how do I reconnect with the tarot

A few years ago, I used to feel energy flowing through my cards. Things started happening in my life, and I quickly found myself all drugged up in the psychiatric world. I have taken myself off all my medication several months ago. Ever since the days of popping pill after pill these 78 cards that once were dear friends are now just cards. The life in them feels absent to me. I can't always read them without having to take a quick peek at my cheat sheet. I would like to become good friends with my decks again.

Any thoughts?

I kind of lost my connection with the Tarot a few years ago too, though for a much different reason. Essentially, I was a bit burned out, then got a promotion at work, the combination caused me to set the Tarot aside for a few years. What I'm doing to reconnect is to restart in a way that is similar to how I first started. I am re-writing my note book with all my study notes (card meanings, suit meanings, spreads, etc), but expanding it too. Doing daily readings and just working into it from scratch. I also know I need to start meditating more, but again, this is something that I'm easing in to ... it's tough to set aside the time for long meditations right now.

reconnecting with your cards

I dropped out of tarot a few years ago then started back up with the tarot cards over a year ago now, for many years I was heavily into them, obsessed, lived and breathed my cards. Then I hit burnout. I took time off from the cards, regrouped. when I returned to them I held them laid out spread and just looked at them as a child would look at drawing in school, related each card to the next, telling a story etc. and believe me it doesn't take much for it too all come ripping back.

La Force

I agree with Trogon, start how you began. It might be drawing a card a day and journaling in a notebook about what that card brings to mind, or how it's connected with the daily events of your life. Perhaps it may prompt you to investigate or "go beyond" the surface of a card (i.e., research). The great thing about this technique is that it allows you to brain storm and form your own opinions about each card and eventually the deck itself. I hope this helps.

Well, I can certainly connect with this thread. I laid the cards down almost 30 years ago, and it has only been in the last year that I've even considered going back. At the time I left, I believe that I was very, very good with them - and now I just see "cards".

Such as it is, I'm pretty much paralleling some of the others here: I'm starting over. This time wih a good deal more gusto and some added maturity. I feel really positive about it all. While I have most of my old books still, I just this morning ordered my "original" tarot book. Next, I'll be rewriting my own journal/go-to book.

It'll be an Adventure....

Michael

I`m reconnecting after a half-year hiatus away from all things Tarot. I find just looking at a card`s image and meditating passively on it (i.e. not forcing or actively telling a story about it) helps remove blocks and resharpen that connection with intuition.

Thank you guys so much for your advice! After I posted, I did end up putting them all back in order. I chatted in yahoo for a while, sliding them back and forth between my hands. Have mercy on me, I even set them on my bed while I slept!

I'm sitting here now taking a break from my days work, looking through them again. ( I'm using a rws deck. ) I'll write out what I notice new, so that maybe the others that are trying to reconnect can gain insight and inspiration from me. Maybe all of you will look again, to see if there is anything new for you.

I see the fool here, so carefree... ignoring the warnings of the little white dog. I look at cards 1 through 7, and notice a few new things. Somehow, in all the years, I never actually seen the wand on the table. I also noticed symbols on the front of his table. I never noticed the water before in the Empress and Emperor. Never noticed that the lovers aren't looking at each other. And there is water behind the Chariot, too.

The next set, cards 8 through 14 have some new things in them now, too. All the animals on the Wheel have books. Justice is sitting in front of a curtain with a shoe sticking out. There is a ship and what seems to be a city in Death. What I thought was a sunset in Temperance isn't really a sunset.

Cards 15 through 21 seem the same, except there are some questions for me to find out. Why is the top of the Tower a crown? Rather then sitting there, the bird in the Star seems to have just landed. The Sun and the Horse seem to be looking right at you when the child isn't. The creatures in the World are the same ones as on the Wheel.

The wands all look the same to me. The cups has some new things. There is a house in the 2. It looks like there is a guard in the 6. Who is behind the cloak in the 7? There are a handful of fish in the courts... why all the fish? I look at the swords, and notice there is a small posse in the distance in the 7. All the courts have birds in them. I go back the the wands to see what fire symbol is in all the courts, and I find they are all in the desert. Forward to the pentacles, I notice that the child in the 10 seems interested in the man. In the courts, they all have cultivated vegitation. Holy cow! A snail just jumped out right in front of my eyes on the 9!

I will have quite the interesting time visiting iconography section of AT to look deeper into all the things I mentioned. I know that I will learn new things, and it's likely that I'll find more new things as I work my way through there.

I invite all of you to pull out your workhorse deck and look through it again. If you enjoy using a RWS deck, look through it at well. What do you see new?

Perhaps we should ALL take a look again, and deepen our bond with our 78 friends we thought we knew like the back of our hand!

Loved your post Brad! Inspiring. I'm excited for you :.)

Mags x

Brad, that sounds great!

I do a lot of intuitive work with my cards which helps me.

Since you are interested in the RWS, you might enjoy AT's RWS study group.

Here is a list of the study group threads:

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=146402