How Are You Using Cosmos Tarot & Oracle?

Dogs&Coffee

This set is just so different from a traditional tarot... How are you all using it? As one deck, as two separate? As just an oracle? As Tarot?.... so confused...
 

Aeric

I use the Tarot separately from the oracle, but usually as supplement. The Tarot provides the "meatier" readings, and the oracle is good for drawing one or two clarifications to a Tarot reading. Since the Tarot cards are constellations, they have a narrower and more contextual weight than the oracle deck's planets, which are so familiar they influence everything in a general sense to me.

Personally I don't mix the decks since the backs are different, and I'd rather be surprised at which deck's card I'm getting after I turn it over than before.
 

lantana

I agree with Aeric. I combined them for awhile because they're really both oracles, but they're better used apart. I view them as one oracle with a "tarot-like" system and the other a more "traditional" oracle that covers broader concepts.

I still think this deck would have gone over better if they dropped all pretense of it being a tarot deck. It has its own system, which does better by the idea of a constellation based divination deck than shoehorning the constellations and their myths into a Rider Waite Smith system would have.
 

Yarnzipan

I just got my set and I'll admit, until I really got a look at the cards, I was very inclined to use them separately but for some reason, afterwards, I really wanted to combine them. Was there a reason why you found the combination to be less satisfactory than using them apart as two parts of a whole?
 

lantana

Aeric really describes it best. The constellation cards are more specific while the celestial body cards are more vague (like your standard oracle). A lot of the questions I asked with the deck as a whole didn't really "fit" when I pulled an oracle card, so that's why I separated them.
 

Dogs&Coffee

I just got my set and I'll admit, until I really got a look at the cards, I was very inclined to use them separately but for some reason, afterwards, I really wanted to combine them. Was there a reason why you found the combination to be less satisfactory than using them apart as two parts of a whole?

So I've been using mine as a combined set for a while and it reads AMAZINGLY. Sometimes I'll pull a clarifier if I get one of the "oracle" cards, but rarely do I need to. The imagery and key words seem to do the trick. I will say though, that the oracle cards do point more toward over-arcing or larger themes in the read.
 

JDusk

I'm another one preferring to use them separately. For me tarot is so much about symbol and narrative, and while the constellations are positioned both within their suits and in the context of myths, which make them very narrative-focused, the oracle cards are more broad and abstract, all symbol and broad themes and not much narrative.

I tend to ask the oracle less specific questions - instead of "how does x feel," "where are they in life?" Instead of "what should I do now," "what direction should I head toward?" And that seems to work best. The guidebook that comes with the decks has a few sample spreads in the back with ideas of how to combine readings with the tarot and oracle decks - often it's something like 4 tarot, 1 oracle card, which reflects my use of it.
 

Penthasilia

I use them separately as well- i.e. I don't shuffle them together.

Even though the system is somewhat different- the tarot deck reads like a tarot. And the oracle reads like an oracle.

I often do a larger reading with the tarot deck and a smaller draw on the oracle deck.

I love the set- the tarot more than the oracle- but that's because I am more of a tarot than oracle person anyway.

There is a study group for the tarot that was started if you are interested as well. :)
 

Yarnzipan

So given all of the comments here, I had an idea and I decided to give it a shot since the two decks had already been mixed.

I did a reading, and when an oracle deck card came up, I put it down and then laid a tarot card OVER it, using the oracle card for a bit of influence over and additional information on that particular tarot card when it came to actually reading.

I actually really liked how it worked and I think I'm going to continue this way. I may separate it eventually to try it the other way, but just sharing a thought on use that splits the difference a little.