Creative Arcana 005. Cedar McCloud

A Tarot-led interview with artist, novelist, and deck creator Cedar McCloud

Jan 25, 2024

Hi little coven. Quick reminder that you’re invited to join me for some tarot journaling this Sunday! We’ll be drawing cards about caring for our spirit. You can find more info about weekly tarot journaling sessions here.

Creative Arcana is a regular series on The Shuffle featuring interviews with writers, artists, and makers about their creative lives, projects, and processes. The line of questioning will be informed by a series of tarot card pulls. Want to submit yourself, or a creative you know, to be featured in an upcoming Creative Arcana segment? Please fill out this form.

*Cedar McCloud is an author, artist, and tarot & oracle deck creator based in Southern Californ*ia.

When I think about the intersection of cartomancy and creativity, Numinous Spirit Press founder Cedar McCloud is one of the first names that comes to my mind. In 2020, I was delighted to discover their Threadbound Oracle, an deck that draws its motifs from creative disciplines (its three suits are made up of creative tools: Paper, Ink, and Thread), and have been using it regularly in my own creative practice ever since.

Not only is the Threadbound Oracle itself an ode to creativity through cartomancy, but it also ties into Cedar’s wider creative pursuits: a series of novels, The Eternal Library.

Cedar is also the creator of the Numinous Tarot, a deck that challenges the tarot to shed its white, cis, hetro, able-bodied confines and celebrate the lived experience of queer and disabled folks; as well as the Uncertain Oracle and the upcoming Magic Pantry Tarot (more on that later).

Of their style and approach to tarot and oracle art, Cedar said:

I market my work as being made primarily made for queer audiences, because, well, it is. Part of what inspires me to create, whether it’s art, decks, or books, is to make tools and spaces where people like me are centered. These are my fantasy worlds where queerness, transness, neurodivergency, disability, etc. are not just accepted but celebrated.
However, also I want people to know that anyone can use my decks and enjoy my books. We might have different identities and life experiences, but there are still so many ways we can relate and connect in creative spaces. It gives us something in common to talk about and learn about each other in the process.

It was such a joy to find common ground with Cedar at the intersection of tarot and creativity. I hope you feel seen, celebrated, and inspired by our conversation…

The Devil. I often relate this card to experiences of creative block (In that it takes its darkness seriously, but also makes freedom possible in the form of the loose chains). Does the connection ring true to you, too? Can you share how you personally experience and/or cope with block, and any advice you can offer fellow creatives about navigating through periods of creative drought?

For me, creative block rarely, if ever, looks like a lack of ideas or drive to create. Instead, it manifests as perfectionism and dissatisfaction with what I am making, causing me to constantly change direction, restart, and generally go nowhere fast. The end result—nothing finished, nothing I feel good about—is effectively the same as folks who don’t create at all or very little when blocked.
This is something that I’ve struggled with on the Magic Pantry Tarot over the last few years, more so than any other project. I actually have drawn the pips and court cards twice now. Oops. I was so dissatisfied with the first attempt that I restarted from scratch. That’s 56 paintings down the drain. It’s also swung wildly between being a Tarot deck to being an oracle and back to Tarot again. Immensely frustrating, and it’s had a negative impact on my finances since it’s delayed the release extensively.
In my experience, sometimes creative drought happens simply because our drive and ability is at a naturally low ebb. Can’t do much about those except be patient and rest until it comes back to you. Sometimes it can be due to other life stressors. My advice for other folks is not to minimize the effect of things like financial struggles, a busy job, raising kids, grief, and mental health difficulties can have on your ability to create. If you can make changes that help relieve stress, that’s awesome! If that’s out of your control, then sometimes all you can do is try to be kind to yourself while it’s happening.
It might not seem like it… but your creative ideas and drive will come back to you. It might even be years down the road, which sucks incredibly hard, but none of us will be fully blocked for life. There will be time where you make stuff happily again.

Two of Wands. I recently pulled this card when interviewing Alyssa Polizzi, who compared the Two of Wands to the Call to Adventure moment in Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey - a connection I loved. Can you tell us about how you’ve written calls to adventure into your novels.

There’s a moment in each of the two books I’ve published so far in the Eternal Library series (and in the third book I’m currently writing) where the protagonists have to make a committed choice that sets them on their journey, one that’s largely internal rather than external. In their case, it also happens to be a creative adventure as well!
These books are an intergenerational chronicle of a found family of magic bookbinders, called Illuminators in their world. Illumination is an initiatory art and spiritual pursuit that can only be learned by apprenticing to a master Illuminator. The apprenticeship requires a magic ritual where both the student and mentor agree to honor their roles and are spiritually bound to one another.
I’ve had an intense lack of reliable elders or mentor figures in my life, and so this act of pledging support and guidance has a lot of deep meaning for me. Not just in that it’s something I personally desire, but because it is also something I am deathly afraid of. I’ve been let down by so many people in my life who should have given me guidance and structure that it’s difficult to imagine anyone might play the role honestly.
The characters in these books have similar backgrounds of loss and family trauma, so it’s just as big a step for them to embark on this journey of trust. They have to decide that they want it badly enough to take the risk and to do all the really difficult creative and healing work that lies ahead.

Right: cover of The Thread that Binds by Cedar McCloud | Left: cover of The Tale that Twines by Cedar McCloud — Right: cover of *The Thread that Binds* by Cedar McCloud | Left: cover of *The Tale that Twines* by Cedar McCloud

Ace of Pentacles. What creative gifts (literal or metaphorical) have you received recently?

