Virtue Deck Q's

just a quick question for everyone, how do you *read* your oracle cards? to be more precise, how much meaning from the booklet do you incorporate aswell as your intuition into the reading? ie: only booklet, whatever stands out to you or querant in the booklet, or only intuition?
another question, which i am trying myself to remember much much more during readings, how much importance do you apply to positions in the spread? sometimes when i'm just doing a quick 3 card reading i tend to forget the past present future elements and just take the cards as a running story, if that makes sense? obviously in bigger spreads i take notice of position and the relevance of the card.
another quickie...what is your fav deck, and why? what draws you to this particular deck? i find that each of my decks have their own personality and provide insight on different matters, some work best for reading for certain friends, while others only for me, has anyone else found this too? also, how did you recieve your fav deck? divine intervention, gift or bought it yourself?
all experiences, insights, advice and opinions are greatly welcomed and i am looking forward to reading them
KS

another quickie...how do you store your cards? do you keep them in their boxes, wrapped in a special/particular cloth, with or without the booklet? just interested to hear different views and opinions
KS

I read different oracles in a different manner. I must admit that although I have several Doreen Virute decks, I don't use them much. Ocassionally I will use them to do "card of the day" draws, but for the most part I don't use them. I like them, I just have others I like much much more.

My favorite Oracle deck is the Faeries Oracle by Brian Froud, and I find it very intuitive. It is an interactive deck, which is hard to explain, it is something that has to be experienced. This deck oozes personality.

My second favorite Oracle is the Fairy Ring Oracle, with it I have to use the book. It is a completly different type of deck than the Faeries Oracle. I take what is in the book and apply it to card position and question and put it in perspective. No intuition involved with this deck so to speak. If you took away my book for this one, you might as well take the deck too *LOL*.

I firmly believe that different decks often call for different reading styles. That has been my experience. I am not saying a different style for each deck, but some read best one way and some another such as the example above of how I read with the Faeries Oracle vs. the Fairy Ring.

With the Doreen Virtue decks, I find the key word helpful to focus on a direction in which to let my intuition go. So for her decks I would say I read them in a combination method - intuition guided by the key word. If I am confused I then go to the booklet.

As for readings and positions, if I am doing a specific spread that has position meanings I stick to them. However there are times I do what I call general readings and lay out however many cards I want to and read them as a story like you described. If you don't like position meanings don't use them.

I have purchased most of my decks, but some have been gifted to me.

Hi knowledgeseeker,

wow, they might be quick questions but there sure are a lot of them. I see you are a newcomer and an Aussie too. Welcome to the forum.

knowledge seeker said:

just a quick question for everyone, how do you *read* your oracle cards? to be more precise, how much meaning from the booklet do you incorporate as well as your intuition into the reading? ie: only booklet, whatever stands out to you or querant in the booklet, or only intuition?

Click to expand...

Depends on the deck. This is the same for me with Tarot too. I prefer to read intuitively based on the image. But then, there are some decks that don't really have enough information in the picture, and so, I will look to the book. Or, if I have interpreted the card one way, and the querent looks at me pained, and puzzled, then I may look to the book for clarification.

One of the first things I used to do, when I received a new deck was to take one card at a time, and write my own/intuitive interpretation in my journal. But when you get a deck that just has say, a fairy, after a fairy, after a fairy on each card, and there is no other distinguishing items then, I mean, what do you go by? The glint in their eye....and does that really differ from the glint in the next fairies eye? You can go by colours and maybe numbers (if you are skilled in that area) or maybe close your eyes and see if any of your own pictures form in your head, or if words pop in etc.....kind of using the card to stimulate a meditation but it's not generally how I tend to work.

I do however, hone in on cards that tend to "stick out" in the reading which could be ones that don't seem to fit, or just ones that are singing, hey look at me......and then I might also seek further information from the book.

Interestingly, I have one deck, Sabian Symbols, 360 symbols that has no pictures. There is a symbol for each degree of the zodiac. They each have titles/headings and that's what I use to intuit from. As an interesting exercise, I actually went through each symbol and created my own image/card based on what the symbol meant to me. (I've posted them in the Sabian section if you want to see). This was an amazing thing to do and I would highly recommend it.

