Deck Review - Spirit de la Lune

This deck arrived yesterday. After pondering over whether I should get it or not, I went ahead and ordered it. Definitely worthwhile. The site listed 2-4 weeks as processing time; I got my deck in about 2 weeks. Well packaged. Padded envelope contained Easter basket grass and silver stars for decoration; what a nice touch!

The box: I have the 2nd edition so the box is completely square. The 1st edition cards came in a round tin. Around the box in silver are the phases of the moon. Opening the box was just a tad difficult. The width of it is just a little too big for my hand span. The lid is a snug fit so I had to shake the box a bit to it off. The guide book is perfectly square; 1st edition book was rectangular.

The deck: My first round deck! How fitting that it is a moon oracle. 56 (+ 2 reference) cards which contain 28 moon phases (as viewed from the Northern Hemisphere), 12 zodiac cards, 12 full moon cards, and 4 special moons. The artists call them moondalas (moon + mandalas). Cute! I haven't worked with the deck yet but as soon as I opened the pack just to scan them, I felt calmness. Maybe it's the roundness or the muted colors or the abstract art. I knew I'd made a wise choice. In fact, it has inspired me to make my own moon oracle but I'll tell you about it some other time.

Oracle decks are different from tarot decks. Oracles can be any amount of cards and the creators will need to provide a guidebook. Tarot is (usually) 78 cards with a major and minor arcana; the meanings are pretty much universal. The artists of Spirit de la Lune make comparisons of their oracle to tarot - full moon cards are major arcana, moon phases are minor arcana, and zodiacs are the courts.

The deck is packaged with the full moon and special moon cards first. Next come the phases/zodiacs broken up by suits. The guidebook explains each cards and includes spreads for each full moon. I love the little mantra / poem for each phase card! Cursive on the intro pages is a little hard to read but that just means you have to take your time to read it.

I rate this oracle 4.75 / 5 moons. Since the synodic month is 29.5 days, I wish 2 or more space or void cards was included so that we could follow the moonth with a phase card a day. I'll probably just make some placeholders out of black construction paper. The borders that indicate the elements could stand to be more different. I'm having a hard time telling the purples, blues, and greens apart.

Deck website: http://www.spiritdelalune.com/

Durin's Day 2016

I've set the sun/moon angle on Durin's Day to be 22.5 deg because it seems most likely this is when the crescent moon will be visible right before the setting sun. Due to the brightness of the sun and the tiny sliver of moon, you should be able to see the moon after civil twilight. Times are EDT.

Winter (Samhain) - Nov 6 6:47p

New Moon (sun/moon angle 0 deg) - Oct 30 1:38p
New Crescent (sun/moon angle 22.5 deg) - Nov 1
Waxing Crescent (sun / moon angle 45 deg) - Nov 3 4:50p

Sunset - 6:05p
Civil Twilight ends - 6:33p
Moonset - 7:38p

Sadly it was cloudy so I didn't see the doorway open. Bummer.

My first post on how I figured this out is here.