darwinia
There is Always Time Awaiting
I used to be astonished that people could collect more than 5 tarot decks; I now have 63 tarot decks and another 55 oracles, odd decks and playing cards. I'll use anything for insight or study--many themed decks can lead you to discover art, literature, science, and history whether they are strictly tarot or not.
I have some methods that may work for you.
1) Single Card Daily Draws: Any deck, any day, but sit down and actually examine it. We tend to scan things with our eyes--forget that--LOOK. Write your observations before looking at the book. If it's a particular character in history or mythology, do some online research and cut and paste the information into a general e-mail. Then re-write what you find in order to assimilate the information yourself. Use the information to connect the card to YOU and your life situation. Write a little study and scan the card in and place it at the end of your insights. Print it.
2) Concept Art Draws - All aces or all pips--something like that, or even a single card or keyword on a card that you are drawn to. Whatever you feel like using. Then look at the cards, see the details, motifs, symbolism and draw a mandala with them using these colours and motifs. Surprising what you see when you have to draw it yourself--cha-ching, cha-ching goes the processor in your head, this leaf is kind of interesting, I never noticed that thing in the corner. Also your piece of art will be reflective of how you feel and things you are working through. Carl Jung drew a mandala every day, which was the background of his subsequent observations about the meaning of symbolism in what his patients drew. The idea is to do something spontaneously though--no planning of pretty pictures, just let your mind respond to the cards. If it doesn't mean anything to you today, I promise that eventually it will.
I used this idea when responding to the death of one of my cats. I was completely rattled, he died a horrible, sudden death with much pain, so I pulled a card and just set a square of paper in front of me and drew a circle and drew things I associated with my pet using the colours in the card and particularly the blue colours of my Siamese cat's eyes--prompted by the Elton John song "Blue Eyes" which I had heard the previous day in a shopping mall. Took me 4 hours but it meant something more than time and had a calming effect on me. This is a great method to use when you are overwhelmed with grief or anger or sadness.
NOTE: Keep all this stuff in a journal--do it on 3-hole paper, if you create art buy clear plastic inserts for binders and keep them tidy and protected in your binder (or frame them)--important--your cards are reflective of you--show some care for your Self and what you create, and your insight and thoughts.
3) The Random Placement of Disparate Ideas - I see several people mention working weekly or monthly with one deck--also a great idea--but try pairing a random choice from another deck with this. I prefer one-card draws myself because I get so much from that and sometimes find that spreads overwhelm the details of what I need to focus on. But whether a single card or a spread, pull one of the cards from the decks you aren't using and use it as a clarifying card, either inserting it in a position in your spread or pairing it with a single card. Shake it up, put some pepper in for flavouring. What does it mean to you? Does it have a character or symbol you are not familiar with? Find out what it means. Details, symbolism, tie it together with your life. Write it down--a simple paragraph or two in an e-mail format--scan the cards--show them with your written insight, print it. I did this in the Daily Thoth draw often and it works!
4) The Big Kahuna (Gidget fans awake all ye!!!) - Those who know me know my fondness for what I call Random Passages. There are various ways of doing this and it doesn't matter if you use a tarot deck or oracle or playing cards. The trick is to do it spontaneously, in about 30 minutes--everyone can find 30 minutes every day or every second day.
Things I have done:
- card plus cookery recipe
- card plus song lyrics
- card plus song lyrics plus a chakra
- card plus poetry
- card plus random sentences or paragraphs from books, fiction or non-fiction
- cards plus cards, using passages from LWBs
- All gold-coloured cards from more than 20 decks, paired with the gold-coloured Power card of the Luman deck.
- Competition card of the Luman deck paired with anything I could find that reminded me of competition: business, art supplies, artists, philanthropy, libraries, tarot shops and publishers, pet food.
I spent a month from July 19th to August 14th this year using a single card from any deck I felt like using, paired with a random passage from the book The Alphabetic Labyrinth : The Letters in History and Imagination by Johanna Drucker. I had just lost my job and a friend of mine kept coming to mind. He told me once "Are you really hurt, or is it your pride that hurts." I have found this one of the truths in life and something to reflect on during bad experiences. So, thinking of him, I took the book he'd given me and used it to work through the scramble of fallen pride, disillusionment, fear, and anger in my mind.
I did 29 of these (I would have done more but I don't like numbers in the 30 sequence) and took the opportunity of exploring what came up in the book with the card. Some are long, some are short. If people came up in the book I would try to find a picture of them online or a biography to complete my knowledge of them etc. This is obviously very subjective--tying things together, but that's what is so perfect about it--the ideas come at you unexpectedly as do the insights. I also studied a book that I had merely read haphazardly before, and I found a cohesion of history and ideas that was delightfully fun to uncover. George Bernard Shaw's Henry Higgins character in "Pygmalion" was taken from a real man named Henry Sweet--neat-oh, and I found Henry's biography, picture and Shaw's discussion of him from the forward of the play. I printed everything and put it in my tarot journal, it is so fun to reread them. William Bednall and the shell Bednall's Volute from the Ocean Oracle tied in with the Hebrew letter Zayin; the Clink prison and its ball and chain with the International Phonetic Alphabet and the Fugitive card from the Compass of Fate. On and on.
