Desert Illuminations Tarot by Lindsay D Williams

Today’s episode explores the bold, neon-soaked magic of the Desert Illuminations Tarot by Lindsey D'Amour Williams—a Rider–Waite–Smith–based deck infused with Southwestern desert energy, historical figures, cactus medicine, and yes… aliens!

My Story with This Deck

I found this deck at Crescent Moon Gifts in University Place, Washington, after one of my tarot socials. I was looking for something new, and this one immediately stood out—bright colors, bold lines, and a vibe that felt both mystical and mischievous.

At first glance, I didn’t even notice the aliens. I was drawn in by the desert imagery, the cactus symbolism, and the intense psychedelic color palette. Then, when I got it home, I started working with it and realized just how layered and strange it really is—in the best way!

It quickly became one of my go-to “bright energy” decks when I want something that still reads cleanly with Rider–Waite–Smith structure, but doesn’t take itself too seriously.

This deck is vibrant, weird, and energetic. It’s playful without being shallow, grounded without being heavy. It carries a sense of humor, possibility, and movement that makes readings feel lively rather than solemn.

Style:

This deck is bold, psychedelic, and deeply rooted in Southwestern desert mythology. The color palette is electric—neon pinks, turquoise, lime green, and glowing gold dominate the artwork. Aliens, desert mesas, peyote-like cactus imagery, and surreal spiritual motifs give the deck a playful, high-strangeness feel that still holds real depth. It feels rebellious, magical, and chaotically alive.

Structure:

The Desert Illuminations Tarot is rooted in the Rider–Waite–Smith system, but reinterprets the symbols through the land, myth, and culture of the Southwestern United States. It stays structurally close to traditional tarot, but the suit names are transformed to reflect desert culture and elemental energy:

• Pentacles - Cactus

• Wands - Chilies

• Swords - Daggers

• Cups - Mystic Jugs

The deck includes a detailed guidebook (codex) with full interpretations, sample spreads, and a special Cactus Spread unique to this deck.

Imagery:

The cards are saturated with movement, heat, and surreal symbolism. Everything glows. Psychedelic skies, radiant desert plants, neon spirits, cowboys, and cosmic imagery blend in a way that feels both ancient and futuristic. The art is loud in the best way—impossible to ignore and rich with visual metaphor.

What I use it for:

It’s especially great for creative questions, personal growth, and moments when someone needs encouragement without emotional heaviness.

What I don’t use it for:

I usually don’t reach for this deck when:

• the question is emotionally heavy or tender

• someone needs very soft, gentle imagery

• a quiet, grounding tone is required

• a client prefers classic, muted traditional deck

💭 Today's Tarot Pull:

From The Desert Illuminations Tarot by Lindsay D. Williams , I pulled the Nine of Jugs (Reversed).

This reversal reminds us that fulfillment isn’t only something waiting at the finish line. Sometimes it’s already here, but only if we allow ourselves to acknowledge it.

Reflective prompts on this card:

• Where am I minimizing my own accomplishments?

• What joy have I postponed until “everything is finished”?

• What would it look like to celebrate right now, even imperfectly?

• What abundance is already present that I’m not fully acknowledging?

Ways to Connect & Support

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• Local? Join us for our New Year Full Moon Healing Circle on January 3rd from 2-4pm!
• Love tarot and want to talk about it? ⁠Be a Guest on my Podcast!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Hello and welcome to Everyday Tarot, your daily dive into the
divine wisdom of the tarot. I'm your host, Camille A
Saunders healer, intuitive tarotreader, and professional wedge.
And today I'm talking about the Desert Illuminations Tarot deck
by Lindsay D Williams. Whether you're a seasoned tarot
reader or just starting to explore, this podcast offers
daily insights, intuitive messages, and practical advice

(00:23):
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(00:44):
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(01:05):
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If you're local and you want to meet me in person, you can join
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from 2:00 to 4:00 PM. Step into the new year under the

