About this item
- The Daughters of the Moon Tarot is a feminist deck that shows only women on its round cards. The art of the 75 cards (the court cards have only Maiden, Mother and Crone) is vibrant, uplifting and positive.
Specifications
Name
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Daughters of the Moon Tarot
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Creators
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Ffiona Morgan
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Publisher
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Daughters of the Moon 2000
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Deck Type
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Tarot Deck
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Cards
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75
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Major Arcana
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23
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Minor Arcana
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52
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Deck Tradition
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Feminist
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Minor Arcana Style
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Unique Scenes Without Suit Symbols
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Cups, Blades, Flames, Pentacles
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Court Cards
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The Fool
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is 0
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Strength
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is 8
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Justice
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is 11
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Card Size
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5.25 x 5.25 in. = 13.34cm x 13.34cm
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Card Language
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English
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Card Back
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Round
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Reviews
The most noticeable feature of this deck is that instead
of having the conventional rectangular card shape, it
has circular cards. This certainly gives away quite
quickly the theme of the deck to those who are familiar
with the first round Tarot deck, the Motherpeace.
This deck is a feminist deck. It is aimed at women,
mainly women within 'alternative' religions such as Wicca
and its offshoot, Dianism, and thus includes the names
and images of Goddesses from different cultures in the
cards. It is also apparant from looking through the deck
that there are very few men pictured in the cards, with
the only two men being found in one of the Lovers
cards and in the Pan card. (Explained later!) The
women in this deck are all shapes, sizes, and colour,
and it is certainly refreshing to see women's bodies
portrayed so openly and honestly. Often in Tarot decks, we
find that the only nudity is that of beautiful, young,
lithe bodies, which, although is often pleasing to the
eye, does not give an accurate view of the human body
at all. The nudity in this deck is frank and very
present: there are very few cards without nudity.
The Daughters of the Moon changes many conventions of a traditional Tarot
deck. One of the main changes is to the Major Arcana,
which seem to me to be very haphazard in their naming
and organisation. Whilst some Majors bear the
traditional name and also have the name of a Goddess on them,
eg- The Sun/Amaterasu, some of them bear different
but recognisable names, eg- The Magician becomes the
Witch, without the name of a Goddess on it, but some have
totally different titles, eg- The Fool is changed to the
Dreamer. Still others of the Majors bear only the name of
a Goddess, as shown in the World card, which is
called, 'Shakti The Life Dancer'. Despite this apparent
haphazardness, the new titles are well-chosen, and the
Goddesses bring across the meanings of the cards well.
Often, the Majors side-track from the traditional
Rider-Waite meanings, and there is very little traditional
imagery in this deck. The same is true for the Minors,
where it is not uncommon to come across a card which has
had its meaning totally changed. For instance, the 10
of Swords in this deck, instead of showing the
traditional dead man with 10 swords in his back, shows a group
of women in a teepee having what looks like a very
nice and spiritual meeting. The Minors sometimes have
keywords on them, but not always, and, like the Majors are
quite haphazard: some bear the names of Goddesses, some
don't. All bear their title though, and in this deck the
Suits have only been changed slightly: Whilst Cups and
Pentacles remain the same, Swords have become Blades and
Wands have become Flames.
The cards of the Major
Arcana have been changed drastically, so that there is no
Emperor or High Priest, but two Lovers cards and 3
different versions of the Devil. The Emperor and High
Priest are, according to the book that can be bought
about this deck, included in the Empress and High
Priestess respectively. The Lovers cards include one for
heterosexual couples, and one for lesbian couples, although I
was very disappointed to fine that there was not one
for homosexual male couples: But given the theme of
this deck, it is understandable that the creator did
not include one! The Devil cards each have a slightly
different meaning, and it could be useful to use all three
cards together: The first one is Coyote Woman, the
Trickster, which takes on the meaning of trickery and
duplicity. The second is Oppression, and takes on the
traditional meaning of the Devil card. The last is Pan,
which, according to the book, embraces the male side of
things, showing the importance of the male in the world.
It's good to see that men are not left out totally from
this deck, although it is a shame that the creator
could not bring herself to include men more widely,
considering they are a part of the world and our lives,
whether we are Feminist or not.
The Court Cards have also
been changed drastically. Instead of the four
traditional courts of King, Queen, Knight and Page, this deck
has Maiden, Mother, Crone. Each of the Court cards is
named after a Goddess, which is certainly a help in
reading the Courts from thsi deck, as long as you know
what each Goddess represents! It is an interesting
change, but one that some may say brings this deck one
step closer to not being called a Tarot deck at all!
The artwork in this deck is very attractive: bold,
colourful, and varied. Some cards bear a rather tribal feel
to them, whilst others use very modern imagery, and
still others bear a geometric design to illustrate
meaning. It is refreshing to see images of a tribal woman
gathering water juxtaposed with images of a wheelchair race!
Each card is made even more colourful by the
borders, which are not dependent on Suit or number, but
seem to be randomly assigned, and make suffling this
deck wonderful: as if you were shuffling a rainbow.
In conclusion however, despite this deck's beauty and
interesting take on the world and Tarot, I would not recommend
it to many people. There are many elements of it
that may anger men, people who are not feminist, and
people who are easily offended. This deck has an
extremely feminist agenda, which is interesting to study,
but not so easy to read with. This deck certainly is
not for a beginner, as it takes quite a while to work
out the correlations between the cards in this deck
and the cards of more traditonal decks, although I do
know of people who can read very effectively with
Daughters of The Moon. This deck comes painfully close to
being classified as a Divination Deck and not a Tarot
deck because of the changes it makes, but despite all
this it is certainly one for the collector!
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