CHANCLETAZO FOR YOUR SOUL:
A LATINX MAJOR ARCANA DECK

As part of my Artist Residency at Aster(ix), I developed a Latinx Major Arcana set, which was printed in their Tarot Issue and is now available to purchase via Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, and Blue Sketch Press.) You can see the digital versions here or get a physical deck!

LA INTRODUCCIÓN

Somebody needed a nudge.

In May 2020, deep in the pandemic, Angie Cruz asked Marlène Ramírez-Cancio to do a tarot reading for someone who needed a push in the right direction. It was a gift, from one woman of color to another. Marlène joked the reading was a “chancletazo for the soul.”

During tarot readings, Marlène found herself frequently referencing Latinx cultural icons and concepts when sharing the Major Arcana. So, for fun, she began to experiment with visual art by adding collage to the widely used 1909 Smith-Rider-Waite deck.

Angie soon introduced Marlène to Aster(ix)’s Managing Editor, Amanda Tien. Aster(ix) then established an Artist-in-Residence feature—for which Marlène was the inaugural resident artist. Amanda re-posted these cards on @asterixjournal every few weeks as Marlène made them from Fall 2020 onwards. In Fall 2022, Amanda suggested this special all-color issue to feature Chancletazo for Your Soul from start-to-finish.

We are proud and honored of the collaborative nature of this work. Aster(ix) exists to lift up others. We hope you enjoy–and don’t forget to ask yourself The Big Questions.

Amanda Tien, Editor of The Tarot Issue & Angie Cruz, Aster(ix) Editor-in-Chief

Proof of cover design for Aster(ix) Journal’s Tarot Issue.

LA CONVERSACIÓN

Amanda Tien (AJT): You did it! You’ve been making this project for close to two years!

Marlène Ramírez-Cancio (MRC): We did it! I really do feel that. If I didn’t have the container of the Aster(ix) artist residency, and especially the loving support from you and Angie Cruz, I never would have finished Chancletazo for Your Soul, punto. This work was and is collaborative.

AJT: Tarot was first invented in Italian courts in the 15th century, and has evolved with usage and meaning. Today, many people use tarot as a way of constructive conversation, a kind of therapy. The cards then become helpful visual reminders to distill big ideas and complicated situations. How did you start to become involved with tarot and doing readings for people?

MRC: I can’t remember the exact moment I first picked up tarot cards, but I saw from old diaries that I was reading them for myself in college. In the early pandemic, I did a reading on Zoom for Angie Cruz, and then she wanted to have me do one for a friend. Mujer Que Pregunta (my tarot and Process Doula practice) began as a gift from one woman of color to another.

Readings are a very intimate experience, and because it was a time when it was impossible to be together in person, we had to find other ways to connect. People allowed themselves to be more vulnerable, I think. Many of my readings were for artists whose livelihoods had been upended by the pandemic, so they were very big questions to explore. How do I survive? What do I really want? What should I do next? What opportunities does this give me?

AJT: Angie gifted me a tarot reading session with you when I started officially as Aster(ix) Managing Editor because she knew I was feeling worried about finishing my first novel. My conversation with you crystalized and named so many things. I still have the cards you pulled for me pinned up by my desk. You are really, really good at doing readings. It was one of the most singularly effective and beautiful conversations I’ve ever had. So, first, thank you, again. And two, what is the experience like for you on the other side?

MRC: I so appreciate you sharing that with me. I’ve learned something surprising about myself as I’ve done more of these. I get very invested in those one-hour conversations. I even get goosebumps when I hear someone say something that is clearly so very true for them, something that perhaps they are just realizing aloud for the first time. I find myself being so in it, so attuned to their little moments. But afterwards—it’s weird—I forget what was said. I wouldn’t have believed it. It’s like I channel things in the moment of hyper-intense connection. But if I didn’t take photos of the readings or follow up with notes, whatever I said during a session would just disappear. My mind just puts it away.

So I’m really grateful to you for the chance to memorialize this project and this process so I don’t forget it, haha! I keep coming back to the hashtag #ThePandemicMadeMeDoIt which I used to add at the end of my instagram posts, because Chancletazo For Your Soul really maps my own Fool’s journey—my own El Chavo journey—through the pandemic, from one job to another, one life stage to another.

AJT: I think that’s why we were so excited to have La Cuarentena as the cover of the issue, too, yes?

MRC: Yes! The Hanged Man Card came up often in my readings over the last few years–I started calling it the Pandemic Card.

AJT: I got that one too!

MRC: Aha, yes! It’s a forced repose, a forced pause from which new illumination and perspective can come. So that cover I think felt like a natural choice to both of us for so many reasons.