Quick Specs
- Format: Boxed tarot deck with guidebook
- Card Count: 79 cards, including a bonus card
- Guidebook: 384 pages, full color
- Author: Avalon Cameron
- Illustrator: Ana Tourian
- Brand: Llewellyn Publications
- ISBN: 9780738783406
- Box Size: 4.94 x 6.69 x 2.56 inches
Inside Bonestone & Earthflesh Tarot
Bonestone & Earthflesh Tarot: The Reawakening opens as a world. The publisher describes a passage through sacred landscapes and enduring narratives, where the hero, the villain, the lover and the seer each leave a mark, and where every card carries the voice of land spirits, protective deities or the people who came before. Avalon Cameron created the deck with Ana Tourian, and she took the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot as her starting point: the Major Arcana keep their familiar names, the court cards keep Page, Knight, Queen and King, and each card also carries a subtitle of its own. A bonus card joins the usual 78, and the boxed set includes a full-color guidebook. That structure lets you come in with ordinary tarot knowledge and then follow the story into stranger country, and the tone is earthy and intense. Cameron first made the deck live on YouTube with the tarot community watching, and The Reawakening is the new edition of that independent project. If you like a tarot where the cards behave like characters in a long tale, you get familiar ground and plenty of new road.
Ana Tourian, whose other decks include Tarot of the Abyss, paints in watercolor on paper, with a gestural, colorful hand and small symbols tucked into every scene. The box and cards show how that looks. The cover is a dark green field with an oval frame in which a tree trunk wears a man’s face, and a figure in a red cloak stands before a starry opening, with mushrooms, leaves and a spider web at the edges. Among the cards fanned above it, one shows a woman at a candlelit table lined with bottles, a glowing swirl in her hands and cards and crystals laid out in front of her. The Lovers is two faces, one deep blue and starry, the other orange and gold, kissing above a steaming cauldron that stands in grass and poppies. The Magician is a long-haired, bearded elder with ribbons of color and flame pouring from his hands, shelves of bottles behind him. Each card has a torn-paper name plate at the foot. The palette runs from midnight blue to ember orange, and the whole set feels hand-made.
Practical Ritual Applications
Bonestone & Earthflesh rewards slow, story-led readings. Draw one card, read its subtitle aloud and look at the scene as if it were a page from a book: who is here, what are they holding, what has just happened? Then read the guidebook and write down the reflection that fits your question. A three-card spread of past, present and future follows a character’s arc, and reversed cards belong in it. When one lands reversed, ask what in the scene is hidden, delayed or turned inward, and read the image again with that in mind. The deck suits questions with some weight in them better than quick pulls, so keep a plainer deck from my tarot decks collection nearby for fast checks and bring this one out when you have an evening. Record each reading with the card, its subtitle and the painted detail you noticed last.
How to Read with Bonestone & Earthflesh Tarot
Here is a way to begin that gives the deck's stories room to unfold.
- Walk Through the Structure First
Go through the deck in groups: the Major Arcana, the four suits with their court cards, and the Bruxa. Notice how much of the familiar structure you recognize even as the scenes change. Read the opening pages of the guidebook, then the entries for the Fool, the Lovers and the Magician. Give yourself time; the guidebook reads like a book, and a first evening of browsing pays off later.
- Wash the Deck and Draw with Reversals
Spread the cards face down on a table and swirl them with both hands, so some turn over and some don't. Gather them without straightening the stack, then draw one card for a quick answer or three for a fuller picture. Place each card exactly as it falls. A reversed card stays reversed and becomes part of the story your reading tells.
- Read the Scene, Then the Page
Look at the card for a full minute before you read anything. Say aloud who is in the scene and what they are doing, then read the subtitle on the name plate. Only then open the guidebook and compare. Where the entry matches your reading, you have your answer; where it differs, write both versions in your journal and look at the card again the next day.
The Tarot Fellow Standard
I stock Bonestone & Earthflesh Tarot because it has a distinct voice and a structure you can learn from. The Rider-Waite-Smith skeleton means the books and spreads you already know still apply, while the hand-painted scenes and the long guidebook give you something new to learn on top of them. If you like mythic, earthy imagery and you’re willing to spend time with a single card, it belongs on your shelf. When you want a plain Rider-Waite-Smith reference to read alongside it, my tarot and divination books are the place to start.
Frequently Asked Questions
The Reawakening is the 2025 edition of the deck Avalon Cameron and Ana Tourian first released independently, which Cameron's own shop lists as out of print. Both keep the 79-card structure, but the new edition comes as a single boxed set with its own guidebook, and a reviewer reports that several cards were redrawn and the name plates redesigned. The changes make it a revised edition, so compare card by card if you own the first one.
As a base, yes. Cameron calls the deck inspired by Rider-Waite-Smith, and a reviewer describes it as a Rider-Waite-Smith deck with a few tweaks. Strength is numbered 8, as in that system, so the card lists in your Rider-Waite-Smith books line up. Use the traditional meaning as a starting point, then let the posture, animals, colors and landscape lead the reading, as one reviewer suggests.
The extra card is the Bruxa, a bonus figure outside the usual Major Arcana, Minor Arcana and court cards. Bruxa is Portuguese for witch. One reviewer calls her the deck's own diviner and reads the card as a mirror for whoever is reading. Because she sits outside the standard 78, you can shuffle her in with the others or keep her beside the deck as a marker; the standard tarot structure works either way.
It can work for a beginner who loves mythic art and journaling. The symbolism is dense and the imagery is intense, so a basic Rider-Waite-Smith guide helps alongside the deck's own guidebook, which one reviewer says reads like a storybook and shows every card in color. Choose it when you want to go deep with each card and have time for a slow reading.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet