I am studying one card each week of the Ironwing as part of my IDS and 78 week study and I suppose if this is anything it's a statement of future intention ....
I recall that when I studied the Templar it was difficult but very rewarding because I did the study by contemplation of each image, meditating on what I had seen and then writing about what I got from the meditation. That made it an extremely subjective study but wonderfully worthwhile. I did that with Death from the Ironwing and the result was straight from the heart. The cards I’ve done so far in this 78 week study have been worked on with formal study and although I have an intellectual understanding of those cards as a result of that, I don’t “feel” them in the same way as I feel Death. Thus I intend to revisit those previous cards and add the results of meditating on each one.
I think, in fact, that for each card from now on I’ll work in the same way that I did for the Templar – certainly that deck is one that I grok more thoroughly than any other, and it would be deeply satisfying to achieve that same level of inner understanding of the Ironwing. I appreciate that this makes my study of less value to others because they may well not see the same things, or with the same level of intensity as I do in a card. My life's experiences will affect what I see, and my experiences have not been theirs (and vice versa). To put it bluntly, that’s tough. This is a deck that needs to be felt inwardly as well as understood intellectually. It is easy to look at the book and say “that’s a representation of a forged iron Bur Oak acorn” – what’s needed is an understanding of why that image is there, what it makes me feel, what I see with that Inner Eye when I look at that acorn…. And so the focus of my personal study is changing.
I will be spending far more time in contemplation of a card. I will be setting up a large image of one card each week by the altar in the Spirit Room, and I can sit before the altar and contemplate the image for a few hours. Then another day, and working without the image in front of me, I will sit before the altar and think about what I saw in that card – and see where I go from there. It is those meditations and what I get from them that I will be posting in the 78 week study group threads, and in the Ironwing study group threads.
I can recall every single Templar image in great detail and clarity - and if I didn't have the cards physically it wouldn't matter a jot; I have them mentally. I want that with this deck.....
Quite possibly my understanding of the images on the cards will not jive with what Lorena writes about in her companion book. I really don’t care. I want my understanding of her cards to improve, and my reading of them – not my comprehension of her book ….
So – I shall be posting about The Forge tomorrow
I will also be doing at least five readings for others each week with the deck, and a couple for myself.... I also fit in a few face to face readings with it each week for others. I'm also reading up on original blacksmithing techniques, the flora and fauna that I see within the cards and working in the Singing the Soul Back Home shamanic practice thread, and going through Mi-Shell's Teaching Tent thread.
It occurs to me that it sounds very contradictory that I am reading up on these things when doing a meditative study, but I am not formally studying the individual cards using the handbook, which I think really would go against the grain of how I work best - an understanding of blacksmithing etc tells me about the physicality of the the images - how they are made and the movements the body makes in the manufacture, what's involved? how do the blacksmiths respond to what they do? etc.......