Greenwood

I recently received the Greenwood and have been looking at it and thinking about it a lot.

It feels like such a mythic deck with so much baggage attached that I hardly feel able to articulate myself here. I find that it is discussed in depth so little here, short of the whole legend/price/Chesca Potter saga/ will they, won´t they reprint, etc. It is mentioned in trading and I notice that there is also a study group which didn´t really develop beyond two cards.

I just wanted to say what an odd deck I find it. I actually think it is quite a difficult deck to get into, to penetrate beyond the reputation. I have almost finished reading the accompanying book and have also read the short texts for each card on the still existant website. But I still think it is an extremely complex deck. Am I right in thinking that the book was written by Mark Ryan rather than Chesca? There seems to be a slight discrepancy between the textual analysis and what the cards are conveying pictorially. Can´t quite put my finger on it. Maybe what I mean is that I sense that the person who wrote the text isn´t the artist. Maybe it is this which is my hunch. There seems to be a slight difference in approach. But I could be wrong.

When I was a child I used to visit stone circles, white horses, Cerne Abbas, Stonehenge etc with my parents. My father has always been interested in Druidry and is very much against the Christian faith and the way it re-appropriated Celt and pre-Celt symbolism. What I mean here is that this universe is not strange for me. I do have some references. But even so, I think the Greenwood is an extremely difficult deck. I find it extraordinary to think (as Im sure Ive heard) that people just pick it up and read effortlessly with it. There must be few decks around with such unfamiliar or forgotten references. This is what makes it fascinating of course. But intuitive reading? What Chesca Potter has done is unearth so much unfamiliar mythology and pre-tarot archetypes, restructured them and I think it takes quite a lot of work to piece together what has been done here. It goes without saying that it looks to me to be a very rewarding deck to read with.

I just wondered if anyone could talk to me about the Greenwood without dwelling on the price/ collectability/ will they/won´t they reprint etc. It is quite a challenge to take the Greenwood as just another deck. Id like to be able to. To pull back from the legend and think about the concept of the deck and how one could read with it. To be honest, it feels more like an oracle. Not quite tarot. Yet I am amazed at the whole Wheel of the Year structure. How well-thought out it is and how it really makes sense, making connections between cards which - in some ways - make more sense than the usual 1-22 Arcana progression. As soon as I received it, I laid the cards out in their respective positions on my big coffee table and looked at the connections. Very clever, I must admit.

Any helpful pointers and tips from members who actually read with it? Or anyone who can just talk to me about how they familiarised themselves with it? Is it perhaps more suited to meditation rather than divination? It certainly is a deck which begs to be used for meditation...

Le Fanu! Oh yes! I am with you on a lot of this stuff! I love my Greenwoods. I use them on occasion, but they are not my typical tarot reading deck, by any means. Way too much depth, here. Looking at each card is like taking a journey, and therefore, you are right. I find myself using it much more for pathworking and meditation.

Basically the first thing I did was just pull out all the cards that spoke to me when I got my first deck. That covered the entire majors and all the court cards, because I liked the artwork. I started reading the book. I kind of lucked out between learning things from Mi-Shell and a few friends who take Shaman classes as to where my mind needed to be in order to connect to this deck. In fact, for a long time I didn't even bother to get this deck because the minors didn't speak to me, at all. Now the ancient artwork, like cave drawings, finally connects. What seemed ugly and boring to me suddenly became full of energy. It is a process that still is going on for me.

If I had to recommend a way to work with these cards, before actually reading them like tarot, I would do this. First take the majors out. Shuffle and pull one. Reflect and meditate on it. Read about it. Really get to know it inside and out and then see where it brings you. So much more of this could be said in a study group, so if you are interested in trying it out with me, I am willing to give it a go. Then pull in other cards that interest you. Or just go through the deck and pull out a card that catched your eye. Read about it. Do the same process. See what works for you. Toss out the baggage and let the deck speak for itself. Let your intuition work alongside the knowledge of what the card is portraying. Maybe we can renew the study group?