I find I read best when I just go from intuition. Actually, there is an Intuitive Oracle reading exchange section on ATF that you should take a look at. Also, drop into the SOUL reading exchange group too.....it's a great way to learn more about your cards.

knowledge seeker said:

another question, which i am trying myself to remember much much more during readings, how much importance do you apply to positions in the spread? sometimes when i'm just doing a quick 3 card reading i tend to forget the past present future elements and just take the cards as a running story, if that makes sense? obviously in bigger spreads i take notice of position and the relevance of the card.

Click to expand...

Personally, I believe that most Oracle decks are better suited to the story style reading/spread rather than the position style reading/spread. There are of course a couple of exceptions to the rule. For example, I have an Oracle deck called The Love Pack by Chuck Spezzano (great deck - you should check it out if you like doing relationship readings). There are specific spreads that work well with this deck. Like, the partnership potential reading where you draw one card for each partner, for different areas in the relationship.

Then, take another Oracle deck Titania's Fortune cards, or LeNormand's....they work better as a sentence. In these cases, you look at the position of the cards in relationship to one another.

Also, to get a true picture with an Oracle deck, you might need to draw more than one card for each position if you are using a spread like past, present, future.

knowledge seeker said:

another quickie...what is your fav deck, and why? what draws you to this particular deck? i find that each of my decks have their own personality and provide insight on different matters, some work best for reading for certain friends, while others only for me, has anyone else found this too?

Click to expand...

Hmm, I have favourite decks for different things. For yes/no questions - Good Witch Bad Witch. For love/relationship questions - The Love Pack. For my own spiritual alignment - The Enlightenment Deck. For spiritual guidance - Universal Wisdom, Ask Your Guides, Trust Your Vibes. For general information - Tao Oracle, Titania's Fortune Cards. That's just a quick sample. If I'm reading for someone else, I will set my decks out, explain what they each do and ask the querent to choose. Interestingly, I recently read for a lady I just met. I decided to take one card from five different decks. In the end I told her I would do an expanded reading using one of the five decks. I asked her to choose. She pointed to two and said, I don't like those cards, don't use either of those decks. So, I went ahead and used one she didn't want. I believe if someone has a strong reaction (good or bad) it's worth investigating that further. The reading turned out really well and answered a question for her (that she had not revealed to me) that she wanted information on.

What draws me to a deck is usually the artwork. And as I said earlier, I have a preference for decks with strong imagery that I can read without the book.

knowledge seeker said:

also, how did you recieve your fav deck? divine intervention, gift or bought it yourself?

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Mostly I have purchased them mysElf and a lot of these have been from E-Bay. I have a couple of decks that were gifted but I don't have a connection with them and they sit in my drawer collecting dust.

knowledge seeker said:

another quickie...how do you store your cards? do you keep them in their boxes, wrapped in a special/particular cloth, with or without the booklet? just interested to hear different views and opinions
KS

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The Hay House decks I have are stored in their boxes with the booklet because they are very neatly packaged. I have made a series of purple velvet and satin bags for a lot of my decks - each one a little different from the other. I was lucky to inherit some beautiful brooches when my mother passed away and have pinned them to different bags. Like on my Enlightenment deck bag, I have a giant opal which is surrounded by smaller blue stones. It reminds me of a huge eye, and so, have associated that to enlightenment. On my Good Witch Bad Witch bag, I have a diamante lizard. On Titania's Fortune cards, I have a brooch that looks like a book, and opens up like a locket. I did this because when I purchased the deck, it had a duplicate/extra card - the Book. A friend of mine made me a tarot bag for my Osho Zen deck and it made from a japanese-style print. She also sewed a beautiful feather to the outside. You can be very creative. I have seen Elven's Good Witch Bad Witch box (which she hand-painted to match the box that the cards were shipped in).....extremely beautiful.