One of my favourites involved 13th century hunting scenes and other decorative treatments in illuminated manuscripts, with the #20 - Rata - Inner Strength card from the Wisdom of the Four Winds deck. I found out about rata trees, making honey from them, pictures of those, and the inner strength of designing your own life, and I found a picture of a reproduction codex from the 13th century that was used like a book of models for people to draw manuscripts. The symbiosis of the mundane in life --paying attention, not giving your power to others, not being told what is correct.
I've rattled on a bit, but I am often disappointed by the numbers game people play with their cards. "I can't have more than 15" or "I can't possibly use more than 3." Sure you can, you can use as many as you want, as many as please you. You are only limited by the limitations you impose upon yourself, or perhaps how other people limit you.
You can go mad one month using all five of your fairy decks in conjunction with each other and a book on fairy mythology; you can overdose on finding which paintings from The Hall of the Months were used in the Golden Tarot of the Renaissance deck; you can study classical mythology with the Mantegna deck or read Virgil's Aeneid with the Dante tarot along with Dante's Divine Comedy; you can buy Eric Shanower's graphic novel series on the Trojan War and immerse yourself comparing Virgil, Homer and Shanower and their bias and sources. Oh, and one of my more interesting studies involved Palamedes' trial before Agamemnon, the painting of the episode by Rembrandt, and the Phoenician alphabet, tied in with the Fool card from the Artist's Inner Vision Tarot. There's always time for the Trojan War in your life, as we all know.
You can go nuts in expectation of the Golden Tarot of Klimt and buy two used books on Klimt and his contemporaries in art and architecture, and then you can buy expensive glass lampwork beads from an artist that are based on Klimt's colours and designs and make Art Nouveau beaded collars that use these beads, and you can tie in the work of Frank Lloyd Wright with that of Austrian architects of the Secessionist movement and the William Blake Tarot of the Imagination.
Oh stop, stop, I'm going to explode with delight. And yes, those very beads are in my house waiting for Klimptmania to inspire. They cost a whack of money I don't have, but Klimt and I are going new places in a golden glow of opportunity.
There IS time.
I used to be astonished that people could collect more than 5 tarot decks; I now have 63 tarot decks and another 55 oracles, odd decks and playing cards. I'll use anything for insight or study--many themed decks can lead you to discover art, literature, science, and history whether they are strictly tarot or not.
I have some methods that may work for you.
1) Single Card Daily Draws: Any deck, any day, but sit down and actually examine it. We tend to scan things with our eyes--forget that--LOOK. Write your observations before looking at the book. If it's a particular character in history or mythology, do some online research and cut and paste the information into a general e-mail. Then re-write what you find in order to assimilate the information yourself. Use the information to connect the card to YOU and your life situation. Write a little study and scan the card in and place it at the end of your insights. Print it.
2) Concept Art Draws - All aces or all pips--something like that, or even a single card or keyword on a card that you are drawn to. Whatever you feel like using. Then look at the cards, see the details, motifs, symbolism and draw a mandala with them using these colours and motifs. Surprising what you see when you have to draw it yourself--cha-ching, cha-ching goes the processor in your head, this leaf is kind of interesting, I never noticed that thing in the corner. Also your piece of art will be reflective of how you feel and things you are working through. Carl Jung drew a mandala every day, which was the background of his subsequent observations about the meaning of symbolism in what his patients drew. The idea is to do something spontaneously though--no planning of pretty pictures, just let your mind respond to the cards. If it doesn't mean anything to you today, I promise that eventually it will.
I used this idea when responding to the death of one of my cats. I was completely rattled, he died a horrible, sudden death with much pain, so I pulled a card and just set a square of paper in front of me and drew a circle and drew things I associated with my pet using the colours in the card and particularly the blue colours of my Siamese cat's eyes--prompted by the Elton John song "Blue Eyes" which I had heard the previous day in a shopping mall. Took me 4 hours but it meant something more than time and had a calming effect on me. This is a great method to use when you are overwhelmed with grief or anger or sadness.
NOTE: Keep all this stuff in a journal--do it on 3-hole paper, if you create art buy clear plastic inserts for binders and keep them tidy and protected in your binder (or frame them)--important--your cards are reflective of you--show some care for your Self and what you create, and your insight and thoughts.
