The eight million kami of the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki,
rewoven into 22 sacred cards.
a Yamato-e Shinto tarot of 22 deities — Miko Oracle —
painted by the Witch HISUI atelier in the Heian-era Yamato-e tradition.
The decks that come to mind at the word "tarot" — Rider-Waite, Marseille, Thoth — all grew from European soil. Their imagery is woven from the symbol systems of the medieval Christian world, from Hebrew letters, from the long shadow of Hermeticism. For many readers, drawing those cards can feel, faintly, like reading from someone else's story.
Japan lives inside a different mythology, often without naming it. People pass beneath the torii of a shrine, make the first prayer of the new year, carry the portable shrine through a summer festival, and cook rice in the quiet company of the eight million gods. The kami of the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki are the highest-resolution symbol system the Japanese possess. And yet, almost no oracle deck had ever taken those 22 deities head-on.
Shinto tarot — Miko Oracle — was woven to fill that absence. The 22-card structure inherits the architecture of the tarot's Major Arcana, but the imagery and the symbolism are Japanese mythology itself. To read one's own life from within a familiar story — that is the reason the deck arrives now.
| Aspect | Western Tarot | Shinto Tarot · Miko Oracle |
|---|---|---|
| Source of symbols | Medieval Christianity, alchemy, Kabbalah | Kojiki, Nihon Shoki, Shinto tradition |
| Painting style | European medieval art, symbolism | Heian-era Yamato-e scroll painting |
| The figures | Magician, High Priestess, the Fool | Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi, Susanoo — 22 deities |
| Sense of season | Western seasons, the twelve zodiac signs | The Japanese seasons, shrine rites, the festivals of the kami |
| Paired object | Crystals, a tarot cloth | 22 guardian power stones |
This is no rejection of Western tarot. The design philosophy of Miko Oracle is the opposite: to honour that 22-card architecture, and to replace only the imagery and the story with Japanese ground. Drawing the two side by side deepens the resolution of any reading.
Miko Oracle selects 22 deities from the eight million kami and arranges them across five chapters. Each deity carries its own story, symbolic plant, season, and matched power stone, so that the instant a card is drawn, the deity now standing behind the querent rises clearly into view.
The three born when Izanagi returned from the underworld and purified himself in the river. They are the central axis of Japanese myth — day, night, and storm, the three primal phases of a life. When one of the Three Noble Children appears, it is a heavy card, naming the querent's standing place itself.
The primordial deities of the Separate Heavenly Gods and the Seven Generations of the Age of the Gods. This lineage stands for beginnings, partings, and foundations, and surfaces often in readings about the great forks of a life — a new venture, a move, a marriage, a separation.
The deities of Izumo, of the mountains, of the sea, and the gods of wisdom, performance, and the showing of the way. These are the ten that appear most often in everyday readings — questions of judgment, relationships, and the choices of work.
Japanese myth places its darkness as clearly as its light. These three stand for trial, conflict, and the ties that must be cut. Some feel a chill on drawing them — but in the Shinto reading the dark cards become the strongest allies of all, once they are faced.
The single human card, placed last among the twenty-two. The medium who binds the gods to people — and the symbol of the very querent holding the cards. When this card appears, the message is simple: the answer is already within you.
Western tarot was not my story.
Shinto tarot is the story of my ancestors.
And so the card I draw resonates from inside me.
The defining feature of the Shinto tarot Miko Oracle is that each of the 22 deities is paired with a guardian power stone. By wearing the stone of the deity drawn in a reading, the querent can carry that day's oracle through every hour — a structure no other tarot offers.
Pairing power stones with divination is nothing new in itself. But the structure of assigning one dedicated stone to each individual deity gives this deck a character of its own. On a day when Amaterasu is drawn, the querent wears citrine; on a day of Tsukuyomi, moonstone. The oracle of the Shinto tarot dissolves quietly into the dress of the everyday.
The 35-plus power stones held by Stone Artistry HISUI are each tied to one of the 22 deities. The result of a reading and the choosing of a bracelet run along a single, unbroken line.
The Stone Artistry HISUI atelier is presided over by the Witch HISUI, in a quiet workshop tucked into the southern countryside of Miyagi Prefecture. The 22 Yamato-e paintings are woven there, one deity at a time, after a careful study of the Heian-era scroll tradition.
The atelier name — HISUI, the Japanese word for jadeite — is the national stone of Japan. Since the Jomon era 5,000 years ago, the people of this archipelago have treated it as the stone that holds the kami: the oldest of sacred stones. It is the material of the Yasakani no Magatama, one of the Three Sacred Treasures, carried unbroken from the rite of imperial accession to the present day, never leaving the palace.
Five thousand years ago, someone at Itoigawa drilled the first hole through the first jade comma-bead. The Shinto tarot Miko Oracle is conceived as the modern continuation of that lineage. To carry the oldest sacred stone in its name, and to reweave the oldest mythology into 22 cards — for a Japanese oracle deck, no framing could be more fitting.
This Shinto tarot is the first release of the jadeite oracle — the family of oracles the HISUI atelier is creating. A second and third volume, drawing on seasonal rites and regional kami, are already planned.
Shinto tarot — Miko Oracle — the Japanese oracle deck woven from the eight million gods, and the guardian power stone matched to each of the 22 deities. Begin with a free daily draw, or reserve early access to the deck.