Review: The Gaian Tarot

It’s been quite a while since I came to discover that one of my favorite earth-spirituality based artists was working on a deck.  Joanna Powell Colbert does some wonderful art, some that many people would be familiar with from articles in magazines like SageWoman.  Two of my favorites are her images of Brighid and the Holly King.

So when I heard about the Gaian Tarot quite a while back I was really interested in finding out more about it.  At the time she had only completed the images for the Major Arcana and a collectors edition of the majors were available through her website.  I bookmarked the page and tossed around the idea of purchasing them for months.  They were around $80 dollars, which I didn’t think was terribly unreasonable for a self-published piece that was so beautiful.  But it’s very rare that I use the majors alone and I knew that I’d want them for more than just altar devotional and meditation work.  So I decided to wait, especially after she explained on her site that she was in the process of  creating the cards for the Minor Arcana.  I waited, checking back on her site from time to time, and finally, last year my waiting paid off.  The minors were done and Joanna was preparing the deck for mass publication!  I was excited, anxious to get my hands on them, but then it turned out that the deck wouldn’t be out until September of 2011!  Egads!  No!!!  Joanna was fortunate enough to have a plan worked out with Llewellyn, who will be publishing the deck next year, which would allow her to create and sell1,000 decks in a special edition run.  As soon as I got the message from her email list I went right away to purchase one.

This is where a turn of events, a very interesting one, takes place that just shows you that sometimes even something that seems so silly as a deck of tarot cards is just meant to be and the Universe will make sure it happens as it should.

I go the site and start filling out the information to be able to pay for the cards over four payments between the fall and winter with the deck planning to ship by Ostara.  The deck was $245, something that I knew was worth the money given what it was and the fact that it was self-published, but part of me was hesitant.  Right before I was about to hit the button to pay for the first payment I could hear my husband in the back of my head yelling at me for not only purchasing yet another deck but for spending almost $250 on it.  So I left the page, not paying, and deciding that it might be best for me to wait until the deck came out in 2011.  A few weeks pass and I get a “thank you” package in the mail from Joanna and I find myself a little confused because I knew I didn’t pay for that first payment.  So I email her and explain what I think happened and, at first, planning to offer to mail the gift back and just leave it at that but before I could stop myself I saw that I had typed out that I would like to purchase the deck and where do I go to pay.  I went with it, sent the email and a little while later got an email back from her with the details on what to do.  All I can say is I’m glad that twist of fate happened because this was the deck I was meant to have.

So, now for the deck itself.

The special edition comes with your option of either large 4X6 cards or smaller 3.5X5.25 cards.  I opted for the larger cards for two reasons.  First, I know that when the mass produced deck comes out I’ll purchase a copy so that I have one that will either become my regular version of this deck that I’ll read with or it will serve as a backup for when the time comes that I decide to set these down so they don’t get ruined.  Secondly, I do enjoy the larger decks for meditation and devotional work.  This deck begs to be used as more than a divination tool, so I wanted the larger cards knowing that smaller ones would be readily available in the future.  I know a lot of people have a hard time with shuffling cards that are outside of the normal tarot deck size but since I work with several larger decks (the Druidcraft Tarot, for example, which I love) I already had a large card shuffling method and wasn’t worried.

The feel of the cards is like nothing else.  Everything in the collectors edition of the cards are produced in a green manner.  The cards are printed  on recycled paper with soy based ink and the coating is a water-based coating called aqueous coating.  When you hold these cards and you run your fingers on them they feel like you’d expect a tarot decked named after Gaia should feel; it’s earthy and solid but has a loving gentleness about it.  The art on the back of the cards is just as beautiful as the art on the front of them. 

Backart on tarot cards is something that, in my opinion, is so often negelcted, but Joanna created something with the backs of the cards that just radiates peace and earthly blessings with the image of entwined lavender, sage, cedar and sweetgrass.  The colors are bright yet soft and the images, even the more traditionally treacherous ones, still hold a feeling of hope and peace to them.

