pippi said:
How exciting! Looking forward to your thoughts on the deck. And dare I ask for a few scans? (she asks sheepishly)
Your wish is my command.....
Here is a scan of the back and a few of the cards, if you'd like one more upclose, let me know.
Overall, the book is informative and gives some great spreads such as the Shield (To use if feeling threatened or anxious) to the Cauldron to the Triskale (sp?) and the Mistletoe spread. I like having new spreads to use not only for this oracle, but for my other decks as well and it will be interesting to experiment with them all using these spreads.
The linen bag is brown with what looks like a 32 count linen, it has the salmon celtic mandala silkscreened in black with burlap type twine for cords to drawstring the bag with. It's nice and houses the cards nicely. Since I cross stitch, I plan to cross stitch my name on the bag "one of these days" to personalize it more.
The Mandala book looks interesting and it will be neat to color and focus on and think about the meaning of the mandala as the book gives some insight into that.
The cards are round (as you can see from the scans) and represents four areas (Totem, land, people/deity/ and things/objects of importance) The cards are thin, but the lamination isn't too sticky or annoying. I would be careful shuffling them as they appear to be flimsy, but they don't bend with careful shuffling.
The artwork looks like a watercolor/colored pencil/ mixed media type as I see newspaper print on some of the artwork as if the artist painted on newspaper. It adds to the shading effect.
My only complaint with some of the cards is the black dark font used to describe the card, on one of them it almost blends in with the dark background and as I'm getting older, it was hard to see, but it didn't take away from the oracle deck or reading from it.
The first reading I did with it was informative (I used the Shield spread) so I will be looking out for what it said there.
Overall, I'm pleased with the oracle, the artwork is nice and I love the mandala coloring aspect of it. The little bag is sturdy, but a bit rough, which just adds to the pre-celtic days type of thing.
I would recommend it, even though I don't want to enable anyone....heh heh......
If I can provide another scan or answer any questions, let me know. When I'm on my next break from school, I might offer some readings with it, but it depends on what's going on in my life at that time.
Hope this helps!
