairing the two cards above, I feel that these cards work better when more cards are included. Then the “patterns” emerge. Nevertheless I want to show how readily these cards speak to each other. Whether these cards were side by side or not, they would stand out in a spread and therefore speak to each other. Here, it suggests that choices offer us a chance to reconsider where we’re headed. Is it really where we want to be going?

It works both ways. Either the need to choose something encourages reflection or self reflection encourages us to consider our choices. How often do we continue down a path for way too long? Or change our path because someone convinced us that we’d be better off? Hopefully not too often but unfortunately possibly way too often.

I could keep going with these examples but I’m going to move on. Otherwise, this post will never end and I will have way to many things to go away and ponder. The three examples I’ve already given have struck a chord with me that I will spend time journaling about later.

I’ve included a spread so you can see how you can tease out the story. For example the red on the Stranger card and the red on the Hidden Agenda and Mischief stand out to me. Also the colourings of Storm, All Up Here From Here, and Worst link up together. Does someone’s hidden agenda create a storm that makes you realise whatever you’re doing is not worth the effort? That then connects with the other three cards. Reversal, Dream and Right on Target share similar colours and together they suggest changing your dream/goal would set you on target. This is all without taking card positions into account.

The cards themselves measure 7cm x 12 cm. Making them more tarot- rather than oracle-sized which works well considering the number of cards. If they were much bigger it would be difficult to get your hands around them. As they are, they are comfortable to work with.

They have reversible backs which, based on the premiss of the deck, I find a little odd based but I can see how it can work. If Lesson From The Past was reversed I’d see it as stop looking to the past for answers. This is a much more black and white interpretation of reversals than I would generally use. That being said, I would consider using reversals with The Story Oracle because of the direct reversal of meanings it offers. It makes things pretty clear which can be good when we are feeling a bit bamboozled. It is hard to “interpret them how we’d like to” rather than how they are.

The Book

The Story Oracle comes with a 94 page, card-sized, full-colour book. No page numbers are given but the book is easy to navigate. The brief introduction is followed by a few spreads and then the cards are presented in alphabetical order. In line with the intention of the deck, the five spreads are explained from a writing perspective. Nevertheless, they can be used for divination purposes as well.

Since “A Tale of Two Cards” aims to explore how two characters interact, it naturally crosses over to be useful for exploring real life relationships. The “Three-card Character” spread is designed to be used to help you come up with a character’s story arc. However, it can just as easily be used to evaluate a problem and explore whether your approach is helping or hindering.

For each card, there are at least ten key word/key phrases offered for both upright and reversed presentations. Underneath the information is a small full colour image of the card. The information is basic but worth reading over as they do open up your thinking about possible interpretations. For example, for Narrow Path below, some of the key phrases are the obvious, walking a thin line, but also, no room for mistakes, no wiggle room, orthodoxy, temptation to stray.

Wrapping it all up

The Story Oracle may be a great creative writing inspiration deck, but for me it is more than that. To be honest, I find my general tarot cards work fine for that purpose. What I like about this minimalist deck is that in stripping things back it encourages you to look deeper. If you’ve read much of my writing you will know that I believe tarot is a wonderful creative tool and that my focus in reading tarot is to uncover, discover, edit and create the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and what we are capable of. This deck does that directly.

Katherine Furman writes that you can use The Story Oracle “to bust through a block, develop a character, start or continue a story, introduce a twist or anything else you’d like to uncover” and I agree. Our life is a story and this deck can help create a memorable one that aligns with our personal voice.

Summaries

The Story Oracle Cards

Creators	Katherine Furman (Author) and Laia Albaladejo (Illustrator)
Card Size	7 x 12 cm
Card Stock	Flexible, satin cardstock
Shuffle	Easy to shuffle straight out of the box
Fan & Flip Through	Easy to fan, flip through, and generally handle
Miscellaneous	Solid two part box