(01:25):
light of the first full moon, sacred time for reflection,
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You can find the links for any of these offers in the show
notes or on my website, camilleasaunders.com/everyday

(01:46):
Tarot, in addition to the imagesof the cards I pull for each
episode. All right, welcome to Season 19,
where I'm talking all about different tarot decks and how to
use them. If you haven't listened to my
other seasons yet, you can checkthose out.
And today I'm talking about the Desert Illuminations Tarot deck
by Lindsay D Williams. So we'll get into the style of

(02:07):
the deck where I got it, Any changes from the Rider Waite
Smith, traditional structure of the deck, the imagery, what I
like to use it for, and perhaps anything that I would not use it
for. So let's get into the style of
the deck. It is a tarot dock.
It sort of has, for the most part, the traditional structure.

(02:28):
I believe most of the Major Arcana cards are the same.
There's a couple of name changeslike they call the Fool the
Trickster. Let me go ahead and pull up the
beginning of the Tarot deck guide book because it will
explain a bit more about it. Let's see here.

(02:49):
So the Desert Illuminations Tarot is based on the Rider
Waite Smith system of Tarot withthe archetypes and symbols
adjusted for working with specific elements, energies,
mythologies, and cultural motifsof the desert regions of the
southwestern United States of America.
So there is a codex. So that's what they call the
Tarot Duck Guidebook as a guide traded to help beginners or

(03:12):
seasoned tear readers decipher how to use this particular duck,
how to do readings, and what each card means.
So the rest of it, I would say in the introduction, is fairly
similar, but it says the desert has an energy unlike any other
landscape. It features a wide variety of
vegetation, creatures, history, and elements that emit an
extremely high vibration. This vibration makes tapping

(03:35):
into the deepest parts of ourselves and the spirit realm
much more accessible than on anyother place on earth.
So I do love that as being sort of part of the, you know,
reasoning behind creating this deck.
Like I said, it's by Lindsay D Williams, who's a contemporary
interdisciplinary artist living in Truth or Consequences, NM.

(03:59):
They say their artistic styles heavily influenced by the 1960s
and 70s psychedelic poster art, Japanese woodblock prints, flash
tattoo, vintage Americano motifs, spiritualism, human
psychology and the desert landscape.
And I would say that definitely comes through in this deck.
It's a very So if I'm going to go into the imagery of the deck,

(04:20):
it's a lot of like psychedelic colors.
It has aliens, it has like neon.So it's like turquoise, lime
green, hot pink. All of the cards are super
colorful and pretty much have all of those colors on them.
It's a beautiful deck. I love the vibe of it, and like
I said, it's a Southwestern US vibe.

(04:44):
I also like that a lot of the Major Arcana cards depict real
historical people that lived or,you know, were in the Southwest
US. And I love a deck that sort of
grounds itself in history with real people and things like that
as it does the inspired Major Arcana cards.

(05:09):
So I got this deck at Crescent Moon Gifts, which is a sort of
like Witchy shop in University Place in Washington.
I'm pretty sure I went one time after my tarot card social
meetups that I run on meetup.comas I was looking for a new deck.
So I went there looking for a new deck.

(05:31):
They have a bunch of tarot and Oracle decks and a lot of other
things. It's actually quite a large
store. They have a ton of crystals,
like a lot, a lot. They have a tea area.
They have kind of like, I would say every sect of magical type
in there and section. I love that they have an altar

(05:51):
to hakate there who's a favoriteof mine.
And they also have a lot of likeclassroom space.
So I think it was in October 2024, I LED a Craft and the
craft Tarot event where we watched the craft the movie from
the 90s and then we also craftedour own tarot cards.

