I’m going to be honest here and let you in on a secret. I bought this deck never really thinking I was going to use it that much. I bought it so that I could take pictures for a panel I did on the history of art in tarot, and I thought it was important to include as an example of a deck with an Eastern aesthetic. However, I knew that this wouldn’t necessarily be a deck that I read with on a regular basis.
There are several reasons for this. First, I don’t feel any particular leanings towards Asian art, Buddhism, or anything else in that realm. I also don’t like that the traditional suits have been replaced by simple colored numbers and that the elements aren’t the traditional 4 that you use in most tarot systems. The suits are water, fire, clouds, and rainbows. Clouds roughly corresponds to air and rainbows to earth, but it’s really difficult to translate that in my mind and give a precise, effective reading at the same time. I just like my tarot traditional.
However, I do enjoy that each card has a keyword. So if I wanted to, I could just skip trying to translate them into the tarot I know and use them as more of an oracle deck. I feel like I would miss out on some of the nuances of the elemental patterns that way, but when it comes down to it, the cards ARE pretty and I do feel like I might want to use them more than I originally planned.
The cards are smaller than a traditional deck and easier to shuffle, which I appreciate immensely. There also isn’t any gold leafing or anything too precious so that I don’t want to ruin the cards. I feel like this would be a sturdy, useful every day deck in that sense. The art is also really beautiful and evocative and I respond to it on an artistic level. I love that the borders around the art are black too- it’s the details like that that I really respond to.
But how would this deck like to work with me? Let’s ask it and see!
(Note: I noted reversals in the cards, but when looking through the book I realized that this deck doesn’t use reversals. So I decided to read them as things that I might struggle with while using the deck and that I needed to pay careful attention to.)
(Starting at the top and moving clockwise)
- Tell me about yourself. What is your most important characteristic? Innocence. Innocence doesn’t just come from youth, but can come from old age as well. It’s a way of looking at the world with wonder and excitement, noticing every little detail. This deck looks at the world the same way, noticing things that we may miss in our jaded day-to-day thinking.
- What are your strengths as a deck? The Rebel (reversed). This isn’t your average, everyday kind of deck. It does things differently. So the things that I’ve struggled with (the different elemental representations, for example) may help me read this deck in a whole new, interesting way. That can be a strength if I get out of my own way and just see what this deck has to teach me with its different approach.
- What are your limits as a deck? Silence. It will require my full, undivided attention and an almost meditative state for the messages to really sink in. This isn’t a deck for quick and easy readings on the go, it needs more of my focus and my inner silence to really shine.
- What are you here to teach me? Creativity (reversed). I do need to learn to read in new ways and open up my perception to new types of cartomancy. This is a good thing, even if it’s something I may struggle with. It’s time to expand my studies!
- How can I best learn from and collaborate with you? Turning In (reversed). I need to get back into my daily meditation practice and really spend time on my spiritual practice. That will really set the tone for working with this deck if I can come to it from a sense of reverence. That will help the Silence aspect that I drew above.
- What is the potential outcome of our working relationship? New Vision (reversed). I will learn to read in a new and interesting way if I can give this deck the meditative, silent approach that it needs.
So with the above, I think that this deck would be great to use for my daily pull right before meditation every day. I feel like that would be a great way to use the deck. And I feel like it would be happy to be used as a regular oracle deck so that I can get out of my own patterns of X element means X thing, and X number has X meaning. I would do best with this deck just to let the meanings flow through me and become a part of my meditative practice.
I’m looking forward to using it more with that in mind!
Have you had any experience with this deck? Please share in the comments if you have any tips or tricks on how best to connect with this one.
Blessed be! <3