Yarnzipan
So I have no doubt at ALL that I am opening up one heck of a can of worms on this one, but this is definitely one of the sort of subjects that I kind of joined the forum to ask since it's been kind of percolating in my brain the last few weeks. I also didn't see a thread on this super recently when I did a search but if I missed it, my bad!
The thing is that I, to date, have never read with reversals. It always seemed, to me, to be somewhat disruptive to the reading, even possibly making the images harder to interpret because they're upside down. On top of that, I always liked to keep my decks neat and orderly. On top of THAT, while I'm very much a fan of believing in the fate of things when it comes to the cards (ie, I always take into account cards that drop out of my hands, etc.) the idea that I could get more or less upright or reversed cards depending on how I picked up the deck just seemed too arbitrary to me.
Now, I've always read the cards using proximity and relationships of location to help augment the cards and help me figure out which shades and echoes of the meanings and associations are really the most pertinent. But it was only really recently, reading through a few more books and by extension, reading through a few example readings, that the idea of reversals really seemed all that attractive or useful to me as a prospect. Mostly because they've been very clear to treat it as a subverted or on-it's-head version and/or using it as an indication that the energy of that particular card has been stymied as opposed to giving it what seems like a whole new meaning, which fits my brainspace better. Obviously everything with the tarot has a lot of subjectivity to it, but the explanation I've found more recently just jives better than the stuff I read earlier.
But, while I do want to grow as a reader, those original points still stand to some degree. So I suppose I was wondering how people felt about the concept of reversals in general, how they tend to deal with them in a greater deck sense (do you shuffle them straight up and let fate accidentally reverse them? mix them all up on the table and see what ends up flipped? bridge the cards so that they're practically 50/50 at one point?) and if, say, they'd feel it's disrespectful to the cards or to the messages to, after NOTING that a card is reversed, perhaps manipulating it to see the images more easily.
I'm still sort of warming up to it but I'd love to hear people's thoughts (now that I've rambled for four paragraphs).
The thing is that I, to date, have never read with reversals. It always seemed, to me, to be somewhat disruptive to the reading, even possibly making the images harder to interpret because they're upside down. On top of that, I always liked to keep my decks neat and orderly. On top of THAT, while I'm very much a fan of believing in the fate of things when it comes to the cards (ie, I always take into account cards that drop out of my hands, etc.) the idea that I could get more or less upright or reversed cards depending on how I picked up the deck just seemed too arbitrary to me.
Now, I've always read the cards using proximity and relationships of location to help augment the cards and help me figure out which shades and echoes of the meanings and associations are really the most pertinent. But it was only really recently, reading through a few more books and by extension, reading through a few example readings, that the idea of reversals really seemed all that attractive or useful to me as a prospect. Mostly because they've been very clear to treat it as a subverted or on-it's-head version and/or using it as an indication that the energy of that particular card has been stymied as opposed to giving it what seems like a whole new meaning, which fits my brainspace better. Obviously everything with the tarot has a lot of subjectivity to it, but the explanation I've found more recently just jives better than the stuff I read earlier.
But, while I do want to grow as a reader, those original points still stand to some degree. So I suppose I was wondering how people felt about the concept of reversals in general, how they tend to deal with them in a greater deck sense (do you shuffle them straight up and let fate accidentally reverse them? mix them all up on the table and see what ends up flipped? bridge the cards so that they're practically 50/50 at one point?) and if, say, they'd feel it's disrespectful to the cards or to the messages to, after NOTING that a card is reversed, perhaps manipulating it to see the images more easily.
I'm still sort of warming up to it but I'd love to hear people's thoughts (now that I've rambled for four paragraphs).