"they" say the best way to study tarot is to make a deck.
i did that with the 80's tarot , although that deck does not exist anywhere physically (yet). but now i am finishing up the trinity doughnuts tarot -- the collage tarot deck meant for nobody but me, and i am in the home stretch of completing the actual, physical, cards-in-hand deck. it has really been a new and satisfying experience. and not just because i love the smell of contact paper.
i am no photoshop whiz now, and i was even less of one when i began making this deck. the print quality is everyman-shoddy. i don't care. i made tarot cards, that i can hold in my hand. it's been about four years since i began the project. i am still posting the cards online one by one and writing the text for each one by one. but by the end of this weekend, the deck itself will be finished.
i will knit a little bag for it, and i will start using it for daily meditations.
the cards are petite. and because of the contact paper, they are also rather fat when held together as a deck. it will be very hard to shuffle, for divination purposes, and possibly easier to just let go of and smear around the table, like when one uses the mah-jong for divination. however it goes is okay with me.
i wonder if when i'm in my sixties i'll be putting together another collage deck for myself, with new images and ideas relating to parts of my life that i haven't even uncovered yet. when sitting at the kitchen table yesterday cutting out cards, i thought; if i ever have a child, i will make a deck for them, and let the tarot become part of their minds that way. big, beautiful cards that we can read together like storybooks.
last night i settled down to do a reading for a very specific situation using the tarot de paris.
the querent is feeling stifled by the pressure of a family situation. although an adult, the querent is repeatedly pressured into attendance upon his parents and adult siblings, and although the querent has made distinct strides to start a life of his own, the family has reacted more or less as though this effort on his part will simply blow over in a matter of time, if they wait long enough.
rather than learn to respect the querent's new life and boundaries, the family spend most of their communications with the querent in asking for assignations. they have made little attempt to acknowledge the interests he pursues if they do not relate directly to the outdated "nuclear" family, and they seem to wait upon holidays or other "important" occasions to make demands that they feel will be "impossible" to refuse.
the querent has decided not to go to a ceremony centered around a sibling who has not spoken to him in over a year, despite the querent's occasional polite and arm's-length gestures to the sibling. there is an understanding for the querent that the sibling has believed that this occasion will be "impossible" for the querent to avoid, and that this "guarantee" made it unnecessary for her to attempt any reconciliation on her own with the querent. now that the querent has made clear his intention not to bring his very ambivalent feelings into a large social gathering, which has the promise of being uncomfortable for many, the querent's family has increased pressure for him to attend, making him feel that he can count on them less than ever to respect him as an individual or to do anything but manipulate situations based on "what people will think".
we began with a simple three-card spread with nothing in mind but the issue at hand. i wished for the first card to represent the situation , and the other two cards to represent choices in action. the spread revealed:
FIVE OF AIR (SWORDS)
FIVE OF FIRE (WANDS)
QUEEN OF FIRE (WANDS)
we were amazed at how well the FIVE OF AIR represented the situation presented to this querent. as though the text were written just for him, the querent felt that he had "become disillusioned with the pedantic ideologies and sedentary principles.... The rallying sword of victory is beyond repair. No longer to support these inherited causes, the personal sword, which doubles as a crutch, is thrust point down in protest."
feeling confident we had been shown the most relevant card, it then counselled that "The best action for now is probably non-action. Objective investigation will bring the real provocations to light -- then you should make your move. Your talents and qualifications are not in question. This means that your services will be in demand again, as soon as the dust settles."
this was hopeful to the querent, who wishes to have productive and adult relationships with a family that does not focus solely on having to answer a summons for an event that can be photographed and shown off to friends.
the second card, the FIVE OF FIRE, spoke fittingly to the nuts-and-bolts battle of egos that was particularly significant to the situation: "When a new torch is suddenly lit, the flame's brightness automatically sets off a challenge to the established hierarchy." as for the QUEEN OF FIRE, while she may have represented an individual in the querent's life, no one in particular came to his mind during the course of the reading.
we returned all cards to the deck except the FIVE OF AIR which we kept out as a significator card, then chose three cards again, for a past, present, future spread, revealing:
FIVE OF MATTER (PENTACLES)
FOUR OF AIR (SWORDS)
ACE OF AIR (SWORDS)
again, we laughed in amazement at what we read. the FIVE OF MATTER so clearly described the situation that the querent's family was in: although they had resisted getting to know the querent and accept his new and independent life, they felt it would be impossible for him, regardless of how things felt, for him to not attend a certain event. this event, for this family, represented a door. "a locked door is just as unyielding as a wall," read the text for this card, and undoubtedly, the querent's family is learning just this.
the card "even hints at the possibility of losing your position within a group or company. Not to worry, for a noticeable glow of self-confidence will open new doors and attract new associations. Living with this new light requires courage, but controversy will only increase it's luminescence."
the middle card in the spread -- the present situation -- was the FOUR OF AIR. "...the shortest road to recovery can begin only by indetifying the root cause and then withdrawing one's physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual participation from it."
the outcome card was a hopeful one. the ACE OF AIR "suggests a time when things speed up, communications set things in motion, and you feel as though your thoughts have wings." this emphasized the reward of the querent's difficulties: he was truly on the path to breaking significant negative patterns with his family, and creating situations where they could only see that there was no party or event that could outweigh the quality of their individual relationships with him.
this was the biggest reading i had done in ages and it gave me a classic tarot headache. feeling the brunt of this experience, as the querent is so close to me, this morning as my meditation i drew the NINE OF AIR (SWORDS). in this situation of debilitating worry, "Her raised hand is saying that enough is enough. Although she may not know what to do about this mess, she can say with true authority that she knows exactly what she will not do again!"
it has been too long since i've been making the tarot a part of my everyday work and life. i'm hoping this journal will make things easier for me to keep track of and motivate me to study.
the deck i'm using now for readings and meditations is the tarot de paris by j. phillip thomas. it's my current choice because we are planning a trip to paris this fall.
prior to this i had been using stevee postman's cosmic tribe tarot. i still find this deck supremely original and beautiful, but it's imagery started feeling a little "young" and outdated for me. i have not given up the deck; i doubt i ever will, although recently i have given away quite a few decks, including my rider-waite, which i never did enjoy using.
in addition to the text that goes hand in hand with whatever deck i am using at the given time, i also use the text from a site on understanding the tarot which is no longer online. fortunately, i printed out every single page in september of 1998, which is when i stopped working full time. this text is all based on a rider-waite deck, and i think these interpretations are important to utliize along with the author's text from whatever deck one is working with.
also, in this notebook with all these printouts, i found that i had made a calendar for the month of september 1998, upon which i had recorded every daily meditation i had made, and then, at the end of the month, made comments on cards that i saw appearing frequently, or only on certain days of the week, and cards that i expected to see in upcoming readings. i was pretty on the ball!
time to get back on the ball.