Deck: Emerging From Darkness
Writer & Artist: Robin L. Cole
Publisher: Self-Published
Overall Rating: 6/10
Cardstock: These cards are standard tarot sized with a semi-matte texture, and they riffle shuffle pretty well. The edges are gilded in a silver glitter but after the first few uses they didn’t seem to really shed flakes. They riffle shuffle pretty well, but the edges aren’t smooth, which means I have to take a little more care than I might normally, when shuffling. The print job is what you’d expect from a high-quality deck.
Artwork: The artwork is mostly black and white, but there are colored labels and some muted color throughout. The sketch-like style features a lot of crosshatching for shading and depth, and it’s a little strange to me to be looking at that kind of artwork up close, since it is a little busy. I think the art style (and thus the deck) looks better from a distance, but that might just be a personal preference. I think the sketch-like style does lend itself well to the central metaphor of the deck, the interplay of light and dark, even if I personally find it a little difficult to read this deck intuitively based on the artwork. Besides my difficulties with the crosshatching though, I do find the artwork to be very emotionally evocative.
Book: The included booklet is more of a pamphlet – approximately three words per card – but the deck did come with the option of a full sized book or an ebook: “Emerging from Darkness: Using Tarot for Personal Shadow Work”. I bought the physical copy of the book, and I’ve found it very useful. There are a few chapters at the beginning that serve as a decent introduction to shadow work just in general, and the included tarot exercises have proved very fruitful for me and others.
Likes: I really like that this deck and book are meant to work together, to guide the user in one of the most important kinds of growth, which is also one of the most undervalued and neglected! That is really what drew me to this deck, the idea that it could really help me and my clients when we’re struggling with our own personal shadows.
Dislikes: It’s really a minor thing overall, but I find the coarse size of the crosshatching in the artwork to be a little distracting.
Overall Recommendation
I think this deck has a space in my collection more for the book than for the deck itself. They’re a team that works well together, but I think if they were separate and not so intrinsically linked, I might just have bought the book and skipped the deck. As it is, though, I do like them as a team. I just don’t find myself reaching for this deck when I have other types of questions.