Lichen Oracle Card Design
March 8, 2009

Lichen Card Sample
I’d like to print the Lichen Oracle as cards that look something like this, and include the unfinished 16-card Sticks and Stones Oracle along with it. The card border (shown here in shaded gray) would be warm metallic silver. But I doubt there would be much interest in these except from a few oracle collectors and people who are interested in divination systems. But I may consider printing a very limited edition (50 copies or so) once the Black Cat Deck is done. Meanwhile, I’ll revise the Lichen Oracle website to show the oracle in the form of these cards instead of the current glyph table with separate descriptions. That should make it more accessible and prettier.
Working with the Lichen Oracle
March 4, 2009

Lichen Oracle
I haven’t written about the Lichen Oracle for awhile, but I’ve been quietly working with it. The table of glyphs, numbered as a Moon Calendar, is shown above. Visit the LICHEN ORACLE webpage to learn more about this project and even get a free online reading.
GLYPHS form the core of the oracle, and can be used like runes. Each symbol can stand alone, independent of its place in the sequence or any other relationship between the glyphs, and can be read individually. Many of the symbols are suitable for use as personal runes for decorative and/or magical uses. Some glyphs can be joined together like rune charms, like this combination of #2 and #14 which I have adopted for personal use:

Personal Lichen Rune
Although they can be simplified into completely angular symbols, like Norse runes, they lose some of their unique living energy when the curves are removed. It’s important to remember that the glyphs were traced from living, organic shapes that reflect the way the lichen grew as the lirellae literally burst through the tree bark. The glyphs are composed of only four basic design elements: the straight or curved line, the v-split, the u-split, and the prong. The many combinations of these simple lines reflect the microscopic divisions of the lichen fungus mycelium as it grew.
VERSES provide a unified, poetic way to describe and read the glyphs, though they are tied to a specific place and sequence. The symbols themselves will suggest additional interpretations. Verses for each glyph are given on the Lichen Oracle webpage, although I have long since simplified many of them.
If you like, you can stop here, having accessed the heart of the oracle. To explore the oracle more deeply, there are several other components to work with, any or all of which can be used.
1. Moon Calendar
Each glyph has been assigned to one day of the lunar month, as shown in the chart. When using the oracle this way, a glyph’s place in the sequence becomes part of the interpretation, since each symbol is now connected to all the others. You can pull the current day’s card for additional insight in a reading. If you know the moon’s phase on your birth date, you can use your personal “birth glyph” as a significator or touchstone.
2. Three Minor Moon Glyphs
When working with the moon calendar, each glyph can be assigned three minor “companion” glyphs, and all four glyphs mark the same number of days after a primary moon phase. The chart at the top of this page is set up so that each vertical column represents one of these groups. The “companion” glyphs can lend their interpretations to the primary glyphs. These extra symbols decorate each glyph in the large chart on the Lichen Oracle webpage.
3. The Two Halfmoon Paths
The oracle incorporates a pair of cycles that is specific to the eastern U.S. coastal plain. The time from the First to the Third Quarter shows the development, zenith, and disappearance of the Path to the Moon, the track of light that appears on the ocean at moonrise and reaches its zenith at the Full Moon. The time from the Third to the First Quarter is the Blackwater Spiral, the creek flowing through the swamp to the coastal marsh, with the nadir at the New Moon in one of the freshwater ponds hidden in the forest at the center of the island (these ponds aren’t just symbolic – they are actual places you can visit). Each glyph has a place along one of these paths, as well as along the moon’s monthly journey, and this can be an additional “milemarker” to show the way in a reading.
4. Glyph Clans
The glyphs can be arranged in groups based on similar appearance. Each ”clan” carries its own “root” interpretation underlying that of the individual glyph.

Lichen Oracle Glyph Clans
5. Generative Sequences
Some (perhaps all) of the glyphs can be arranged in sequences in which one glyph can be seen to evolve into another. Some of this can be seen in the glyph “clans”. But a few glyphs offer more than one possible path. This type of connection adds a transformative layer of meaning to each symbol.

Lichen Oracle Glyphs: Growth Sequences
Stones Oracle: Eye Agate
April 17, 2008
It’s good to be working on the Moon Oracle again. Finished the first of the eight Stones drawings. These will depict various round white quartz and chalcedony pebbles in the geological environment where they are found (which is sometimes, though not necessarily, the environment where they form.) This one is for the First Quarter Moon and was drawn from one of my photos. There are several similar archaeological sites near my house, with grinding holes/bedrock mortars in granite outcrops along major washes. When the Hohokam lived here, these places would have had mesquite bosques where people came to collect and grind the sweet pods for food. The holes almost always have nearby petroglyphs depicting spirals or concentric rings, perhaps associated with water or the with the work of grinding.
I found the two pitted and “eyed” chalcedony pebbles on the bajada near my house. The pits on the pebbles reflect the grinding holes, and the concentric chalcedony layers that are revealed in the broken pebble mirror the ancient weathered petroglyphs.