(06:15):
So I combined some of my favorite things and 1st sort of
like Halloween season that year.And I actually held that in a
big room they have in the basement of that location that
where we could use a projector and we all had our own like
craft tables, which was super fun.
And we just did a very introverted activity, which was
like sit in a room, watch the movie that we'd all seen before

(06:38):
and do some tarot card crafting.So I love that.
So any changes with this deck from the Rider Waite Smith
style? So the artist talked a little
bit about it, but basically theyso a couple of the major Connor
card names are changed, but I would say it's pretty much the
same like spirit of it along with, you know, the iteration of

(07:00):
using the traditional symbols from the writer wait, Smith deck
and translating them into sort of like a Southwest US inspired
aspect of it. But they do change all the suit
names. So for pentacles, we have
cactus. For wands, they change to

(07:22):
chilies, which I remember because it's like hot.
The wands are fire energy. So it's like hot and spicy.
And so those are chilies and it's like literally like the
ristro, which is the like when you have a bunch of Chili
Peppers and you like string themtogether and dry them inside and

(07:44):
then you can use them that way over winter.
The swords change to daggers, sothat one's pretty similar.
And then the cups change to Mystic jugs and they're supposed
to be like Mystic whiskey jugs. So again, a very, I guess
Southwest US sort of aspect there.
And when you see the sort of cups cards, if they're ever

(08:06):
pouring liquid out, if the jugs they are, the Mystic whiskey is
like rainbow colored. I'm trying to see if I can find
one of the cards. So yeah.
And then a lot of aliens going on, which is also sort of like a
cultural context of the Southwest USA, you know, where

(08:26):
Area 51 may or may not be and just sort of the vibe of that
area. I talked about the imagery
already. So yeah, what do I like to use
it for? For me, it is one of my
hilariously, I, you know, might not look traditional, but it's
one of my more traditional like writer.

(08:47):
Wait, Smith structured ducks. Like it's this one, the Sasser
Vito Tarot and in some ways the goddess of love tarot that I
talked about a couple episodes ago and other ways that one is
also different. But this is actually one of my
more traditional ones. Despite the fact that they
changed the suit names, It's pretty like easily translated

(09:11):
well. So yeah, I like to use it for it
does have a like a more whim circle vibe than the Sasser beat
O Tara deck, which is just like a darker, more like goth motif.
This is like I said, it is bright colors like neon has
aliens, which like I did not even know when I bought the
deck. I saw like a couple of the cards

(09:33):
from the deck. They had like examples of them
and I liked them, but they didn't have any of the ones that
have aliens on them. So I didn't even know.
And I as an Aquarius, I'm a big alien girly.
So that was very exciting to me.And they are the typical like
green aliens, I would say. But yeah, I really love they're

(09:56):
on a lot of the pentacles are the cactus cards and the cactus.
They don't say this in the like duck description or anything,
but the cactus, the way that they present it looks like
peyote, which is also like a it's a cactus that grows in the

(10:23):
Southwest USA. Peyote is a Spanish word and it
is a psychedelic plant and it isa protected plant in its
medicinal purpose. All cactus are very slow
growing, so when you see large cactus of any kind, it is

(10:43):
probably decades old. And peyote is sacred to Native
Americans and it has been very threatened in the Southwest USAA
lot of that because it grows across the Southwest USA and
into Mexico. And of course plants don't care
about our arbitrary borders. And so a lot of peyote and other

(11:08):
cactus and unique plants in thatarea get damaged because of the
border that's created and any other things around the border
like border patrols or fence, like all of that stuff actually
damages a lot of these plants, unfortunately.
So again, they don't say that inthis deck, but that's what it

(11:30):
looks like to me. If you look up a picture of
peyote, which is this a spineless cactus, it kind of
looks like a little circle with a like pink flower in the
middle. If it does flower, that is what
in my opinion they are depictingwith cactus because they don't

(11:51):
show the sort of like traditional like if you watched
Wile E Coyote and Roadrunner on the seguaro cactus, which is
also in the Southwest, but is the like big one that kind of
looks like it has arms. And like again, if you see any
sort of like traditional depictions of the Southwest, you
think of that cactus. So they do have some of those,
but the way that they depict thepentacles are like peyote

(12:16):
cactus. And yeah, peyote is a
hallucinogenic masculine and it has been used as sacred
ceremonial medicine for centuries, probably longer
actually, but yeah, so I think that's super interesting.
So yeah, again, what do I like to use this deck for?

