Book Review

A Walk Through the Forest of Souls;
A Tarot Journey to Spiritual Awakening

Written by Rachel Pollack

Publisher: Weiser Books

288 Pages

Release Date: May 1, 2023

 

 

 

Oftentimes Tarot books are written to give detailed instruction, formal information, and point us readers towards a final destination of comprehension. Rachel Pollack’s book, A Walk through the Forest of Souls exploded those concrete rules and dogmatic disciplines into a multifaceted, multidisciplinary journey of incomprehensible mythological, spiritual, historical, and religious complexities, back into the profound mystery. She guides us through paradoxes and contradictions, dismantling as well as respectfully illuminating all that has been said about the origins and proper use of Tarot. I was completely mystified by her thorough knowledge giving rise to her playful, curious, brave, and bold wisdom on the subject. It was evident in her articulation that she is a woman who clearly has embodied Tarot and lived it for many years. She did not just regurgitate information but instead chose a much riskier path, such as one of The Fool; Joyfully, innocently, and openly diving into the exploration with no final destination in mind.

I had planned on reading Rachel’s book, A Walk through the Forest of Souls in March, 2023, but the book was delayed. The news of her passing at the age of 77 years arrived sooner on April 7th, 2023. This was my first book I read by Rachel. Reading her words after she left the physical realm made it extra special in some otherworldly way. I had a Divine opportunity to sit with her and listen to her thoughts just days after her death. It felt like in some way this was her superpower, a way of sharing her love of divination with the world, through extraordinary, supernatural, and unimaginable channels. Her book became more of a portal between the deceased and the living, energy and form. I am honored to have witnessed her amazing gifts even in her afterlife.

Rachel Pollack was an award winning novelist, short story writer, comic book writer, and expert on Tarot. She was an activist, educator, and if I may dare say so, a channel or bridge that connected paths that otherwise would have remained separate and closed off from one another. Her book, A Walk through the Forest of Souls did that as well, it brought connection where there is typically competition, disagreements, and separation. Her book is a testament of her ability to see past dogma and segregation into the mystical union of infinite possibilities.

Rachel shared, “Tarot is a game, cards that we shuffle and make new every time, the images on the cards take us to wondrous gardens”. She continuously validated whether through quantum physics, Kabbalah, Christianity, I Ching, Paganism, or even from our past or future projections, the importance of honoring each interpretation while opening doors for new possibilities too. She gave countless alternatives to how questions are being asked as well as Tarot spreads that challenge the “normal” or traditional way of communicating with the cards. She stated, “For one thing we can stop arguing, stop trying to prove our version of the origin is correct. Instead, we can look at the subtle beauty and inner truths of the varied esoteric systems entwined with Tarot”. She goes on to say, “Though I take Tarot seriously as a sacred text, I do in that spirit of play, that What If approach”. Each chapter intertwined the traditional approaches to Tarot with her brilliant way of loosening up our predispositions and conceptions. If we are to properly commune with the Divine, the root word of divination, mustn’t we first learn to release our hold on our own beliefs and cultural or learned programming? Mustn’t we trust in the exploration of new ideas and even some that contradict or seem completely preposterous? Rachel Pollack had seemingly no difficulty taking her mind to uncharted territories and actually seemed to have sought them out for her own evolution and integration of the Divine in its “All encompassing” magnitude in the pages of this book.

Reading Rachel’s book shortly after hearing of her death was like her Soul shining a flashlight through the veil of the Forest of Souls. I felt her Soul in this body of wisdom. I imagined her waking people up from their confinements, ruffling a few feathers, shaking things up, only to smile and laugh at the sheer fun of the play of Life! She said, “I would argue this whole book is really such an argument that we can only begin to enter the depths and mysteries of myth, and Tarot cards as well, when we let go of a belief in these teachings as literal fact”. Her playful Spirit, full of questions and not afraid of the answers, was a breath of fresh air in an often stuffy prejudiced world. As seriously as she lived her life with integrity, she did so via a way of joyful curiosity and inspiring tenacity. She stated, “part of the glory of Tarot lies in the fact that these are cards and not a bound book. Instead of a fixed sequence, they actually form an entirely new order everytime we shuffle them.”

If you are looking to explore Tarot, and ultimately Life, as well as yourself, in a vast cosmic and deeply grounded and practical way, I suggest you read, A walk through the Forest of Souls by Rachel Pollack. If you want to let go of rigidity and expand your consciousness to include more, I would highly recommend this book. Rachel Pollack did an excellent job conveying very difficult concepts and bridging often opposing forces via way of Tarot. She embodied Tarot in such a way that left the mystery wide open, giving us a depth of insight and view of the unfathomable miracle of Life. She allowed for full expression of questions and infinite answers to explore, making me wonder, if Tarot is not only serious, but also a game, then maybe Life is too? It surely wouldn’t hurt us to loosen our grip and embrace this wild and crazy ride. Like The Fool weaving his way from The Magician or The World to The Chariot, The Hanged Man, Death, Judgment, and back to The World, maybe we are here to not be fixed but to experience more?

Welcome back to the Origin of Creation, Rest In Beautiful Peace, Beloved Rachel Pollack.

Best regards, Nicole Lynn

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About the Author

Rachel Pollack is considered one of the world’s foremost authorities on the modern interpretation of the tarot. She is a member of the American Tarot Association, the International Tarot Society, and the Tarot Guild of Australia, and has taught at the famed Omega Institute for the past 15 years. She is an award-winning fiction writer and has also written 12 books on the tarot. She lives in New York.

 

 

A Walk through the Forest of Souls on Amazon

 

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About the Author:

Nicole Lynn lives in the White Mountains of New Hampshire with her husband and fur babies. She is a Nature lover where everything she does centers around her connection to Nature and Spirit. She is an Intuitive counselor/life coach with many certifications in holistic healing modalities. Nicole broke away from traditional psychotherapy back in 2015 and started leading nature-based sessions, Shamanic journeys, meditations, and what She calls, Soul Sessions. She specializes in Mind, Body, Spirit integration and living from an embodied place of Wholeness. Nicole Lynn is a Soul Writer in the field of Higher Consciousness embodiment and the creator of the new Mushroom Medicine Oracle deck as well as four books for our “Inner and Outer” Children; I am a Child of the Forest, Spring is Here, Faeries; Light Reflecting Particles in Motion, and Where Angels come to Sing inside You & Me.

Nicole’s Mission is to help humanity remember the Purity and Power of their Divine Essence integrated into physical form.

Nicole Lynn at FLOE; Facilitating Love On Earth
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