The Lumina Tarot - Deck Review
It was with giddy excitement and somewhat breathless anticipation that I darted out in the pouring rain to collect my parcel from the local post office...naturally, our postman had attempted delivery in the only portion of the day when it would be several more days before I would be in a position to collect from our 'only open at odd hours' collection office, leaving me rather disgruntled that the deck I had been aching to get my mitts on was sat on a shelf rather than being shuffled and pressed into service!
First things first, it's beautifully presented, with the oversized LWB providing a flash of colour, to offset the black and white box which was lovingly wrapped up in tissue paper. The Chakra style mandala on the box itself is beautiful and simple in black and white, giving the deck a classy, 'grown up' feel, before I've even got the lid off the box...
The essential basics - the suits are Cups, Swords, Pentacles, Wands, courts are Maiden, Knight, Queen and King, and there's been (thankfully!) no faffing about with the Majors, which are presented unnumbered. The cards are lightly matt coated affairs of a resilient card stock that will stand up to significant use and handling. They're slightly oversized, measuring in at 5 1/8 inches by 2 7/8 inches (that's 12.9cm x 7.5cm for those of you who embraced decimalisation), presumably to offset the complaint that cards with beautiful art and detail in them (such as the Shadowscapes Tarot) are often too small to appreciate the real beauty in the detail. Consequently the cards are slightly difficult for me to grasp the full deck (even with my large hands and piano fingers) and so I've taken to shuffling them hand-over-hand length-ways rather than width-ways, to avoid spillages. The card backs are black and white, fully reversible, and have the logo from the Inner Hue website as decoration.
The deck design and feel is actually quite tricky to pin down...there are some beautiful human figures in the deck, realistic in their portrayal, as well as animals and nature scenes, in fine detail. It's also a deck that combines some pip-styles with mirrored images that are the same upright and reversed, with other cards, both major and minor, that are detailed scenes in an upright position.
Colour is an amazing part of the deck - either in its absence, such as in cards like Death and the Eight of Cups; sparse use, in dark-background cards like the Tower or the Five of Cups where a flash of colour offsets the darker edginess, or light-background cards like the Seven of Pentacles or the Devil where the colour draws the eye and focuses the attention; right through to cards that radiate light and colour, such as we see in the Three of Wands and the Six of Swords - it's clear that there has been amazing attention to detail in the design and line work, the illustrations are a beautiful meeting of that intricacy with the inspired use of singing, vibrant colour.
Despite all these potentially contrasting elements, a sense of style carries through the deck providing a coherent and exciting journey through both major and minor arcana, and makes for a genuinely thrilling connection with the Tarot, that sometimes can be lost in some other decks that are very 'samey' in their imagery, or stick so rigidly to a single theme, eschewing all others, that they become something of a snooze-fest, one image blurring into the next.
The strap line on the back of the box states that it is "a deck that guides you towards your own luminosity" - how delightful a concept, and how true it is! Life is sometimes colourful and vibrant, sometimes monochrome and stark, but it's those moments of joyous colour that can stick so vividly in our memories - golden pink sunsets, red and yellow ice lollies, spring flowers in green meadows, stark electric blue patterns on the inside of our eyelids after seeing a lightning strike, dark red blood after our first fall from a bike or skates...and this deck captures those flashes, those moments of memory and intuition, and distils them into cards that are inspiring, challenging, and beautifully rewarding in their resonance.
Special mention from the deck goes to several of the court cards that are 'pulling a Timberlake' and distinctly bringing sexy back. The Knight of Wands, in his exuberant flashiness and self-confidence, and the Knight of Cups, caught almost unawares in his moment of moonlit reverence, are two fine examples of this, where intuition gets shoved momentarily aside while ego has a bit of a gawp at their exquisite loveliness, before stammering back into contention - this is exactly the reaction these forces of nature should be able to muster with the boldness and daring, their vigour and daring-do. Too often court cards are ill-portrayed, struggling to induce any kind of feeling or connection, but not so with this deck, whose lithe and sensual, stocky and stoic, and awkwardly enigmatic figures genuinely inspire a curiosity and connection that is all-too-rarely felt in Tarot.
Similarly, cards like Death, with it's tattoo-like arrangement of skull, snake and...well...snakeskin cornucopia, are a joy to behold (even if it makes my left eye water a bit!); the Aces (which are all just splendiferous in their presentation) so simple and yet so deep as to make my little heart sing with joy; the darkly delicious Five of Pentacles with it's stunningly realistic rotten apple motif; and the Hierophant - so often a source of a 'meh!' reaction from me, but instead wants me to relive an Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom moment and shout "Kali-Ma!" - are only a handful of the cards that I could cheerfully frame, as they provide a wonderful connection and insight into the decks inner workings!
The accompanying book is not so much a LWB - it's a soft-backed, colour-bound affair with 187 black and white pages, giving lots of lovely information about the art in each card, card meanings (both upright and reversed), and some example spreads to get the novice reader started! It's detail in the card descriptions and meanings extends far beyond LWB standards, and is a great primer for the deck, offering insight into the artwork, messages and expression through the cards!
Critics of the deck might point out the lack of body and ethnic diversity in the human images, where they are almost exclusively white, slim/toned and alluring in their appearance, but I have to say (no doubt giving my white privilege a bit of exercise) it doesn't really bother me, as I'm rather enamoured of the colours and the interaction of nature imagery with the various characters.
Finally, such as can happen with independent printing processes, two of my cards came with scuffed/scored coating on the reverse of the cards. I wasn't particularly concerned by it, but mentioned it in passing to one of the ladies at Inner Hue, just in case it was something they needed to take note of with the printers...and Lauren, like some kind of stealthy tarot ninja, jumped straight on the case, declaring the situation as being "a bit crap!", and immediately offered to post out replacement cards for the 2 that weren't perfect! Absolutely excellent service, which is great news for the overall longevity of my deck, and puts my mind at ease with handling them, going forwards!
The Lumina Tarot is a genuinely heartfelt project. You can see, and feel, the love and energy that's gone into their creation. Lauren's love of the tarot really shines out through the cards, and makes this deck very rewarding to use for client readings, forging an instant intuitive connection straight out of the box that has delighted my clients with something positive and unique, and I cannot recommend them highly enough to novice or experienced reader alike, whether for daily use or simply adding to a tarot collection and appreciating them for their beauty.
The Lumina Tarot is self-published by the gorgeously smashing Lauren Aletta of Inner Hue and the giddily talented Tegan Swyny of Colour Cult, and the images are courtesy of, and © the same. The deck is available from the Inner Hue website
