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Deck Review: The Sinagtala Tarot
The Sinagtala Tarot is a beautiful, ambitious deck that shines a light on Filipino folklore and myth through Augusto Ayo’s richly symbolic artwork. Each card feels like a doorway into a legend - but you’ll need the key of cultural context to step fully through. It’s a stunner to look at: dark, gilded, and full of haunting imagery that reimagines the Major Arcana through diwata, aswang, and babaylan. Still, the journey to get it was epic (hello, fifteen-month Kickstarter delay), and the lack of a basic guidebook makes it trickier for readers unfamiliar with the myths. When it lands, though, it lands hard: a deck of wild gods, changeling babies,…
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Deck Review: The Erenberg Tarot
The Erenberg Tarot is a vibrant, vintage-poster-style homage to the Rider-Waite-Smith - bold, nostalgic, and full of character. Each card feels like a zoom-lens conversation with the originals: familiar yet freshly alive. Smart, striking, and steeped in outsider-art charm, it’s a deck that turns tradition into something joyously human again.
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Deck Review: The Tempest Tarot Deck
I hesitated before buying the Tempest Tarot Deck, as it’s a little too Pippish to be ‘fully me’, but, in the end, the gorgeous and intuitive art won me over. I’m also a nautical girl through and through. It was me and Mr TarotCake’s lifelong dream to live by the sea, and two years ago we made it a reality when we moved to sunny Southsea. We now live about a 12 minute walk from the beach, and I cannot tell you the wonders it has done for my mental health! There’s something about the sea – its limitless possibility, its hidden depths and luminous horizons – that makes everything…
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Tarot Card Meanings: Strength
Strength is the eighth card of the Major Arcana in many Tarot traditions, and represents inner fortitude, self-mastery, and the power of gentleness. In this post, I explore what the Strength Tarot card means: from mythology and theology to personal experience, deck art, feminist readings, and more. Some Tarot traditions have Justice in this position (8), but I like Strength here, as it points to such a radically different kind of power than the previous card - the Chariot - the strength to confront yourself calmly, and without fear.
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Deck Review: MindScapes Tarot
I fell in love with the art for the MindScapes Tarot by John A. Rice the moment I saw it. At that point, it was a Majors Only deck BUT with whispers of an eventual 78-card version, so I decided to bide my time before buying it. I don’t tend to work with Majors Only decks (unless they play nicely with my beloved Minors Only Wyrd of Sarah Howard), so I held out. That said, I did buy an original print of the High Priestess. My wallet winced a little (don’t get me wrong, artists absolutely deserve to get properly paid; I’m just broke, haha), but I couldn’t resist. She’s…
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Deck Review: The Spacious Tarot
A while back now, I read a blog post by Tarot reader and deck creator Carrie Mallon that she and artist Annie Ruygt had no plans (for the time being) to do any further reprints of their famous Spacious Tarot deck. As it’s an old favourite of mine (you’ll see it cropping up time and time again in my deep dives) I thought to myself ‘oh, I really should spend some time with it and write a review before it goes OOP‘. Sadly, life (read: marking 😂) got in the way, and it looks like the deck is now OOP on the creators’ website. You can still pick up secondhand…
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Is Tarot Evil? In Defence of the Cards
Recently, The Spectator published a letter from Rev’d Richard Coombs, the Rector of Cheltenham, offering his reflections on exorcism and evil spirits. It reads as follows: As a parish priest of 35 years, I read Francis Pike’s account of his supernatural experiences with little surprise. Over the years, I have been approached by parishioners troubled by poltergeists, apparitions, unexplained odours, ‘friendly’ spirits and, in one case, cutlery and glasses flying off tables. In every instance, my approach has been the same. Accompanied by another person, I visit the home and enquire whether the household has been involved in any occult practices – Ouija boards, tarot cards, consulting mediums and the…
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Deck Review: The Unveiled Tarot
I don’t often buy mass market decks these days, as I try to save my Tarot budget to support indie creators on Kickstarter, but occasionally one comes along that catches my eye, and the Unveiled Tarot was just that. The first thing I’ll say is this is one DARK deck. Like, dark dark. Mother’s-going-to-lock-us-in-the-cellar-and-feed-us-pins dark. Deep, dark, truthful, uncomfortable, almost abrasive at times. It doesn’t have that ‘I’m gonna kick your (metaphysical) teeth in’ vibe that some of my other ‘Dark Decks’ have right off the bat (e.g. the Nigredo Tarot, the Manny Garza Tarot Deck, the Tarot Restless, the Cursed Auguries Tarot). It’s not that obvious darkness. No, this…
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Currently on Kickstarter: The Axiological Tarot
The other deck I’m backing currently is The Axiological Tarot by Silas Plum (the nom de guerre of artist David Zachary Witt). Plum makes weird art (in a good way!), and this is a weird deck, lol, and, once again, I’m struck by how well Tarot works as a medium for what artists want to explore. For example, Plum writes about how, at age 12, he won the East Coast POG tournament – and took home 500 identical cardboard discs as his prize. That moment sparked an obsession: what gives something value? Why do we care about objects that serve no purpose beyond sentiment or symbolism? Why does meaning cling…
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Currently on Kickstarter: The Camena Tarot
I realise I’ve been a bit quiet on the Kickstarter front (tbh I’ve been feeling a but burnt by my experience with the Sinagtala Tarot, which I’m now convinced I’m never gonna get! [edit: I got it :-)] And was very disappointed by Wizards of the Coast being their standard cockwomble selves and blocking the successfully funded Balders Gate 3 Tarot which looked A-MAZING, and they were gonna donate all profits to MSF!) However, I have been continuing to back some little gems behind the scenes – and the vast majority of my KS experiences have been hugely positive! – so I figured it was time to share some of…
