Six Years in the Making

It's been two and a half years this time, BUT, I've finally learned the tarot!  How?  In clearing out my email inbox (I had 6800 unread messages.) I found an old course for which I had all the emails and had never read them!  They were the Daily Pagan's 100 Days of Tarot, and they worked!

I used a standard Rider deck, and my method was this:  I read one a day, starting with The Fool.  On the second day, I went over The Fool and then worked on the second lesson, The Magician.  On the third day I went over both of those, then moved to the new lesson, and so forth.  By the end, I'd gone over The Fool seventy-eight times!  A bit tedious at times, but as I said above, it worked!

I really liked the deck, too.  The Rider was easy to understand and easy to remember.  The cards are straightforward and just different enough.

Hopefully this means I can start posting more often!  I certainly mean to do so!

Thank you all for your patience!

New Approach

Alright, so my attempt to go back to tarot did not work.  My last post was over a year and a half ago and, other than one unfinished New Year's reading, I have not touched the cards since.  This doesn't mean I don't still want to learn them, though.  I think I just need to try something else.

Toward that end, I decided to try a different kind of cards.  Not really tarot, but they serve much the same purpose.  I suppose they're generally known as oracle decks, but this one calls itself a symbol card set.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Continuum-THK-25-Insight-Story-Cards/dp/B004P8IWOO


I was in a book store and saw these, but I decided I had enough card sets and didn't need another one, so I didn't even pick them up.  But I couldn't stop thinking about them, and when I went to empty my basket with my final purchases, I panicked because I didn't have them.  I rushed back to them and felt calm only after they were in my hands.

I used the cards as soon as I got a chance, and I immediately and easily fell through layer upon layer of understanding about myself as soon as I drew one.  It was so easy it was like child's play.  And I was happy, because this is why I wanted oracle cards--I felt they would help me connect with myself more, and therefore make tarot decks easier to use.

Here's hoping it works.

Connection Still There!

I actually got brave enough to go back to studying the cards today.  I'd been avoiding it, worried about the connection, mostly, but also worried about doing it in a new room.

The new room was, to say the least, difficult.  It's colder than I'd like, even with the fire going, and not having a desk upon which to write and draw is a pain.  I didn't like leaning down to the coffee table because it meant putting my notebook on my velvet spread cloth and chancing crushing it.  Holding the notebook in my lap while I tried to hold the other book open didn't work too well either, though.  I'll have to see if I can get used to it.

On the much brighter side, I still have a DEFINITE connection to the cards.  I got a very clear feeling from them that it was good and right that I start working with them again, and interpreting the card (the Five of Cups) came fairly easily.  Also, seeing examples in my own life and in the lives of those close to me seemed easier than it was when I last tried.  That could all be a connection to this particular card, but I don't think so.

I'm actually wondering if the long break didn't do good.  Now that I've gotten over my worries, I feel a renewed sense of desire to study the cards.  It's certainly something to consider if I ever feel stuck or mired down in that study.

Connections

After almost two months of having to hide the cards (from potential house buyers) I've taken them out again.  I wonder if my connection to them is still there, or, if it isn't, if it will come back quickly, if at all.  I hope so.  The next week or two should tell.

I've moved them into a different room.  Previously, I was keeping and using them in the study, where I go almost every day.  I've now set them up in the formal living room, which is also my meditation room and DH and my ritual room.  (Can you tell we don't often use it for its intended purpose?) Will this affect my connection?  Will it help or hinder regaining it?  This, too, time will tell.

I hope I won't have to put them up out of sight any time soon.

Making Progress

I've finished the Minor Arcana of Wands, and moved on to the same of Cups.  I must admit I'm enjoying Cups even more than I did Wands.  I've always been better at emotions than business, lol!

I also discovered, on the Ten of Wands, that I'm starting to SEE more, and adding my own interpretations to the ones in the book.  That's definitely helping me gain confidence, even before I start reading.

It's very gratifying to see noticeable progress right before my eyes, and the journaling definitely helps me see it.  Much as I love journals and journaling, I find it hard to believe that in all my attempts to learn the tarot, I've never kept a journal, even though everything I've ever read says you should. 

I definitely will from now forward!

Sweet Dreams

The book said it would happen, but I wasn't sure I believed it.  The author stated that getting to know the tarot might expand your consciousness enough to access the super-consciousness, most likely through the subconscious mind.  I hoped it was true, but it seemed too good to be so.

Then a few nights ago we had a terrific wind storm here.  I'm not sure how hard it was blowing, but I know I closed the windows because I was a bit worried it would rip them off the house.  Now, this is nothing unusual here in Southern Ontario.  We get winds like that fairly frequently.  What was unusual was the clarity of the dream I had that night.

Prescient or clairvoyant dreams are not unknown to me.  They happen infrequently, a handful of times a year.  But they are usually hard to understand, and I don't usually interpret them correctly until after the fact, if ever.  I just know what they are because they feel different than normal dreams.

Not so with the dream I had on that windy night.  I dreamt the garden gate was blown open by the wind.  Simple, clear, unmistakable--it was our garden gate, it was nighttime, and it was windy.

The next morning, I remembered the dream just as I let the dogs out.  I rushed to the window to check the gate, and sure enough, it was open.  The only thing stopping it from being flung wide was a nearby tree branch on which it was catching.  I rushed out and found that the hardware had been damaged, torn off one side of the gate.  I managed to finagle it shut temporarily until I could get back to the garage to grab a couple of bungee cords to secure it more firmly.  And all before the dogs noticed it and managed to get out!

Besides being EXTREMELY useful, having a dream like that was wonderful, and delightful (and a bit scarey)!  All in all though, I hope my psychic gifts continue to noticeably improve. I turned my back on them once before, but I don't plan to do it again.

There's no way I could say "no" to information as useful as that!

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Alright, I know that I just started posting about learning the individual cards, but I'm already going to change that.  I decided a daily post on my exploration of a new card, with a description of that card, might do me a lot of good, but would make for very boring reading.  My insights into the cards, as a newbie, are not likely to be earth-shattering, and if you really want to know what the cards look like, you can get a deck for yourself, or look for pictures of individual cards online.

Instead, I'm going to post highlights of my three-month plus long journey.  Little tidbits, like the fact that leaving the card out for a day and letting my subconscious work over it is a much better process than turning it over and immediately trying to process it.  Or that when I turned over the three of Wands, it felt strongly like a reading, not a lesson.

Little things, but things I feel are important and/or interesting.