knowledge seeker said:

all experiences, insights, advice and opinions are greatly welcomed and i am looking forward to reading them
KS

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And we are looking forward to sharing many posts with you.

with love
purple_scorp

thank you both heaps for your replies, i was beginning to wonder whether i would receieve any posts meaning i had a *boring* (perhaps to others) subject.
anyway, it was very interesting and enlightening to read your experiences and opinions, and confirmed further what i was thinking along the lines of, that each deck have their own personality, working best with certain question topics, reading styles, etc.
thank you again
KS

oh i also forgot to add, that i would be in the readings section but i need to boost up my posts, then as soon as i have the 25, i'll be there! hope to see you in there soon.
KS

sabyan?

hi purple scorp

where is the thread with your sabyan symbols drawings? i'd love to see them1

thanks
yara

got them!

hi purple scorp
i found your image posts. thanks!
yara

Hi purple_scorp

I just read your post and you said you bought some oracle cards on e-bay.
I was afraid of buying used cards ( don't know why just a feeling )
Do you cleanse them a certain way? And if so could you please tell me how?

I'm new to tarot and oracle cards, but fasinated by them.
I have 3 oracle decks. 2 of them Doreen Virtue. Angel and Saints, Goddess and then Sonia Choquette trust your vibes.

Hey yara,

glad you found my Sabian Symbol cards .....Just thought I should clarify that the 360 cards are mine but I created them using Images I found on the Google Search Engine. So, technically, they are not mine .....but then I could argue that it was my interpretation of the symbol, and determination and identification of appropriate key words on which to search, that personalises the 360 cards.

I should also point out that some symbols were so obscure that I did not find one single image to represent them. And consequently, I had to combine many images to make a master image for these cards.

Hey BARBEL,

Strangely enough, I'm not really into rituals......and whenever I say this in front of one of my friends (who is wiccan) - she laughs and then proceeds to tell me about all of these little "rituals" that I perform. When she sits down to do a reading, she lays out her special cloth, places objects that represent each element into every corner, and then rings a bell to clear the energy. She never reads under un-natural (electric) light and won't allow anybody to physically handle her cards. I on the other hand am known to whip out my decks anytime, anywhere, shuffle them, hand them over to the querent for them to shuffle, fan them out on any surface, and have the querent hand-select the cards for the spread.

So, what do I do that my friend considers ritualistic? Well, I think she's talking about just before I do any spiritual work, I will close my eyes and take three deep breaths (one for mind, one for body, one for spirit). Or when I surround myself with white-light just before I meditate. Guess it's just her interpretation of what a ritual is versus mine.

I've never worried about buying anything second-hand from e-bay and I've bought most of my spiritual books and decks from there (over 100 items). I've even bought other spiritual tools like a crystal ball, a healing wand, and a pendulum. All of these have been from different owners and I've had no problems with residual energy.

I do follow a process when I receive my decks, but I don't know that I would call it cleansing as such. Firstly, I open the box and count the cards, sorting them into order to make sure none are missing. Then, working my way from the start, I will sit and look at every card for a good couple of minutes. Sometimes, I will lay them all out on the table or floor, to look at the cards (in order) as a whole. I love to look at the patterns (colours) and artistic progression from one card to the next. Then I mix them all back in together and give them a good shuffle. (I did say earlier too, that I used to write a description in my journal for every card and I wouldn't use the deck to read with until I had completed notes for the entire pack - but I kind of stopped doing this because I just have too many decks now - and I was too much of an eager beaver to wait to do this with some of my decks).

I also shuffle every deck just before I read with them, and again, when I gather up the cards before placing them back into their bag/box.

I have on occassions (but not with any regularity) been known to light incense and pass the deck over the smoke. I don't really know why I did this but obviously thought it was a good thing at the time.

I don't feel it's absolutely necessary to cleanse your deck but I expect there will be at least one hundred people here that would disagree with me. Basically, I guess I'm saying just go with what you feel is the right thing to do at the time. And if you're unsure....ask for guidance from your spirit guide/angel.

with love
purple_scorp