A cat can sit perfectly still and make you wonder what it’s about to do. That’s a good thing to keep in mind when you turn over a card from The Feline Rider Tarot. A crowned figure might look regal for a second, right up until you start wondering what has caught its attention off to the side.
Published by Wheel of Fortune, the deck keeps the Rider–Waite–Smith structure and gives the familiar figures to cats. There are sunflower fields and moonlit shores to look through, but I’d start with the figures themselves. Where are they looking? Do they seem at home in the scene? A small change in posture can change how you read a card whose meaning you thought you already knew.
Pick a card you usually read too quickly
Find one card whose meaning tends to come out of your mouth before you’ve finished turning it over. If you have a Rider–Waite–Smith deck handy, put the two versions next to each other. Look for one detail that survived the change of cast, then one that feels different. Try writing a line about the picture using only what you can see. You can bring the usual meaning back in afterward and see whether you’d phrase it differently.
A closer look at the deck
There are 78 cards and a printed companion guidebook. The cards measure 70 × 120 mm and use 280 gsm black-core stock with a smooth varnish. Brass foil picks out details on the cards and the box, and the deck has foiled edges. The box opens like a book and closes with a magnet.
