Elemental Power Tarot

Elemental Power Tarot - tarot built on five elements, no human figures

Most tarot cards revolve around people: knights on horseback, queens on thrones, fools stepping off cliffs. The Elemental Power Tarot takes a different position. Not a single human figure appears anywhere in the deck. Instead you get objects, landscapes, and scenes, each one built around one of five elements: fire, water, air, earth, and spirit.

This is a deliberate choice by Melinda Lee Holm, who designed the deck and wrote the guidebook. Removing human figures also removes the distance a figure can create. You are no longer watching someone else hold a sword. You are standing in front of it yourself.

What Rohan Daniel Eason drew

The illustrations are by Rohan Daniel Eason, who works in pen and ink and draws his inspiration from traditional woodcuts and engravings. That craft-driven approach runs through the entire deck: linework that is precise and expressive at once, layered with symbol after symbol. Nothing here looks digital. It looks made by hand.

The card stock is matte and sturdy. Every scene is dense with objects that work as visual keys. The Hierophant card holds a small nod to the traditional Pope card, placed at the top of a shrine. The Lovers expresses polarity through two contrasting interior styles, not a single person in sight. The symbols carry the weight that figures usually do.

The elemental system in the guidebook

The 64-page full-colour guidebook contains Holm's philosophy of tarot, card meanings, and her elemental system for interpreting cards and spreads. That system connects every card to an element, which shapes the reading approach. For the major arcana, Holm adds a further layer: each card receives an apothecary item, a concrete, earthly object that embodies the energy of that card.

These apothecary items are not decorative. They anchor abstract archetypes in tangible matter: a herb, a stone, an oil. Anyone who works with rituals or talismans will find this directly useful.

The guidebook rewards a full read, not just as a reference. Holm lays out the philosophical foundation of her system in a way that makes the card meanings feel less arbitrary and more personally grounded.

About Melinda Lee Holm and Rohan Daniel Eason

Melinda Lee Holm describes herself as a tarot priestess. She reads tarot professionally and creates talismanic jewellery and ritual art. Her grounding in Western esotericism shows clearly in the depth of the guidebook text.

Rohan Daniel Eason is an illustrator whose work comes from a tradition of craft printmaking. His choice of pen and ink as his primary medium gives the deck a timeless, almost alchemical quality that fits Holm's elemental approach closely.

Specifications

• Publisher: CICO Books
• Publication date: October 20, 2020
• Language: English
• Guidebook: 64 pages, full-colour
• ISBN: 9781782499220
• Author: Melinda Lee Holm
• Illustrator: Rohan Daniel Eason
• Card finish: matte

Questions we often get

How does this deck read if you are used to Rider-Waite-Smith imagery?
The overall structure of tarot is intact: major arcana, four suits, court cards. What changes is that no human figures appear to anchor a situation. Symbols and elemental scenes take on that role instead. The guidebook explains the system in enough detail to help you make the shift, but it does ask you to read differently than a figure-based deck would.

What exactly are the apothecary items for the major arcana?
For each major arcana card, the guidebook names a specific item from nature or the herbal tradition, such as a plant, stone, or oil, that represents the elemental energy of that card. It is a way to work with a card outside of a reading, for instance in a ritual context. If that is not part of your practice, you can simply read past it.