I stumbled across this deck while surfing the net pouring over various Tarot sites, which is pretty normal for me to do on a daily basis.

After looking at the web site and a couple of examples of the cards I quickly ordered the deck from Anna. She is great to deal with and the cards were soon on their way, the first she has sold to an Aussie!

The word that immediately jumps to mind when I looked at the deck for the first time was Texture, these cards really have an amazing feeling to them they are deep and warm. The detail of each card is impressive and it must have been such a labour of love to complete this complete deck.

Some of the cards that I am drawn to in this deck due to the interesting artistic interpretation are; the 8 of Pentacles. In the RW (Rider-Waite) deck there is an older man working away at his craft, he has mastered it (represented by the seven completed pentacles hanging behind him) and is now producing a fine product. In Anna’s card there is still a Master, but he is not the one wielding the hammer, he is teaching a young boy his craft.

A grumpy and dissatisfied (and well feed) man sits at a table surrounded by three happy and beautiful women serving him his banquet dinner in the 4 of Cups card. The main character is totally unimpressed by his surroundings and fails to see how lucky he is or what he indeed has compared to others. This is the message of the 4 of Cups and Anna depicts it wonderfully. This has a much more grounded application than the RW deck, which shows a hand appear out of a cloud displaying the object of the characters apathy.

The Lovers is another card with a great twist, in most decks the lovers are young and in some decks are rather lustful (not that there is anything wrong with that!) while in this deck the couple are greying and look perfectly at peace and comfortable in their relationship. The traditional meaning for the Lovers is about bringing opposing forces together and balancing polarities and I am sure that this is still something that people who have been together a life time sometimes have to work on as well.

One of my favourite interpretations that Anna has done of the cards is the 8 of Swords, a woman in fine clothing looks into a full length mirror and what she sees is her reflection trapped and bound with no escape. Considering the Sword suite is an air suite, dealing with mental issues (as well as others) this is a brilliant representation of how we can trap ourselves or be mentally in a place of pain and confusion while not letting the outside world (or ourselves a time, DENIAL anyone) know. I wonder what we would truly see if there was a mirror that existed in the world.

Anna wrote the accompanying book, which she offers in English in PDF as the book that comes with the deck is in German. There are two versions, one is an A4 version and the other can be printed off and cut to fit the box, like the accompanying German booklet. I have said this before and I will say it again, you get so much more working with the deck if you have the book that was written by the artist. A lot of people will never look at the books but if you like to know why an artist has included a certain symbol or what that card personally means to them then always get the book, even if you don’t use their interpretations in your own readings.

Anna has created an extraordinary independent Tarot deck which is a delight in a over saturated and often shallow market.