The Sugar Skull Tarot Deck and Guidebook by David A Ross and Caroline Martinez

This light-hearted, beautifully illustrated deck and guidebook brings the spiritual mysticism of sugar skulls to a fresh interpretation of each of the major and minor arcana to help you hone your intuition.

Sugar skulls, or calaveras, are traditionally made by hand to celebrate the Mexican celebration of Day of the Dead, or Dia de Muertos. Colorful and lovingly crafted, they are offerings for loved ones who have passed into the spirit realm.

The sugar skulls depicted throughout this deck are there to remind us of our spiritual journey and help us reach our full potential. Just as the Fool progresses throughout the entirety of the Major Arcana, we all have our own personal journeys that are represented through the tarot.

Whether it’s the Magician shooting the sugar skull bullseye, the High Priestess seeing her reflection in the water (thus revealing her inner truth in the form of a sugar skull), or the Fool feeling confident that he will create and manifest the perfect sugar skull by the time he finishes his journey, we all have an unrealized version of our true potential. The Sugar Skull Tarot Deck and Guidebook offers a refreshing new take on a timeless tradition and is the perfect tool to recognize the inner potential inside each of us. Let the brightly colored illustrations offer you all the inspiration you need to be the best person you can truly be so you can present a more accurate representation of yourself—confident, magical, and ready to give and receive love—to the world.

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A quick history lesson before we get into the review. Tarot began as a card game, no different from poker or Go Fish, in Europe in the 15th century (ish, dates are hazy.) It didn't start being used for predicting the future until around the 18th century. The most popular version is the Rider Waite Smith; most decks use those ideas, interpreted to suit the theme of the deck. There are plenty of non RWS decks out there, but beginners are usually advised to start with RWS as they can then apply their skills across literally thousands of decks.

A tarot deck is divided in 22 Major Arcana cards and 56 Minor Arcana cards divided across four suits. Cards in the Minor Arcana can be pips...so the seven of wands would literally show seven wands...or pictorial...so the seven of wands would show, probably, someone defending themselves against seven wands. Beginners are advised to chose a pictorial deck, as they're easier to learn, but of course they don't have to.

I'm leaving out a lot of nuance, but this is enough for our purposes today.

First of all; these are physically the biggest cards I've had so far. They are actually big enough that I had to adapt my usual shuffling system to be able to manage them. They're quite sturdy, with a matt finish that makes them pass over each other easily, no catching or stuttering. They have sharp corners rather than the rounded corners I've seen on other decks.

The guidebook is the same size as the deck itself, with the box art reproduced on the cover.

The book itself is quite indepth, starting with a brief introduction from the author describing why he chose this topic, some information on caring for your cards, and three spreads; the basic three card past-present-future, the classic Celtic Cross, and a new spread the author invented to go along with the cards. I haven't yet tried the new spread, but I do plan to at some point, as I think it'll be a lot of fun.

After the spreads, the book moves into discussing the cards. Each card gets two pages; one is a full colour, full page reproduction of the card, which I love. The second page has a brief explanation of how the art relates to the meaning, and then both upright and reversed meanings. Court cards are described almost exclusively as people rather than situations.

The back of the cards feature a beautiful skull design in gold. It's not reversible, so you'll know as you're dealing whether your cards are reversed or not. Some readers feel that impacts their readings, some don't mind at all. It just depends on your style.

The Minor suits each have their own colour palatte. Cups are in light, aqua blues; Pentacles are oranges; Wands are red and pink; and Swords are deeper, royal blue or navy. While there's some crossover between them, it does make it easier to tell them apart at a glance. Majors use combinations of all the colours, though each card tends to have its own fairly close palatte; you don't often see blues and oranges on the same Major card.

In terms of personality, I find this deck is truthful, but less specific than others. It might get more accurate as I use it more and get used to its foibles, of course, and I do like using it. Visually it's stunning, and sometimes I just pick a card and study it for a while without trying to read anything from it. There are all kinds of details in the images that I didn't pick up on my first look through, but that become more evident as I work on them more.

My only complaint, and it's a very small thing; after less than a week of spending perhaps twenty minutes a day studying cards, one of the pages in the guidebook pulled completely out from the spine, and I can feel the surrounding pages are a little looser. It makes me a little less inclined to use the book, which is a shame. This is the initial print run, so perhaps on future runs the spine will be a little stronger.

Overall, though, I really enjoyed this deck. I love the descriptions, I'm enjoying using it, and it will definitely stay in my regular rotation. Fabulous.