I was lucky enough to get one before the whole thing went sky high and OOP. It's an amazing deck. It draws me in and walks me around in ways I never expected....I think it connects somewhere deep in the gene pool. Very far-back ancestral, it speaks to my bones.
But not easy. Not yet, anyway. I found the book not much help, I'm sure it was not written by the artist. The stuff on Chesca's site is much more useful. The whole thing of the courts being animals was hard for me, especially since I'm on the side of the big water that tends to have it's animal references Native American, and it's not the same thing. "Beasts of Albion" was a great help with that.
I was never all that attached to the numbering of the Majors, so the different order has not been a difficulty, except in finding my way through the book. Can I read fluidly with it? Yes, when I don't stay away too long with the Tarot Harem. Then I have to knock the rust off myself first! It reads well on practicalities and divination if you mention to it while shuffling that that's what you looking for. It's quite flexible. I guess I don't consciously think much about is it tarot or not-tarot. It simply IS. But yes, somehow it is Tarot to me. I can't define how/why.
It lead me to spend much more time in the early myths, in Celtica, in Northern tales...all that corner of the world. that has been tremendous for me, and engendered a life long passion. I don't really regard it as an Intuitive deck. Yeah, it is, you can read that way, but then you're missing so much. If you do the research, the reading, the study the whole connectedness with tarot and the northwestern corner of Europe it goes incredibly deep. It will be very interesting to see what John Matthews brings to it, in the new edition. His Arthurian tarot has been the other really heavy hitter educational deck for me.
I don't know if this is what you're looking for, but it's how it is for me. I hope it's useful. I don't imagine that I will ever be so fluent with this deck that it will not require me to continue to study and learn. Anyway, All of the Above is why it remains my favorite deck, despite any currently reigning Passing Fancy.

Thanks for your thoughts on this Hearthcricket.... You know, one of the first things I thought of was the study group, but then I kind of got pulled sideways by the Greenwood when my studies with Thoth were going just fine, and Im trying to resist being torn asunder in my enthusiasm!

However, by the same token, Im not sure whether I would want to go through card by card. I suppose I feel that, at the moment, the structure of the deck, the concept of the deck is giving me a complete tarot reorientation. Im wallowing in this at the moment. The wholeness. New ways to think about the Arcana journey. Plus a sense of wanting to take the Greenwood off the pedestal and making it live and breathe as a working deck.

What is odd about the Greenwood, is that every day, at the time of my daily draw (after lunch over coffee!), instead of fanning out the deck and choosing a card, it makes so much more sense to lay out the cards face up and choose the one I most want to contemplate!

In response to your post, I can say that I love all the majors. Especially the Ancestor, and it is the more "primitive" Minors which I like the most. The ones which have what look like cave painting. Incredible.

The 7 of Stones and the two of Cups. I love the colours of the two of Stones too. Oddly, it is the court cards which I can least identify with, but Im sure that will come! There are some spectacular images in this deck. It is a deck which pulls, lures, but - as I said - feels to me quite a challenge.

Have you felt the need to do "background reading"? Or do you think the best approach is just letting the images speak? And can I ask a dumb question? What exactly is shamanism? Ive always found the subtitle of the deck a bit of a mouthful, and Ive never been able to find out exactly what shamanism is. I thought it was a North American Indian thing, not pre-Celtic English thing...

ETA; magpie9; we were posting at the same time. What a wonderful concise assessment of how it works for you. I can see myself approaching it very much in the same vein as you do. I just feel I have lots to learn before I can understand its language... What is a definite factor in the Greenwood calling to me right now is that although I was brought up with so many of these pre-Celtic sites on the doorstep, I have lived far from them in adult life and I feel at this moment in my life that they beckon...

I've used mine almost everyday since I got it..either to study or to read, mostly both.
I got a nice leather notebook and it became my Greenwood journal.
I'd take a card and write down every symbol on it and then reserch and read all I could.
I'm still doing this.
From that I made my own way of understanding what each card was saying.
I'm a psychic reader so I can't help but read any deck that way, but I also do enjoy incorporating the knowledge of my research into the meanings.
As for the book being written by Mark and not Chesca..I think that is true..too bad too because I would rather the artist opinion on her deck.
I have the website info printed out...I use that more than the book.
Maybe in a way it's a good thing ...if it was all printed out in black and white then there would be no need for researching and reading...and I find info gotten from digging into things yourself so much more rewarding than a spoon fed book.
So that's about it...just spending time with it and enjoying every minute...it really is my soul deck...I can't say that about any other deck.
I am so happy I found it...it's really enriched my tarot journey.
And P.S. after you've been studying it for awhile you start to have the most amazing shamanistic dreams...just stunning really.

