Inaugural Intensive Deck Study (IDS) Support Thread

fluffy said:

Hey Rodney, so glad to hear that your partner is ok! And welcome little Tristan.

I myself whilst sticking with the Liber T have not yet done any real study although I have stuck with this deck. Hope to do some study soon.
xx

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I have not posted for a while and the main reason is that I have just struggled with not giving up. I was doing so well and then hit a block where I just wanted to toss in the towel.

Then I read Fluffy's post and it said exactly what I wanted to say. I am hanging in there and starting to miss my other decks. I cheated a bit by grabbing a deck at random and just look through the cards once and put them in order. It was calming and allowed me to get my focus back.

I am still exclusively reading with the Liber T and amazed at its depth. I am become certain that this will not remain my exclusive reading deck but I am happy I am at least looking at it in a concentrated way. I know that we are starting to round to the half way point and that is exciting.

So I am staying in and keeping at it. I hope everyone else is doing well too.

Peter.

Good for you, Peter! Nice to see you again . . . I've been absent, as well, through a combination of things. It sounds like you're conquering the inherent struggles of this exercise and have a good handle on where you are and where you want to be. Good for you!

I'm struggling not so much with my deck at the moment, as just finding a "reason" to use it! I am reading (wading through) Forest of Souls, by Rachel Pollack, and I wish so much that I could set my own imagination free to ask the kinds of out-there questions that she does - so that I could take the WoC where it never has been before, so to speak! But I sit down with it, with every intention of doing a good long reading, and can't think of any reason to do it. I also have 21 Ways, and also Tarot Tells the Tale, and thought they might help to break me out of that rut of not being able to stretch my imagination, but they just seem totally inaccessible and boring to me. I dunno. Maybe it's just another phase. I'm sick of phases. If it's not one thing, it's another trying to drag me down! Ugh!

On a lighter, and totally unrelated, note, my boyfriend and I planted a vegie garden last weekend, and five days later, we have seedlings!!! I'm so excited to see those tiny little red-edged beetroot babies pop up out of the ground, and I'm eagerly watching for the next ones that will show their little heads!

Just wanted to share . Blessings to all,

\m/ Kat

thorhammer said:

On a lighter, and totally unrelated, note, my boyfriend and I planted a vegie garden last weekend, and five days later, we have seedlings!!! I'm so excited to see those tiny little red-edged beetroot babies pop up out of the ground, and I'm eagerly watching for the next ones that will show their little heads!

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There is something amazing about life in all forms. It is great to see what you plant begin to grow. But I love the fact that I can go to my garden and get fresh herbs and peppers and cook with them. It is oddly fulfilling to know in some small way I can "create" my own food.

Peter

That it is, Peter. There are even more coming up now - every day a new variety seems to be poking its head up to say hello! So exciting . . .

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So, IDS related, I decided to take the plunge last night and "season" my deck in the manner recommended by Umbrae in one of his many threads. I liked the idea of having a nice, softened and less challenging (physically speaking, for other people, should I ever read for anyone again . . . ) deck, so I sat down and patiently treated each and every card over the table edge . . .

It's ruined.

I know it is, it's ruined and now I won't have a deck at all!

It's all lumpy and uneven, and it was a fat deck to shuffle with at the best of times, especially after I trimmed it, and now I can't shuffle it at all! I've put all the cards under a big pile of books in small stacks to try and flatten them out (so no cards today *sobs*) but I just know that they'll be all munted forever, and I'll have to order another copy which I cannot afford at all and I was getting so attached to THAT ONE and I'd have to trim it all over again and *sobs, chokes* I'm so upset!

Okay, I'm done whinging now, I'll shut up. Just wanted to share one of my many "downs" in this exercise, since I haven't shared all that much with all of you . . .

\m/ Kat

Kat, are the cards actually creased? If they are not you could just do the table edge thing more gently this time and coax each card back into relative flatness. You have to do it one way and then the other way, so that it evens out. Otherwise each card ends up with an exagerated curve in one direction.

