Scenario

Summary

The last artifact in the scenario is a deck of Terra Cards, a reinterpretation of classic Tarot Cards, but with a new ecological agenda. While traditional Tarot decks rely on centuries-old iconography and universal symbolism that stems from human forms, emotions, and historical events to communicate the cards’ meanings; this deck of cards moves away from conventional anthropocentric displays of meaning and instead frames plant-life as its sole vocabulary and means of interpretation. Just as traditional tarot cards have been designed to reflect important aspects of the real world that users live in, this deck does the same, and signifies a major shift in the collective psychology.

In this future, users have formed strong spiritual and intellectual connections to the life forms that they have lost because they no longer have the luxury of any other means of connection. As a result, the plants depicted in the cards embody layered symbolic significance to the people that use them and serve as a source of spiritual connection, guidance and reassurance, as well as signs of hope. By inferring that users are able to connect with the mere representation of plants to derive meaning and archetypal resonance, the cards showcase a new ecocentric perspective that has become integrated within this world. In this sense, the cards themselves are also symbols, both for the people in this future and for us. As artifacts of this evolution in the collective unconscious they remind us that it is possible to change and that we have the ability to reframe the ways in which we view our relationship with nature.

 Although nature is left in a state of disintegration, torn away from us and faded from existence, humanity has somehow managed to salvage the pieces. And from the ashes of the natural world, we learn from loss, rising to the challenge of integration through a new ecocentric frame of thought.