Quick Specs
- Format: Mini boxed tarot deck with instruction card
- Deck Style: Rider-Waite-Smith based, reimagined suits
- Card Count: 78 cards
- Box Size: 3.25 x 4.50 inches
- Author: Denise Jarvie
- Artist: Toni Carmine Salerno
- Brand: Llewellyn Publications
- ISBN: 9780738783420
Inside The Tarot of Light Pocket Edition
The Tarot of Light takes the traditional Rider-Waite tarot and gives it a contemporary voice. Denise Jarvie reimagined the suits and the archetypes, and the 22 Major Arcana reflect modern versions of the familiar figures. Toni Carmine Salerno supplied the artwork, which the publisher calls soulful, and the four suits complement the themes already running through his work. The pairing produces a deck that speaks in warm, hopeful terms. The publisher frames each card as one illuminating message, and the images lean the same way: winged figures, trees, stars and butterflies fill the cards and box art pictured. This pocket edition puts the full 78-card deck into a mini format, so the whole system fits in a small box you can carry, with an instruction card inside. The Minor Arcana carry names in the standard tarot form, rank and suit, so you always know where you are in the deck. Because the structure follows the old framework, what you’re learning is a new vocabulary for a system you may already know, and that is where the deck’s gentleness comes from: familiar bones, softer surface.
Salerno’s art is easy to read at a glance. On the box, a large tree rises beneath a golden disc, its foliage patterned in red and blue and butterflies resting on its trunk. The cards fanned above it show a winged figure in rose and gold holding a blue orb, the Four of Stars with a woman’s face marked by stars above a white star, and the Page of Angels, a pale winged figure in blue with a butterfly at her chest. Card names sit in a band at the foot, and the Page of Angels carries the title Mystician beneath its name. Colors run from rose and gold to pale blue and violet, with gold showing up as halos and discs and blue as orbs and wings, and the forms flow. Figures are drawn clearly, so you can tell what you are looking at before you read a word of interpretation. The mini format keeps all 78 cards, so full spreads work as they would with any tarot deck.
Practical Ritual Applications
A pocket deck invites a daily habit. Draw one card in the morning, read its name and study the image, and write a single line in a notebook about how it might meet your day. In the evening, read the line back and see where the card showed up. When you want more, lay out a three-card spread for a situation you’re watching: where it began, where it stands, and where it’s heading. Include reversals in every spread, and read a reversed card as the same figure turned away from the light. A small deck carries easily in a bag, but keep it in its box so the corners stay clean. For the notebook, my journals make a good home for a running record of your draws, one page per week or one line per card.
How to Read with the Tarot of Light Pocket Edition
Here is a simple way to begin your first reading with this small deck.
- Sort the Deck by Suit
Lay the four suits in rows and the Major Arcana in a line above them. Beside each row, write which traditional suit it stands for, then keep that note with the deck as a one-line cheat sheet. Look at each Major Arcana card in turn and say what figure or idea it shows. Doing this once takes a few minutes and means the new suit names stop slowing you down when you read.
- Shuffle in Small Batches and Draw
Hold the deck in both hands and shuffle in small batches, then cut once. To get reversals, cut the deck into three piles, turn the middle pile around, and stack them in any order so orientation is left to chance. Think of your question, then draw one card for a quick answer or three for a fuller view. Place each card exactly as it falls, since a reversed card is part of the reading.
- Put the Message in One Line
Read the card's name and look at the figure, the colors and any symbol that stands out. Say in one plain sentence what the card seems to tell you, then check the traditional meaning in a tarot reference. Write both lines down. Over several readings you will see where your own sentences and the traditional meanings meet and where they differ.
The Tarot Fellow Standard
I stock the pocket edition of The Tarot of Light because it brings a full 78-card deck into a pocket-sized box and keeps its structure. The reimagined suits and soft, hopeful artwork give readers who prefer gentle imagery a way into tarot, and the Rider-Waite-Smith framework underneath means the deck stays usable beside any standard tarot book. It also works as a pocket companion to a full-size deck you already love, since the cards and structure match. For more to compare it against, browse my full range of tarot and oracle decks.
Frequently Asked Questions
The Pocket Edition is the same deck in a mini format, with all 78 cards, and it comes with an instruction card. The full-size Tarot of Light includes a 120-page guidebook by Denise Jarvie, so it's the one to choose if you want card-by-card interpretations in the box. With the pocket set, a general tarot reference fills that role.
Yes. The deck is based on the Rider-Waite-Smith system, so those meanings carry over once you know the new suit names: Stars stand for Wands, Hearts for Cups, Angels for Swords and Trees for Pentacles. A Four of Stars reads as a Four of Wands, and a Page of Angels reads as a Page of Swords.
Yes, the earlier name belongs to the same Denise Jarvie and Toni Carmine Salerno deck. The Tarot of Light was previously sold under the ISBN of The Art of Love Tarot, and reviews of the earlier title describe the same Rider-Waite-Smith-based deck with reimagined suits. The Pocket Edition is the Tarot of Light in mini format, so the same history applies to it.
No, they're different decks with similar names. The Light Seer's Tarot is a 78-card deck designed and illustrated by Chris-Anne, with a 184-page guidebook. The Tarot of Light is Denise Jarvie's deck with artwork by Toni Carmine Salerno, so the two have different creators, different imagery and different guidebooks. Searches for tarot of light can surface both decks, so check the creator's name on the box before you buy.
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