FEATURE:
Motherwitch
IN THIS PHOTO: Natasha Khan (Bat for Lashes)
Bat for Lashes Exploring Feminine Archetypes Roles, The Psyche and Self Through Tarot
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WHEN many think of tarot cards…
PHOTOS: She’s Lost Control/Bat for Lashes
they get images of something quite mystical, odd and suspect. Maybe something many believe in as being able to predict someone’s future. A sort of science that, like astrology, many struggle to give credence and substance to. In terms of reliability, one can say that tarot readings work if people want them to. I am not someone who buys into anything really that suggests we are all the same and can easily be defined and predicted by a set of cards of star signs. It is too limited and, to be fair, easy to debunk. I have respect for people who do embrace something like this, as it is never right to dismiss someone’s beliefs or anything that may give them comfort. That is only one side to tarot. A recent interview from CLASH with Bat for Lashes (Natasha Khan) opened my eyes. It was something I did not want to let go. She has her own deck where the designs explore various sides of women. Reshaping and redefining feminine energy and psyche. It has also, it seems, been a useful creative tool. I know many artists through time have embraced tarot and other sciences/methods of creativity and personal insight. Kate Bush, for one. In terms of Bat for Lashes, what interested me less was that she felt her recent tarot readings were accurate – which is something I can never truly believe or see how that is possible. What is more intriguing and discussion-worthy is what the cards represent. Bat for Lashes is an artist that really interests me. Her perspective on people and themes of identity and love. I would normally read an interview and leave it there. In the case of the new CLASH chat, it stuck in the mind. I want to put in a few sections from it that revolves around the tarot cards. They are really well designed and beautiful.
Before getting there, she was – in addition to revealing a new album is being mastered and is nearly there – discussing her upcoming Motherwitch Oracle Deck of cards. You can pre-order a deck of your choice here. It is a really interesting venture:
“Bat For Lashes presents Motherwitch, an oracle deck by Natasha Khan.
In collaboration with She's Lost Control.
From the hand of musician and artist Natasha Khan, Motherwitch acts as a tool for the creative process and as a conduit to the subconscious realms.
The deck is a hand-illustrated reimagining of Tarot, using multiple original female archetypes, visual symbols and an abstract spiritualist painters’ colour palette, to provide a storyteller's guide into the mysteries and beauty of our own internal landscapes.
The 40 cards were entirely designed and conceived by Khan. They act as a truth seer, providing answers, inspiration and insight into the hidden realms of your psyche. The deck is accompanied by a guidebook written by Natasha and edited by Pam Grossman, detailing the meanings and interpretations for each card as well as lists of rituals, books, music and films to reference for each.
A MESSAGE FROM NATASHA
"In these times of collective change, I believe it is imperative to keep telling stories - to use myths, objects, rituals, and alchemy to delve deep into the subconscious and bring out the jewels. The use of these cards provides a connection to our deeper selves, to re-enchantment, revelation and healing. The cards support the creative process and the elevation of spirit through ritual practices and a willingness to delve into the mysteries of the psyche."
This is a pre-order for the first limited run of this special oracle deck. Physical decks will be sent out in November and you will be contacted when it has shipped.
ABOUT THE PRE-ORDER
Pre-sale orders for this first limited run of Motherwitch are available exclusively through She's Lost Control. The deck retails at £65 with a range of limited pre-sale options for signed copies and personalised readings:
Motherwitch *signed edition* (150 available)
Indulge in the allure of Motherwitch with an exclusive signed edition. Limited to just 150 copies, this version is a true collector's gem, bearing Natasha's signature as a testament to its authenticity and mystique. Shipped end November.
Motherwitch + short digital reading
Unveil the hidden meanings and insights of the cards with our Motherwitch + short digital reading option. Natasha will tune into your question and draw one card from the Motherwitch deck, creating a personalised and enlightening digital reading experience. We will email you closer to the time so you can submit you question to Natasha, and the pre-recorded audio reading will be delivered straight to your inbox towards the end of November.
Motherwitch *signed edition* + in-person reading
For a one-of-a-kind immersion into the world of Motherwitch, choose our signed edition + in-person 40 minute reading option. Natasha will unveil the secrets of Motherwitch, offering you a bespoke in-person journey into its depths. Limited to just five appointments, these one-of-a-kind sessions will take place at She's Lost Control, Broadway Market, London on 25th November and 2nd December. We will email you to book your time slot.
ABOUT NATASHA KHAN
Natasha Khan is primarily a musician, singer and songwriter and has been a professional recording artist under the moniker “Bat For Lashes” for the past 17 years. She is a multi-disciplinary artist working not only in music but also across practices in the visual arts and film. Khan has recorded six studio albums, as well as soundtracks for film, podcasts and television over the course of her career. Her musical works have been included in soundtracks for 'The Twilight Saga', 'The Hunger Games' and campaigns for Thierry Mugler, Chanel, Gucci and Miu Miu. An experienced reader of the tarot, Natasha uses card reading, rituals, and practices to support and inspire her creativity.
She's Lost Control have worked closely with Natasha to bring her vision to life. This is the first published work from She's Lost Control Ltd.
Dimensions:
Box: 13.5cm x 20cm x 3.5cm
Cards: 12.1cm x 9cm
Weight:
Box: 310g
Individual Card: 4.1g
5% profit from all purchases at She's Lost Control is donated to Crystal Clear - the social enterprise empowering artisanal mining communities.
Pssst... have you joined our Loyalty Love Club yet? You can earn crystal point rewards to redeem on future purchases! Yay”.
