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Deck Review: Fat Folks Tarot
I feel like I’ve been waiting aaaaaaages for this deck (its Kickstarter campaign finished on 01/02/23), so I’m very excited to finally have it in my chubby little paws. It is, of course, the second (and final) edition of the Fat Folks Tarot. The creating team note that, while Tarot is “meant to depict the entire realm of human experience”, many people have been left out of the imagery in traditional Tarot decks, including fat people. Historically, as one of the co-creators, Cassandra Snow points out, when we see fat people in Tarot they are associated either with “gluttony or motherhood”. And that’s it. That’s all we get. So here…
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Deck Review: Gourmet Tarot
One of the most recent additions to my collection is this little cutie, the Gourmet Tarot by Scribalist (with illustrations by in-house artist Gumeaw). I got it via backing the Kickstarter campaign, but you can pick it up for £55 via Etsy [edited to update dead links]. The deck aims to “blend… the timeless wisdom of Tarot readings with the universal language of food“, and I was immediately struck by the really thoughtful matching of traditional Tarot symbolism with foods from around the world. There’s definitely a South East Asian vibe to a lot of the foodstuffs (the creators are based in Bangkok), but with classical dishes from Italy to…
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Deck Review: Tarot of Echoes
I’ve felt thoroughly spoilt this year with the release of not one, but two, decks by(/with the involvement of) the incredibly talented Ana Tourian (on top of news of a mass-market Bonestone release :-)) I’ve reviewed Ana’s deck with Claire Duval, Le Tarot Arthurien, here, and in this post I’m going to talk through her recent solo deck, the Tarot of Echoes. I love all of Tourian’s decks. I think her art style is perfectly suited to the Tarot – it just clicks together. Bonestone is my all time ride-or-die deck, and now Tarot of Echoes is right up there. It’s a really beautiful, thoughtful, wonderful deck, and I wholeheartedly…
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Tarot Card Meanings: The Moon
The Moon is the eighteenth card of the Major Arcana and represents dreams, intuition, illusion, and the unseen forces of the subconscious. In this post, I explore the Moon Tarot meaning through traditional symbolism, dreamwork, poetry, personal experience, and an in-depth look at how it shows up across Tarot decks. The Moon is the wild card of the Major Arcana. She has been popularly described as the 'Wild Unknown' that lies within all of us, or, by Thoth creator Aleister Crowley*, as representing the "Long Dark Night of the Soul". The Moon certain is an unsettling card, but then - too much settling is not necessarily A Good Thing. Sometimes…
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Currently on Kickstarter: The Magic Pantry Tarot
UPDATE: Since writing this post, I’ve received my copy of this deck. You can read my review here, and by a copy from the creator’s website here. *** Considering I’ve recently backed The Gourmet Tarot on Kickstarter, you’d be forgiven for thinking I don’t need another foodie themed Tarot deck, BUT YOU’D BE WRONG! The Magic Pantry Tarot is the latest project by Cedar Wren McCloud AKA Numinous Spirit Press. The creator has previously brought us The Numinous Tarot and The Threadbound Oracle, so they’ve plenty of experience in both KS campaigns and cartomancy projects, and I have no doubt the backing-to-owning process will run like a well oiled machine…
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Deck Review: Liberation Tarot
“The Tarot cannot show me anything I do not know, but it can help me uncover and dance with my knowing… With a practice like Tarot, we are liberated from isolation into a conversation we can have with ourselves and that which is beyond ourselves, even when we appear to be alone” adrienne maree brown Any deck that features contributions from the amazing adrienne maree brown (I use her writing with my Criminology students *all* the time) instantly gets my attention, so I was very excited to see the Liberation Tarot Deck come up on Kickstarter and backed it straightaway. The deck is now for sale on most online stores, or through the publishers,…
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Deck Review: Solara Occulto Meliora Tarot
The out-of-print Solara Occulto Tarot has been on my wishlist for aaaaaaages. I occasionally spot a secondhand one on one of the Tarot trading forums, but they’re £££. So it was with great excitement that I saw the artist and creator Amanda Spicer was funding a second edition on Kickstarter! The second edition is largely faithful to the first, with some changes here and there (the borders are gone – hooray, I’m a big fan of borderless images – and the cards are a bit bigger). You can now pick up a copy of the Solara Occulto Meliora deck on the artist and creator’s website for $97 (Canadian; about £56) (Oof! Still less than a…
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Deck Review: The Universal Folk Tarot
I’ve been waiting for Anita Iverarity‘s Universal Folk Tarot to come out for aaaaaages, and I’m so happy it’s finally here. I’ve always been a big fan of Inverarity’s art style, as evidenced in their gorgeous Universal Folk Oracle, but Oracle decks aren’t really my thing (with a few notable exceptions), so I was so excited to see this beautiful Tarot deck in the works. The art reminds me, stylistically, of the art in one of my favourite books as a kid, In Search Of Unicorns, illustrated by Wendy Hall (I can find out literally nothing about Hall, btw. It’s like she illustrated this one awesome, quirky, darkly odd little…
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Deck Review: The Colorays Tarot
The Colorays Tarot by Nathalie Besnard is a joyous little deck with some really smart, yet prosaic, ways of conveying traditional RWS symbolism. To this extent, it reminds me a little of the Everyday Enchantment Tarot. It’s also an AI deck, which I realise is a whole can of worms! I only have 2 AI decks (this one and the Älvdansen Tarot) , both of which, imo (and according to the creators), have involved the creators really refining and editing the original AI images to make them into something meaningful and credible. While there are certainly ethical issues with how AI scrapes/collects/plagiarises its data, I think there’s a big difference…
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Deck Review: The Ink Witch Tarot
The Ink Witch Tarot by Eric Maille was on my wishlist for a while, but never made the “ok, I’ll buy it” cut. I knew it was a deck that got a lot of love in the Tarot community, and I thought the art was very accomplished, but I’m not really in to (largely) monochrome decks, and so always felt a bit luke-warm about it. Then I saw the Two of Wands card on someone’s Insta and was like “huh, that’s such a smart interpretation”. I looked at a whole deck flip through on YouTube and thought a lot of the artwork was super interesting in its take on the…
