The Muse Tarot - MJS Tarot

As it’s name suggests The Muse Tarot aims to connect you with your Muse in order to spark and inspire creativity. It’s also a reminder that creative endeavours open up this connection. Above all it’s a bright, colourful, eclectic deck that speaks on many different levels. Even though I love The Light Seers Tarot by the same creator, I wasn’t overly drawn to The Muse Tarot when I first saw it online. But, something made me buy it anyway and I haven’t looked back. I like it so much more than I expected. In fact it drew me into its world on my very first flick through. For some reason collage decks have that affect on me.

At first glance the artwork doesn’t overly appeal, but once I begin to work with them the messages flow freely which ensures I develop a really strong connection with them. Even though I have an ever growing collection, I buy decks to work with rather than just as collective pieces, so my ability to connect with a deck is way more important than how beautiful they may be. Besides, like is the case with most things/people/experiences, the more you spend time with them, the more beautiful they become.

The Muse Tarot Deck

If you’re feeling stuck in your creative pursuits, regardless of what they are, The Muse Tarot can help you to bring everything together. Whether that’s by encouraging you to reach out to others, or by offering you a new way of looking at your project, or maybe even by just reassuring you that your underlying premise is solid, this deck seems to deliver the message you need when you need it. That’s definitely been my experience. As I’m looking at the 4 of Inspiration, the card I drew to help me get started on this section, I can see another way this deck can help. It can help you recognise that by clearing away the distractions, the “bits” that don’t truly align with your vision, then you can start to clear away any confusion that may have been holding you back.

I actually wrote an article once about overcoming indecision inspired by one of the cards in this deck. Another thing the 4 of Inspirations pictured above does, is that it serves as a reminder to take time out to celebrate your wins. Does that mean this deck is only for people working in the creative arts? No.

Each and every one of us is creative in some way. Every time we seek to solve a problem we are drawing on our creativity. Furthermore, we are all creative beings creating our reality, whether we like to acknowledge it or not. Every thought we have and every action we do or don’t take shapes our reality. Not a fan of what you’re creating? This deck can help you envision alternatives. Most importantly, The Muse Tarot is a fun, inspirational deck that aims to help “you learn more about what inspires you, and about the actions you can take to make your own creative path wild with adventure.” I believe it is well suited to achieving its aim.

Cards that we may hope we don’t encounter in a reading are presented in powerful ways that call on us to re-envision how we see and react to certain situations when they arise. Many people don’t like the Tower card. I can’t say I necessarily look forward to Tower moments but the Tower card serves as a reminder that for whatever reason things needed to change. Oftentimes, we already know that. We need to be kind to ourselves in these moments but as we rebuild ourselves afterwards, we can uncover the blessing that arises as a result. When the Tower appears in my personal readings I try and seek to understand what it is that I need to tear down so I can take steps towards doing so before it’s out of my hands. Remember, with all Tarot readings we have free will. If we don’t like the potential outcome of something we can take steps to alter them. As these cards constantly remind – we are creative beings.

I love the way the 4 of Voices and the 6 of Voices have been depicted as well. When they appear side by side they remind me of The Fool card pictured at the beginning of this post. It feels like a beneficial association.

As you’ve probably already noticed, the suits have been renamed. Pentacles are Materials, Cups have been changed to Emotions, Wands are Inspiration and Swords have become Voices. Although at times I find it a tad frustrating when decks don’t retain the fairly standard suit nominations because I find it distracting, that is not the case with these cards. The changes are logical enough and in some ways make the elemental energies associated with the suit easier to understand. And it makes it clear which approach The Muse Tarot is taking to them. It may narrow the focus slightly but the imagery more than makes up for that possibility.

Pages, Knights, Queens and Muses make up the Court. I don’t mind the renaming of the Kings as it’s in keeping with the theme of the deck. However, try as I might to convince myself I like the landscape orientation of the Muse cards, I’m not there yet. Their appearance in a spread makes the spread look disjointed and I don’t feel that represents the message they are meant to portray. The presence of the Muse should be a welcome addition, rather than a distraction.

Some of the Major Arcana have also been renamed but there’s nothing dramatic in the changes. There’s The Priestess rather than the High Priestess, The Hanged Muse rather than The Hanged Man, Judgement here is Awakening, and The World card has been changed to The World Cosmos. Strength is VIII and Justice is XI. Yes I still use Roman numerals even though the deck doesn’t. It’s how I see them and instinctively write them.

The cards measure approximately 7 x 12cm which is the same as Chris-Anne’s other decks – The Light Seers Tarot and The Sacred Creators Oracle so they work well together. The matt card stock is nice to shuffle as it is “slippier” than some others. This means it fans easily as well. I like the font used on the cards too and it doesn’t bother me that the title is not consistently at the top or bottom of the card. I appreciate the focus on aesthetic rather than conformity, especially with this deck.

The Muse Tarot Book

The 111 page LWB has a full colour card cover. Inside there’s an Introduction to the Muse that serves to explain the philosophy behind the deck that I found both welcoming and inspiring. So much so that one sentence in particular helped me to cement my creative intention. The card meanings for both the Major and Minor Arcana are given the same attention which I always appreciate. Too many books skimp on the latter.

Keywords, a prompt, an explanation of sorts of the card imagery and meaning plus a short poem are provided for each card. There are no card images provided in the book. Nor are any spreads included. However, four spreads are offered on the deck’s website. I would definitely recommend checking it out if you purchase this deck. As well as the spreads, you’ll find longer poems and audio files to accompany each card.

As Chris-Anne states, this is a quirky deck and whilst I initially resisted adding it to my collection, I’m glad I changed my mind.