Cosmo Meditations by Carol Herzer

This deck was my first Carol Herzer deck. Herzer has several decks on the market, and has recently re-issued some of her previous work as a result of new technology which allows her to reproduce the color brilliance of the original art work. The Cosmo Deck is one of her re-releases.

This is a twenty four card deck. It is partly based on astrology, but it can be used by those who are not familiar with astrology. The cards do not have traditional Tarot names. They are:

The cards are designed as complementary pairs, for example, cards 1 and 11, 2 and 12 etc. The lower numbered card is "..the more mundane, everyday expression of the energy or area of life experience represented by the card. The higher double digit card is from the upper half of the Tarot cycle." She gives as an example 3 and 13, which represent birth and death. Herzer's cards are non-traditional in name, but most can be correlated to traditional Major Arcana cards. Herzer's art is fairly abstract. The colors are beautiful and the art is richly detailed, though the images do not depict traditional Tarot scenes. The new version of this deck has the name and number of each card on the bottom border, a feature missing in my original version. I find this useful because the old version required you to compare the cards to line drawings to determine which was which until you learned them. The colors in the new version are brighter in most cases due to the laser technology. Some cards are slightly different from the original photographic version because Herzer had more than one version of some cards and found that the original did not always print as well as some other version.

The deck comes with a small handwritten booklet called "Cosmo Meditations". The booklet shows a line drawing and provides a brief description of each card and its meaning. All of Herzer's work is beautifully packaged. Cosmo Meditations comes in a handmade slip sleeve case and is reasonably priced.

I recommend this deck for collectors and for those seeking a deck for meditation. Herzer's evocative, abstract images lend themselves well to this purpose, although the deck can also be used for readings.

Excerpt

The Wave - 0

The dark circle is a mirror into the infinite. It is a black hole, the void, an interdimensional transition point. Reflect upon it and see the blackness drop out into deep space. The wave is linked to the circle, a circle cut in half and re-joined becomes a wave. Think of this wave as a representation of the microcosm, the unseen inner order of the universe. Imagine the circle and the wave as one, as yet undivided. This card represents a concept which cannot be seen, the picture only suggests the state of being implied. It is nameless, wordless and pure.

You can order this deck directly from the artist's website or by email.

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