Dynamic Spreads Deck

As a birthday present, I was given a copy of the Dynamic Spreads Deck by BK Reichle, who I believe is a member here at Aeclectic. It's put out by Uvesa Publishing and the ISBN is 978-0-615-69732-1. (It's currently in stock at Amazon.) Just like the Deck of 1000 Spreads, it's a spreadcrafting tool.

Before I get into any comparisons between the two systems, I'll focus on the DSD. My first impression was that the system comes in a HUGE box. I don't even think I have tarot sets with companion books that are in boxes this big. The cards come in a recipe-style flip top box. There's a space in the lid to hold a pen or pencil, which I think is a nice touch. There's a weird paperboard spacer in the box that's too wide to sit square in the box, so it flattens at the back of the box. There are 105 cards that are divided into 6 sections. And there are some post-it notes and 19 half-sized cards included in the recipe box. (The outer box is as thick as it is because of the thickness of the recipe box.)

Then I pulled out the companion book, which is long, thin and narrow (accounting for the tallness of the outer box). I don't know whose idea it was to use green print on an off-white background for the text in the book, but I find it very hard to read the text unless I'm under strong light. Thinking it might just be me, I asked someone else if they could read the text, and they had the same problems. It's also difficult to get the book back into the box without removing the spacers for the recipe box. And if you put the spacers back in wrong, then you can't put the recipe box back in.

The cards themselves are oriented in landscape mode, which I'm still not sure if I like or not. They are divided into the following categories:

• Theme
• EXPLORE Me
• EXPLORE Considerations
• EXPLORE Group Interactions
• EXPLORE Actions
• Conclusion

I wish EXPLORE had been written in smaller text and the "Me, Considerations, etc" had been written in larger text as at first glance, there are 4 categories for explore and that can be really confusing until one gets used to it.

The Theme cards are just what one would expect - overarching themes for readings, such as "Love/Passion/Sex," "Home life," and "Non-romantic partnerships." A couple of the cards even have fill-in-the-blanks, such as "My connection with:_____________________" and "An event occurring on: _____/_____/_____". I think the themes do a pretty good job of covering the range of themes on which we do readings. Because every theme could never be captured, I wish some blank cards had been included. (None are included for any of the sections, which was an unfortunate oversight.)

The EXPLORE sets of cards is where I have another issue with the set - a number of the cards have two topics on them in a yin/yang kind of balance, such as "My strength in this situation/My challenge in this situation," My perception/The reality," and "What inspires me/What distracts me that I'm not aware of ." As a general rule, that's fine, but I can think of circumstances in which I might want to only look at one part of the card and then I'm left with either ignoring the other part, pulling a card I don't want to pull or covering that part of the card with a post-it note. Again, not a huge deal, but it would've been nice to not have to do that.

One of the things I really like about the Explore cards is that none of them are phrased as Yes/No questions, as I don't believe Tarot does a good job of answering those.

The Conclusion cards are roughly divided into outcome cards (5), advice cards (7) and a "What should I learn from this?" card. Again, a good range of outcomes, but a blank card or two that one could use for other outcomes would've been nice.

The timing cards are not used for determining a time frame in which something shown in the reading will occur but are for setting the time frame in advance. No card is placed on the timing card, but instead it sits as part of the reading as a focus of intention. Two of the half-sized cards are actually "Choice A" and "Choice B" cards for looking at options. The other cards cover "Now", the four seasons, "Today", "This week", "This month" and four cards each for the Next or Past years, months, weeks and days with a fill-in-the-blank space to indicate a number. (If there's any indication in the book as to whether a dry-erase marker will work on the cards, I don't see it.)

The companion book shows different spreads created by the author and other tarot luminaries who have tried out the system, goes into more depth on each card in the deck and suggests other cards that could be used with a given card, gives sample fictional readings and has an appendix of a nice cross-section of recommended books.

Now to the obvious comparisons between Dynamic Spreads Deck (DSD) and Deck of 1000 Spreads (DKS):

• DKS comes with 65 cards divided into 5 categories while DSD comes with 105 cards divided into 6 sections
• Tarot cards are meant to go beneath the cards in DSD while they're meant to be placed on top of the cards in DKS, resulting in a lot more space being needed for DSD spreads than for DKS spreads
• DSD has no blank cards while DKS does
• DSD doesn't have a specific "Significator" card while DKS does
• Both systems seem to cover the same general ideas, but with different words:
  • "Negative Influences" in DKS could be the same as ""who or what is making this more difficult than it should be?" or "My worst habit" in DSD
  • "Health" in DKS could be the same as "My body" in DSD
  • "Lesson" in DKS could be the same as "What should I learn from this?" in DSD
  • "Partner" in DKS could be the same as "Someone else:_____" or "Non-romantic partnerships" in DSD
• Each system has some cards that other is missing:
  • DKS has "Timing" cards for "What to leave in the past", "Past life", "Future life", "What to let go of in the future", "What to use in the future", and "What to take from the past" that don't seem to have corresponding cards in DSD
  • DSD has an entire section of cards (22, 19 of which have 2 topics on them) that looks at group interactions while DKS has maybe three cards that could be considered to look at the same interactions

I don't think either system is perfect, nor do I think one is better than the other. In an ideal world, one would pick and choose the best cards from each system to produce spreads than can't be produced with either system alone.

Rodney

Thanks for the review, Rodney. I am currently waiting for my Dynamic Spreads Deck to arrive and appreciate reading your preview in the meantime. I'm looking forward to using Bill's deck and seeing how we executed this idea differently!

BTW, people can also find the Dynamic Spreads Deck at http://dynamicspreads.com. That's where I ordered mine from.

Thanks for the review Rodney. I am certainly intrigued now. The photo on the website showed the duality of a question which was interesting.

