Review by Lidys
The All Hallows deck is a nicely handmade deck that takes you on a Halloween journey of its own. The deck size is perfect for small to medium hands, making the cards easier to shuffle. Robyn Hollister has done a great job at drawing a Halloween theme that is not childish, nor garish, but a grown up Halloween deck.
The deck comes in a pretty fuscia paper bag neatly folded to protect the deck inside. The bag is sealed with handmade sticker that follows the All Hallows theme. When you open the bag, you discover this pretty fuscia tinted cellophane deck wrapping the deck. Inside you will first see the All Hallows Tarot deck imprint card. This card contains the information on the deck’s edition and the signature of the artist; all in gold ink. The deck I have is a gold edition majors only deck, which includes the four Aces of each suit. The suits are divided into Disks (pentacle shapes), Swords, Wands (candles), and Cups (Pumpkin lantern), and there is an extra card of a winged black cat. The back of the cards shows a beautiful old looking tree with the big Halloween orange moon, and stars behind it.
I would recommend this deck for beginners that may be weary of the strict simbology and figures of a RWS deck. I also consider it good enough for the experienced to explore other aspects of different cards. For example, the Hanged Man is a pierced and tattooed man hanging by his legs from a tree branch. The noose is hanging beside him. He is free of it but still ‘accompanied’ by it. I see this card as choices available to us even when we do not think there are any.
The All Hallows deck is a collector’s deck and a reading deck. I was able to do a couple of readings with it and found the cards accurate in their display of meaning. If you are concerned about the beautiful artwork interfering with the reading, do not be. The cards were able to provide information for my readings in a very quick, direct and out of the ordinary way. Each card is unique and can stand on its own when doing one card spreads, as well as work with others in a fuller spread.
The one drawback I see of the deck for those that are at the beginning stage is the lack of LWB to guide them into Robyn’s approach to the cards’ meanings. You could either get a simple RWS based tarot book, until you can use your intuition a bit more later on.
The All Hallows deck is a great addition to any collector’s list, and particularly those collecting hand made treasures.
© 2009 Lidys
Lidys is a visual artist, hereditary intuitive,
energy worker, and full Mesa carrier of the Inca
tradition of Peru. She works with the energies and teachings
of the tarot, oracles, crystals and Mandalas as a way
to help grow her medicine and that of others.
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