3) The Random Placement of Disparate Ideas - I see several people mention working weekly or monthly with one deck--also a great idea--but try pairing a random choice from another deck with this. I prefer one-card draws myself because I get so much from that and sometimes find that spreads overwhelm the details of what I need to focus on. But whether a single card or a spread, pull one of the cards from the decks you aren't using and use it as a clarifying card, either inserting it in a position in your spread or pairing it with a single card. Shake it up, put some pepper in for flavouring. What does it mean to you? Does it have a character or symbol you are not familiar with? Find out what it means. Details, symbolism, tie it together with your life. Write it down--a simple paragraph or two in an e-mail format--scan the cards--show them with your written insight, print it. I did this in the Daily Thoth draw often and it works!
4) The Big Kahuna (Gidget fans awake all ye!!!) - Those who know me know my fondness for what I call Random Passages. There are various ways of doing this and it doesn't matter if you use a tarot deck or oracle or playing cards. The trick is to do it spontaneously, in about 30 minutes--everyone can find 30 minutes every day or every second day.
Things I have done:
- card plus cookery recipe
- card plus song lyrics
- card plus song lyrics plus a chakra
- card plus poetry
- card plus random sentences or paragraphs from books, fiction or non-fiction
- cards plus cards, using passages from LWBs
- All gold-coloured cards from more than 20 decks, paired with the gold-coloured Power card of the Luman deck.
- Competition card of the Luman deck paired with anything I could find that reminded me of competition: business, art supplies, artists, philanthropy, libraries, tarot shops and publishers, pet food.
I spent a month from July 19th to August 14th this year using a single card from any deck I felt like using, paired with a random passage from the book The Alphabetic Labyrinth : The Letters in History and Imagination by Johanna Drucker. I had just lost my job and a friend of mine kept coming to mind. He told me once "Are you really hurt, or is it your pride that hurts." I have found this one of the truths in life and something to reflect on during bad experiences. So, thinking of him, I took the book he'd given me and used it to work through the scramble of fallen pride, disillusionment, fear, and anger in my mind.
I did 29 of these (I would have done more but I don't like numbers in the 30 sequence) and took the opportunity of exploring what came up in the book with the card. Some are long, some are short. If people came up in the book I would try to find a picture of them online or a biography to complete my knowledge of them etc. This is obviously very subjective--tying things together, but that's what is so perfect about it--the ideas come at you unexpectedly as do the insights. I also studied a book that I had merely read haphazardly before, and I found a cohesion of history and ideas that was delightfully fun to uncover. George Bernard Shaw's Henry Higgins character in "Pygmalion" was taken from a real man named Henry Sweet--neat-oh, and I found Henry's biography, picture and Shaw's discussion of him from the forward of the play. I printed everything and put it in my tarot journal, it is so fun to reread them. William Bednall and the shell Bednall's Volute from the Ocean Oracle tied in with the Hebrew letter Zayin; the Clink prison and its ball and chain with the International Phonetic Alphabet and the Fugitive card from the Compass of Fate. On and on.
One of my favourites involved 13th century hunting scenes and other decorative treatments in illuminated manuscripts, with the #20 - Rata - Inner Strength card from the Wisdom of the Four Winds deck. I found out about rata trees, making honey from them, pictures of those, and the inner strength of designing your own life, and I found a picture of a reproduction codex from the 13th century that was used like a book of models for people to draw manuscripts. The symbiosis of the mundane in life --paying attention, not giving your power to others, not being told what is correct.
I've rattled on a bit, but I am often disappointed by the numbers game people play with their cards. "I can't have more than 15" or "I can't possibly use more than 3." Sure you can, you can use as many as you want, as many as please you. You are only limited by the limitations you impose upon yourself, or perhaps how other people limit you.
You can go mad one month using all five of your fairy decks in conjunction with each other and a book on fairy mythology; you can overdose on finding which paintings from The Hall of the Months were used in the Golden Tarot of the Renaissance deck; you can study classical mythology with the Mantegna deck or read Virgil's Aeneid with the Dante tarot along with Dante's Divine Comedy; you can buy Eric Shanower's graphic novel series on the Trojan War and immerse yourself comparing Virgil, Homer and Shanower and their bias and sources. Oh, and one of my more interesting studies involved Palamedes' trial before Agamemnon, the painting of the episode by Rembrandt, and the Phoenician alphabet, tied in with the Fool card from the Artist's Inner Vision Tarot. There's always time for the Trojan War in your life, as we all know.
You can go nuts in expectation of the Golden Tarot of Klimt and buy two used books on Klimt and his contemporaries in art and architecture, and then you can buy expensive glass lampwork beads from an artist that are based on Klimt's colours and designs and make Art Nouveau beaded collars that use these beads, and you can tie in the work of Frank Lloyd Wright with that of Austrian architects of the Secessionist movement and the William Blake Tarot of the Imagination.
Oh stop, stop, I'm going to explode with delight. And yes, those very beads are in my house waiting for Klimptmania to inspire. They cost a whack of money I don't have, but Klimt and I are going new places in a golden glow of opportunity.
There IS time.
