Deck Review: The Lightseer’s Tarot

The romance novel plotline for my relationship with The Light Seer’s Tarot did not start with a classic meet cute and InstaLove, but was much more a case of enemies-to-lovers! Very early on in my Tarot journey (when the ADHD blackhole-pull of deck accumulation was at its most ferocious) I was intrigued enough by the deck to buy a really cheap copy on eBay. I bought it mainly because it’s such a popular deck that I felt it would be worth me exploring a bit (to see what all the fuss was about), not because I felt a particular connection to it per se (unlike my intense, violent, love-at-first sight feelings for the Blood Moon or the Bonestone, for example). My deck turned up, and I quickly sussed that it was probably a bootleg copy (it’s suspiciously small, and it has a “scan this barcode” online guidebook…) – my first and only bootleg, I’m happy to add, as I’ve since become a lot more savvy about Tarot card scammers! Anyways, I felt so shit about this (support artists, folks) that I ordered a genuine copy to assuage my guilt, and then chucked the bootleg one in my handbag, figuring, what the hell, it would be handy to have it for spur of the moment readings, especially as I didn’t care if it got lost or damaged. I wasn’t really intending to use it to read for others much, but, that’s because, like most romance novel heroines, I’m a short-sighted idiot – because, clearly, a deck that lives in your handbag is going to become your life partner Tarot deck…

I initially found it all the things I’ve seen it be criticised for in various Tarot forums – super bougey (but so am I tbf, lol), the diversity is a bit ham-fisted and very uni-faceted (everyone is rich and thin and cis and beautiful), too love&light. But over several years living in my handbag, we’ve been through a lot together. I’ve read with it at parties, at festivals, for colleagues in the pub, for strangers on a train(!), for a girl I found crying at a bus stop – and we’re now very bonded. I find it super intuitive to read, and querents seem to really like it (like, a weird amount. Genuinely. The creator Chris-Anne has a gift for touching non-Tarot type people via her art). Plus this deck is a little work horse. It delivers. In spades.

It’s become one of only four decks I regularly read for others with (along with the Ink Witch, the Morgan Greer, and This Might Hurt. Oh, and I will occasionally use a RWS if it’s to hand, usually someone else’s – with their consent, obvs), and I’d say it constitutes 80% of my readings. It’s also got to do random (self) spreads for me in really lovely places (on a boat at sea, in the forest, on an old clapper bridge).

So now we’re in love!

I think the thing I like most about this deck, apart from the fact it’s a little trooper, is the attention the artist and creator Chris-Anne Donnelly pays to the skies and backgrounds in each card. The quality of light she imbues into each image is so rich and layered, both symbolically and artistically (J.M.W. Turner eat your heart out). The symbolism on each card is really thoughtful, even though the images seem simple at first glance, they’re actually surprisingly complex, and I still find myself spotting things to this day. And the Court Cards (my problem child cards!) seem to especially speak to querents, which saves me the bother of having to figure out if they represent a specific person in the querent’s life, or just ‘vibes’. The amount of times a querent has taken one look at a court card and instantly said: “I know who that is”.

Anyways, we now love each other so much that I forked out for a secondhand copy of the original indie Kickstarter deck (wallet goes brrrrr), and I do not regret it. The finish and quality on the mass market edition is decent, but the indie version is sublime. If you like this deck, and find a KS version that doesn’t break the bank, I highly recommend it.

The mass market edition comes in a sturdy box with a small, black and white guidebook. The info in the guidebook is pretty brief, but you can access Chris-Anne’s very, very well-designed website for more info on each card. The KS edition comes in an even more beautiful display box, with, essentially, the ‘extended’ guidebook already printed (bar some minor changes online). Both sets of cards are sturdy and easy to shuffle; the almost iridescent green of the indie version is especially lush though.

I feel a bit emotional reviewing some of my favourite cards, as they’re not ‘just’ cards for me now, but super emotionally-charged images. Every time I look at one I get assailed with fragments of memory of really intense readings I’ve done with people that have left their mark on me. So this review won’t be as objective as my others, but I’ll try my best!

The eyes in this High Priestess card had me going from ‘is that a print error? [That’ll teach me to buy bootleg, lol]’ to ‘creepy’ to ‘urgh, I love it!’ Such a clever way to represent our ‘inner’ (third) eye, when thinking about this card’s links to intuitive wisdom. I really love doing what the person in the Moon card is doing (drifting down to the bottom of a body of water like looking up at the sky). Captures the terrifying but exhilarating (yet also dreamy) vibe of the Moon card 🌙

As I said in my last post on The Gentle Tarot, I’m not to keen on the ‘totally joyous rebirth’ vibe of some Death cards that ignore the pain of grief/loss/change, but I make an exception for the Light Seer’s Death card mainly because I think the image of the everlasting you see inside Death’s hood is as terrifying as it is hopeful. As the poet Wallace Stevens wrote, “Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams and our desires”. The creator writes, “[Death] reminds us that before this new world can take root, something old must cease to be. This is the natural ebb and withering of things that are no longer being nourished, and the dying of one form so that it can shift to another”. Chris-Anne’s image now always reminds me of the time it came up in a reading I did for someone who was struggling with her relationship with her daughter as she transitioned from being a little kid to a more independent, very wilful(!) tween, and it was just super poignant and such a powerful place in the spread for the card. Relationships are not stagnant things, and while it can be painful to let go of ‘the way we were’, we cannot be so afraid to venture into that bold, bright unknown that we instead remain stuck, rotting in the past.

