Soul Trees Oracle Cards - Deck Review

This deck was something of a reach for me...I really like the look of the cards that I'd seen, but I wondered just how much mileage there was in 74 cards of painted trees. It's very interesting to see how an artist can pull differing energies, personalities and designs from trees, to reflect the various card names that have been selected, and, ultimately, produce an Oracle deck that is light, positive and pleasantly focused, not giving in to too much 'woo' or a lack of groundedness.

Starting with the basics, the deck is a comfortable hand size, at 2 3/4 by 4 3/4 inches (7cm by 12cm). The cards are a good stock, with a light shine coating, making them easy to shuffle, but controllable. The deck backs are fully reversible, showing a purple tree outline reflected around the centre of the card. The deck has rounded corners, and is provided in a standard tuck box, and comes with a purple pouch in a light material, just the right size for storing the deck in.

It's quite a large Oracle deck, with 74 cards in total, divided loosely into 3 'types' - 7 chakra cards, 11 'interpretation' cards and 56 Soul Tree cards. The interpretation cards are bolder coloured cards, different interpretations of the same tree, while the 56 Soul Tree cards are different trees, all done in the same artistic style, but with some quite startling differences between them. The chakra cards are very similar to the Soul Tree cards, but they have an added swirl of energy, and they are portrayed in the colours of the various chakras that they represent.

With cards like Adventure, Inner Power, Honour Yourself, Earth, Compassion, and The Beginning, the cards cover a very wide variety of aspects and areas, allowing for a wide berth of interpretations and combinations. The Interpretation cards feel harder or more stark in their energies, covering areas like Risk, Resistance and Passion.

This is a deck whose colour scheme and energies mightn't blend well with other decks, if you're a tandem reader...perhaps one of the faerie tarot or oracle decks, or one with bolder colours, or perhaps a black and white deck to really contrast against the vibrancy...but so far I've not found one that it blends well with, without feeling too jarring - it's subtle energies either being overwhelmed by the other deck, or its colour scheme shouting far beyond its usual quiet guidance and wisdom, so caution there with the blending of this deck with others that you might read with!

The decks LWB is teeny tiny, at just 8 pages, with a couple of tips on drawing cards and layouts, and giving a couple of lines of guidance on each card, as well as explaining the difference between the three 'families' of cards that are in the deck. It's enough to get you started, but I must admit here, I would have loved a little bit of extra information about how the artist felt to portray the various cards in the way that she has, talking us through her inspiration or guidance.

A surprisingly pleasant deck that reached far beyond my initial expectations, and one that I can recommend heartily to oracle readers who love nature imagery, and who would be similarly fascinated by the different aspects of the humble tree!