[Weed Woman]

Since this will be my first time to do an IDS, I've been watching others' posts to get an idea of what might (and might not) "work" in terms of my own pledge. Having made other pledges with other projects in the past, I agree with Promise that what might work this month won't work towards the end of the IDS, so with that said, here goes...

1. I'll be accepting of what is, and will be o.k. with what I'm able (or not able) to do on a day to day basis. This isn't about perfection, but about learning.

2. I'll start on June 21st and end on September 21st.

3. I'll only read with the Morgan-Greer deck.

4. I'll try to do a 3-card daily draw (this'll be tough, the EVERY day part).

5. I'll try to journal at least 3 times a week.

6. I'll try to read for others as often as possible during the IDS.

Well, I'm going to have my work cut out for me. Sticking to a schedule is one of my biggest challenges in life. Thanks, again, for including me. This will be fun!

Cheers.

[Weed Woman]

Oops! Sorry. I should add that I will be o.k. with looking at books, etc., during my IDS, but I won't work with another deck. But books, oh yeah....

Cheers.

[rwcarter]

My Pledge for the 2nd IDS:

I will:

• begin on Sunday 22 June (when my first IDS ends) and continue through 22 Sept
• try my best to do a daily three-card pull before I go to bed to reflect what happened to/for me during that day
• try to at least shuffle the cards at some point during the day if I don't/can't do a 3-card reading
• open any new decks that arrive during the IDS to verify they are complete and then put them away
• try to gain a deeper understanding of the court cards in this deck

Since this is my second IDS with the same deck, I'll be at a different place than most people will be. So I may also do a comparative study with other Egyptian-themed decks in my collection.

Rodney

[Promise]

I've got my blog all set up and ready to go, with a few things posted in it. The link is in my profile, is anyone is interested. I'm really going to try hard to keep to it and use it to my advantage.

Also, are we going to recycle the current IDS daily draw thread, or are we going to start a new one? I don't know who all is planning on using the thread, so I don't want to just make a new one if others would like to continue on with the current one.

[Alamaris]

Well, the IDS hasn't officially started, but I'm well on my way! At my usual Saturday evening coffee shop meeting with friends, I decided that since I was in a bad mood after a horrible day, I would sit outside and read a novel instead of socializing. One of my friends came later, and I was feeling better, so we chatted outside for a while...another person joined us. At one point, feeling a little twitchy, I pulled out my Thoth with an aside: "It keeps me from biting my nails if I shuffle cards while I chat."

The friend remarked, "Oh man, is that a tarot deck?" I replied, "Sure is!" She asked, "Wanna read for me?" I said, albeit somewhat more intelligently: "Hell yeah!"

After her reading, I ended up doing another person, then another... then we headed back to my house to socialize more, and I did a few more... by the end of the night, I'd done seven 10-card readings! And one pending for Monday night, because we didn't have time! I've apparently accumulated some sort of odd popularity with tarot, even among the friends I thought would be highly suspicious of it.

At any rate, the Thoth and I are wiped out. What a night -- it was amazing, but I've never done more than a couple readings back to back, and then only for complete strangers. Doing readings for friends is somewhat more complicated, I've come to believe.

[Allure]

What interrupted my first IDS was family issues. I literally didn't have the time or space.

Now that things are back to normal:

I'll be using Songs for the journey home(Mini).
My study schedule is from June 15 until September 15.
I want to study or read daily. At least 5 days out of the week.
I wont do readings with other decks but I am free to buy them, look through them and then put em away.

I'm not continuing with my previous deck(Lover's Path) because now I have the desire to read. With the Lover's Path I only wanted to study and do creative writing.

[Onyx]

This idea of sticking with one deck for a couple of months seems interesting but I am worried that half way through I might give up if I pick the wrong deck. That is my fear of failure, which I wanted to get out first. Now here is my question.


I have a couple of new decks that I think would be great for this exercise (The Circle of Life, Victorian Romantic, and I expect to get my copy of the Dante early next week) but I have a couple of decks that I work with for readings. These are the decks that I have been working with and have already studied. I know them and I know how they work in readings. The decks I am considering would be completely new and different.

Getting to the point: How are the professional readers (if any, but surely there are some) who will be in this study handle the professional readings they will do? Are you going to use just the one deck you pick or will work readings essentially be different?
I don't want to limit my clients into just one deck (I provide a choice) and I think my readings would suffer if I use a deck I am unfamiliar or new at reading.