(12:36):
You can use it for traditional tarot readings.
It's super colorful. So if someone doesn't
necessarily like the the dark vibes of maybe the other ducks I
had, this is like a fun one. I find it a little bit more like
light hearted. I'm trying to think the Tarot
Duck Guide book goes through various things.
It has some spreads in there. They talk about a one card

(12:59):
spread, a three card spread, andthey actually give examples,
which is very cool. So if you're new to tarot, you
can check those out. And then there are spreads at
the back of the book and they have one that's a cactus tarot
spread that's sort of like a Celtic cross in that it has 10
cards and it creates an image. But yeah, that's like a cool

(13:24):
tarot spread that they have in there specifically for this
deck. So I guess anything I wouldn't
use it for, I guess if someone like was not into whimsy and
aliens if they wanted a more serious reading or or just

(13:45):
perhaps if I was doing somethingthat didn't sort of like
necessarily match with like the culture of this deck, because it
is very like Southwest USAI would say like Spanish and
native culture like in in how itrepresents some of the peoples

(14:06):
in the deck. I was going to try to find a
example of one of the Major Arcana cards that talks about a
real, you know, historical person.
Oh yeah. So Justice cards #11 is based on
the legendary Stagecoach Mary. She was the first black woman to

(14:27):
carry male throughout the Wild West.
No male thieves could stand a chance against her sharp
shooting skills. She represents justice, fairness
and truth. So that's kind of an example
there of a real person that sortof is aligned with a Major
Arcana card. So yeah, I guess there's not
really a lot I wouldn't use it for.
Again, it's just kind of dependson like the style of what the

(14:48):
person is asking about. I guess if they really wanted to
be aligned with the sort of liketraditional suits, like maybe I
wouldn't use it. But yeah, I feel like it's
pretty versatile. And like I said, it's actually
one of my more like traditional decks in structure.
So yeah, I'm going to go ahead and pull a card for what message

(15:10):
this deck has for us today. And I pulled the 8 of cups or
jugs in reverse. So it does have, let's see here.
I think it doesn't really have reversals in it.
So we're going to have to, we'regonna have to use our best
judgement to interpret. So upright, the 8 of jugs is
about a horse drawn carriage. It's no, that's not correct.

(15:35):
This is the 9 of jugs or 9 of cups.
So we sort of see a bunch of them lined up and a person in
front of us. It says the handsome Cowboys
hanging out, feeling completely content, proud and fulfilled.
He's surrounded by luxurious velvet curtains, a prismatic
foyer, and copious amount of Mystic whiskey jugs.
The Night of Jugs is telling youto enjoy your life and
appreciate all that you have in the present moment.

(15:57):
You've earned it. You can finally spoil yourself.
You're feeling fulfilled and you're surrounded by abundance.
It says now is a great time to buy a Lotto ticket if you aren't
feeling too great. Remember to look around you and
appreciate even the small thingsthat you have.
The fact that you're alive is a gift in itself.
Be present and grateful for every moment because it can

(16:17):
vanish at any time. So there's definitely a message,
I would say of like gratitude here of perhaps there are things
that you have accomplished that you're not celebrating.
And so make sure to do that, right?
If we're thinking about this card in reverse and right, like
9, like you're almost there, right?
10 would be like the completion of the journey.
So 9 is the point where we can like we can see the finish line,

(16:40):
right? And I definitely feel like
there's things are coming to my to my head about where I'm
seeing the finish line here. So yeah, I guess we'll, we'll
keep it short and sweet for today.
But links for the tarot docks I talk about will always be in the
show notes and on my website if you want to look at them or
purchase them. And thanks for joining me today
on Everyday Tarot. Just as a reminder, the podcast
comes out daily, Monday through Friday for all of 2025.

(17:02):
You can e-mail me [e-mail] with
your thoughts, questions and more.
All right, see you soon. Bye bye.