Tarot Thrones | The Court Card Blog

Tag: uusi

  • Book Review | Notes From The Pagan Otherworld Tarot | Uusi Studios

    photo © uusi studio
     

    Towards the end of 2016, I backed the Kickstarter campaign by Uusi Studios to create the Pagan Otherworld Tarot.  The resulting deck is a delight to use – both in its imagery and card stock quality – and I reviewed it here.

    After the deck was created, Uusi announced that there would be an accompanying book* to buy from the Uusi store.


    Did I buy it?

    *waggles book at the reader*  Of course I did!

    So, what can I tell you about it….

    The book, written by the deck’s creators – Linnea Gits and Peter Dunham of Uusi Studios – is square, which is a cute detail, and measures 6″ x 6″. The pages are not numbered.  Now, much as I love you, I am not sitting counting the pages of a book.  *pauses to think* Or I could just be a smarty-pants and head on over to their website to see how many pages it has … and there you go, 210 pages.

    Inside, there is an introduction by Linnea and Peter and the remaining body of the book is divided into sections – The Seeker, The Majors, each of the suits, and finally the Luna cards.

    Each card image is presented in black and white on the left-hand page, with its explanation on the opposite page.  This arrangement makes referring to the book very convenient. The card explanations reveal the deck’s creators’ insights about the cards – often shining a light on the symbolism within the image.  The occasional card takes more than one page to outline and when you flip over to read the rest, you get an additional image – detail from the card.

    For 83 of the 84 cards (not The Seeker) there are also 3 key words provided. They are good representations of what the cards are about and won’t cause any fainting fits.  For example: The Sun – success, recommendation, manifestation.  However, not everything is entirely as expected, The Hanged Man, for example, whom I mostly associate with surrender and sacrifice is keyworded with: ‘outsider’, ‘misunderstandings’ and ‘enlightenment’.   Likewise, The Star has ‘prophecy’, ‘realisation’ and ‘harmony’.  Different, but not baffling! So another up-tick from me.

    Since we are all about the Courts here at Tarot Thrones, I have to say that I am pleased with the royal family entries.  Their strangely pagan, otherworldly garb is explained and their characters fleshed out.

    Here’s a snippet from the entry of the King of Wands: “His entire person is a compass point from which others may obtain their bearing – and like the lion at his feet, feel safe and allowed to be who they are.”

    This fits very much with my notion of the King of Wands – someone charismatic and attractive, around whom the world makes sense of itself 🙂

    The cards that I was most interested in reading about were the entries for the cards that are not found with any other decks – the Seeker and Luna cards.

    The Seeker’s entry is presented at the beginning of the book and I’m happy to see that he does indeed represent the querant.  Good guess on my part! I love decks that have got unique Significator cards – saves all the hassle of taking a precious card out of your deck (and thus negating its chances of coming up within the reading).  If you do too, take a look at Dame Fortune’s Tarot Wheel.

    The Luna cards are added towards the end of the book and explains how to interpret them.  For example:  The Waxing Crescent Moon’s keywords are:  ‘attraction’, ‘gathering’ and intentions.  Very nice!

    Here’s the $64million question: Do you NEED the book in order to read with the deck?

    No, you don’t.  BUT, if you want to get the very best out of a deck, I believe that it’s important to know what the deck’s creators envisaged when they designed the deck in the way that they have.   And this book does give you that insight.

    * Now in its second edition.

  • Deck Review | Pagan Otherworlds Tarot

    Sometimes I sign up for Kickstarter Tarot campaigns and forget all about them until a little package plops onto the doormat many months later. No such casual forgetfulness with the Pagan Otherworlds Tarot by Uusi in the US.

    TABI backed this particular deck and I thought that it was worth a personal punt too, so my deck arrived and gosh – is it love at first sight or what?!

    The tuck box is beautiful, using the same pattern that is found on the rear of the cards.  Whereas the box has subtle glinting gold highlights, the card back is glint-free.  That’s probably a cost thing and anyway, who really looks at the back of cards when the front is so pretty?

    This is not a 78-card deck, we have ADDITIONAL cards, namely a Seeker card and five phases of the moon.  Since the deck doesn’t come with a LWB, one can put whatever emphasis you like on the use of these cards!

    Waxing lyrical

    The Seeker card makes a natural significator card – sparing you the dilemma of whether to filch a court card out and thereby taking it out of circulation for the reading.

    The moon phase cards DO have slightly glittery highlights which adds to their specialness.  These cards could be removed for general 78-card deck work and included when some sort of time element was required? Or perhaps to add clarification as to what phase the client’s situation might be:

    new moon = just beginning
    waxing moon = gathering strength
    full moon = at its strongest
    waning moon = losing strength
    dark moon = completed

    Suits are Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles and the courts are Page, Knight, Queen and King – as you can see in the video below.

    There is no particular colour associated with any suit and the overall palette is warm in tone and muted in shade, with all the characters presented against a barely-there blue sky.

    There are animals associated with some of the suits – lions for Wands for example.  I do query why the King of Pentacles wears a ram head-dress when he’s associated with Taurus, whilst the Queen wears her Capricorn horns a-ok …. and doesn’t the Knight of Pentacles look like a painting of Napoleon?!

    It is a really lovely set of Minor Arcana cards.  There are no human figures in any of the Minors, but that is not to suggest that this is a set of ‘Marseille’ unillustrated pips!  Here we have elements of the Rider Waite Smith crafted into the card along with the requisite number of suit symbols.  It’s a kind of hybrid and I think that it works beautifully.

    My scanner is not managing to capture the creamy off-white tones of the card stock, I’m afraid.

    As far as the Majors go, everything is titled as you would expect and has Justice at XI and Strength at VIII.

    The card stock is beautifully slippy with a linen finish and it’s a joy to use.

    Is it perfect? Almost!  The only thing that I have a quibble with are the one or two of the heads and faces.  I find there is an occasional awkwardness about one or two of them – for example, the Page of Cups (see video).

    I’ve been using them the past week for my daily draws on the Tarot Thrones facebook page.  You’re not ‘liking’ me there yet?! Come on over and see what’s there!

    That said, it does not detract from my enjoyment of the Pagan Otherworlds Tarot one jot.  I adore the classical otherworldly illustrations. Are they medieval-inspired? Renaissance inspired?  It doesn’t matter, get yourself a copy and get ready to join the fan club.

    To buy your own copy:  Visit Uusi
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