Hi Everyone,

I’m the guy who created the Dynamic Spreads Deck. It’s great to see that there is already a review - and surprising too, as I barely feel like I got it off the ground. (This labor of love took nearly 4 years to birth. I’ve discovered how challenging self publishing and packaging design can be.) And since so many people use Aeclectic to determine whether or not to make a purchase, I’m glad you got the ball rolling.

I thought I would address a few points that were raised. I dreamed of having packaging for this deck that I would be proud of. I wanted something that would be self-contained with everything they needed, nicely organized by tabs. This is why the box of cards has tabbed dividers, a place to hold a pen, sticky notes and the mini cards for Choice and Time Frame. I also wanted the book to fit inside too (sigh).

However, at the 11th hour, the guy who did the book layout, said I had to choose between modifying or removing the spread layouts so the book could fit, or make the book larger. I choose to keep the spread layout true to form. As a result, I needed an outer box that could hold both the book and the box of cards. My hope was that people would toss (or repurpose) the large box and just keep the box of cards and the book. All those cheap white spacer boxes were meant to be discarded.

You mentioned the awkward spacer in the box of cards. You’re right, it doesn’t hold it’s shape once you start pulling out cards. I actually asked the printing company to add this as a feature for protecting the cards during shipment. I was concerned about the cards being jostled around. Once you receive the product, you can toss it. Sorry if that was confusing. Perhaps I should have mentioned this in the book. I guess I’m so used to tossing the white-blank fillers and spacers that get in the way… I just assumed everyone did

One of the areas that I’m particularly proud of, is the number of cards where I have compare/contrast positions. In the prototyping stage, this was an approach that received lots of positive feedback. I purposefully choose to keep the pairings on a single spread-card for two reasons. If I separated them, the quantity of cards would have been unmanageable. But more importantly, I don’t think people would find it so easy to quickly identify what pairings might be effective. When we analyze situations, it has been said that it’s helpful to look at things from different perspectives, and this is what I tried to accomplish with these pairings. And yet, there will be times when you don’t want to draw a card for both, as you mentioned. I’m hoping readers will be comfortable with the idea of just not drawing that second card.

As I was identifying the positions I wanted to include, I tried to offer both the tried and true questions as well as ones I hadn’t seen before in any pre-designed spread. I pulled my inspiration from years of reading books that have helped me look at my life holistically and make improvements. A couple of positions that come to mind…. “What should I ask for that I might get for the asking”. Years ago, I read the Aladdin Factor and realized that sometimes we limit ourselves because we don’t even ponder the idea that someone might grant our deepest wish. And here are a few more… “What are the ramifications of getting what I desire”, “Boundaries (beneficial) | Boundaries (not helpful)”, “Speak | Keep Silent”. This last one is helpful, as sometimes we say things that deeply hurt others. We think it’s going to be helpful, and yet in the scheme of things, it’s not. This compare and contrast can help us navigate the difference.

Welcome Bill. Congrats on getting your labor of love out into the world!

I do love the recipe box for the cards. I don't tend to throw away outer boxes (even the Llewellyn ones) as then I have two places to look for stuff (decks and books are generally kept on separate bookcases). It's also not very "green" to include stuff that's just meant to be discarded. I'm generally fine with the compare/contrast cards. As I said, I can think of instances in which only part of the pair would be needed and then there's the awkwardness of what to do with the unneeded part.

Once more people have this tool and start using it, it'll be interesting to see what ways it's being used that you as creator never thought of.

Rodney

Hmmm...it definitely looks interesting, though I'd like to see a few more pictures of it, especially in use. It *was* available on Amazon three days ago, but it's showing as "out of stock - limited availability" now. Bill, will it be coming back in stock there, or will it only be available through your site going forward?

I'd guess that Amazon has gone through their initial shipment and is waiting for a second shipment.

rwcarter said:

I'd guess that Amazon has gone through their initial shipment and is waiting for a second shipment.

Click to expand...

That was my first thought--but typically if they're *expecting* another shipment, they'll use different wording (often with a time frame) & sometimes even let you go ahead with the order. It's somewhat rare for them to show an item as totally out of stock with this wording & no button to purchase unless it's a discontinued item. So it was a little odd, which is why I wondered if selling through them was a one time thing & if it would only be available elsewhere going forward. I've known a few other artisans to do that with their limited production-run products.

I saw the price on amazon was reasonable, so would have looked to see if it were also available via BookDepository. Being in NZ, postage costs otherwise make quite a few purchases out of the question.

But thank you Bill_Tarot for coming in with the thoughts behind the deck. It was the duality of the card with two questions posed that certainly piqued my interest.

Thanks for the welcome, Rodney.

And to those wondering about Amazon... The listing should be up again soon, apologies for the confusion and delays. I won't bore you with the interesting hoops, approvals and challenges of the vendor's side of working with Amazon. Let's just say it's not as straight forward as I thought it would be. In the meantime (if interested), you can order from my site: dynamicspreads.com, or from the company that is housing and distributing it: deverapublishing.com

We ship internationally, but the cost is very expensive Once I've got everything settled domestically, I'm going to see what can be done to improve the situation for international customers.

From the customers perspective, we typically want to hear about a product - have a way to see pics, learn about it, and then make a purchasing decision. It makes me think of guests arriving for a party. The guests want to come into the pretty home, experience a calm and collected host and partake in the food and good conversation. The guests don't want to arrive while the host is still frantically getting ready - not dressed, and a bit sweaty... and they don't want to hear the host complain about why it took so long to clean the house ;-)

So, please forgive me as I attend to all these last-stage steps (all of which are new to me). I'll get my house in order, and then maybe we can have a good chat over a cup of tea - so to speak.