Le Fanu I envy the fact that you have actually been to many of the places and sites depicted on the cards...that must make the images even more alive for you!

Le Fanu said:

Have you felt the need to do "background reading"? Or do you think the best approach is just letting the images speak? And can I ask a dumb question? What exactly is shamanism? Ive always found the subtitle of the deck a bit of a mouthful, and Ive never been able to find out exactly what shamanism is. I thought it was a North American Indian thing, not pre-Celtic English thing...

Click to expand...

First of all, I think your approach is fantastic. Just let the image that speaks to you be the card you work with. There is a reason you are connecting to it. Find out why! That is the journey that this deck really brings you on. Can it be read like tarot? Sure! But it has a lot of depth to it, a lot of personal imprinting to do, first, IMO. It isn't one I would read for others with until I was very comfortable with working with it, myself. And that does mean studying up on meanings, what is being represented, what story is being told. Everyone reads the cards differently. I am one who believes the best balance is both traditionally and intuitively, mixed together, but that is just what works for me. It doesn't necessarily mean it will work for another.

As for Shamanism, Shamans were world-wide. North, Central, South America. New Zealand, Canada, Siberia. Mi-Shell and others in the spirituality section could give you so much better information on this than I can. We have quite a few people studying it. I am just starting to read up on Celtic Shamanism. There are loads of paths. But here is some basic information that might help you. It is Wikipedia, so take it with a grain of salt, but it does explain, at least, the widespread practice of Shamanism and the basics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamanism

Though the Greenwood is Pre-Celtic Shamanism, I find anything I learn about the practice is helpful. I am not going to go nutty reading every book under the sun, but some books have been quite helpful in basic terms and information. I am really new to all of it so I appreciate any help on the subject!

I loved the whole deck straight away, it was just right. I've not read the book and I only use it for reading for myself, and then only when it feels right to do so. I just familiarised myself with it through using it, couldn't help it really the deck just kind of demanded to be used.

Now we've got the whole house move sorted and are pretty much settled in (except for the continuing tarot storage problems ) I'd really like to read the book then do some background reading.

Thanks a lot everyone...

Funny but today I received Chesca Potter´s Celtic Shaman´s Pack from sravana. Another wonderful deck; Ive had a quick flick through the book and it looks interesting for exploring this universe. As the Celtic Shaman is pre-Greenwood, it seems more of an introduction to the Celtic branch of Shamanism, "newbie" outlines of the principle mythological figures. The Greenwood looks more sophisticated in organisation and concept, but the Celtic Shaman book by John Matthews looks like a great starting point for the Celtic manifestations of Shamanism, which is what I feel I don´t really understand.

I can tell my approach to this deck is going to be unlike any other way to date of approaching a deck. I don´t feel an urge to "read" with it as I "read" with other decks. Maybe that will come further down the path. For the moment, I merely want to contemplate it. The divination side of things is currently being more than taken care of with the Thoth.

And yes lark.. Ive been remembering my visits to some of these sites depicted in the Greenwood. I remember going right up to the Horse of Uffington´s Head. If Id known of the significance of the mouth, Id have made a point of standing right where it breathes! This must have been in the 70s. I don´t know whether now it is like Stonehenge, restricted view. But when I was a kid you could walk all over these things, get up close, touch them, go inside the Long Barrow tombs. I remember doing this as a child and it has always stayed with me, visiting Silbury Hill for example. Ive just read that Avebury Stone Cirle is now closed, but 30 years ago you could (and we did) go inside it!...

Hi folks!
I realize, this is an ooooold threat, but I thought I ask, if you still are interested to talk?
I will be working with my new deck during the winter and would love to exchange thoughts and maybe revive the study group.
My card of today is 8 of Stones and I will post my thoughts on it in the Tarot study forum.
Blessings!
Mi-Shell

Mi-Shell, could you link to your study thread?
Mine is in the mail as we speak, I got chills looking at the 2 and 7 linked to above...