How do you shuffle?

jmd

Of course, the very real answer is, as Diana has previously pointed out, by mixing the cards together.

This is not my question, however. Nor is the question about the various ways in which one may mix the cards together, but the question of shuffling or mixing as part of the very being and process of reading.

For example, whether I mix the cards by mixing them fanned out upon a table, face up or down; or I 'riffle' them; or again I hand them to another to mix - all these are peripheral answers. And each of us may use various methods at various times.

Again, the importance is not on the number of permutations one method gives over another (by allowing reversals or not, for example)...

The question is not on the 'shuffle' part of the question, but on the 'how'! For this question, transformed to exclamation, already contains something which may bring us out of ourselves if voiced by another during the process ('How do you shuffle!!!).

Again, then, the very tone or disposition one adopts from the beginning of the reading process, from even before the cards are held and shuffled, to the concluding part, becomes verily a sacred act. Of course one may include myrrh or mirth - but reverance (again) comes as central.
 

firemaiden

As a veeeeeeeeeeeeeery old friend once said, "Plaît-il?"

Is this the beginning of a treatise on "Coagulare and the Alchemical Art of Shuffling? or does the metaphore lie elsewhere?

})
 

Trogon

Ahhh.... hmmmm.... errrrr.... well now... I'm a bit lost here jmd. To me (of a somewhat practical mind... sometimes anyway) the "how" of it, indicates the simple mechanics of what I do to shuffle. However, the context of your entire post seems to indicate that you are trying to look much deeper than that. Perhaps this is more of a "why" question? "Why do I shuffle the way I do?" Or "why is there 'shuffle'?" Kind of like "why is there air?" or "why is there okra?" (The second one, of course, is a question which has puzzled scientists and philosophers for centuries - and which brings us to the more important question of "why must I eat this okra?" But I digress a little.)

However... perhaps the best way I can answer "how do you shuffle" is to say... I shuffle very well... thank you...
 

Diana

How do you shuffle?
Why do you shuffle?
What goes on when you shuffle?

I was asking myself this question the other day, as I was shuffling my cards for a reading. As I fan my cards out on the table and choose them visually, I was wondering why I bothered to shuffle for sometimes up to three minutes. I mean, it shouldn't matter with my method.

As I don't believe in "energy" in the cards, I was wondering what on earth I was doing.

Except I knew that it was important, and that I absolutely needed to do it.

Then I realised that I do when I shuffle is to take the time to tap into the Universal Web. I need a bit of time to stop focusing on my tiny little place in this web, and to feel very concretely my connection with every single living creature. I need the time for my mind to rush faster than the speed of light along all the little threads that make up this Web so that I can feel their connection to me. My cards are also a part of the Web. They are the tools I have chosen to do my divination so I naturally "play" with them when I do my tapping.

Hope I've made some sense.
 

firemaiden

Hope in vain, Diana.
 

allibee

I am guilty of becoming a religious person as I shuffle, LOL

I clear my mind and visualise a very sacred fountain of truth and 'wash' my cards in there whilst asking for assistance, guidance and blessing that I may be able to give the best reading I can.
I then visualise my higher hands over my earthly ones as I shuffle.

If my crown starts 'drawing back' and my back heating up at this point, I know it's going to be a 'whopper' of a reading!
Usually I just start feeling a tingling, like tangible cobwebs brushing over my arms or shoulders.

Does this freak you out? I LOVE it!!!!


A.
 

Diana

Discussing this important issue with my son on the way home from the movies (Anger Control - very pleasant and humouristic movie, by the way), he said something like this (paraphrased):

"It's like a phone-call. When you pick up your deck and take out the cards, you're dialling the number. When you shuffle, the phone is ringing. When you cut the deck, the connection is made...". (He didn't add: "and when you do the reading, you're chatting" - but I suppose that was too obvious for him to mention it.)

I love it when he says things like this. It makes everything so simple and clear. :)
 

Kaz

hehee, your son is smart diana :) great analogy there.
remembers me i still have to look up a title of a book for him.
 

HudsonGray

The act of shuffling almost turns into a zen kind of thing, trying to clear the mind, focusing on a question, letting the energies flow--I think it helps put a person into a nice receptive state because in a way it's like going through a ritual.

The physical shuffling I do is random 'chunking' from one hand to the other to mix sections, maybe reversing sections so they're more randomized, then cut the deck in two and do a few 'blending' shuffles (don't know the actual name for this, it's not 'riffing' or 'bridging' which arches the cards up like in Las Vegas), then chunk in smaller sections till it feels right to stop.

I've been trying to change how I put the cards down in a spread, though. I'd been taught to flip them down, so the bottom of the card while in the deck ends up being the top of the card when it's laid on the table. Last year I kept getting the feeling I needed to change this so I've been trying to train myself to turn the card over side to side instead. But I got crazy readings till I mentally asked myself just before laying the cards out whether I should use the side to side or bottom up way. That helped. Now 90% are done with the side to side placement of the cards.
 

firemaiden

My dear jmd, how unsual of you to ask... just to get you started... here are a few threads which have gone before... })})})

(links to three thousand shuffling threads, now to be found on table of contents)