I have been collecting tarot decks for the last several years. Although the decks are all considered "traditional" the themes of the pictures/artwork are sometimes not to my taste. This deck uses beautifully done photos of stones and gems with each photo showing outstanding examples of each stone often in multiple stages from natural to fully cut/faceted and finished.
Rocks and gemstones have always drawn my attention and this special deck includes not only the more traditional card interpretations but the influences of the stones pictured, matching rather well the stone to the card. I now have the deck at work and draw a card each morning, reviewing the stone and card interpretations then leaving it standing next to my computer monitor to meditate on through the day.
The deck so intriged some of my fellow employees that they got their own deck and get together on their break each day to draw a card each and discuss the stones in terms of what is going on in their lives.
It has been interesting to watch people who might have been intimidated by a "tarot" deck walk by and want to join the discussion, drawn by the stones and the stone lore being discussed.
The card titles state the name of the gemstone & the name of the corresponding card. The small booklet has excellent descriptions/keywords for the meanings. Since there are no standard tarot figures, it does take some time to learn the crystals. For people that find tarot unnerving- this should be an acceptable way of learning the lore of both. I also use them as a gemstone-only oracle because other oracles don't include as many gemstones. The 16 stones unique to this set are: silex(red jasper), purpurite, alexandrite, ametrine, gold, silver, iron, zoisite w/ruby, tiger iron, fire opal, copper, chalcedony, pink coral, dumortierite, platinum, & spinel. Note: coelstine is celestite/celestine.
