The World Tree Tarot
By Anne Cass
Published by World Tree
Products (2004)
$24.95 USD
The more we learn about Renaissance Italy, the more we learn that female artists flourished alongside their better known male counterparts, contributing perhaps to the Tarrochi decks used by wealthy Italian noblemen to play Trionfi, a trumps game similar to whist or bridge. Then, in the early 1900s, Arthur E. Waite, a practitioner of the occult and member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, commissioned colleague Pamela Coleman Smith to illustrate the first Tarot deck designed for use as a divinatory tool, known at the time as the Rider-Waite deck. Rider was the name of the publisher. Although Smith's artwork set the standard for virtually every other tarot deck to follow for a century, she died in poverty and obscurity, her contributions very nearly forgotten until relatively recently. As more and more tarot practitioners learn the history of their craft, Smith's legacy is being reclaimed and honoured, and we increasingly see the deck referred to as the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, or the Waite-Smith deck.
In the intervening one hundred years since the first appearance of this seminal work, several other women have made enormous contributions to the study and promotion of the Tarot. Practitioners and teachers such as Teresa Michelson, Joan Bunning and Mary K. Greer (to name just a few) have written many insightful and concise books, all aimed at helping both the novice and the experienced reader to gain a deeper understanding of the bewildering array of images Pamela Smith has left us.
Following in Smith's footsteps, other women have undertaken the task of creating and designing decks, among them Robin Wood (The Robin Wood Tarot), Kat Black (The Golden Tarot, Touchstone Tarot), Joanna Powell Colbert (The Gaian Tarot) and Karen Vogel and Vicki Nobel (The Motherpeace Tarot).
Add to these the unusual World Tree Tarot by Ann Cass. While taking a course in computer graphic design, Cass was confronted with an assignment in which she was asked to create a number of images. Given that she was already familiar with the tarot, she felt designing her own deck it was a natural way to explore the program and her own interests. Other decks have been created using digital technology, most notably those created by Ciro Marchetti (The Gilded Tarot), but Cass's World Tree Tarot is unique.
As a child of the '80s, I was drawn immediately to its "new age" look: all of the human figures are sleek and androgynous. Shorn of hair, clothing and facial expression, only their basic anatomy indicates gender. (Visually, it made me think of the music of Gary Numan.) Cass instead uses colour to reflect mood. The Fool is depicted in vibrant orange and blue motley, The High Priestess is black on the right side of her body, and white on the left.
(Click here to see images of The World Tree Tarot)
The surroundings are equally stylized and spare, but colourful. Skies are frequently streaked in jeweled purples, yellows and blues, landscapes are lush and green. It is at once stark and vibrant.
The beginner reader may be initially put off by the surreal appearance of this deck. They may hesitate over the lack of facial expressions or a typical human component. The figures in the World Tree look like computer generated images: that's what they are. In my mind, this sparseness frees the reader to explore other details, such as colour and setting, that might otherwise get lost. Cass has basically used the standard Waite-Smith imagery with only a few deviations, so while the figures may initially seem very different, the essential message is the same. The suits (Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles) are all immediately recognizable: the Wands are simple wooden staves topped by prismatic crystals. The Cups bubble, linked with dolphins and other sea creatures. The Swords and Pentacles receive their traditional expression, right down to the pentagrams on the coins. Even the Major Arcana is easily accessible: here, the Fool is still stepping off of the cliff, clutching a flower, and the Eight of Wands soar in a rainbow arch towards a successful conclusion.
Another advantage to this deck is its size: the cards are comfortably held in the hand and can be shuffled with greater ease than some of the larger decks available. The backs depict a mirror image of the World Tree logo, so reversals are not immediately apparent.
Despite it's apparent deviation from typical Smith-Smith clones, the World Tree Tarot offers nice clean readings you don't have to "dig" out of the cards. Readers willing to take the time to look deeper into this rare and unusual deck will find great rewards and surprises.
(Click here to order the World Tree Tarot from Tarot Garden)