This refreshing and different deck-and-book set, published by Llewellyn Publications, is a total change from the traditional tarot.  With childlike simplicity, these cards take you to a place deep within your self and allow you to access information available there.  As the title states, the point of these cards is to heighten the user's personal awareness.  Archetypal images combined with prehistoric and aboriginal style art lends itself well to this concept.

There are a total of 48 cards in the deck.  They are numbered in sequential order with Arabic numerals.  A simple, comfortable type font is used for the titles and numbers, which appear in various places on each card, according to the image that is placed on it.  Each card's image is floated against a white background, without borders, so your attention is immediately drawn to the image itself.  Even the back of the card is simply colored with gradient rainbow hues.

With the use of stylized petroglyphs being the core of the art design for these cards, I can't help but compare them to the Rock Art Tarot, which uses similar imagery.  In fact, upon opening this set, I had to go and look at the Rock Art Tarot a second time, thinking them done by the same person!  They are not, I assure you.  But both have the same style to them, which has an extraordinary appeal in that it strikes a chord reminiscent of the Dreamtime.

Since this is not a tarot set, there are no Major or Minor Arcana, no court or suit cards are to be found here.  Titles in these cards are simple and straightforward, evoking the archetype just by the naming of the card itself.  An example of these are some of the following:  Power, The Gathering, Not Doing, The Sage, The Mask, Alignment, and Silence.  In addition to their usual meanings, it is interesting to note that the deck has been set up to align each card's archetype with its opposite, if you begin at number one and count up halfway through the deck, then count down again the rest of the way.  In other words, cards number 1 and 48 are opposites, and cards number 24 and 25 are opposites as well, being the turning point halfway through the deck.

An additional set of correspondences exists with the elements for each card.  There are seasons and elements listed, with subsections of elements under each, so that a given card may be a combination of both.  For example, The Wheel, which is listed under Spring/Air/East, and then under Water within that listing, so that the card ends up being air/water.  This may seem really confusing, it's hard to describe.  Astrological and lunar correspondences are also present.

The book itself which comes with this set is a nice, small, chunky little paperback which is just chock full of information.  Illustrated in black and white, the book teaches briefly how to prepare for using the cards, before delving into the detailed explanations of what each card means.   The explanations take the form of an affirmation or a story rather than a listing of the details in the picture on the card.  Six spreads are given at the back end of the book, as well as all the correspondence tables and a listing of the inspirations for the illustrations themselves, many of which are based on actual cave art or aboriginal paintings.  Many more were conceived in dreams.

The cards themselves are slightly larger than standard but handle and shuffle easily due to their clean, polished edges, protective coating and smaller amount of cards in the deck.  The set is packaged in a short, wide little flap box, with the book taking up most of the room, and the cards have to be split into two piles and stuck in on top of the book.  It's a very economical arrangement, but a tray or separator would make it easier to hold the cards.

Overall, I have to recommend this deck for someone who is just starting to tap into their personal potential.  It seems very simplistic and would be ideal for a beginner.  Art collectors, particularly those interested in petroglyphs, will also like to add this deck to their collections.  Since it is not a tarot, I'm not sure if it will appeal to everyone in the tarot crowd, but it is a very nice little system nonetheless.  Someone looking for a more advanced system would probably become bored with this one fairly quickly.

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Review Copyright 1999 by Gina M. Pace

Awareness Cards by Susan Halliday, 1996
published by Llewellyn Publications, ISBN 1-56718-344-1