Trogon
So, last week I worked with the Sacred Circles Tarot as my deck of the week. I really enjoyed working with the Sacred Circle Tarot and found it to be very easy to read with. As I now have a few other photo-collage type decks, working with this one was not a difficult transition to make. Overall, the deck had a nice physical feel to it, much the same as my other Llewellyn decks. I find that most Llewellyn decks feel slightly thinner than some other decks, but they're not flimsy. The cards are a bit wider than some, perhaps approaching the width of the old Thoth deck (Swiss printing).
As I said, the deck is a photo-collage deck and is beautifully done. The Majors have photos of people in Celtic-style garb, pasted over beautiful photos of various Henges and other such sacred sites. To these are added various animals and plants which have significance in Celtic traditions. The Minor Arcana are minimally illustrated, usually with the appropriate number of items (Cups, Swords, etc.) and some plants, laid over a backdrop of a sacred site.
For the most part, the deck follows the RWS system fairly closely. Though the names of some of the Major Arcana have been changed, such as The Lady and The Lord for The Empress and Emperor, and The Warrior in place of Strength. Although the names are changed, the meanings tend to still follow RWS tradition closely enough that I had no trouble using this deck. An interesting thing with the photos of the people is it gives the deck a very "real" feel for the people pictured. With paintings, I sometimes feel that, while it is very representative of the archetype, they still feel rather surreal. With the photos, I feel a bit more connected because they are real people.
One thing on the Minors that I like is that the borders reflect the suit of the card ... rather the element of that suit. So Cups have a border that looks like water, Swords' borders look like clouds, while vines appear on the Discs and fire on the Wands. I found this gave a nice visual feel to the card and much better than a plainer border. The Minors all have a keyword printed at the top. I wasn't sure how I would do working with that, but I actually found them to be quite useful triggers since the Minors don't have the normal RWS-type illustrations. (The Rohrig Tarot also has such keywords and I work well with that, so I guess this shouldn't have been such a surprise!
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The daily readings I did during the week flowed very easily and I was able to gain some good insights into the day. The Majors and Minors flowed together very well in the readings. I also had one day where I didn't get to do my regular 3-card reading, and so pulled a single card ... I was able to actually gain a lot from that single card. So, I did find the deck very easy to use and very intuitive. Definitely a keeper!
As I said, the deck is a photo-collage deck and is beautifully done. The Majors have photos of people in Celtic-style garb, pasted over beautiful photos of various Henges and other such sacred sites. To these are added various animals and plants which have significance in Celtic traditions. The Minor Arcana are minimally illustrated, usually with the appropriate number of items (Cups, Swords, etc.) and some plants, laid over a backdrop of a sacred site.
For the most part, the deck follows the RWS system fairly closely. Though the names of some of the Major Arcana have been changed, such as The Lady and The Lord for The Empress and Emperor, and The Warrior in place of Strength. Although the names are changed, the meanings tend to still follow RWS tradition closely enough that I had no trouble using this deck. An interesting thing with the photos of the people is it gives the deck a very "real" feel for the people pictured. With paintings, I sometimes feel that, while it is very representative of the archetype, they still feel rather surreal. With the photos, I feel a bit more connected because they are real people.
One thing on the Minors that I like is that the borders reflect the suit of the card ... rather the element of that suit. So Cups have a border that looks like water, Swords' borders look like clouds, while vines appear on the Discs and fire on the Wands. I found this gave a nice visual feel to the card and much better than a plainer border. The Minors all have a keyword printed at the top. I wasn't sure how I would do working with that, but I actually found them to be quite useful triggers since the Minors don't have the normal RWS-type illustrations. (The Rohrig Tarot also has such keywords and I work well with that, so I guess this shouldn't have been such a surprise!
)The daily readings I did during the week flowed very easily and I was able to gain some good insights into the day. The Majors and Minors flowed together very well in the readings. I also had one day where I didn't get to do my regular 3-card reading, and so pulled a single card ... I was able to actually gain a lot from that single card. So, I did find the deck very easy to use and very intuitive. Definitely a keeper!
