- The Moon Dust Tarot
- Author & Artist: Florance Saul
- Publisher: Watkins (2023, London, UK)
- RRP: UK £30 US $40 CAN $54
- ISBN: 978-1-78678-745-3
- Reviewed by Diana McMahon Collis (www.mindbliss.co.uk)
Anyone fascinated by the Moon will be in for a treat with this tarot deck set. Florance Saul is also the author of the Moon Dust Dream Dictionary, and her Moon Dust Tarot deck’s imagery reflects a dreamy state of mind, offering ethereal imagery in heavenly colours of purple, lilac, pink, turquoise, white and gold. There is sea and sky imagery in many of the cards but you will also find plenty of figures of people, as well as a few animals, in the often hypnotic visual narratives.
The deck has a decidedly digital look to the art work, with a collage feel to it, but with careful blending of the images and backgrounds, reflective of the author’s extensive experience of working with digital imagery. Digital artwork won’t be the first choice for every tarot reader but, personally, I don’t mind it in tarot cards, so long as the imagery speaks to me in some meaningful way, which this does. I would say the greatest benefit is that the deck has a visual ‘feelgood’ factor, which literally makes you feel quite calm when using it! I tried reading this deck on various occasions and, each time, felt better after carrying out the reading, no matter which cards I turned over, and even when I was in a less than happy state on starting out. So, never mind that I perhaps turned over the Tower, the Death card or the 5 of Swords – no sweat there. Of course, as a long-term reader of tarot, I am aware such cards can have decidedly positive meanings in the right context, but many readers would agree that we’re stretching it with some of the Swords cards on a bad day! Not so here, as I had the decided sense of ‘this too shall pass’ with any tricky moment the cards might have been reflecting back at me. I would say that is quite remarkable!
What was maybe a little harder to work with was the very glossy feel of the cards. Glossy can be lovely to look at – I do like a shine to some of my card decks and, arguably, it lifts the colour in art work like this. But it somehow added a challenge to being able to shuffle the deck easily and spread the cards smoothly – perhaps in a fan or row, for example, face down. Then also picking individual cards from the deck was tricky; another card might stick to the one selected, which made for rather clunky handling. I was also noticing some ‘bend’ appear in the deck after a period of time and wondered if the glossy nature of the cards influenced this – but cannot be sure. Such issues may, however, resolve themselves in time.
Any physical issues aside, I definitely enjoyed working with this deck for my own readings. And feel the cards would be equally useful for meditative purposes. What struck me as quite interesting was that I preferred a lot of the minor card images to the major arcana selection. It can so often be the opposite, where the minors seem hard to differentiate from one another, within the same suit – unless strongly adhering to a Rider Waite style of visual narrative. But in this case it was the other way around and I found some of the major cards a little on the wishy washy side, whilst the minors were really reaching through and telling marvellous stories! I imagine each reader will make of that what they will. To me, I know the major cards so well – being the cards you tend to learn first – that it almost doesn’t matter if they don’t stand out markedly in a deck. But there were some strong major images, too, notably Strength (funnily enough) and the High Priestess, with a stunning ‘phases-of-the-Moon’ head piece adorning her platinum blonde puff of hair.
The attractive backs of the cards feature the Moon’s rays in delicate gold shards on a purple, lilac and yellow sky with the gilding extended to the edges of the cards giving them a precious, luxurious quality. If I was going to be slightly picky about other details, I would say that these cards size up quite large for handling the entire deck at once for shuffling, especially if your hands are on the smaller size. Their size might surprise you if you’re used to opening a box where the cards are a little smaller than the box proportions; it isn’t so in this case and, given fairly sturdy card stock, this deck could create a yoga-stretch effect in the shuffling process!
Many of the visual factors are beautifully clear and register well at first glance, although, if being super fussy, maybe a few of the arty details could have been drawn (or sized) a little more strongly in some of the pictures. For example, in the Seven of Wands I was finding it hard to pick the thin wands out from the grey ribbons around them, which seemed more predominant, and also as two wands appear on the floor – which I hadn’t at first noticed; I’d just thought they were missing in the overall count. But the overall theme of the imagery is quite powerful and very positive in this card; it turned out to be one of my personal favourites! I felt that even an old hand could learn something new from a card like this, so would urge readers to study and learn each image until it speaks to them more fully.
This is where meditation on the cards could be a useful exercise, rather than assuming you’ll just go in and start ‘reading’ right away. In the Ten of Wands, for instance, the woman doesn’t look overly burdened by her bouquet, until you realise it’s a bit cumbersome due to its length – and that the theme of burden is emphasised especially in the very copious dress she’s wearing, with its massive train – reminiscent of a society bride having photos taken in the grounds of a remote Scottish castle! As with many of the images, this one has a certain wafty beauty that evokes something powerful on the emotional level.
Three are nods to cultural inclusivity in the figures depicted, across the deck, particularly variations in skin and hair colours; regarding gender, a few cards feature women together, but men are generally out on their own, or in heterosexual pairings. The characters tend to mostly be uniformly slim, pretty or handsome – the 10 of Swords is an exception, with the suggestion that having gained weight places her at her lowest point! I also didn’t notice many older characters depicted, making it feel like a set of stories about younger people with a lot of life ahead of them. I wondered whether the wisdom of age was being ignored, somehow and what messages that was giving. But perhaps it reflects something of the times we live in, in our post-Covid, eco-survivalist world.
I would draw attention to the promise of the deck and guidebook, given on the little book’s front cover: “to activate ethereal lunar magic”. I worked with this deck across a month before writing this review, and had some very powerful dream experiences, evoking strong feelings, and connecting with aspects of the past that needed to be healed.
The guidebook style, paperback booklet accompanying this deck is substantial – as is the box they arrive in, which, personally, I found a little on the hefty side, at least as a reader who likes to carry their card set complete, in travels. It will certainly help keep the cards and booklet protected, however. The booklet has the proportions of a mini book – the type of little ‘pocket’ book you might pick up in a gift shop as a small gift for yourself or a friend. There is a good deal of information given within, including an inspiring or meaningful poem, or quotation/conversation excerpt for each card, along with key words, basic upright and reversed concepts, and a longer, thoughtful reflection on the significance of each card. As a writer of such tarot set booklets, I was delighted to see the trend continuing to include much more in a boxed set than the old, ‘Little White Books’ we were used to! Within this generous, mini-book format, I found fresh takes on many of the cards – always nice to see. It’s so easy to see the same old set of interpretations offered, and we do need some familiarity, in my opinion, to be sure we all understand the common ground of tarot, but it’s also refreshing to be offered a slightly different angle on certain themes. The general style of the writing appears to offer a sense of process with whatever each card might be turned for you. If you have any attraction to the Moon – which personally, I do, not least in writing a column that focuses on the Moon’s lunations for The Mountain Astrologer magazine – I’d say this deck is a must-buy! Don’t expect to find a heap of textual or factual information about the Moon, it’s cycles and so forth, though; this set is really more about feelings, moods and a visual evocation of how we might relate to lunar energy. Not all Moon-based oracle or tarot decks convey something powerful that you can really feel a connection with, but I found this one does.
All in all, this is an attractive tarot set, with sufficient information for beginner readers, and enough interest for more seasoned tarot fans to get a lot of good detail, meaning and pleasure from it. More of the card images can be seen at the author’s website.
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