Thanks,

Allan

[Promise]

I am not a professional, but I figured I'd thrown my $0.02 in here.

You said you feel that your readings will suffer if you try to read for your clients with a new or unfamiliar deck. But let's say that hypothetically you were to go through the IDS process and really get to know one particular deck, maybe one that most of your sitters seem to favor, maybe one that you have a personal connection to. If you really get to know that deck intimately and are able to instantly draw all of these things out of the cards during a reading, would your clients still suffer?

All of the readings I've ever had done for me in person have been done by readers who don't offer the sitter a deck choice; they simply have the decks they are comfortable with themselves and read from them as they feel best. I'm not saying that either way is right or wrong, merely that both work differently for different readers. If you want to continue giving your clients a choice of what deck you read from, I don't see any reason that you couldn't still do your own IDS of sorts with a deck you would use for personal readings. The beauty of the IDS is that because it is intensive, I think it has to be personal and structured in a way that it will work best for you.

If you do decide to participate in the IDS and get into it and decide that you picked "the wrong deck", no one's going to force you to drop out or berate you; during the first IDS, I changed my deck pretty early on. I felt somewhat guilty about it at first, but at the end of that day, I had to do what was best for me.

[Disa]

Ok, I'm jumping in now.

Since this will be my second IDS, I think I have to make choices based on what worked and what didn't work for the first one. Though I pushed on with the Tarot of the Crone, the one thing I think could have helped me a lot is to have used a traditional deck with it for comparative study. I am still not totally confident with my reading abilities, so at times I felt I was grasping at straws, and I got discouraged. In addition, I didn't always feel it was the right deck to use in reading for others, which is something I want to do.

So, this time- I'm going to use 2 decks. The Buckland Romani and the Bohemian Gothic. Both decks are decks that I really want to learn inside and out. I want to be able to use these in reading for others and I think they will become 2 of my most used decks throughout my life. I think the Buckland Romani might be a little more traditional than the Bohemian Gothic, so hopefully they will complement each other as far as my learning process goes.

I will begin on June 17(since my first entry in the TOC journal is dated March 17, 2008). I will use them at least until Halloween and at that time I will re-evaluate.

I will try to organize a system of study

I will journal any readings and card associations I make

I will try to shuffle them each day

I will use them as often as possible for face to face readings

I will try to spend more time taroting instead of talking about taroting.

I will not order any new decks unless the ones on my wishlist become available for purchase.

I will not use other decks during this study.

The previous IDS was a great thing for me. It helped me stay focused and got me back on track when I began to stray. I think I will go further this time.

Good luck to you all.

[Keavy McGee]

I've debated off and on whether to post this or not, but once I push the SEND key, I've committed myself, so here goes...DRAT!! I pushed SEND!! That wasn't supposed to happen!!

Weird!! The computer went ahead and posted this before I'd even finished writing it!!

ETA:
Anyway, I fell into this thread yesterday at one of those odd not-supposed-to-be-awake hours and was so inspired by how much work you've all done. Thank you for posting your learnings and your adjustments to your pledges based on how things went for you the first time.

I'm going to join this time. I have a new job with an exhausting schedule and my time on AT has been severely limited, which makes me sad. By committing to the IDS, I feel I can stay connected to the tarot and AT, even though I can't currently post as much as I have in the past. And in the case of the IDS, that's probably a good thing

Right now, I know that I want to start on Friday, Summer Solstice and go until the Autumn Equinox, one full season. That's about it so far, but I've got five days to pin things down.

Most of my decks are currently in storage, so I am not sure which deck I am going to use. I may be able to get back up north and raid my storage unit on the weekend, and if so, that will give me a larger compliment of decks to choose from. But my first thoughts are that I want to use a RWS-style deck ~ b/c I've spent a lot of years with my Thoth (which I love) ~ and that I want it to be a summery deck.

I apologize for not remembering who said this, but I know one IDS member already knows what decks they'll be doing for almost the next year!! I loved that!! So I know I want to do Halloween for Autumn and most likely Fairytale for Winter.

So back to Summer ~ my current choices are Waking the Wild Spirit, Sakki-Sakki, Merry Day, Nigel Jackson/Medieval Enchantment, Prague, or Paris. I will decide by Friday. I will also post my Pledge by Friday. I have a lot to do and decide between now and then!!

Thanks to everyone!! I'm scared but looking forward to this adventure!!

XOX

Keavy