Enter a deeper relationship with yourself and the world through the universal language of the human face. The images in this deck were selected from 20 years of work created in the presence of ancient trees, mountains, standing stones, temples, cathedrals, and human wisdom carriers from many lineages. Each face radiates a unique presence. Think of them as allies, nature spirits, beloveds, or visitors from subtle realms. Gaze deeply and explore your relationship with these beings.
Rather than offer written meanings, the guidebook supports you to cultivate your own experience of the cards. It offers ways to select them, lay them out, and enliven them through creative processes. It also includes digital access to a guided meditation with original music. Use it to hold sacred space while you work with the cards. Portals of Presence can be combined with SoulCards 1&2, each deck bringing a new dimension to the other.

“A gift to everyone who will look into infinity through these eyes.” Vicki Robin

“The deck has sacred assignments, for they are instruments of attunement that bridge us to sacred relationships and co-creation with the most intimate forces in life.” Orion Foxwood

“Wonderful windows into the worlds beyond…where wisdom can be sought and exchanged.” Caitlin Matthews
MORE INFORMATION FROM THE GUIDEBOOK

Approach this deck with an open mind and heart. It is not an oracle in the usual sense. It is an invitation to develop relationship with the great community of life. May these faces, drawn from the heart of the world, open portals to the subtle worlds, reminding us of the wholeness within which we reside. Gaze at these beings and allow your experience to unfold.

The Vision for this Deck

The 72 faces in Portals of Presence were selected from among thousands of Touch Drawings I created over twenty years. Each face was drawn in a particular setting: beneath an ancient tree, on a mountaintop, in a sacred temple, before a standing stone, or in the presence of a human soul. As I sat with each of them, I used the process of Touch Drawing https://touchdrawing.com to translate my subtle impressions into the form of a human face. Each face radiates a presence that is both unique and universal.
The face is the most familiar visual pattern in the human psyche. From the moment we are born, we center our world on the faces of the people close to us. As we gaze into their eyes, they gaze back. In mirroring each other, we communicate on a level beyond words. There is mutuality in this meeting.
Can we use this primal visual language to open portals of communion with our own deeper psyche and realms of consciousness beyond our familiar human world? A face in a printed photograph is only ink on paper. Yet we can attune to the presence of the person represented through focusing on the image. The faces on these cards can be used as focal points through which to attune to a more expansive range of consciousness. Think of them as personifications of elemental life forms, ancient wisdom lineages, spiritual allies, or visitors from unfamiliar realms.
There is a mystery that fuels this deck; a sense that unseen beings want to engage with it as a point of contact with our human-centric world. In this time of accelerating challenge on the planet, the possibility of expanding our range of connection can offer hope that we do not have to face our challenges alone. Rather, we are in this predicament because we have lost our sense of communion with life. Use this deck to expand your awareness to your deeper self, subtle realms beyond the familiar human world, and the sentience in all life.

A Larger Context

I have been involved with the teachings of David Spangler for many years. He offers a spiritual perspective that is deeply affirming of the experience of being human. His articulation of the sacredness of life, which he calls Incarnational Spirituality, encompasses an ecological understanding of the subtle realms. This worldview has provided a larger context in which I hold my life and work. Here are some of his thoughts. I hope it will enhance your understanding of this deck:
What is important in working with the subtle dimensions and with subtle allies is a deepening of your sense of being part of a living universe. Although contact and collaboration with the subtle worlds serve an important purpose — and increasingly so as we move into the future —what is equally important is that you re-envision and re-experience who you are.
You are a citizen, a participant, in a community of life, unfolding and thriving in a cosmos that is itself alive. One of the vital lessons arising from taking the time and attention to seek communion with the subtle life around you, is that you can discover yourself deepening into this community. And not only deepening, but being welcomed home. You are discovering the family you are part of, and with it, discovering the power you possess arising from this relationship.
One of the unfortunate consequences of life in our incarnate realms is that conditions of separation and alienation have developed. This is certainly true within the human experience, but it extends into the experiences of other forms of life as well. Barriers come into being that were never intended, but which are the result when different members of the same family forget how to talk to each other. To ignore the life around you or assume, because you cannot see it, that it does not exist is to confine yourselves to an echo chamber in which you only talk with others of your kind. Your world shrinks and you shrink with it.
The world you live in is expansive, and you are expansive as part of it. Achieving communication with a specific subtle being is less important than achieving communion with the community of all life, physical and non-physical, that embraces and holds you. This is a deepening and an opening of the heart to the life in the world around you. Just a simple acknowledgement, with love, of this life is enough to start the key turning that unlocks the door to the wider universe.
—David Spangler, Lorian.org

Sources

The faces in this deck were selected from among many drawings created in many settings. I do not identify the situation in which Portal drawings were created. This allows the user to experience them directly, without mental associations. But to give a sense of the depth and breadth of this body of work, below is a list of places, events and people whose spirit inspired one or more of the faces in this deck. Over time I will offer stories behind some of the faces in this deck as blog posts. Find these plus more images at touchdrawing.com.

Places

Isle of Iona, Rosslyn Chapel and the Callenais Stones in Scotland, Chartres Cathedral in France, Mayan Temples Tikal & Uaxactun in Guatemala, Llanfeugan Yew Circle in Wales, Avebury Stone Circle in England, Singing Hill in California, La Push Quilute Reservation, Whidbey Institute, Mount Pilchuck, Skalitude, and my island studio in the Pacific Northwest US.

Events

Parliament of the Worlds Religions, Global Earth Repair, Fairy and Human Relations Congress, Women of Wisdom, Seeds of Compassion, Dawn of Interspirituality, Findhorn Co-Creative Spirituality, Engaging the Other, Whidbey Winter Gathering, Gather the Women, New Stories, One the Event, Systemic Constellations Conference, Wisdom University’s Wisdom and Civilization, Mevlevi Whirling Dervish Sema, Indigenous Grandmothers Gathering, and Lorian Association classes.

Humans

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, David Spangler, James Twyman, Jim Garrison, Junko Kurata (Japan), Sister Lucy Kurien (India), Kai Fleming-Snow, Elias Lonsdale, Leland Kaiser, Mayan elder Tata Pedro Cruz Garcia (Guatemala), Lomilomi Kahuna Aunty Angeline Locey (Kauai), Maori Chieftess Dell Wihongi (New Zealand), Shaman Don Alverto Taxo (Equador), Abuela Margarita (Mexico), and the spirit of George Floyd & BLM.