Talk about Tarot

Earlier this year I bought my first deck of tarot cards. I debated a very long time before purchasing this deck for several reasons. The first being that I had had some negative experiences and situations associated with tarot cards in the past. Long story short, I associated them with a woman who manipulated me emotionally for a long time and I wanted nothing to do with anything she liked for an even greater time (this included vampires, Nightwish, Dracula, tarot, rosaries, wine, Olive Garden, Clinique counters, and fish to show you the variety of things this person turned me off of in my life). One by one I added these things back into my life (except Olive Garden and fish, but I'm vegan now so I don't need to worry about those).

In January, a dear friend of mine from college, Ashley, came to visit and we ended up getting a tarot reading for her in the French Quarter. I did a whole bunch of internet research and finally decided to buy a deck because I fell in love with it at first glimpse. I found the Wild Unknown Tarot almost by accident. I was looking at reviews and collections on Youtube and this deck kept popping up as a favorite deck.

What struck me immediately was the restrained use of color and the black and white ink drawings. This drawing style is aesthetically pleasing to me on so many levels. It is clean and clear and easy to look at. It also emphasizes different aspects of the images with the sparing use of colors. The pictures are full of vitality and movement because of the short strokes of the pen and the small border is fantastic. Another amazing thing about this deck is that it is completely human free. This deck is nature based and nature driven. I love the great outdoors and animals, so when I saw this I had to find out as much as I could about it.

This is the first deck that has ever called out to me and made me really want to buy it. After looking at all the pictures and reviews I could find of this deck for several months, I bought it. It was $40 plus shipping (but I got my shipping free with a coupon code) and if you want to get the companion book, you must order that separately for $20. I did not buy the companion book, but I probably will in the future.

It took twice as long as it said it would to get here, so I was super excited when it came. The box is beautiful. The cheat sheet of meanings is hand drawn and written and gorgeous. The cards themselves are art. I've never been so pleased with an online purchase (well, maybe my ukulele, but you get the picture, I love this deck).

The one problem I have with the deck is that it is hard to shuffle with my small hands because the cardstock is thick which makes the deck itself quite large. It is more than twice as thick as a normal deck of playing cards. The cards have a matte textured coating that doesn't let them slide out of your hands when you are working with them.

I am still getting to know this deck and the wonderful art on each card, so I am doing a daily draw for self reflection. This helps me think about and focus of the topics each card brings up for that day. I write down my thoughts in my journal so I can go back and look at what I thought about different cards on different days.

For example, on the first of May, I drew the hierophant. This is what I wrote about it in my journal:

A raven/ crow standing on a key that is being struck by lightning. It's mouth is open in a cry out to the sky.
Meaning: Mentor, working within the system.
Ravens are connected with intelligence, as an oracle for future happenings, as a messenger, a holder of ancestral knowledge. Think Hugin (thought) and Mugin (memory). Jung thought of them as the dark side of the psyche.
So, a keeper of secrets and memory, very smart and thoughtful: a powerful creature.
The key- opening and closing of things. In a world of locked rooms the man with the key is king (to quote Moriarty). Keys can represent knowledge, mystery, initiation, and curiosity. Secrets and wisdom. A symbol of power.
Lightning- loss of ignorance. Dramatic and instantaneous retributive destruction. Odin's spear Gungnir is an embodiment of lightning. Thor wields Mjolnir- lightning and thunder god. Awakening of new thoughts. Awareness, illumination, insight and enlightenment.
Overall, this card is about awakening and provoking thought as well as wisdom and terrible power.

So, armed with that knowledge, I went on to face the day thinking about knowledge, power, learning, and memories. I feel like these cards offer a lot of details that can be further analyzed for meditation and introspection.

After a week or two of owning these cards, I decided to buy a Rider Waite deck because I was getting really confused trying to learn more about tarot with this deck. (That is one of the downsides of this deck and one of the plus sides: It is all about personal interpretation. Because of this, it is much more suited to daily card draws and meditation than large spreads for me.) I ended up getting the Universal Waite Tarot set that came with a copy of The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Waite. I love the coloring of this deck and I'm very glad I got it instead of the regular Rider Waite Smith deck. The book was really hard to get into at first, but once I got into the language and began reading it out loud to myself to make more sense of the vastly long sentences, I enjoyed reading it. It took me about three days to read through it card by card and try to really understand what was going on in each one. These cards are much thinner than the Wild Unknown Tarot and they have a glossy finish. They are much easier to shuffle because the cards bend, but I'm sure they will wear out before the thicker card stock. I find these cards better suited for doing spreads and trying to understand multiple layers and card interactions within my life. I don't like the artwork as much as the Wild Unknown, but they are nice, good cards.

In July, I found the beautiful Shadowscapes Tarot by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law. I have ordered a tarot kit and her two illustrated books about the making of the deck from her website and I'm waiting in anticipation for the package to ship. I'm very excited!

Then... I made an impulse buy at Barnes and Noble two days ago and bought the Deviant Moon Tarot. I really love the artwork in this deck. It is dark and mysterious while being surreal and insightful at the same time. I had looked at this deck online a few months ago, but thought it was too creepy whenever I would look at the pictures. Yet, when I was standing in front of the tarot shelf I kept gravitating toward the deck. I picked it up and read the box about four times before I just decided to get it and stop worrying about it. I do really like the deck, but I have a problem shuffling because they are long and my fingers cannot reach around them long-ways. I'll talk more about this deck when I have spent some time with it.

Here are some resources for tarot online:

Aeclectic Tarot is one of the most extensive websites full of reviews and is a wonderful place to start when looking for information about specific decks or finding decks similar to ones you already own. Here is an alphabetical list of their tarot reviews. You will be on this website for days if you want to read them all. It is that vast.

Owlmoon513 is one of my favorite tarot reviewers on Youtube. This is her playlist of tarot reviews. She is very down to earth and calm in her videos and I love how she describes the decks and shows a her favorites and least favorites in the decks. I feel like these videos are super genuine and I enjoy watching them immensely.

I will be doing in depth reviews of all these decks in the future. Let me know which one you would like to see first.