For a variety of reasons (the economy, inflation, burnout), my income for the past two years has gone down considerably, to a level where I often can’t afford my regular expenses for the month. Incredibly stressful, to understate the gravity of the situation, especially as someone with previous trauma from living in poverty. Thankfully, my partner offered to pay for what I currently can’t afford until I’m able to again, or until we need another solution!
This is one of the best gifts he could have given me creatively. Knowing that I have less expenses to worry about for the moment means that I can keep creating at my normal pace and not rush to change course in order to make more money right away. Financial stress absolutely murders my creative drive, as does too much time spent on advertising and promotional work that I don’t even know will be successful.
My partner is also pursuing a career in a creative field, and so he understands both the emotional importance of it and how unstable the financial reality can be. I feel super loved and well cared for that he is happy to do what he can to help me keep my creative business going, and to feel less stressed.

Nine of Cups. Can you share one of the proudest moments along your creative journey so far?

My proudest moments are the ones when people email me to tell me my work has had some kind of positive effect on them. I don’t always get to reply because I struggle with that, but I always always read those messages and they absolutely keep me going when things are tough. Just the ability to touch even one person’s life is absolutely incredible!
The one that always comes back to me is a message I received from a person who was, I think, a therapist or social worker, who told me that they’d been using the Numinous Tarot in their work with incarcerated women. I thought that was amazing, and an honor that my deck could be a tool to help people who are some of the most disenfranchised and exploited in the country. It feels like being part of something important.

Seven of Swords. This card has gotten a bad rap, thanks to its association with duplicitousness and betrayal. But I’d love to know how you approached reimagining it in your own decks.

The Seven of Swords in the Magic Pantry Tarot is one of my favorites.
It’s represented by spinach, specifically the image of a giant bowl of fresh spinach in comparison to a tiny shriveled cooked leaf in the pan. For those who aren’t familiar, spinach greens shrink INCREDIBLY when you cook them. While fresh it might look like you have the right amount, but then you cook it and suddenly it’s way less than you need or planned for. Such a duplicitous vegetable. I think it’s perfect.

The Seven of Swords from *The Magic Pantry Tarot*

Some final thoughts, and some creative insight from Cedar:

There are lots of ways to use Tarot and oracle cards creatively! One of the most obvious is for idea generation. Pulling cards can be great prompts for an art piece, a story, or whatever medium you create in. You can do the same if you get stuck in your creative work and need prompting for where to go next.
The thing I use cartomancy most for in my creative practice, though, is to work through feelings I have about the work I am making, especially since I now have the added stress of doing creative work for a living. Tarot and oracle readings are great at helping you work through tangles of emotions, to consider and make decisions, and to plan for the future.
Especially if you live in a culture like the USA, where it can be economically and spiritually difficult to be an artist. We’re often made to feel like we are selfish or wasting our time by spending it on creative pursuits, whether you intend to make money or not, there’s no winning. Cartomancy can help you identify and work through those feelings and messages, so that you feel more confident in yourself and freer to create.
Over the years, I’ve seen lots of folks hold themselves back from creative pursuits or doing cartomancy because they are afraid that they aren’t good enough. Absolutely understandable, considering how judgmental the wider public and even people in our own lives can be. We’ve been taught that if you’re going to do something, it’s only worth doing if you can do it “well.” We become our own worst critics.
I just want to encourage people to do the thing anyway. To do it without being too harsh on yourself. To find the joy in creating and learning, whatever that looks like for you, at whatever pace and level makes you happy. And if it doesn’t make you happy more than it makes you frustrated or stressed or sad? Beyond the normal frustration of leveling up a skill? Then you can stop. You can quit. No wasted time, because you were spending it exploring. It’s all good.
Both the arts and cartomancy—and other forms of divination and magic—can be something that connects us with the wider world we live in, including other people. They can help us feel less alone, and to make sense of this inherently chaotic existence on Earth. I hope more people can have that experience and find some of the joy that it’s brought me.

Many thanks to Cedar McCloud for trusting me and my cards throughout this interview.

If you’d like to purchase Cedar’s books and decks, check out their website here.

Cedar’s new deck, the Magic Pantry Tarot will be available later this year. Here are a few words from Cedar on that project:

The Magic Pantry Tarot is a food-themed deck based mainly around single ingredients! Its major inspiration is just the fact that I love food and cooking at home. I learned to cook early in life and have always used food as a way of calming and stimulating myself. To me, cooking is like painting, but with flavor instead of color, texture instead of line, etc. It’s been great fun to match foods up with the symbolism in Tarot, mostly from my own personal associations based on flavor, visual parallels, and use. There are a few existing food decks out there, but none of them are to my personal taste (pun intended), so I’m making one that is.
In the Magic Pantry Tarot, the suits are represented by fruits as Cups, seasonings as Wands, starches as Pentacles, and vegetables as Swords. The Major Arcana is composed of common food items that don’t fit into those categories, mainly proteins, condiments, and drinks. For example, The Magician is the bean card and The Tower is hot sauce. The Chariot is coffee and The Hermit is tea.
This way, when you do a reading, it’s sort of like getting an ingredient list that creates a recipe. Whether that recipe is tasty or disgusting is another matter. And as someone who has watched a lot of the Food Network show Chopped, sometimes it’s up to you to get creative with what you’ve been given!
I just recently finished the art for the pip and court cards and am moving on to the majors. Hopefully I’ll be able to have both the Kickstarter and release of this deck in 2024. It will be vegetarian/vegan friendly, with alternate cards for the few animal products in the deck, as well as free of alcohol imagery for sober folks.

Join the conversation in the comments:

What did this interview bring up for you? I’d love to know:

What are your own answers to the card-prompted questions I asked Cedar?
Pull a tarot card and imagine which edible ingredient you might re-imagine it as!
Anything else you’d like to share