Guillermo del Toro, who else?!
As often as possible, I like to buy as a souvenir from the places I visit a tarot deck, or two … I have done this in quite a few places and I enjoy this meeting of two worlds, remembering the trip and enjoying the new tarot deck.
Of course this means that over the few short years since I have come back to the tarot I grew myself a nice, little collection. Topped up as required with decks I find online that I just cannot resist.
I picked up Tarot del Toro on my trip as a memento and as an interesting object, unsure if it is a usable tarot deck. It was very well sealed and I could not look at the cards. It was a bit of a risk as I looked at the reviews online and they were mixed. The comments said that while the cards are nice, the quality is so and so, with some cards being imperfect.
I took a chance and bought them. My initial reaction when looking at them was that of disappointment. While a lot of work had gone into the major arcana and the court cards, the pip cards are just symbols, and sadly I do not know how to interpret them very well. So I was disappointed and put them aside. Meh!
A few days passed and I felt drawn to the deck again. I took out the little booklet that comes with them and read through it. It won me over.
It was great to find out that Guillermo del Toro and the artist that drew the cards, Tomás Hijo, are genuinely interested in the tarot and it was not just something they did to do something else ...
The little book provides insight on how the deck came about and the creative process. It also introduces Don Miguel, the tarot reader whose experience and knowledge have been used to provide the spread information.
The deck is focused on the major arcana, but having the whole picture makes it not feel so … lacking ambition as it did at first, and maybe it is my own weakness that I can only read the Rider-Waite-Smith minor arcana. I will invest a bit in my skills and learn the minor arcana without images also.
The Tarot del Toro deck feels nice. It has a good size, the cards are sturdy and shuffle well. They feel like they will last a good while even with habitual use. They can be used for tarot reading especially if you are a more experienced reader and know many of the usual symbols, as the del Toro cards can sometimes be a bit obscure if you are not familiar with del Toro’s work.
The deck is moody and magical with great colors and artistic talent. It is a joy.
I would not recommend it for beginners but it is one for the collection for sure. It can also be used for narrative drawings and mediation. It broadly follows the Rider-Waite-Smith structure, but visually reinterprets many archetypes, you will be able to recognize the The Fool’s journey, major arcana structure and suit correspondences.
It is a deck that has personality that is for sure, and it is not just pretty. It combines the beauty of expression with the darkness of del Toro’s mythical creatures and the magic of tarot symbolism, so I do heartily recommend it.
