Intensive Deck Study Reboot!

zan_chan

Thanks - I'm thrilled to finally be working with it! It still stands as the only deck that, upon its arrival, I laid out suit by suit all at once on my floor, looking over each card, just delighted with its whimsy and its colors and the wonderful ways the folks at MRP fit the Grandville illustrations into the traditional RWS meanings :)

I did my first reading for someone else with it yesterday and it went just swimmingly. I think we're going to get on great!

Part of my trouble with the BG/VR, by comparison, is that each illustration is from a different unknown source. As just a reading deck, there isn't any trouble with that, but as a study deck, it lacks a coherency and a clear study topic for me to go as obsessively in-depth as I demand of an IDS.

But again, just my opinions and who am I? The point is that you enjoy it, and you find your study path with it :)
 

Nina*

zan_chan said:
Thanks - I'm thrilled to finally be working with it! It still stands as the only deck that, upon its arrival, I laid out suit by suit all at once on my floor, looking over each card, just delighted with its whimsy and its colors and the wonderful ways the folks at MRP fit the Grandville illustrations into the traditional RWS meanings :)

I did my first reading for someone else with it yesterday and it went just swimmingly. I think we're going to get on great!

Part of my trouble with the BG/VR, by comparison, is that each illustration is from a different unknown source. As just a reading deck, there isn't any trouble with that, but as a study deck, it lacks a coherency and a clear study topic for me to go as obsessively in-depth as I demand of an IDS.

But again, just my opinions and who am I? The point is that you enjoy it, and you find your study path with it :)
Yes, I understand.

As for the FM... you're making me really curious about it. Will dig it out today and have a closer look.

You MIGHT have convinced me about the Masters though. Will be back later. :D
 

Nina*

Wendywu said:
This is wonderful - so many new people!

I'm afraid I can't start today - it's my son's 21st birthday and we're a bit busy :D
Happy birthday to son!!! (mine will be 21 in 10 days :D)
 

Le Fanu

So refreshing to see this thread renewed. I keep looking at it, clicking on it, reading everyone's thoughts, being tempted, very tempted.

I'm currently enjoying reading and superfically studying the Ironwing but - as you know, zan - it is a new acquisition and Im wondering whether I can sustain the love (typical IDS dilemma). Plus - something I keep coming up against and wonder whether Wendy can help me - how it might be for man to work so closely with a female only deck, and whether the femaleness is really too prominent for me as a working deck and whether I will be able to truly identify with it long term. As I say, just thoughts I'm picking over right now...

Other than that it could be the Navigators of course, which still has loads of mileage for me to study. But I'm still undecided whether I shall participate. I would love to...
 

zan_chan

And picking the Navigators would mean having to read the novel })

Well, I think part of the underserved ideas people have about this IDS thing is that it means foresaking all other decks for some hideously long amount of time. But the study period is chosen by you - even a month can work if get a little in each day. You'd be amazed how zooming in on just the one deck changes not only your relationship with that deck, but your perception of all the others as well...

As for the female thing, yeah, I had the same dilemma. Ever try working with the Tarot of the Crone before? Awesomely cool deck, literally a vagina card. To be not only male, but a gay male who has had literally nothing to do with such things since the day he came out of one doesn't make it an easy sort of deck with which to bond. Ironwing does have a raw energy that may be able to transcend that femaleness if you let it, though...
 

Wendywu

I don't know how greatly relevant Ironwing's much vaunted female essence is. Definitely not feminine. Female-ness, and there is a difference. I cannot imagine a less feminine deck :D

For me, there is just this enormous, vast strength in the deck. It is huge. The depths, the reach - just purely incredible. The most female card in the deck is Red Earth (traditionally the High Priestess), for me. And I have to say that is the card I run to when I need my (late) mum, and I sort of dive into it and stay there until I feel as comforted as I would have by mum. But I have never noticed that the deck in general is so female.

I find the Thoth is a very masculine deck - do you feel it lacks a female element at all? I know all Ironwing's cards are intended as female, but to me they just feel strong without sexual distinction. In a similar way, strong older women don't, in my head, feel much different to strong men. Maybe experience colours their judgement in different directions but their essential nature is rooted in the same humanity.
 

zan_chan

I realize that I still haven't explained why I picked the Fantastic Menagerie, but there really isn't that much to explain. After more than a year reading (for myself) with nothing but the Haindl, a brief TDM fling, and a failed go at understanding the Thoth, I just really need a bit of fun and whimsy in my readings. The Fantastic Menagerie is a deck I've been promising myself to use since the moment I got it. It's the only MRP deck that I've been able to describe as a "reader", I had been a fan of Grandville's before I had the deck, and I think that it will surprise me and offer me a fresh perspective for when I go back to the Haindl.

That's about all really. Any questions? :)
 

stefficus

zan_chan said:
And picking the Navigators would mean having to read the novel })

Well, I think part of the underserved ideas people have about this IDS thing is that it means foresaking all other decks for some hideously long amount of time. But the study period is chosen by you - even a month can work if get a little in each day. You'd be amazed how zooming in on just the one deck changes not only your relationship with that deck, but your perception of all the others as well...

As for the female thing, yeah, I had the same dilemma. Ever try working with the Tarot of the Crone before? Awesomely cool deck, literally a vagina card. To be not only male, but a gay male who has had literally nothing to do with such things since the day he came out of one doesn't make it an easy sort of deck with which to bond. Ironwing does have a raw energy that may be able to transcend that femaleness if you let it, though...

you have very nearly convinced me. nearly.

part of the reason i took the medicine woman deck off the mental table for this is its overwhelming feminized idealism. that's not to say it's a bad thing but even being a woman, i'm just not sure i'm in that place right now. i don't feel unempowered enough in any respect to need empowerment applied with that kind of force.

though it occurs to me... motherpeace has a very "female" vibe in a (from my admittedly limited impression of the MW) stronger, more assured and yet somehow less aggressive way. and i have the mini version, so i could carry it around everywhere with me (it goes in one of sinduction's gorgeous custom jobbies). AND and i have recently acquired the book for it.

*thinks very hard* hmm...
 

Le Fanu

zan_chan said:
And picking the Navigators would mean having to read the novel })

Well, I think part of the underserved ideas people have about this IDS thing is that it means foresaking all other decks for some hideously long amount of time. But the study period is chosen by you - even a month can work if get a little in each day. You'd be amazed how zooming in on just the one deck changes not only your relationship with that deck, but your perception of all the others as well...
What makes me recoil a little is the whole pledge thing. I can't even think of what conditions I would stipulate apart from using it and loving it and writing notes in my journal and reading the related literature (believe it or not, I have been reading the Navigators companion book, not novel, and still have about 20 cards yet to read up about).

But I really don't know. I will continue to buy decks, love decks, dig out old forgotten favourites off the bookshelf so I have no idea where I'll be in a couple of months. Im so reluctant to stipulate something that then becomes a chore even though, to be honest, I use the Navigators pretty much for all readings I do now anyway.

Oh I dunno. Then the Ironwing...

*still pondering*
 

Herzog

Im interested in joining, but a little confused. Can I choose a TdM? Will there be others studying the same deck with me or am I just posting my own observations?

Im not sure of the basics