NZ Naturally: Bonus cards

The box I have designed for this deck will hold up to 90 cards. The document will take the space of 9 cards. This leaves enough space for 81 cards. As you know - the regular tarot deck has 78 cards.

So, I decided on a few extras.

It was suggested by several of my online people that I could include a "Wyrd" card. This is a card representing fate or personal destiny and can translate as "Fate, doom, fortunes."

I chose to depic it with a trinity:

These three creatures are all predators, and as such represent a food chain - the kiwi might eat the peripatus, the ferret might eat the kiwi. The peripatus eats worms, btw. They also represent a timeline. The Peripatus is an ancient velvet worm, probably present on New Zealand when it split from Gondwana. The kiwi's ancestors migrated across and evolved, losing the ability to fly. The ferret was brought into NZ by the Europeans in an effort to combat the rabbit problem. He was a domestic species, that escaped - going feral.

I am not sure how one would interpret the Wyrd card in a reading - although it does seem to indicate a future that is hidden, and should remain unknown. In some decks, it is apparently represented by a "?".

For the final of the actual tarot cards, I thought I would go with the Happy Squirrel card - as created by the Simpsons. Interestingly enough, this is generally considered the 23rd card in the major arcana, but is also numbered #23. Sicne the Fool is numbered 0 and is the first card, the Happy Squirrel should technically be number #22.

But the number 23 seems to have a certain significance and is often related to Eris, goddess of Chaos and Discord.

Thus the Chaos card was born - aka the Grumpy Possum (since squirrels have never lived in New Zealand):

When drawn from  a deck, the Chaos card indicates that although something you are about to do may seem like a good idea - it will have unexpected, dire - perhaps even catalysmic, or at the very least, diabolic, consequences. As was the result of an attempt to establish a furtrade in New Zealand by introducing the (admittedly, pretty cute) brush-tailed possum. He stripped the trees bare, ate nestlings and eggs and bred, bred, bred. Now possums outnumber humans (in NZ) by almost 10 to one and extermianting them is impossible. As the species is endangered in Australia, drastic measures (such as creating a disease to make them sterile/wipe them out) is inadvisable. If only we could send them all back!

These two cards I am retaining for use in a give-away/competition at the end of the year - once the deck is completed and I have proofed it.

There will be one final card, but it is not part of the regular tarot and should be removed from the pack before a reading is undertaken.