Unintentional Review: Starchild Tarot Akashic Edition

So if you look on any social media tarot site you are bound to run into beautifully crafted images of the Starchild Tarot right now.  The images some people take around this deck are stunningly beautiful.  Some credence goes to those who put together the images, but a lot of the beauty stems from the energy of this deck.  Now I didn’t start out writing this thinking it would be a review, just a little blurb in a larger blog post, but my love for this deck took over and it became a full-on review.

Let me just say, this is probably my favorite deck right now.  The colors of the deck really speak to me.  I am definitely a blue/purple/light pink kind of girl.  I just feel a strong vibe and connection with this deck and the images are just gorgeous.

In her review of this deck, Benebell Wen (amazing author of Holistic Tarot) writes that “Female Millennials, especially the young cosmopolitan and urbanite white collar professional variety, seem to love, loooove this tarot deck.”  Raises hand here…  Well, I may not be a traditional Millennial, and I’m not super cosmopolitan, but I can see this deck fitting this category extremely well.  This is a feminine deck if I ever saw one.

The images of hip twenty-somethings fill the deck in ethereal portraits.  I did not think I would be especially drawn to this kind of thing, but after staring at beautiful images of this deck for months and months and months, I finally decided to throw down some dough and purchase myself a copy.  And I am so so glad I did.

But, with that in mind, there are a few qualities about this deck that I do not totally jive with – mainly the size of the deck.  This is a large, almost Oracle size deck.  My little hands have a hard time shuffling due to the size of the cards.  I have to admit, the size in itself is one thing that keeps me from always wanting to pick up this deck when doing a quick reading for myself.  I just don’t want to deal with the amount of focus and time it takes to shuffle.

But the creator of this deck must understand this issue because she is releasing a traditional size version soon that will also be borderless.  Swoon.  I am planning to order this version as soon as it is released.

And even though this deck is difficult to shuffle, I really LOVE the cardstock.  At first, it is very tough, but after you use it a little while it sort of breaks itself in and shuffles really nicely. I should also add that I am a huge fan of the riffle shuffle, so some flexibility is nice in a deck.

Wow, I’m talking about shuffling a lot.  I should probably add that shuffling is my favorite way to get to know a new deck.  I will spend a week or more just handling the deck and transferring my energy to it before I feel ready to use it for any type of readings.  Then it will be another month or so before I will take it out for a client reading.  So how smoothly a deck shuffles is an important feature to me.  I don’t want any rough edges causing cuts on my figures during this “getting to know you” phase.

Speaking of edges, this thing has gilding that is gorgeous.  And it holds up soooo well.  I am very rough on my decks (see about paragraphs on shuffling) and I’ve had some gilding flake off after so much use.  But not these edges.  They have held strong.

And since I am back on the topic about things I love about this deck, one thing that I had never thought about, but has become something important to me through this deck, is the background images.  The cloud-like formations in these cards can act as a sort of scrying tool.  I have been able to pick up images in these backgrounds that can enhance a tarot reading.  Now this is something I look for in other decks, but I have not had the same success scrying in cards as I have with this deck.

The backgrounds of these cards also contain sacred geometry imprinted throughout the images.  This is meant to activate something innate in you while you are looking at the cards.  One thing I think is lacking in the guidebook is some information about sacred geometry.  I know some very broad basics, but it would be nice to have a little more in-depth information about something so pertinent to this deck.  Although I can always just look it up myself, but I am sometimes lazy and like others to do the work for me.

There is just something about this deck that speaks to me.  I resisted liking it for so long, thinking it was too “hip” of a deck for me.  I tend to favor more conservative and traditional decks.  But there is just something about the more recent decks coming out from indie artists that just draws me in (like The Wild Unknown deck, something I tried not to like because of its hipster feel, but absolutely love).

So if you are a female Millennial looking for a new deck, or just someone interested in beautiful artwork, go check out Starchild Tarot.  I believe you can be on the pre-order list for more copies of the Akashic version now, but there is talk about more decks being released in the coming year – including her Moonchild deck which looks equally as scrumptious!