Clow Cards Discussion Thread

Satori

Please use this thread to discuss various issues around the Clow Cards. Please post your ideas for exercises here, reading circle ideas, and how to use the Clow or on-line definitions.

Sky's the limit for this one.

In fact, I'll throw this out to the group, because I'm stumped. Since this deck is about the cards coming to life and actually going out and creating an action and reaction in people do you think the cards could be used for healing or magical purposes??

Also, since they are about actions it seems that they would read differently for people than what I'm used to. Not sure tho...Need to get a reading circle going soon, because I think with this one using it will speak volumes.
 

Lillie

Hi Satori.

I think any cards can be used for magickal or healing purposes.
I think that these are particularly good for it because the names and the images are so immedeate, very simple, but deep too.

One way to see them is to see each card as a person, or an elemental, or whatever that embodies the name on the card.
Some are more difficult for this, but most are pretty easy.

The earthy. a beautiful woman, the spirit of the earth.
That sort of thing.
Whatever the name means to you.

As 'people' or forces, they can be invoked, imagined, spoken too, things like that.
And I think they can be used like that very well.
If you picked a card that symbolised what you wanted r what you wanted to know, and then meditated upon it, or 'imagined yourself into the card' where you could talk to the person/thing upon it, then you could get information or healing or wisdom or whatever.
Sorry, I'm rubbish at explaining this sort of thing.

How I read them is usually with three card spreads, and very simple questions.
And because I have never had official meanings for them I really just say what I see. I do not have to comply with anything.
It's a peculiar sort of freedom for my intuition.

I generally get simple but direct answers to my questions.

I really love these cards.
I work with them in a very different way to tarot, or even any oracle cards.
It's much more free.

Oh yeah.
I also wanted to say that I have no interest in 'the story' or the cartoon or whatever it was.
I couldn't care less what Sakura did or didn't do with the cards.
That's what I like about them, I don't know nothing and I don't need to know nothing.

Also, I have the orange, original type.
The pink ones are just very, very pink.
I think they have an extra card, but really, I don't know.
I like pink, but that's just too much pink for me.
 

Satori

Thanks Lillie.
I think the cards are cute and freeing as well. You know some of my best Tarot readings have actually been when I don't try to remember anything other than to say what comes up. When I try to read from RW meanings or try to remember numbers...sometimes I get more stuck than if I just let go and relax. Which is why I also think that when we are using the Clow we start with our own intuition rather than go to a website and learn someone else's meanings.

Just from doing the favorite, least favorite exercise I discovered some great information. And I really got more out of the least favorite exercise. Suddenly I had the Cloud girl crying and I was really tuning in to her and what she had to say to me! It was fun.

I like that they are personalities. I did go online this afternoon and watched the very first episode of the Sakura Cardcaptor show. It wasn't bad, but I don't know if I'm cut out for watching the whole thing.

What did you do with the cards that are in chains inside of the card? I thought that was interesting, the chained up sword and shield. That sort of bothers me a little, those chains....if I had a magic eraser I think I would erase the chains on those....but I think when I get around to working with them it will make a bit more sense. I'm hoping anyway.

I also seem to be drawn more to the cards that I see as "adult" rather than the littlest kids. And that sort of surprises me. I have little ones, I'm an older Mom in fact. So it was interesting to me that I had so much impatience with the Cloud. But I think I do so much parenting and care taking that I don't want to deal with bratty oracle cards!!! LOL.
 

Lillie

I have no patience at all with kids.
But the clow cartoony kids don't bother me much.
I can put up with them.

I'm going to do the favourite/least favourite excercise. (if i can decide which one I like best.)

I don't know about the ones with the chains.
I have always wondered about this too.
At the momment I just ignore it.
But I feel that the chains have to have some significance.
One day I will figure out what it is.

I like the beautiful cards best.
The elemental ones and the similar ones.
I just think they are lovely.
 

Satori

The sorting exercise is pretty powerful. Thank you to Chronata for that one. Once you get going with it, you begin to subconsciously make little decisions about the cards, and it is so zen that you zone out a bit and begin making little connections between cards that you might not have made before.

One of the group members who also sorted the cards grouped the elementals together...and I hadn't been thinking in those terms. I was very much into grouping them by age! The little mermaid, The Bubbles wanted to be with the other mermaid at first, but later she seemed content to hang out with the younger watery cards. I found it very interesting to play with them in groups.

I admit I'm eager to exchange a reading with someone using the deck, but since people are finding the study group a bit slowly I may hold off on the reading exercises for now.

I'm so glad you joined us Lillie.

Thanks!
 

Lillie

The first thing I tried to do was to categorise them.

(it's the way my mind works)

And I was very annoyed that they refused to be categorised.
Too many of them fit into more than one category.
Or no category.

I have never done them by age.

I tried puting them in pairs once.

