Personal deck study habits?

[punchinella]

Papercutbliss, two things spring immediately to mind. With a couple of decks I have gone to Kinkos and xeroxed every card once on a separate sheet of paper, then filed these all into 3-ring binders and journaled on each page around the xeroxed image. I like having the image right on the page I'm writing on so as to draw arrows and label individual elements.

When I acquired Tarot of the Origins, I wanted to get to know it better. Not so easy, since there is no support literature! So, I started a thread on the deck in the daily draws subforum. I decided to log something on one card per day (drawn randomly) for 78 days but alas . . . life got in the way, I went on vacation, lost access to a computer for a time and never pulled the project back together. I still feel guilty about this.

I do plan to resume eventually

 

[papercutbliss]

Thank you, everyone, for your responses.

I have bonded with many decks but I have only ever done the serious "study habit" with a few. If I journal with a deck - which I hardly ever do - then obviously it means I have dedicated quite a bit of time and effort into a deck and invariably it reaps rewards. I have only ever done this with the Thoth, Navigators of the Mystic Sea and the William Blake. I also did it when studying the Dodal with Herzog. But that was merely a notebook with numerological associations and sample spreads. Most of the studying and analysing we did in a thread here

However, a deck like the Victorian Romantic I feel truly bonded with and I never journalled with it. The companion book is so good, I simpy read it and kept reading with the deck and feel that, after the Thoth, this is the deck I feel most comfortable with. So I don't think journalling is absolutely essential.

But sometimes I am unsure about a deck; I have a period of *loose*, non-commital bonding with it to see if it is going to be a deck I shall invest more time in. In that case, I carry it around with me, look at the images in my spare moments, sit up in bed at night going through it, maybe do a draw for the following day. I have so little time, but can usually feel if it is a "journalling" kind of deck. Sadly, nowadays, so few decks come along that threaten to knock the old favourites off their perch.

But reading with, shuffling, looking at, thinking about... that's the most you can do really. I never meditate with cards (like all the books say you should) as I have never found it to be particularly useful. Thinking about cards when I'm out & about, in the café, on the subway, this is always useful for me...

Insightful . I recently received Navigators of the Mystic Sea... I am quite fascinated with it upon first inspection. I believe there's a companion book for it... have you read it by any chance, and if so, was it helpful?

What I like to do is look at cards right before bed time and embed them in my mind... and once I drift off to sleep and transfer to dreamland, sometimes these same cards appear in my dreams... often blurred and distorted, but I recognize them nonetheless. Sometimes I gain a new understanding of them depending on what else is going on in my dream simultaneously. I wonder if anyone else does this...

I like your "new deck" habits though.

I think the nuances of a deck's symbolism show up best within the context of readings so if I want to use a new deck I just read with it.

Understood and agreed!

I've never done a formal study of a deck. I suppose its a combination of being naturally disorganized, and preferring the spontanaity of a reading. I will sit and look through the cards, looking at each one, admiring the artwork, and stopping to see what strikes me if a card seems important at the moment. Call it an intuitive, sponataneous, sort of random study!!! LOL

Hm, I can really relate to this! I love studying this way too... I feel ready to take a more serious, structured type of study now though.

I look at the cards and read the book. And eventually I read with the cards (most of the time; some decks I've never read with), at least to try them out. The better I like them, the more I'll use them.

Of course, if I get involved in a study group here, then I get to see all kinds of things in the cards that I wouldn't notice on my own! Even if I'm the one who started the thread! Sometimes putting it out for someone else to comment makes one pay closer attention. I suppose that makes it a form of journaling. Otherwise I don't generally journal, except for when I try out a new spread. I almost always write those readings down and analyze them on paper. But just that once per spread.

I've been perusing the study group threads... I really like what I see; I feel compelled to participate more in that area of the forum.

With my personal favourite I'm tallying up nearly 20 years now, and still learning.

...and your personal favorite would be??

I did this once :

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=111489

It was a fantastic way to really study the deck and had such wonderful help from the AT peeps.

Thanks! I will check that out...

OK then - and I did this one - tough but SO worth it. Warning - few stay the course....

I bet that was super challenging... kudos to you for sticking to the course. Doing that would be a true test of my patience... but maybe I'll give it a try. Have you only done it once? If I'm correct, you have a plethora of decks... that's such tasty temptation when you're doing an intense study of just one deck. I, too, have a lot of decks... and I already know I'd be tempted to stray off course. How did you fight that urge? Did you use other decks on the side while you continued to study just that *one* deck of your choice? Sorry about all these questions .

You could enter the Intensive Deck Study support thread = IDS
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=147339

I spend over a year getting to know certain decks and posted some of my findings in the Tarot Study groups specific to these decks, also to exchange thoughts with others that were working with the same deck.

I'm definitely pondering it... I'm amazed by people's dedication in those kind of threads. I think I want to be a part of that.