What do you do? using various decks

Hi

In my enthusiasum I have collected quite a few decks! and I am wondering what others do?

Do you use one at a time for a bit to get to know it really well

Do you use diff decks for different types of readings

Do you just choose what you want to use per reading?

Do you have a deck that you only use for yourself ?

Or something different?

With daily readings for myself, I rotate through all of my decks. I have an oracle paired with each tarot deck, and I spend at least a week with them before changing to another. If I'm reading for someone else, I generally give them several decks to choose from.

I have 100 decks, give of take a few, and I use them all. A few are playing card decks but the rest are divided fairly evenly between Tarots and Oracles. I use all my decks, trying to use them as evenly as I can.

What I do to keep track is I have a list of all my decks. And a list wtih a photograph of what each looks like in its' pouch...otherwise I would never find them, With 100 decks I don't wnat to have to keep opening pouches one by one until I find the deck I want.

So what I do to decide which deck to use: I decide in my head first if I want a Tarot, and Oracle or and Angel deck. Then I read over my list of all my decks and I listen to my intuition. When I think of certain decks for a reading I am about to do, some "feel" right and some don't given my any feeling at all. Often end up with a choice of 4 or 5 that are real possilbilities (that FEEL rigth for that reading). Then I look over imagine those decks and see which one if giving me the strongest feeling , the strongest AHA feeling, that it is the best one for the job.

Then I look it up in my other list to see which pouch it's in , find the pouch and there is the deck I try not to use the same deck twice in a row and each time to choose one I have not used in a long time. Sometimes wtih a new deck I will use it 3-4 times in a row though.

That's what I do anyway. Although I do have to admit that some of my decks to see best suited to certain types of readings, but just a few decks are like that. My Cupid cards really are best for romantic relationship questions and I personally tend to use my Lovers' Path also for that. And another of my decks (whicn the name escapes me at the moment) is the best I have at work-related issues.

But basically I just read them over and feel which is right. It works well. And I can always see why afterwards. I always seem to come up with a deck that tells me the answer in a way that no other could. Then I'm like "No wonder it was this deck this time!"

Usually I do stick to one deck at a time but I have also done readings with more than one deck at a time. Nowadays if I do I usually stick to tw. But I have done readings wtih three or four decks at once.

No I don't have a deck I use only for myself, although I only read online so no one but me every touches my decks. I'm a bit finicky about that anyways. Although my X-rated decks don't get as much usage. I wouldn't just pull them our randomly for a client. No one has had a reading with them except myself,a few close friends and they have been used a bit in the RED exchange here on AT. But they are mostly for me only.

Babs

I have around 6 or 7 decks that I call my reading decks. They're the decks that seem to speak my language and that I use all the time. I rotate them but I tend to use one deck for 6 months to a year then I change to another. I find that it takes me around that long until I'm bored with the deck I'm using.
I used to flit around through all of my decks but it just didn't work for me. I found that I'd lay a spread out with a deck then I'd start wondering what answer I would have got with a different deck. In other words deck flitting made me doubt my readings and second-guess myself a lot. Now I get used to one deck and I completely trust the answers I get.

When a deck is new, I use it for a while to get to know it.

Unless I can see the whole deck online before I buy it, I usually don't look through a whole deck when it's new. I just start reading with it and try to keep using it until I've drawn all the cards at least once. (Or most of them, anyway, if it's taking too long. lol) If I felt strongly attracted enough to buy it, it's generally way more fun to be surprised and delighted by new cards while I'm using the deck.

In general, I keep a third to half of my decks out where I can easily reach them anytime. The rest I keep somewhere slightly less easy to get to, like in a drawer. I just grab whichever one I want to use (or that seems to have a pull, same as when you're drawing individual cards) in the moment.

I usually end up using the same deck (or two or three) for weeks or even months at a time.

Then every so often, (at least once or twice a year), I find myself noticing which ones I hardly ever reach for even though they are right there, which ones I've been using so much that it'd be good to look at something else for a while, and which ones are in the drawer that I miss working with or feel I still need to get to know better. Then I rotate their locations - and thus, their use.

It works for me. I don't have a schedule for rotating them, but everything gets used sometimes. And if I'm thinking I 'should' or want to work with one that I've put away, I just go get it back out again. None of them are ever that far away.

I also rotate which one I keep in my bag, though since I got the Vanessa, that tends to be the one because the tin keeps it from getting banged up. Sometimes, I'll put another in there, too, though. Just in case I'm in the mood for something else! lol

I have 20 decks now.

I have a deck that I use for myself. I have an oracle I use just for myself.

But other than that, I have about 5 decks that I just can't seem to read with or enjoy reading with. Those are on display for others to look at and request a reading with if they'd like.

The rest get rotated around. We all don't eat the same food every day? So I'll get a "Hankering" for a certain deck and pull it out to give it a go.

Some decks do work better with certain types of readings. For example, my Mystic Fae deck is great with love readings. My Celtic Dragon is good for readings about friendship.

I'm a self-admitted collector, but I have 5 decks that I read with (beyond the collection - each deck I read with has a counterpart IN the collection.) With those, I go by...feel I guess...whatever seems to draw my attention or feel best at the time I'm reading.

~Yira

I choose a deck based on the reading, and how I feel at the moment. There's no pattern to it for me, it's mostly just instinct. I also spend a lot of time just shuffling and go through decks card by card staring at them and recalling meanings, noticing details on the cards, etc. Actually I spend a lot more time doing that than I do actually reading with them. I find that helps the readings a lot. I handle several of my decks each day that way.

I'm very used to giving clients the choice of several decks out of my collection and I very rarely read for myself (that being said, I did so just today! ), so as I'm starting to take part in exchange circles here more often now, having the luxury of being able to choose which deck to read with is a bit odd and feels strange. I almost feel as if it is too self-indulgent to read with whatever deck I feel like at the moment, so I'll sometimes use one that's a bit more challenging! <laughter>

But as a general policy: face-to-face clients get to choose from a small selection and I choose what's in that working-selection and change it around every so often.

There really are no decks I'm not prepared to read with publicly except maybe my Majors-only Ironwing - I find it's about the only deck I've ever felt I need to sit down and *learn*, and I just haven't given it that time yet.

I have decks I like more and decks I like less, and I have two decks which are irreplaceable-to-me and so travel around with me wherever I am (although I don't really actually use them more often), but as a rule I don't own a deck I'm not prepared to read with.

The whole thing about allowing the subject to choose the deck I read with *sounds* humble and modest - but it is quite the reverse. It's my way of saying "I'm an awesome reader no matter the deck" and also that equally modest statement: "I want you to notice how humble and modest I am" <laughter>.