Fairy Lights Tarot – Deck Review and Free Download of Card Pairs Index

Posted February 27, 2018 by Hazellie Wong in Reviews / 0 Comments

* A review of this deck was originally posted on September, 2015. This is an updated review based on more recent work and study with the deck.

The Fairy Lights Tarot deck is one of those decks that I love to study. It’s unique because every card in the deck is paired with another, and the artwork is non-traditional yet meaningful and beautiful.

I don’t know why the creator of this deck, Lucia Mattioli, chose to pair the cards the way she did, but they seem to make sense when you put them side by side and study them, and using them in readings result in some of the most profound insights.

You can read the cards individually, you can read them with their assigned pairs, and you can also read them in combination with random cards in the deck. If you are doing shadow work with tarot, this might be a great deck to work with; you can pull one card for a particular reading, and then look at its pair as the shadow card.

One of my goals for 2018 was to work more with this deck. I purchased this deck in 2015 because I was intrigued by the concept of the card pairings and I wanted to see what kind of insights I could get out of them, but I haven’t really taken the time since to really study the deck. Every time I use the deck for regular readings, it always blows me away, so I finally decided I should commit to spending some time to studying the card pairings in the Fairy Lights deck.

It doesn’t disappoint. I am loving what I’ve gotten out of it so far. The following is just a few examples of the kind of things we can learn from working with the pairings.

10 of Pentacles & The Fool – 0

One of things I’ve always loved and believed about The Fool is that he represents someone who follows his dreams, his heart, his passion, without a care about what others think. The Fool is seen as foolish because he does things that most people think as impractical. He takes risks.

In the RWS deck, he looks like he is so into his daydreams that he is only a step away from walking off a cliff.

We think about the leap of faith when we see The Fool. When I teach my tarot classes, my students and I talk about how it could be a matter of perspective. You cannot see beyond the frame, but what looks like a dangerous cliff to the observer, could just be a small gap The Fool can leap over. There could be something wonderful on the other side that we aren’t able to see.

Well, with the Fairy Lights card pairing, we see that the 10 of Pentacles is on the other side! And I love it!

On the other side of our leap of faith is everything we could ever want – a comfortable home, a multi-generational family, financial security and a legacy to pass over to the next generations. All because The Fool took his leap of faith.

Think of all the progress humanity has made because some people were “foolish” enough to take risky leaps of faith. I wonder how “stupid” it seemed to people when Neil Armstrong talked about going to the moon pre-1969, and now, decades later, look at all the amazing things we are learning from space exploration.

I just love that this pairing of the 10 of Pentacles and The Fool reminds us that good things can come out of following our dreams, despite what others may say.

Ace of Swords & Page of Pentacles

In one reading I did with this deck, the Page of Pentacles showed up, and I was initially confused with the portrayal of the card. Why was the Page coming down the stairs instead of climbing up? The Pages often represent students and the pursuit of knowledge is usually an upward climb, so why was he walking down instead of up?

I decided to look at its pair to get a better understanding and when I realized it was paired with the Ace of Swords, the reading just clicked into place for me.

One of the keywords in relation to the Ace of Swords is “breakthrough”. It often represents a new idea or solution to a particular problem, or perhaps a new avenue for intellectual pursuit and understanding. The Pages represent students, and the Suit of Pentacles represent the physical realm. All the Pages have different ways of learning, and the Page of Pentacles is a particularly hands-on student.

He learns and understands by physically doing the task, through his experience of it, in contrast to the Page of Swords for example, who would learn through mental processes of certain intellectual concepts.

The reading I was doing was for a group I was in, and at the time of the reading, we had been discussing social justice and what we could do about it. I realized that the card was telling us that it was easy for us to talk and complain and rant all we want about social justice, but to truly understand it and make a difference, we had to come down off our lofty mountains and get our hands dirty. We had to do the work, not just talk about it.

