A certain kind of deck I can't quite define
Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 04 Jan 2005, and now archived in the Forum Library.
| noby |
04 Jan 2005 |
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My favorite tarot deck of the three I currently own is the Navigators Tarot of the Mystic Sea. I have the Fey Tarot on the way, and the next time I get a tarot deck, I suspect it will be the International Icon Tarot.
I see all three of these decks as sharing many fundamental things in common which speak to me deeply. Perhaps the most major thing I see these decks as having in common is a transcendence of any specific culture, giving them a universal quality, as well as a quality of communicating on a subtler level (at least to me). They all use vivid color and posture to express energies and moods, giving them a quality like dance or music, a ritualized expression of universal experiences. I personally like these decks which depict what I can see as an underlying universal "blueprint."
All tarot decks can be said, through archetypes, to do just that, and I know for some people, specific cultural situations and contexts are much clearer in communicating the essence of what is happening. Of course, these specifics can be interpreted to address different situations sharing similar elements. I love and get great readings from what I see as a classic, but culturally limited deck: the Waite-Smith. But I go to the RWS when I'm looking for something more concrete and focused. The Navigators deck seems to dissolve the specifics I'm looking at into a primordial "soup" of underlying elements.
Perhaps it is the collective unconscious I am seeing represented in these decks. They all also have a dreamlike quality, particularly Navigators. In thinking about it, it seems they also call to mind qualities from my favorite style of art - surrealism, which takes familiar elements out of familiar contexts, creating a strange, magical quality. I suppose that's a big part of it: presenting the familiar in an unfamiliar, dreamlike way. I suppose my first deck, which I still love, the Templar, has a similar effect, though it also has many trappings from one specific cultural viewpoint.
Does anyone else find that these decks (or others) evoke similar feelings? What are other decks that you think have similar qualities to what I'm seeing in these decks?
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| Cerulean |
04 Jan 2005 |
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In cases where the people really like the Thoth or the Rider Waite, I was able to do readings that worked for others and I worked with texts that worked with those decks--the dreamlike feeling came from the combination of question and querent though, even if it was online reading.
I had hoped my Egyptian (Sylvia Alasia, Lo Scarabeo), Celestial (Kay Steventon), Druidcraft (Worthington illustrations), Lovers Path (K.Waldherr) or Odin's Journey might be a consistently evocative standard and have the universal symbology for reading. Still trying. I had tried Navigators, Fey and Templars and only kept the Lo Scarabeo Fey.
I am hoping that in February 2005, the Urania Verlag's version of Eden Tarot will come out with illustrated majors and in English...because this was the one deck that had majors and courts that worked for me on all levels from the pictures alone (I don't read German).
To be honest, lately I'm leaning toward the Lovers Path. I usually fall back on the Ananda Tarot if I am stuck in a reading...it has the combination of mood and quiet and light and dark that helps me read.
Hope that addresses your question.
Cerulean
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| Fulgour |
05 Jan 2005 |
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My favorite tarot deck... Without ever having intended to, I took 15 hours of Shakespeare.
General studies, English dept. 471a on Quarters, 471b Semesters,
allowed to repeat 471a on Semesters, and then 471b as a visitor.
And yet sometimes it seemed like I was the only one who wanted
to be in some of those classes, and so I'd play it quietly low key.
But still now, when I get started, the passion will come upon me.
When a deck speaks to you, when you have somehow found your
own vision in its voice, stand on the hilltops of your heart and sing!
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| MeeWah |
05 Jan 2005 |
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Any deck whose images appeal or resonate on a core level can be representative of the archetypal communication. The archetypal serves as a bridge between the conscious mind & other realms of thought.
Perhaps those decks that seem to promote thinking out-of-the-box or outside the usual context tend to reflect the indefinable--the essence of being, the mystery of the subconscious & the complexity of the human perception whose process is also defined by the personal experiences. Hence, the surreal artwork--such as defined by artists as Salvador Dali--& expressed in the Navigators Tarot of the Mystic Sea more reflective of those qualities of the dream state, the subconscious workings or that "primordial soup".
I love the RWS whose "standard" mirrors the basics of walking before running yet whose former qualities can lead to the latter.
Those decks I see as "shadow" decks (though the perception of what constitutes a shadow deck may depend on the individual) include The Vertigo & The Templar. Their themes based respectively on the fiction of The Sandman comic/graphic novel characters & the legend of the Knights Templar inspire the imaginative & thus, relate to the dream quality as their images not of the conscious reality nor of the linear mind.
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| MeeWah |
05 Jan 2005 |
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As this thread is not about a specific deck per se, it is being moved to Talking Tarot for general discussion where it would be more likely to reach the appropriate audience.
~MeeWah, Co-Moderator - Tarot Decks
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The A certain kind of deck I can't quite define thread was originally posted on 04 Jan 2005 in the Talking Tarot board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Talking Tarot, or read more archived threads.
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