The Duessa Tarot

My Tarot deck depicts sex-positivity in a magical land named Duessa, as a continuation of the narrative of the eponymous witch from Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. Duessa’s otherworldly denizens shimmer in a lush, electric palette. They cavort in idyllic landscapes, some gilded by sunshine, others limned in moonlight. Their everyday carnal delight and systems of relating to each other take on profound symbolic meaning. The Rider-Waite deck’s Major Arcana is my guide for narrative and imagery. However, I depart from the Rider-Waite deck’s symbolism in order to queer its imagery and infuse it with my own spiritual worldview. As both art objects and artifacts in a personal ritual practice, these Tarot cards expand what it means to determine one's own story, especially for those living queer subjectivities.