--Myrrha

No, not creased, just munted and seemingly reluctant to resume anything resembling flatness . I did the table thing on both sides, along all axes (took me ages!) of the cards, and I'm just hoping against hope that the book trick will flatten them out again. I guess the "seasoning" thing only works with super-varnished decks like the US Games ones . . .

\m/ Kat

I hope it works out and you like your deck again...

--Myrrha

thorhammer said:

No, not creased, just munted and seemingly reluctant to resume anything resembling flatness . I did the table thing on both sides, along all axes (took me ages!) of the cards, and I'm just hoping against hope that the book trick will flatten them out again. I guess the "seasoning" thing only works with super-varnished decks like the US Games ones . . .

\m/ Kat

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I've seasoned about 3 decks the way Umbrae suggested. There are 2 decks I will not do it with, the Lunatic and my BG Silver. Lunatic because the cards will crease, possibly to the point they'll fall apart. My BG Silver since the stock is already quite nice. Anyways, usually, your deck will be like a stack of potato chips for 1-2 weeks with regular shuffling. Eventually, the cards will start to get flatter.

So... I've broken my "handle everyday rule" by not touching/reading a deck for at least 1-2 weeks. Yesterday, I started trying to do dailies again. I'm so tired of my self-pity that I'm going to suck it up and just read for other people/friends/family since I can't seem to get the deck to "gimme the answers already" Unfortunately, I'm begging for my Lunatic again. I hear "anime" and the drive to snap up my Lunatic to read with comes running. I can think of a person I think it would be 'safe' with to read for with my beloved, but I think I would stick to the IIT for people I don't know. Yet, there is an inclination to read with the Lunatic for everyone... I worry it will frighten people.

Cycles of "I'm ready to fail if necessary" and "I'm scared" are frequent. I don't know how I lose the focus and find it again.

thorhammer said:

No, not creased, just munted and seemingly reluctant to resume anything resembling flatness . I did the table thing on both sides, along all axes (took me ages!) of the cards, and I'm just hoping against hope that the book trick will flatten them out again. I guess the "seasoning" thing only works with super-varnished decks like the US Games ones . . .

\m/ Kat

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Don't be sad Kat, they will get back into shape but it may take a while. I did this seasoning to the deck I'm using for my studies (and it was scary, but, well, it is a cheap and common deck so I figured why not try it...)
I really thought I had ruined it completely because the cards turned out so uneven. And when I put the deck on the table, it was at least twice as thick as before and would not stay in a neat pile. It wouldn't even stay in its box, it just kept pushing off the lid, that's how bent they were!
But this goes away after a while, it really does. What you can do is gently pull the cards between your fingers in the opposite direction of the bend, to straighten it out. Just really gently, because now that the fibers are softened, you don't need to do much to tease them back into the shape you want. And keeping your cards in a box or bag with some pressure on them to keep them flat will probably help. It just takes some time, but don't worry, it will be fine in the end.

I seasoned my deck about six months ago, but the cards are flat now, more or less... the deck is still a bit "springy" because they are not perfectly flat and probably never will be, but I find this little "extra air" between them makes them a lot easier to shuffle, and the cards slide between each other much better than when the deck was new.

I have only done this to this one deck, and I don't want to do it to any other deck I have unless I am very sure that I am going to use that particular deck every day for a long time. Because it does make the deck look more worn, and that is not always a desirable thing.

But I don't regret doing it to this deck! I only regret that I bent some of the first cards a little too much before I got the hang of it, so my Priestess card got a scratch on the back. A bit annoying because I can recognize this card from the back now, but I can live with it.

thorhammer said:

I guess the "seasoning" thing only works with super-varnished decks like the US Games ones . . .

\m/ Kat

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My deck has thin, semi-matte varnish and the cardstock seems quite thin.
They are like ordinary playing cards.