nisaba
I *like* the Minor Arcana.Marina said:
But in my really early years, two things were going on: I was a bit afraid that 78 images with thousands of meanings each was a bit much for a non-genius like me to manage to get straight, and I might have heard or read (or assumed from the word "minor") that the Minor Arcana was somehow less important.
So I used a stripped-down majors-only RWS for a short period, quickly augmenting it with the courts and aces. I got better - I quickly realised how much richer the readings were with more cards.
Yup, but the fact remains that there are plenty of 22-card decks around, some of them excellent (such as the Blue Moon and the Lebanese). I think of these two in particular more as art-decks than as working decks, though - with 22 cards, they are just a bit thin on the ground for the complexity of people's lives. In the case of the Lebanese Tarot, too, I think it wasn't originally envisioned as a deck but as a set of Tarot-related full-sized artworks, and publication as a deck came later. As far as I can tell, the artist simply never had the time and/or inclination to do another 52 full-sized paintings - she may have had other artistic needs she wanted to pursue.Marina said:
I like working with full decks. But I *have* worked with stripped-down decks, and I can't honestly say that I never will again, and I find a 42-card stripped-down deck works better than a 22-card stripped-down deck.
