Wilderness Generations: Jewish Ancestors Oracle Deck features 52 Jewish, pre-Judaic, and pre-human Ancestors who can help us break old patterns, transmute harms, and broaden our understanding of collective liberation. The deck is organized into four suits, representing cyclical phases of healing: Decomposing outdated patterns, Alchemizing that waste into nutrients, Rooting into an interdependent ecosystem, and Emerging in a new form.
The deck is called Wilderness Generations (Dorot Hamidbar) to remind us that we are always and forever a generation in the Wilderness, somewhere on the continuum between survival and liberation. We are all only able to complete a part of the process of liberating ourselves from our legacy burdens, which the next generation then takes on as their own. Not because we have failed, but because we are humans in an unfolding process that we will not see to its end. By connecting with the ancestors in this deck, we can continue to weave the Jewish ancestral patterns that are life-giving and life-sustaining, while simultaneously unweaving the patterns of harm.
Printed in Risograph ink and with a handwritten typeface, there is an inherent visual imperfection to these cards - the colors don’t always line up, the letters are wonky at times. Let this handmade quality infuse your experience with these cards: embrace the messy middle, ask impossible questions, stumble around in the dark.
These cards come unsealed, with a kit to complete the physical and ritual process of sealing the deck, by dipping the cards in beeswax. The kit includes the beeswax you’ll need (in a very adorable mini-challah shape), plus instructions, a sample dipped card, and 3 extra cards to practice on before you dip your deck. Once dipped, the cards will be thick, water resistant, infused with the delightful smell of beeswax.
Kalil’s Bio:
Kalil Cohen (ze/they) is a research geek, Jewish ritual leader and spiritual guide, as well as a teacher of somatics and trauma healing. Kalil has spent decades in study, exploration, and experimentation in mystical realms, and now helps others connect with their ancestors and more-than-human beings as a pathway to intergenerational healing, through the modalities of somatics, ritual practice, and IFS.
As a genderqueer observant Jew navigating gendered prayer structures, Kalil is always bridging incompatible cosmologies. Straddling this dynamic tension, Kalil orients their life to Jewish time and magic rather than to Gregorian time and the magical thinking / collective delusions of dominant culture. Creating this deck has been a process for Kalil to articulate and develop a tool around core questions they hold: How can we be in right relationship with our Jewish ancestors and with the concept of homeland? What ancestral wisdom can help us transform patterns of harm within ourselves and within Jewish lineages?
You can find Kalil’s work at: kalilcohen.com
Why Kalil made this item:
"This deck was born out of necessity as a spiritual tool for this age of catastrophe: ecological, political, and social. As a trans person and the grandchild of Holocaust survivors, I feel the urgency of this moment. I’m afraid for my kids and for all future humans. Yet I often find myself stuck in freeze, overwhelmed and anxious. And so I turn to ancestors who have navigated times such as these, unprecedented as they may seem, praying for protection, observing ancestral practices, learning from and healing from their survival strategies. I find ways to come back to presence, to re-regulate from disassociation. And I muddle through, reaching for resilience and protection, committed to ancestral healing.
May this deck help you to deepen relationships with Jewish ancestors you already feel connected to and supported by. May you meet some new ancestors to accompany you, perhaps in unexpected places. May you find ease in shaking loose from outdated ancestral patterning, with loving devotion to collective liberation.
May our reaching toward Jewish ancestors be met with a simultaneous reaching toward us from the spirit realm, in service of Olam Haba. May we reach toward descendants who also reach toward us. May we do this healing work on behalf of our Jewish lines, and for the collective human journey."
Dimensions of cards: 3.5”x4.75”
Dimensions of the booklet: 4.25" x 5.5"