I really like the use of the Biblical concept of the lion and the lamb in the Strength card. Although the two themes (lion-ness vs. lamb-ness) are actually pulled from Revelations, in common parlance it’s generally a misquotation of the original ‘wolf’ in Isaiah “and the [lion] will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat… and a little child will lead them”. We need the ferocious lion parts of ourselves and the gentle lamb parts of ourselves to come together in harmony to reach fulfilment. That is true strength.

I love that Chris-Anne’s Empress is literally an Earth mother, pregnant with the world 🌎. I adore the oceans as her cape and the plants of the land as her jewellery. The moon above her and the sun lighting her from behind. The line of light connecting the heavens to the Earth, through her. Stunning! The guidebook says, “you are love. You are ruler. You are nurturer. You are creativity and the miracle of life entwined. You are all of these things, and you are safe to breathe life into the world that you desire to birth.”

The Hermit is beautifully rendered – she still has her traditional lantern but she’s also glowing with her own internal brightness. As the creator writes in the LWB, “I witness my brightly lit heart”. This came up in a reading I did for someone who was struggling with his relationship with his dad and extended family. The minute I turned it over, his partner, who was also present, said “that’s what I’ve been telling him, he can’t fix everything for everyone all the time, he has to just pull back and protect his own heart sometimes, for his own sanity”. There really is something about these cards that speaks directly to querents IMO!

I always love seeing what artists do with the Aces, and Pents and Swords here do not disappoint. My mnemonic for remembering Aces was always ‘the universe grants you the gift of…’ resources for Pents, and insight for Swords. And these drawings really speak to those phrases. I also really appreciate how fully the Ace of Pents conveys the idea that ‘the Ace is the seed of the Ten’, by showing us a literal seed, ready for us to plant and nurture in order to achieve material satisfaction. And I know she’s actually holding a candle in the 8 of Pents, but every time I look at it I initially see a cup of tea, and I love that for this card! Sitting back, sipping on a cuppa, admiring all the hard work that’s gone into your garden.

I like this modern version of the King of Pents as some successful ageing hippie in his warm, book-lined study, ready to dispense his worldly wisdom, and I love the magic trail left by his footprints, almost as if he’s fertilising the ground he’s walking on. The Page of Swords using logic to bridge the gaps in knowledge 👌🏼. And the 8 of Cups, showing her walking away towards a brighter horizon, is really beautiful.

Both the blissed out expression on the face of the woman in the Lightseer’s Fool card, and the grace and balance in her body, really capture the gorgeous golden naivety of the card. The artist and creator Chris-Anne writes, “she falls into the void, where her beautiful future awaits”. And then we have the (original) Ten of Swords. I am aware of the controversy around this card, and understand the artist’s decision to pull it and replace it with a new vision (which I really dislike btw – the new Ten of Swords design just doesn’t work for me at all, which probably explains why I find myself drawn to the original). I’m also white, and appreciate it’s absolutely not my place to tell Black women how they should feel about representations of themselves in art, especially given Tarot’s tendency to appropriate (and white wash) indigenous and minority experiences and practice. So I think the right decision was made to replace the card in the deck given the racist links to back scarring and the enslavement of Black women, particuarly in the US context where the deck was produced (though I wish I liked the replacement more). If a card is hurtful, particularly to some folks from a group who have already borne so much hurt, then it’s a no-brainer, really. It should go. BUT I really love the idea of this image – the ten sword wounds that we are now recovering from. We thought it was rock bottom, but it wasn’t. We were betrayed, hurt, figuratively ‘left for dead’. But we will rise. We will heal. Dawn breaks on the horizon. The night will soon be over. I wish that there had been a way to re-work this idea in a revised deck that was nevertheless alert to the racist overtones of the original image. I’m still looking for another deck that captures this sense of healing stab wounds.

Deck Interview With The Light Seer’s Tarot

I did this deck interview on an ancient stone clapper bridge across the river Dart on midsummer’s day(!), with a random fellow hippie type playing piccolo across from me on the other end of the bridge (the middle has been washed away). Much more woo than I’m used too, but it was a very cool & intense experience.

Straight up I’m going to say I was surprised by this interview. Light Seer’s has always been very accurate for me and I’m a fairly direct, no sugar-coating style reader, but I still get quite happy clappy hippie dippy vibes off the deck. Light Seer’s says: NUH UH!

Death, The Tower, the King of Swords, the Ace of Wands! Jeez Louise.

1. Tell me about yourself? What is your most important characteristic as a deck?

Death/Rebirth: This deck offers the potential to help me address radical transformation. It will encourage me to embrace even painful or violent seeming change, and reminds me of the importance to clear the way of old habits to welcome a brighter future.

2. What are your strengths as a deck?

King of Swords: This deck is perceptive, tough minded, and keen to dispense common sense wisdom. It has a commitment to intellectual honesty and speaking truth to power. It’s willing to mentor me if I, too, lean in to this way of thinking.

3. What are your limits as a deck?

The Tower (reversed): The deck reiterates it’s commitment to radical change. If I’m not prepared to release repressed emotions and remove psychological defences, it can’t help me. Basically the advice this deck specialises in is Big “burn it to the ground” Stuff. If I can’t make that kind of change, it can’t help.

4. What do you require from me in return? How can I best collaborate with you?

Nine of Wands: Perseverance. Change is hard, but this deck needs me to be prepared to tough it out. I need to take responsibility for what happens in my life, and be the single bright flame that burns on in the darkness.

5. What is the potential quality of our relationship?

Knight of Swords: Recognising no limits, this deck is a determined warrior, a go getter, an idealist. It’s all about moving me forward to better tomorrows.

6. In what space / with what type of query will you best communicate?

Ace of Wands: This deck gives eagerness and strength to make the changes it advises. I have to be ready to step up, speak out, and make a difference. It communicates best when I’m ready for passion and idealism.

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