NEWSLETTER: August 2026 Updates - Baba Jaga Oracle Test Prints, Shipping Updates & more
Dear friends,
August has been a really tough month. I have been struggling with severe imposter syndrome. The closer I get to finishing the Baba Jaga oracle project (and the launch on Kickstarter), the worse my usual mental health issues are getting. Nevertheless, I managed to finish all of the artworks, and my partner helped me with producing homemade test prints of the cards. You can watch a first flip through here.
In other news, I had to close both of my online shops indefinitely. With the new laws introduced by the European Union it’s impossible for me (and many other small businesses) to afford shipping to other EU countries. You can find more information about this issue, and how you can help below.
In September I am focusing on finishing the Baba Jaga oracle’s guidebook, and preparing for the upcoming Kickstarter launch. I’m not 100% sure on the launch date yet, but you can sign up here to get notified once the project goes live.
VIDEO: LET’S CREATE AN ORACLE CARD
There is a new video up on my YouTube-channel: I show you how I design and draw one of the cards for my upcoming Baba Jaga oracle. Join me for a casual and cozy time in my studio.
CLOSING DOWN MY ONLINE SHOPS (FOR NOW)
The EU has introduced new packaging laws to reduce waste that, while beneficial in theory, in practice bar small businesses from even taking part in the market. We are now forced to register with 27 individual registries (one for each EU country), hire expensive local authorized representatives, pay annual minimum fees and file complex reports in different languages if we want to be able to ship a single package. For a big company with a legal department these requirements may be peanuts, for a one person business like mine they are financially and administratively impossible.
If you want to help small business, you can sign the petition to “Stop destroying EU micro-businesses: Immediate moratorium on cross-border EPR fees”
It’s incredibly heartbreaking but I had to close both my webshop and my Etsy store. I would love to at least open up shipping to the US again but that’s complicated as well. Every other week a new tariff is announced, and I can’t keep track of all of the legal requirements I’d have to meet to ship even a tiny art print. Plus I don’t want my customers to pay horrendous shipping costs and taxes I can’t even reliably estimate.
I built my whole business on selling and shipping my own products but right now this sadly is no longer an option. I am working on shifting my shop to print on demand-products, which will allow me to offer up new products and designs much faster, but at the cost of becoming dependent on another (bigger) company, as well as not being able to physically package orders anymore. This is something that I always enjoyed and cherished; putting in extra goodies and handwritten notes, but in the world of today I literally cannot (legally) do this anymore.
SHIPPING INFORMATION FOR MY UPCOMING KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN
While all of these shipping issues are extremely frustrating, as well as scary for financial reasons, I have found a solution for my upcoming Kickstarter campaign. If the Baba Jaga oracle deck gets successfully funded, the shipping will be handled by external shipping companies. I’m hopeful that I have found a way to keep the shipping costs reasonable, and allow for shipping to the US, Canada and all of Europe as well.
I don’t know if I will be able to ship the deck myself after the fulfillment of the campaign, so if you want to have a copy the Kickstarter may possibly be the only chance to buy one for the foreseeable future.
FREE DOWNLOAD: MEETING THE BABA JAGA-ZINE
My upcoming deck “Meeting the Baba Jaga-Oracle” is heavily based in folklore and tales about the infamous Slavic witch. As a precursor for the cards, I have created a free Baba Jaga-zine that is both a basis for my upcoming deck, as well as a standalone offering.
The zine contains three hand-picked folk tales featuring the Baba Jaga. There are countless versions of these tales, so I’ve chosen the ones that resonated the most, and edited them for better readability. You can find the original text sources in the bibliography at the end.
You can download the zine for free. There is both a print-ready, as well as a digital-version attached on Patreon linked down below:
MEETING THE BABA JAGA-ORACLE
Venture deep into the birch forest, stand before the Baba Jaga, and answer her question: Are you here by choice, or by chance?
The Baba Jaga survived through centuries in folk tales - sometimes aiding the heroes, sometimes hindering them, but always facilitating change. She may be a single entity, a type of local spirit, an archetype, or everything at once. The Baba Jaga can not be defined.
Stories and folktales are at the heart of what it means to be human, and maybe today we need their medicine more than ever. Based in Slavic folklore, the Baba Jaga-Oracle explores the topic of transformation, and serves as a tool to guide you through the different stages of change.
The Baba Jaga-Oracle contains 40 cards with hand-drawn artworks and a guidebook with divination messages rooted in scholarly sources. The project will come to Kickstarter in late Autumn 2026.
The Baba Jaga-Oracle is 100% human-made with lots of love and care. All artworks and texts are dreamed up by human imagination and created by human hands. No generative A.I. is used in the making of this deck.
CARD OF THE MONTH
GAIA - PERSPECTIVE
In her role as “Mother Earth”, Gaia is commonly associated with the archetype of the mother. While she is creation and life, she is also chaos and destruction. She can be cruel, and her modes of recovery are seldom pretty nor comfortable.
Nature does not exist for us, and still we are all inextricably linked to her. Through her, we are all connected. We are part of something bigger than ourselves. In the grand scheme of things, nothing really matters. While this may sound bleak at first, realizing how small and insignificant we are can be incredibly liberating.
Gaia challenges you to ask yourself: Will your worries of today really matter tomorrow? Are you missing the bigger picture?
The above text is an excerpt from European Goddesses and Spirits Oracle Deck. You can learn more about the oracle here.
Thank you so much for reading. If you want to get these updates delivered straight into your mailbox, please subscribe to my monthly newsletter (it’s free, of course!).
Until next time!
