20/02/25
comparing tarot reading methods with an online acquaintance clarified some things for me about how i use tarot and how the deck itself influences the method i choose. and it gave me hope i can sift through the remaining pile of decks and further thin them out, if a deck doesn't fit into any of the reading methods.
turns out my favorite way of reading is an open reading, where the cards just talk between themselves and allow a story to emerge. this only works with very specific type of art. there has to be a clear foreground and background, the symbols have to stand out, the figures have to look at and reach in different directions etc. marseille decks do it well, and, surprisingly, so does the thoth, the original RWS and many of its close clones.
i noticed that over the years - as tarot became more and more popular and more and more decks came out, including the rise of self-publishing - that a majority of decks now does not work well for that method of reading. the focus on the aesthetic art and the depiction of One Particular Meaning means there's much less focus on whether the cards can interact and talk to each other - which is where they /get/ their meaning in my book. each card becomes an island of just a kernel of meaning - something very unintuitive for me. so when the number of these sorts of decks increased in my collection, i started turning to predetermined positional spreads. if the cards can't talk to each other, at least the name of the spread position will provide some sort of context for the card to exist in.
using that insight i managed to divide my decks into those that work for each method (or both methods! a rare few!) and decks that don't work for either. so far i succeeded in adding another eleven decks to the give away box! and i'm gaining understanding in what would make for a good "forever" deck. very very slowly i'm zeroing in on which handful of decks i want to forge a deep connection with.
