Explore the infinite paths your life can take with this stunning 78-card deck featuring vivid artwork, diverse characters, and a touch of magic for the modern reader.
We walk many paths, ever-diverging and ever-dividing, which become our life's unique journey. The Unfolding Path Tarot introduces us to characters from a beautiful world very like our own, with an extra sprinkle of magic, to guide our way. The kaleidoscope of vibrant artwork by artist and creator Athene Noctua depicts unique and meaningful interpretations of the traditional Rider-Waite tarot deck.
The imagery included in this deck features animals, plants, and a cast of modern and diverse people—all with a mystical touch. Each suit is represented by a different color palette while characters of varying color, size, ability, and age create a beautiful community. This 78-card deck and guidebook is the perfect compass for those seeking self-discovery.
The Unfolding Path Tarot is available now from Hay House. You can see the unboxing and flickthrough videos on TikTok.
This deck started life as a Kickstarter before Hay House picked it up. I can see why they did, as it's genuinely a beautiful and clever deck.
The deck comes in a rigid box with a lid that sits down over it from above. The cards are standard Tarot size and the box is just bigger than them. The LWB is the same size as the cards and features the World illustration on the cover, the same as the box.
Athene talks a little about the background of creating the deck, then discusses the makeup of the deck. She talks a little about reversals here; the card meanings don't feature any as she doesn't use them personally, but she does give some ideas on how to incorporate them in our own practises. Finally there's some tips for getting started - as with my favourite books, she does mention that the 'right' thing to do is the thing that works for you, the reader - and some simple spreads.
Now we're into the card meanings. Each card, Major and Minor, gets one page. There's no image of the card, but there are keywords and a substantial explanation, written clearly and simply.
The cards, then. I apologise in advance as I'm likely to gush about these - I enjoy this deck so much! I also apologise for the amount of images here; I really did try to keep it down, I promise!
The cards are standard tarot size, as I said. They feature this, reversible design:
They have a smooth, matte surface, and they shuffle and handle really nicely, without catching or sticking at all.
Part of Athene's goal in creating this deck was to celebrate modern society in all its' colours and kinds. She definitely succeeded. The cards feature people of all ages, genders, skin colours, orientations and ability levels. There's a fantastic mix here.
It also has an uncanny ability to see the meaning behind the RWS card and display that; they are based on that deck and can be read if you've any familiarity, but some of the illustrations are quite different - but they embody the meaning beautifully.
There's a couple of cards here that have helped me grasp cards I always had trouble with before, just by the way they're illustrated.
The cards all feature an image against a coloured backdrop; the Majors have various colours, but the Minors have a theme, with Pentacles being orangey-brown, Cups a blueish green, Wands a bright cheerful red and Swords a deeper, colder blue. Majors have their name and number, in Roman numerals, in the bottom right corner. Minors have their number, in Arabic, in the centre of the top, but they don't feature their suit name anywhere. However, between the background colour and the illustration, it's always very clear which suit is which.
I could talk about this deck for hours - the Cirque du Soleil style Hanged (man); the graceful Tower; the bee loving 3 of Pentacles; the grumpy 4 of Cups and the Amy Pond-alike 7 of Cups; the beleagured 10 of Wands; the beautiful, deeper blue background on some of the Swords, and the 6 of Swords, taking her destiny into her own hands - but all I can say is, please do consider this deck for yourself! It's comparable to the Light Seer's as a modern, inclusive deck, and I think it will be just as popular as that one over time.
Here are some images, and again, I apologise for how many there are; remember that the full flickthrough is linked above for the few I haven't shown you here.
This is absolutely going to be one of my regular decks. It would be a great one to read for others with, as it's friendlier than a lot of decks; even the 'scary' cards aren't too bad here.
Universally, everyone I've shown this to has praised the artwork, and people I've read for have said it's very accurate and easy to understand. I'll be keeping it in my pocket for group readings in the future!
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