But some of them wanted to go with their opposites and some wanted to go with their most similar card.
And others just didn't want to go at all.

Just to give you an idea of what I'm like, when I was a kid and I played with lego, I used to tip out the box and then put them together so I had a block of red squares, a block of white squares, a block of big red oblongs, small red oblongs.....and so on.
I got annoyed then with the ones that refused to belong to a category.
What a nerdy kid I was!

One of the great challenges in my life is to learn to accept things that cannot be categorised.

The Clow cards are good for me in a deep psycological way.
 

Chronata

When I first did my grouping exercises it was out of sheer boredom.

I had gotten them from my mom...who had found them at a garage sale.
They had no box or book, and were tied with a rubber band. I hadn't a clue what they were (or that they were missing a few cards!)
i just knew they were very cute...and I was instantly smitten.

So then ...the next day I'm on vacation for a week, and I have nothing to do...so i look through my new cards...and start grouping them, and talikng to them, and telling little stories with them.

They don't stay well in the groups...that's true!
So...I start groupling them in different ways...and I keep doing it!
Sometimes I group them without looking...(about four in each group) and then try and figure out what they have in common!

I think I have only ever done this exercise with two other decks...the Madame Endora (or which, I believe the CLOW is kin)and the Froud's faeries.

The CLOW are closely linked now with my Psycards and my Madame Endora...if I have to catagorize the whole deck...it is a very small child (about ages 5) who happens to be wise beyond her years. And yet still playfull and innocent.
That's why I consider the CLOW the youngest sibling of my Three Sisters decks...she matches the teenage Endora, and the Collage sis Psycards very well.

But she's the most pouty...and the most likely to throw a tantrum. She is also the most honest too...because she is young and doesn't know any better...and the wisest...(for the same reason!)

But that's the whole deck together...each card individually has it's various degrees of wisdom and innocence...and playfullness, and tantrum.

it will be fun to do some structured exercises with them. I think they are grown up enough now for that! :D
 

Satori

It is funny that they are so varied in age. I think it is like an Inner Child deck of geniuses. Because each kid is the absolute best at what she does...and then there are the older kids, and then the adults......so each of the Clow is here because she is chosen for the task, special, some kind of avatar.

So now I wonder if they change as they age. Do they even age? Like The Time. We see her as perhaps the oldest one in the deck, the oldest in terms of how she looks. But the Earthy could be very old too...does she, Earthy, have another aspect and she just happened to be caught here as the younger looking aspect?

Is the same true of the kids? Are they really ancient? Or timelessly youthful. Does the Bubbles grow up into a different form or does she just stay forever the sweet little mermaid?

Hmmmm...
 

Chronata

Satori said:
Does the Bubbles grow up into a different form or does she just stay forever the sweet little mermaid?

Hmmmm...

Ha...funny you should mention this, Satori!

Last night, (4 in the morn...can't sleep!) I tried to sort and catagorize them...but they were doing something completelty different!

Have any of you ever seen Pokemon? The show with the little anime critters?

Well, pokemon start out as a juvenille base form...and then they evolve into something meaner or bigger or more powerful.

Well, that's what my CLOW did last night!

they paired up to show me how it might be if one ws a younger form...and the other an older more evolved form.

(I think this came with the first exercise of the Return and the Time...the return seems like a younger version ...although in this case I suspect it might be the other way around...via time travel)

anyway...some cards like the Little> the Big seemed obvious.

like the Voice>The Song

but some were very interesting!

the Cloud>The Sweet (I can see how that's possible...the sweet is an older version of cloud...mmmm reminds me of cotton candy!)

or the Sleep>the Dream makes so much sense!

the Bubbles becomes the Mist, while the Wave becomes the Watery(and becomes the Wave again!)

Here are some strange ones...
By the way...this is only how they fit together last night...I'm sure it's bound to change!

the Maze>the Create

The Jump>the Through

The Power>the Snow

The Shot>the Windy

The Storm>the Flower (can you sort of see why?)

The Shadow>the Silent (or vice versa...hard to tell)

The Mirror>the Illusion

and My favorite...

The Change>the Fiery>the Fly! (three forms! Now that's evolving!)

I'm curious if this works for you guys as well!
 

Satori

I actually love this.

I was thinking the same thing, that maybe they could progress into some of the other forms, and then I was thinking, well if they work together as separate entities how can they be the same being and still be separate, but still appear in the same spread, or the same deck.

And then I sort of slap my head and think...well, I'm the one always talking about things not having to be linear or explainable, and then there is that little ol' thing called magic....!

Well done Chronata!

Isn't it interesting that you have worked with yours the longest and they still have lessons for you?

What about the Power growing into the Big?

I've been showing the girls the cards and they agree about the Storm and The Flower.

I also thought of this one:
The Arrow---The Shot---The Silent

I have cleaning to do! I could be at this for a while now! Put the deck down girl....put the deck down.