Light Grey Art Lab's Cosmos Tarot and Oracle Set

rwcarter

Mine also arrived today. First thought, "The cards are beautiful." Second thought, "I don't know that I'll be able to read with it."

I was hoping that the companion booklet would help to explain the art as some of the pictures don't seem to jibe to me with the keywords. I quickly gave up any thought that the deck subscribed to any system that I might know.

Two complaints though - 1. I had a devil of a time getting the lid off the box! 2. Whoever designed the interior compartments of the box can't be a tarot reader. 100 cards divided into two stacks means 50 cards per stack. So one stack is 50 tarot cards and the other is 22 oracle cards and 28 tarot cards.

Gonna glance through the companion booklet and I may be back with more thoughts about this deck/set.

Rodney
 

meeka4monty

Hi everyone,

How are you feeling about reading with the deck? I'm really interested!
 

rwcarter

Glanced through the companion booklet last night. I see the astrological associations of the Majors (and therefore interpretations) have been changed around. For example, the Magician is Aries, so his interpretation is more like that of the Emperor.

I do like that the artist's names are in very small print in one corner of the card and their website info is in the booklet. Would that another deck I recently got followed that model....

I wish more had been said about the images themselves though. For example, the Mercury card in the oracle deck - I have no idea what I'm looking at so have no way to tie that image into the interpretations given. I think many of the tarot images can be read intuitively, but the oracle images will need to be read using the keywords on the cards.
 

rwcarter

In compiling the attached chart I realized that my earlier statement isn't quite correct as the tarot deck is using constellation associations instead of astrological associations (planets and zodiac). But it's still going to be a different system to learn. (I had to attach as as image as there's no easy way to create tables in posts.)

ETA: The companion booklet does discuss reversals for both the oracle and tarot decks. Unfortunately, there's no discussion on why they switched the Sun and the Star, so we don't know if it was intentional or a typo.

ETA #2 - I've used the Contact Us link on lightgreyartlab's web page to ask if the Sun/Star switch was intentional or a mistake. Also there doesn't appear to be any additional information about the deck on their web page that's not in the companion book.
 

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rwcarter

Just got confirmation from lightgreyartlab that the Sun/Star switch was done on purpose.

ETA: Those who don't like to see images of harm done to animals should avoid this deck. There are at least three such images in the two decks.
 

meeka4monty

Thank you so much Rwcarter!

It does seem such a system in and of itself and I'm more persuaded that I'll enjoy it. For me, I can imagine myself needing to work with it for a while before feeling we're a team.

It is gorgeous... though I do know some card images I won't love. Ah decisions!

My final question is, as it is its own system, do you (or anyone) feel there's enough representation of the positive and harder more confronting aspects of life?
 

rwcarter

I haven't read enough of the guide book to be able to tell if there's a fairly equal representation of the positive and negative. I can look up specific cards if you want to know if they have a more positive or negative slant to them.
 

treelet

Thank you so much Rwcarter!

It does seem such a system in and of itself and I'm more persuaded that I'll enjoy it. For me, I can imagine myself needing to work with it for a while before feeling we're a team.

It is gorgeous... though I do know some card images I won't love. Ah decisions!

My final question is, as it is its own system, do you (or anyone) feel there's enough representation of the positive and harder more confronting aspects of life?

If you don't care about "spoilers", you can see the art and interpretive text for each card here: http://lightgreyartlab.com/cosmos
 

rwcarter

Got a reply back that they hope to put more info about the relationship between the card images and interpretations up on their website, but haven't had a chance to do that yet.
 

Walrus

Mine arrived in the mail today!
I had pretty much the same initial thoughts as rwcarter: stunning art, but also somewhat daunting on the a whole as a potential reading deck. It's going to take a card by card deck study before I can get to grips with it, I think. You could get by with the keywords on the cards alone I suppose (the keywords are also very unobtrusve which is great), but many cards - even most, it seems, stray from the usual RW meanings. Like others have said, it's basically its own system.

I think it's for that reason that I'm gravitating more towards the oracle deck right now. There's still a lot to absorb, but it's not as overwhelming as the tarot deck.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what the artists have to say about their art choices, too!
Some faves at the moment (from the oracle at least): Sun, Moon, Worm Hole, Quasar and Dark Matter. Dark Matter somehow reminds me of a slice of creamy brown agate. It's just lovely :D

Oh, and yes, the packaging isn't the best to handle, which is a shame because it looks so nice! You have to use your nails to pry the bottom half out from the lid, using enough strength to slide it out while at the same time being gentle so that the cards don't go flying everywhere once the lid pops off. It's not a huge pain to deal with but it does make me wish for one of those boxes with the magnetic lids. Ah well!