rwcarter said:
2_Journey,
I understand exactly what you're talking about.
Before I started the first IDS, I was doing about 8 different tarot-related things with various decks and books. I was cycling through them all without really dedicating any intense focus on any of them. And I really wasn't making much headway on any of them, truth be told.
Then I IDSd with the Ancient Egyptian Tarot for 7 months. While it wasn't the deck that I thought I'd be using for the IDS (I just knew it would be one of the Bohemian Gothic versions!), it was the deck that chose me as it were. By focusing in on that one deck, I moved away from the stock meanings of the cards and began to read the imagery instead. In some cases I would read the card, but in most cases some part of the imagery would jump out at me. And because I had studied the imagery, I could use that knowledge to determine what the card was trying to tell me, even if it had nothing to do with the "standard" meaning of the card.
The IDS is a wonderful thing in that way. And all those things I was splitting my focus on earlier this year? I couldn't recite the list if my life depended on it, although the list is in the first IDS thread. Do I miss those things I was splitting my focus on? Well, if I can't remember what they were, I guess I can't miss them, huh?
Rodney
Hi Rodney,
Just saw your post now. Its been crazy with the holidays, and I'm not out of the soup yet until after the 1st of the year. I think it really is amazing, because as I work more and more with my two decks, the more I realize how little I miss the deck jumping I was doing before. I haven't been tempted by any other decks (okay, except for the Behemian Gothic, but its so prettyyyy! But I didn't cheat, lol).
I'm feeling like I felt right back at the beginning of my tarot journey away back in the year 2000, when all I had for the first six months was the Universal Waite, and then I bought the Thoth. Then, every reading was a new and exciting experience, every message so fresh and distilled to exactly what the cards were telling me. It was all about reading the cards, not hopping from deck to deck. When I first started reading tarot, the message was important, rather than the messenger (deck) I was using.
And then I caught the collecting bug, and burned through dozens of decks (now either sold online, given to friends, or in storage). I didn't even realize I was missing my beginners eyes until I started doing the IDS. Committing like this really has forced me to focus on the message more than on the cards, if that makes sense. Its all just very refreshing, in a way I hadn't expected at all. I really do feel like I'm a beginner again! I'm having so much fun!
Alright, preaching overwith for now. I just couldn't help myself!