Artwork Description
Swoon – Oracle Deck: Toad Brew-Dark Oblivion
Dimensions: 17 x 11″
Year: 2024
Medium: archival digital print on Moab Entrada 300 gsm
Edition: ed. 1/20
It’s natural to want to escape the present moment every once in a while. Lotsa ways of altering our consciousness can teach us great truths. Help us relax. Unwind what’s wound too tight.
But there’s a dark side that rides along shotgun on any avenue of escape. When pain is present and turned up high, what began as a dirt path can become a roaring eight lane highway – and then escape becomes all there is. That’s when you know the dark oblivion has set in.
The Wee Witch Katarina was no stranger to oblivion. Katarina wasn’t able to hold the immensity of her own fear, suffering and grief. No one had ever taught her how, and being a witch didn’t help either. She was cut off from her ancestral knowledge of potion making and medicine work. In it’s stead she abdicated her power to the toads at the bottom of the dank and dirty Well of Toads. Those nefarious backyard dwellers that absorb your garbage and feed it back to you as a false pathway out.
But here’s the thing about the dark oblivion. What threatens to destroy you is usually a gate keeper at the cave of your transformation. What the oblivion is trying to protect you from can become the source of your greatest strength.
So now might be a good time to ask what it is that’s putting the dark in dark oblivion, and by what path you might go into that shadowy terrain. But mind you now, the proper way in is with clear eyes and open heart.
–Swoon