Alta
I have been using it fairly steadily since I got it. The colour palette is appealing and I find the imagery well done and the deck is very readable, imo.
However, I have to say there is one thing that is such a killer for me and all afternoon I have been getting the deck out and trying to overlook it and find that I cannot; the imbalanced courts. Think about it; each tarot suit has 4 courts; we have two genders. Not a difficult division to make. But we have three female courts and one male court in 3 of the suits. It completely invalidates what I think of as court cards and the dynamism of opposing energies. Too much Yin and only a quarter of Yang. I can't get my head round this. Only the Pentacles suits has a male Knight, the other three suits have female Knights. And they don't look like Knights (as in, none of the thrusting dynamism of the suit). All static. So basically female Knights (along with female Pages and female Queens) imbalances the suits of Wands, Cups and swords. Why would one do that? Also, the Knights are indistinguishable from the Pages; you only know because of the title. They could be interchangeable. There's just something not right about the courts and I have been trying to think how I can overcome this because I really rather like the rest of the deck. Furthermore, you see in the Pentacles courts that it is the only set of courts that feels "right" and balanced (fabulous Queen of Pentacles too). The man has a beard and - even though he doesn't have a horse - it feels like the right kind of energy to balance things out. You can tell that the artist - who says in the foreward that he "particularly enjoys creating strong female characters" - just doesn't really like painting men, so they are very much in the background for this deck; lots of women dressed up in male clothing and it feels most acute in the courts (which are hard enough at the best of times).
I have spent along time looking for a deck that has female knights, similar to the cary-yale visconti with the additional female courts included. Thank you Barbara Moore and Aly Fell. I just love the art style, with that it depicts two different eras all in one. I feel which really suits well and feels to me personal more realistic to our times, in a Victorian way. love. Then I decided to be insanely creative and thought out how could I bring a little more masculinity to the deck, balance the imbalance. I will inform you that I did this only for my personal use, this is by no means to disrespect any copyrights whats so ever. I found more of Aly fells art work, used scans of the borders and created these. I did however manipulate some of the images with photoshop, I even included prudence, as we all know prudence is missing from the tarot. Prudence "Practical Wisdom" as opposed to intellectual wisdom, and the high priestess "inner wisdom". I have unnumbered prudence so that she can float anywhere in the deck, like the fool.
these images I show you I did for my own personal use non other. These were not made to abuse copy right by any means. These are meant as additional personal enhancements to this beautifully well done deck IMO.
I'm a bit late to the party as I discovered this deck only recently. I have received it earlier this week and did the first readings with it today - and I' amazed!
It uses a very clear, direct language, there is rarely any guessing why this card has turned up and what it wants to tell me. It's just crystal clear! I love it!
How about those who have already spent more time with it and got to know it better .... is it a deck you use often or do you use it less frequently after the novelty has worn off?