Stick Oracle – finished
February 2, 2008
I finished the last of the Stick drawings. This one represents the Third Quarter Moon. For some reason, this is the most stylized and least realistic of the series, though that wasn’t intentional. Minor changes will be made in a couple of the drawings before printing, but for now you can see how they all look together on the Moon Oracle page:
http://www.mineralarts.com/artwork/MoonOracle.html
The 8 Sticks are only half of a 16-card oracle. With the next moon, I’ll begin drawing the 8 Stones that will complete the project.

Stick Oracle: Madrone Gate
January 21, 2008

For the Waxing Gibbous Moon, the Stick Oracle shows a gate built of two heavy Arizona madrone branches placed in a pile of stones on a small island. The young bark of madrones is smooth and dark red, so it is shown in black here. Older bark is nearly white and is broken up into small square blocks. The poles crossing the forked top are made of peeled branches. Old stumps, repeatedly healed after fire damage, fade into the background.
Stick Oracle: First Quarter Moon
January 14, 2008

Just in time for the First Quarter Moon – the corresponding card in my Stick Oracle, showing two forked staves marking the confluence of two creeks. Although carefully sketched before inking, these Stick cards (six so far, with two to go) have had a lot of reworking as each develops on the way to the completed drawing. When they are done, I will make minor changes in all of them to improve the way they fit together. All are powerful images for me, from long ago and far away – they seem to have always been with me. Although several of them have motifs in common with the Wands in the Tarot, they are more complex than that (for example, they have water as well as wood and stone).
Solstice Cards
December 19, 2007
My next oracle project is a set of 16 Sticks and Stones cards. The Sticks will depict twigs, wands, and staves along the Oldest River, and represent moon phases as well as the eight “fire festivals” of the solar year. Four of these drawings are completed. The Stones will show various types of naturally round white moon-like chalcedony pebbles in their geologic environments. These are just pencil sketches so far. I hadn’t planned to post about this oracle before it was finished, but yesterday I completed the Winter Solstice/New Moon card. Since this year’s Winter Solstice is close to the Full Moon, I’ve posted the Full Moon/Summer Solstice card as well, for comparison.

The Winter Solstice or New Moon card shows the the Oak Maze, Daedalea quercina, growing on a rotting stump. Water or ice trickles down the labyrinthine pores of the fungus and seems about to split it in half. D. quercina is a woody brown bracket fungus that grows on dead oak wood and often persists for many years. The gills (platelike structures on the underside of the fungus, where the spores develop) are unusually thick and interconnected in this species, creating fascinating and beautiful maze-like patterns. The drawing was made from a specimen that I collected in Virginia many years ago.

The Summer Solstice or Full Moon card shows a stick shelter made from stacked and interwoven cottonwood branches. The fallen and living cottonwood trees behind it offer additional protection, and the water seems to be flowing out of or into the shelter. The hut is reminiscent of ancient mammoth bone shelters that would have been covered with skins and earth. I photographed this structure along a river, long after whoever built and used it had continued their journey downstream.
I realize that this pair of drawings is rather cryptic now, but there is no point in offering more interpretation until the other pictures are done. Meanwhile you will have to make up your own stories about them.
Skystone Mineral Pigment
December 6, 2007

This is a new mineral pigment for my collection – a tiny piece of greenish-blue copper ore from a local abandoned mine. It contains malachite, chrysocolla, and probably a bit of turquoise. I already have several examples of all these pigments in my collection, but this piece was particularly bright and clean, so the paint is clear and (for copper ore) relatively intensely colored. Sky and water, cool and warm, strong and delicate at the same time, like turquoise. Typical ore like the pieces in the photo is usually a mixture of several greenish or bluish copper minerals, often with dark impurities (cuprite, iron sulfides, and iron and manganese oxides) which make it unsuitable for pigment. The small pieces are the best – they are the most pure, and usually contain the rarest and most intensely colored minerals. Now I have the perfect pigment for my Copper Oracle, which is still in the pencil-sketch stage.
I printed the Lichen Oracle as a set of cards so I could learn how to work with it. I’m finding it much more powerful this way, and the moon and three minor glyphs on each card allow for interesting patterns in a spread – it is an intriguing puzzle, yet the glyphs are good for meditation, and become even better as I grow more familiar with them. The whole series flows, pauses, and moves very naturally. Of course the published deck will look quite different – this practice set will help me decide what it should look like.





