Having worked with a variety of divination tools and techniques over the years, I’m always appreciative of the opportunity to delve into something new. Like many, I am a huge fan of Deborah Koff-Chapin’s stunning Soul Cards, of which there are two separate decks. After having shown my admiration for these decks via social media, Deborah very kindly reached out to offer me the opportunity to review, feature and work with her latest release – The Portals of Presence, and as you can imagine I was delighted to do just that!
Deborah Koff-Chapin
Deborah Koff-Chapin (BFA Cooper Union) is an artist, author, vocalist, sound healer, and group facilitator. She has been developing the process of Touch Drawing ever since she first came upon it in revelatory playback in 1974. Following her years of Touch Drawing, Deborah has tapped into a universal level of the human soul.
Based on an island in Puget Sound, Washington, Deborah is the creator of the best-selling decks ‘Soul Cards 1 & 2’ and most recently has launched her latest deck, The Portals of Presence.
Packaging & Presentation
Packaged beautifully in a shiny but sturdy cardboard box, the Portals of Presence features incredible imagery both inside and outside of the packaging.
The Guidebook
Portals of Presence includes a simple, thirty-six page, black and white printed guidebook that includes information upon the vision for the deck, how to use the cards, how to approach the portals, how to enter the portals, how to creatively explore within the portals, how to close the portals how to work with multiple portals, how to use the portals with others, enrichments, how the portals of presence came into being, the larger context, sources and gratitudes, resources, and details upon the author.
The Cards
This a large and rather chunky deck that includes seventy-two, glossy 4.5″ x 6″ divination cards featuring simple white edging and beautiful black and white spiral card backs. Although the cards extremely high quality, they are quite large, thus fairly difficult to shuffle for smaller hands.
Reading With The Portals of Presence
This Portals of Presence offers you the chance to enter a deeper relationship with yourself and the world through the universal language of the human face. These faces drawn from subtle realms have been selected from over twenty years of work created in the presence of ancient trees, mountains, and sacred places.
Each card features a face when radiates a unique presence. By gazing deeply and exploring your relationship and understanding of these beings, you will find that you may be able to cultivate your own experiences with the cards in order to receive messages and guidance.
The guidebook offers an audio download of guided meditation (with original music) that may be used to help readers hold their sacred space whilst they work with this divine deck. Those who already have Deborah’s stunning ‘Soul Cards 1& 2’ may wish to combine these decks as I plan to do in the near future.
Having worked with The Portals of Presence for almost a fortnight, I have been able to spend time looking closely at the images which I have drawn from the deck to find meaning, to explore emotion and gain guidance from. Though I have drawn the same card a few times, I will almost always find another, alternative meaning from the card depending upon my perception at that point in time.
The Portals of Presence is not a Tarot deck nor a standard oracle deck – it relies purely upon personal perception and individual intuition. I quite like using these cards alongside a Tarot reading in order to add further detail and information to readings.
Walking Through The Portals of Presence
In order to further illustrate and explain this deck, I have created a short video walkthrough of the Portals of Presence.
Purchasing & Pricing Information
Due to be released on July 1st 2021, Portals of Presence retails from $26.95, or £27.50 here in the UK. The Portals of Presence is available to purchase directly from Deborah via her website www.touchdrawing.com/store . However, if you are looking to snap up a deal then Amazon currently (as of June 2021) have this deck on offer for only £21.45.
To Summarise
Having made generous use of Deborah’s ‘Soul Cards’, I knew from the moment that I received her latest deck, the Portals of Presence’ that it would be yet another deck that would be added to my regular reads. I do however plan on combining Deborahs three decks as I feel that they would work really well together.
Having spent the past couple of weeks working with the Portals of Presence, I would very much recommend it to divination readers or practitioners of any level as it is purely an intuitive form of divination that I feel is easily accessible to anyone and everyone should they be willing or wishing to delve into their inner depths in order to explore themselves and the world around them.
For further information upon the Portals of Presence of alternative decks by Deborah Koff-Chapin visit www.touchdrawing.com
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Product Rating
Disclosure: I was sent the above product for the purpose of this post however all opinions are my own.