Deck Review: Genius Garden Tarot

Eeeeeek, I can’t believe how quickly this deck went from me falling in love with it on Kickstarter to being in my hot little hands. Seriously, the creator and artist of the Genius Garden Tarot, Jessi Huntenburg, runs a tight ship. This is the swiftest and most professional Kickstarter campaign I think I’ve ever backed! Huntenburg describes the ‘genius’ of the Genius Garden Tarot as “the unique spirit of your higher self, the directional arrow that points you toward your most creative potential”, adding “genius isn’t a title that’s reserved for the quickest or most accomplished among us. Instead, it’s a gift that’s given to each of us at the moment of our birth, one that helps us navigate the journey of our lives”.

“‘Il faut cultiver notre jardin,’ Volatire famously concludes in his satirical work ‘Candide‘. What he means is that each of us should work to nurture the plot for which we are responsible; we should focus our efforts on thriving in Self and our surroundings. If nothing else, we will have made a small, but integral, part of the universe grow”

Jessi Huntenburg

I am very down with Huntenburg’s philosophy for this deck! She’s probably a bit more woo than me (who isn’t, miserable jaded old Bog Witch that I am), but I absolutely see Tarot as a medium for spirtual health and growth, and I love both the garden metaphor and the concept of genius (which reminds me of the idea of gnosis).

The deck itself is a really bright, joyous deck, full of primary colours and a childlike wonder in the beauty of the world. It’s reasonably closely based on the RWS, so is easy to interpret; but defintiely has enough unqiue features to make it stand out from other RWS-based decks.

The deck comes in a handsomely designed rigid box, and you also get a guidebook that gives an overview of the deck and the creating/design process, and then a guide to each card’s meaning, along with a journal prompt for each card. If you like your Tarot ‘kit’ altogether, be warned that the LWB is bigger than the box, so it needs to be stored separately.

The card stock is great – sturdy with a mat finish, but not so thick that the cards stick or become hard to shuffle. There’s beautiful gold gilt edging, and then – the best thing – the card backs! I just adore how when you fan them out a bit you get such a cool optical effect of one loooooong arm. Huntenburg writes, “the deep blue hue of the card backs represents the earth’s primodial oceans, and the twin seedlings represent the emergence of life from darkness. The two cupped hands represent the energy we give to everything we nurture and create, and the total card back image represents the miracle of genius birth in every one of us”.

I really like how Huntenburg depicts fire, so all of the Wands suit is gorgeous. I’m a particular fan of the divine spark (genius/gnosis) leaping from our own fingers in the first person POV of the Page of Wands, and the flaming King proudly holding his wand aloft. The creator explains, “he has become the element he wields, so it cannot burn or wound him… It’s time to let your yearning burn bright and true… Follow your desires without fear or apology”. We see more fire in the Death card, with a really powerful vision of one lone new sprig of life blossoming from the ashy devastation that surrounds it.

I ADORE this Temperance card (gets my honourable runner’s up prize for best card ;-)) with its giant pitcher pouring healing rivers of milk and honey onto the land, as well as the open hand of the receiver. Huntenburg writes, “what was lost in fragmentation can be regained and augmented in reconstruction; like kintsugi, your mended self is more beautiful than your immaculate self”. I like a straight to the point Moon card that doesn’t pull any punches. The Moon is mysterious, eerie, beautiful, unsettling. Just a very simple image like this already covers so much of what this card means. And more beautiful visualisations of healing flows in this lovely Star card.

Anyone who reads my blog will know I love me a more positive Seven of Swords card, so I’m a big fan of this one. Sometimes we’re not the one being tricked or deceived or lied to, sometimes we’re the scrappy little trickster, relying on our wits to help us survive or to get out of a sticky situation (Lord knows there’s enough in the suit of Swords already about how our brains are often our own worst enemies – but sometimes they can save the day!). I really, really like Huntenburg’s thoughts on the card too: “You’re being called to take what you can and use it to reinvent yourself. We must sometimes make hard choices in the service of our Genius, choices that hurt our relationships in the shorterm but strengthen them in the longterm. It’s okay to do what you must to survive”.

Urgh, this Five of Pents card. My mnemonic for learning this card back in the day was ‘the Little Match Girl card’. I would think of her freezing to death with her nose pressed to the glass looking at that steaming roast goose sat upon a fine table. The Pents as liferings hovering tantalisingly out of reach of the drowning outstretched fingers fit this concept perfectly. It also brings to mind Stevie Smith: I was much too far out all my life / And not waving but drowning, which again really resonates with the ethos of this card – both the alienation of feeling surrounded by those who have so much whilst we struggle to merely survive, and the false pride that sometimes causes us not to ask for help when we really need it (and when it would be freely given if we only asked). Huntenburg is much cheerier about her card than I am (lol), writing “the resources you need may well be closer than you think… Be humble enough to ask for help”.

Finally, it’s my man the Knight of Pents. Simultaneously one of my most disliked cards, and one that stalks me because it knows that I damn well need to hear its message but I keep refusing (these two things may be related, haha). Here we have him doing his slow-and-steady-wins-the-race thing, as he carefully, painstakingly, rolls his giant boulder up the hill: “The time has come to dig deep and muster the strength needed to accomplish what you set out to achieve. Sometimes the only difference between success and failure is giving up too soon”.

I really recommend this deck for beginners, more experienced readers, and collectors. Mine was from the Kickstarter campaign, but you can get it via Jessi Huntenburg’s website.

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