The set up of the deck is one that will certainly appeal to those who might be more “new age” inclined, but that’s not to say there is anything fluffy about the deck!  There are many people who have a hard time with the more ceremonial aspects of traditional tarot, and even many of the art decks are nothing more than mere clones of the Rider-Waite Smith deck.  Joanna has taken the concept of the RWS and rather than cloned it, placed the principles in a world of earth-based  spirituality from start to finish.  Some cards have taken on differ

ent names and slightly different images, but the meanings are still there.  For example, rather than The Tower, the signal of major life-altering changes that often come swift and sudden, Joanna gives us Lightning, with a beautiful image of lightning striking a large tree with a person being thrown from the impact.  I can’t help but wonder if this is the person who is hanging from a tree in a state of stagnation or suspension in the card The Tree (Joanna’s replacement for The Hanged Man), suddenly being forced to stop “hanging around”.  Another wonderful switch was with The Devil card which now comes in the form of Bindweed which holds many of the same ideas as The Devil, those of oppression and bondage, with the image of a person seemingly frustrated by being tied up among a patch of the vines (and for anyone that has ever lived in the country and had to deal with this stuff, especially if you’ve had to watch it attacking your house or your other plants, you know what a pain it can be and how hard it can be to get out from under).  It’s a wonderful and appropriate replacement for a card that many people just don’t understand; this card makes the messages that The Devil are trying to present more palatable for many people.

The other changes include the suits.  Here you’ll have Air for Swords, Earth for Pentacles, Water for Cups and Fire for Wands.  The court cards also change a bit and the genders are not as rigid as in the RWS deck and many of the clones.  Here you’ll see men and woman exchanging roles as the Princes are replaced by the Child of each element, Knights are Explorers, Queens are Guardians and Kings are Elders.  Their messages come across in a similar way to the traditional tarot ones but with a little twist depending on how you view gender in the tarot.

The collectors limited edition comes with the deck size of your choice, a beautiful handmade (dyed and sewn) bag for the cards, a small pouch of blessing herbs (which I personally have been using the scent to center myself before using these cards) and an amulet of your choice from any of the cards in the deck.  One of my favorite images from the cards is that of The Priestess (The High Priestess) which shows her as both maiden and crone.  The amulet came tied to the bag and, quite honestly, I think that’s where it will stay.  It just feels like it belongs there.

The other wonderful thing that you get with the set is the companion book.  Usually the book that comes with a deck doesn’t get more than a small glancing from me, but this book gives you stuff to actually DO with your cards, ways to explore with them that include meditations and journaling exercises that ma

ke reading the book really worthwhile.  Honestly, I wish all companion books would have this much in them!

In the end you get an amazing deck of card that really are more than just something to divine with, it’s a tool for meditation, for spellwork, for ritual.  It’s a tool for working on really understanding yourself.  I was surprised to find some of the cards that really made me stop when I was going through the deck the first time.  I have never been very drawn to any other version of The Hermit before but the one in Joanna’s deck is honestly one of my favorites I’ve ever seen and it’s one of my favorite cards in the deck.

Without any doubt a lot of love went into the creation of the deck and the collectors packages.  Images on Joanna’s Facebook page show the work that she and her community did to put together and package the sets to ship out to everyone and you can feel the energy jump off those pictures and you certainly could feel it when you opened the package when it arrived!

If you are able to purchase this limited edition version of the deck, I would urge you to do it right away.  It is amazing and something that I think anyone following an earth-based path should have.  If you’ve never taken to the tarot before this could very well be the deck that does it for you!  It’s a gentle deck but it’s a deck that isn’t afraid to still show you the firm, tough love messages either.  For me this is personally a gentle deck, especially when you hold it in comparison to my “heavy hitting” decks I use like

the Necronomicon deck or Crowley’s Thoth deck.  But this will become a regular deck for me, whether it’s for reading for myself, for others, or for meditation.  I can promise you’ll not see me without this deck in my Mary Poppins bag of tricks for many, many years to come!

You can find out more about Joanna Powell Colbert and the Gaian Tarot online at:
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Gaian Tarot
Gaian Tarot Majors
Gaian Tarot Minors
Gaian Tarot Collectors Edition

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