I will wrap up talking about artists and ‘side projects’. That may seem a bit insulting. What I mean is artists releasing products that are separate from the music. In the case of Bat for Lashes and the new Motherwitch Oracle Deck, it seems like she has drawn inspiration from the project and connected it with her music. She revealed more to CLASH:
“Have you been interested in tarot for a long time?
I’ve read tarot since I was teenage girl, initially for myself, and then in recent years I did secret readings for others. I really enjoy giving tarot readings actually, I always find them so incredibly spot on. Sometimes I’ll give them to people when I have no idea what’s going on in their life, and this story will reveal itself or a narrative arc will come through. I think because my thing is storytelling, and seeing characters and connections, and simultaneously physical journeys mirrored with the internal journey of somebody. That’s just how I see life, so I feel like the tarot works really well with my brain, and the interpretation of that is really fun for me.
I use it daily, I’d say, I’ve used it daily for about 12 years in some form. I think it’s the same as seeing colours or the weather or feeling a certain emotion on a certain day; there’s just a way to tune into some aspect of something, it gives you a nice focal point. And I think with this oracle deck especially, there’s the visual art aspect, there’s the more lyrical card descriptions, but then there’s taking lots of other artist’s work as oracles for people or rituals to do, creative practices to implement. So this is the perfect deck for me, because this is how I approach my life, through this multimedia, multi-layered way of looking at the same thing.
There’s a long history of feminine archetypes being shaped and othered by men: saints, sirens, witches, harpies. Was it always your plan to explore those roles with this deck?
I didn’t actually have any preconceived thoughts about that, only because the deck totally revealed itself through the drawings, I was really just following this muse. I think what was happening was that as I was pregnant, and then had the baby, and then was breastfeeding, and going through all these different layers of my own psyche and consciousness, my own ideas about becoming a mother, my own relationship to my own mother, my own relationship to nature, my own relationship to a world gone awry. It just magnified all these thoughts and feelings in myself that were spinning out onto the page. But I’m very gratified by the end of it, having gone through and written this really in-depth, intense guidebook.
PHOTO CREDIT: Flora Maclean
Luckily it seemed that, like you say, I had naturally pulled away from that patriarchal viewpoint of femininity – and so the female archetype, the myths, it seems, cover all those multitudes of feelings, dimensions, characters. There’s so many different types of feminine energy, and they’re not good or bad, or polarised it seems; it’s more about embracing all of them and welcoming them all, and using each facet, all the little nuances, to be fodder or fertilisation for work or for your own growth as a person and self-acceptance really, and connection to others. And there are some divine masculine cards in here too for that reason: we all have our own internal feminine and masculine, so it also felt really important to invite the patriarchal, witch-killing tyrant into ourselves and question what that’s about; and then the all-seeing, divine masculine leader, who’s full of presence and love, and can observe and protect his people. He’s all about regal, divine masculine energy. There’s winged aunties, that’s all about chosen family, honouring that. The card of childhood, the little girl, this is my daughter’s card: re-enchantment of the imagination.
There’s a lot of those things that feed into creative blocks and procrastination around work, so I feel it works on some of those levels too: if you’re an actor and you want to pull cards for the character you’re playing, or you’re writing a novella and you’re really stuck on something, pulling cards for the plot, or the characters, or for yourself. Is there a psychic block in your inner landscape that’s preventing you from going onto the next frontier of depth as a creator? There’s so much, I think.
Is this a creative tool for you too?
I’ve started doing some readings and it’s brilliant, it’s actually been really spot on, which makes me happy. In the [Motherwitch] guidebook there’s lots of rituals: [reading] “Have a conversation with someone who has different opinions on what they believe in, and listen. Listen until there is nothing more to say. Can you let this sit with you without having to control, change or influence this person’s viewpoint?” That seems very apt with everything that’s going on at the moment, but it’s about oneness, and ‘transmissions galactic citizenship’. It’s about our interconnectedness and challenging the idea of the separate self, and how we can stop trying to control and conquer others, but co-exist by being able to hold some sense of difference or duality”.
That idea of an artist or celebrity doing something different. Whether you have actors and artists promoting a product, bringing out their own perfume, wine or clothing range, there is nothing new when it comes to broadening the portfolio. In these cases, I think that there is some personal fulfilment. A lot of times there is that commercial allure and money-making capacity. Not to be cynical. One can never tell how genuine an artist is when they endorse something or bring out their own range of whatever. Even when it comes to someone like Billie Eilish, you wonder how much of her heart is in a perfume line. Artists doing something creative and different is much more worthy. For Natasha Khan (Bat for Lashes), there is something deeper here. I guess some people will see something too cosmic and out-there. Maybe all a bit too odd to embrace and believe in. What she said about the tarot cards – “The use of these cards provides a connection to our deeper selves, to re-enchantment, revelation and healing. The cards support the creative process and the elevation of spirit through ritual practices and a willingness to delve into the mysteries of the psyche” - seems to resonate and makes a lot of sense. Not only is Bat for Lashes challenging female archetypes shaped by men. There is also this goal for these cards to provide a deeper understanding and connection of ourselves. Working with She's Lost Control, it is a great venture that will inspire other artists. Khan is going to be at Broadway Market in London on 25th November (Saturday) and 2nd December to do personal readings. Whether cynical about tarot readings and what people get or not, one cannot deny that there is more to readings and tarot cards in general than what seems to be a narrow and common view of them. They are a tool and guide to go deeper and think more spirituality about the self. In this Motherwitch Oracale Deck, there is the opportunity to delve into the psyche. Whether an ideal Christmas present or something that you can invest in and set aside, Bat for Lashes’s tarot cards are…
MEANT for everyone.