Starman Tarot
I’ve been wanting to highlight this deck for a while now and what better time than on David Bowie’s birthday to finally do it!
It was a little before my time, but when I was in high school I found a copy of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars in an old CD binder that belonged to my parents and I’ve been in love ever since. The lyrics in Five Years are ringing a little too true these days, but I somehow still find comfort in the sound. It’s my favorite album of all time, so as you can imagine when this deck was announced I pre-ordered it immediately and waited impatiently for months for it to arrive.
The Starman Tarot was published by Lo Scarabeo and created by Davide De Angelis. It is heavily inspired by De Angelis’s collaborations with David Bowie but is also very much the artist’s original vision. The artwork is visual alchemy that incorporates a lot of the feelings, ideas, and imagery evoked by his music. Each card is a collage of sacred geometry, photographs, and experimental imagery. There is a lot to be discovered in each one, but my personal opinion is that he was in need of some self-editing for the sake of clarity. However, De Angelis stated that he was inspired by chaos theory, so the chaotic imagery certainly reflects that. The guide book is similarly disorienting but does have some interesting insights and stories about his inspiration and interactions with the Starman himself.
There are a few changes to the traditional tarot system present in this deck. The Fool is replaced by the Sacred Clown, the Magician is replaced by the Starman, and the Hermit is replaced by the Alien. The hierarchy of the court cards goes Princess, Prince, Queen, King, which is a little strange for me. As you know I prefer the order of Knight, Queen, King/Prince, Princess, but there’s nothing stopping me from reading them in whatever order I want.
I absolutely adore the packaging design. It is sleek, stylish, and incorporates Bowie’s trademark lightning bolt in a flash of hot pink. I also purchased an add on matching satin tarot bag. The quality of the cards themselves is nothing special. I wish the cardstock was a bit thicker and had black edges.
I haven’t been able to connect with this deck as strongly as I expected to considering my strong connection to Bowie’s music. I think the disconnect lies in the very personal interpretation of tarot that the artist created here. It is less of a tribute to Bowie than it is DeAngelis’s vision of the universe. There’s nothing wrong with that of course, but it’s just not what I came for. It’s still a very stylish and interesting deck that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys more outside the box tarot interpretations.
“There's a starman waiting in the sky
He'd like to come and meet us
But he thinks he'd blow our minds…”
David Robert Jones (8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016)
