Jana Astanov reviews The Sacred Biodiversity Oracle by Angela Manno, published by Bear & Company.
In The Sacred Biodiversity Oracle (Bear & Company), visionary artist Angela Manno offers an act of devotion to the living world. Her 36-card deck is not only an oracle but a contemporary iconography for the Anthropocene, where each endangered species appears as a being, alive with presence, dignity, and spiritual intelligence. These images feel less like illustrations and more like emissaries. They arrive as messengers asking to be seen, and protected.
Manno is known for her fusion of artistry and ecological consciousness. Her works reside in NASA, the Smithsonian, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and she brings this same level of mastery to the deck. The result is a collection of images that bridge the contemplative traditions of sacred art with the urgency of planetary crisis. Each species is transfigured into a sacred portrait that reveals not only biological detail but inner essence. This approach resonates with the eco-spiritual lineage of Thomas Berry, whose writings directly inspire Manno’s practice, and aligns with the growing field of ecological mysticism where art becomes a medium for reattuning our perception to the intelligence of the more-than-human world.
The structure of the oracle invites a practice of “sacred seeing.” Manno guides the reader through a four-part process: Wisdom, Contemplation, Reflection, and Action. This is not a passive card pull but an intentional ritual sequence. It begins with attention, which Mary Oliver described as the beginning of devotion. It moves through intuitive insight and imaginative empathy, and culminates in embodied action. Here the oracle becomes a tool for ecological awakening. It trains perception. It cultivates emotional intelligence. It grounds spiritual practice in planetary responsibility.
One of the most innovative elements of the deck is the system of QR codes that connect each card to real conservation organizations. The effect is subtle but powerful. A moment of reflection becomes a doorway into concrete engagement. Manno is collaborating with the Center for Biological Diversity to ensure that each card serves as both a contemplative icon and a portal for activism. This alchemy of art, spirituality, and direct action feels timely. It models a new paradigm for oracular work, one that unites inner transformation with ecological repair.
The Sacred Biodiversity Oracle becomes a practice of ecological semiosis, training our capacity to read the signs of the living world and offering a tool for ecological awakening.
The guidebook extends this approach with clarity and depth. It describes Visio Divina, an ancient contemplative practice rooted in gazing that opens the intuitive mind. Instead of seeking messages from a symbolic system, the practitioner listens to the presence of the species itself. The deck becomes a collaborative field of attention where the human and the non-human meet. This encounter can evoke empathy, grief, wonder, or grief-tinged love. Manno understands that emotion generates movement. In this sense, the oracle becomes a training ground for the Great Work described by Thomas Berry: the collective task of shifting humanity from a destructive posture toward a more reverent mode of existence.
There is a ceremonial quality to the deck that lends itself beautifully to personal ritual and group work. Manno’s suggested circle practice creates a temporary sanctuary, where participants enter silence together, contemplate together, and speak from the intuitive field. This recalls Quaker listening circles, Thich Nhat Hanh’s Dharma Sharing, and Indigenous forms of witnessing. The cards become catalysts for collective attention. They help shape a shared emotional ecology. In a time of global ecological fragmentation, this is a sacred intervention.
Tool for ecological semiosis
Exploring The Sacred Biodiversity Oracle felt like entering a living mandala of the more-than-human world. Each card is a portal into relationships, ecosystems, and the subtle languages of Earth, a reminder that every species is a sign, a gesture, a message in the larger field of life.
While working with the Oracle, I was also reading N. Katherine Hayles, especially her book Postprint. Hayles writes about partial asemiosis – the way digital technologies speed up information to such a degree that our deep reading capacities, our slow attention, even our interpretive intelligence begin to thin out.
This made me think of the Biodiversity Oracle as a tool for ecological semiosis: the ability to make meaning through signs, and to attune ourselves to the symbolic intelligence of the Earth. These cards slow you down, re-sensitize perception, and open a space where the human mind meets the wisdom of forests, oceans, fungi, insects, and all living networks. A tool for ecological awakening.
Manno’s background enriches the work. She trained with a Russian master iconographer and studied at San Francisco Art Institute, Parsons School of Design, and l’Ecole des Arts in Lacoste through Sarah Lawrence College. Her spiritual grounding is evident in every image. These are not icons of saints but icons of the Earth’s endangered kin. They remind us that biodiversity loss is not only a scientific crisis but a spiritual one, because to lose a species is to lose a way of perceiving, relating, and imagining the world.
The Sacred Biodiversity Oracle is a gift for artists, ecologists, contemplatives, educators, activists, and anyone seeking a deeper relationship with the Earth. It is also a visionary model for how creative practice can shift consciousness and mobilize communities. The deck is more than beautiful. It is a devotional instrument, a teaching tool, and a subtle call to rise into stewardship.
In an era longing for reconnection, Angela Manno offers a sacred mirror in which we can see the Earth’s fragility, radiance, and enduring intelligence. The oracle becomes a ceremony. The ceremony becomes a commitment. And the commitment becomes a path toward the living world that still longs to flourish with us.
About the author:
Angela Manno trained with a master iconographer from Russia and studied at the San Francisco Art Institute, Parsons School of Design, and l’Ecole des Arts in Lacoste, France, through Sarah Lawrence College. Her work has been exhibited in private and public collections around the world, including NASA, the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts. She
works with the Center for Biological Diversity on its endangered species programs and ives in New York City. Website: https://angelamanno.com/