As far as I know, there’s been no information about why the creator of the Fairy Lights Tarot paired the cards the way she did, but it really blew me away to see how this pairing worked so well.

9 of Wands & Death – 13

In this depiction of the 9 of Wands, there is a sense of invasion of privacy – too many busybodies with eyes on you, minding your business. One of the traditional meanings of the 9 of Wands in the RWS deck is about setting boundaries, and I would imagine that when you live in an environment with so many other people around you, setting boundaries are all the more important.

It is a fact, however, that humans are social creatures, and we need other people in our lives – in varying degrees – to survive. Unfortunately, that also means dealing with social and cultural expectations, the occasional toxic person or relationship, the effects of other people’s insecurities and problems imposed upon us.

Don’t get me wrong, there are many benefits to having other people in our lives, of course, and perhaps that’s where the lesson of Death comes in.

The Death card in tarot very seldom portends actual death (although in some cases it does), and while physical death probably makes us appreciate the people in our lives more, in relation to this pairing, I believe it is the letting go aspect of Death that really comes into play.

I love this portrayal of the Death card – letting go of all that shit, so that you can fertilize the plants and create new life. Growth from letting go of all that shit that is social and cultural expectations, toxic people, limitations placed upon us… so that we can really live our lives the way we want.

This pairing really speaks to me because it is something I am personally going through and seeing the cards paired together like this gives me hope.

More Pairings, More Study

There is so much more to learn from the card pairings in this amazing deck, but even without the pairings, there is so much you can learn with the depiction of the cards in this deck. I have barely scratched the surface but I am looking forward to continue studying with it.

For instance, I’m intrigued by the following pairs:

King of Cups & Page of Wands

The Page of Wands is a messenger who has just brought urgent news to the King of Cups. The Page looks like he is in a hurry to return with the King’s reply, but the King of Cups is taking his time pondering the news and deciding how he should handle it. He must be rational and analyze the situation, but he must also exercise compassion and take into account the emotional implications of sensitive news. I also find it interesting that the Page of Wands emerged from the water, while the King of Cups wears a red cape that looks like it’s afire.

Wheel of Fortune – 10 & 5 of Swords

I love how the Wheel of Fortune shows four people who are in different stages of the “luck cycle”, while the 5 of Swords shows the pigs eating fallen fruits from a tree. The 5 of Swords often represent win-lose situations, and in this depiction, it may seem like the tree has “lost” its fruit, and the pigs are “winning” from its loss. But in the circle of life, the pigs will eventually defecate and spread the seeds of the fruit so that more trees can grow and flourish, so it is actually a win-win situation even if we can’t see it yet. Pairing the Wheel of Fortune with the 5 of Swords here reminds us that we all go through ups and downs in our life, and sometimes our down cycles can lead us to the most amazing opportunities for growth.

There are so many more pairs to look at in the Fairy Lights deck, and I’m just so fascinated by how these pairs work together.

If you would like to follow along with my Fairy Lights Tarot studies, you can follow the hashtag #mmfairylightsstudy on Instagram. If you have the deck, I would be thrilled if you would join me in this deck study, I would be more than delighted to learn from your insights as well. Please go ahead and use the hashtag so I can find your posts, or you can also leave a comment below with your thoughts.

If you don’t currently have the deck, you can purchase a copy here from Amazon.com – full disclosure; I get a small referral fee if you use this link for your purchase.

I have also compiled an index of all the card pairs into a free PDF download below so you can save time by referring to the list to find the pairs.

Click to download the Fairy Lights Tarot – Card Pairs PDF file.

I have checked the list, but if you find any mistakes, please do let me know and I’ll correct it. Thank you!

Enjoy the Fairy Lights Tarot!

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Hazellie Wong

Hazellie Wong is a professional tarot diviner, numerologist, and spiritual coach. She is also the founder of MynasMoon.com and a certified Master Herbalist. She is a third-generation healer, and is passionate about helping people achieve optimum spiritual and emotional health through spiritual guidance.