November 30th, 2009

Alright, now that I have a little time to breathe this week (I have been working next to constantly this week) I am able to get down to studying my cards a little bit closer and spending some time with them. I did two readings this morning-fairly simple little daily spreads, two cards, theme of the day and advice, for myself and my best friend, Margot. (Name changed).

Speaking of Margot, not too long ago I had done some readings she had asked me to do about her children-who don't yet exist, in fact she is just beginning to plan her wedding. Both readings were done in Celtic Cross Spreads with my Rider-Waite-Smith deck of course. The first time I was just thinking generally about her having children (How children will affect her life) and when I finally laid down the cards I just got a terrible sadness/heartache feeling from the cards. There were lots of blacks and grays and the 8, 9, and 10 of swords were all there. I picked the cards up immediately after writing down the positions and tried again, telling myself I didn't ask what she wanted to know anyway. So again I laid the cards and thought something more along the lines of how her children will be themselves and again more negative feelings and not wonderful cards, so I wrote down positions and picked up the cards and told her maybe she will have trouble having children (one of the feelings I got from the cards) and left it at that. Then today for her theme card there was the 10 of swords. Maybe it is just me…but whenever I read for her I always get cards that I think of negatively on first. I know I only think they are negative because I do not know them well enough, and of course there are good sides to every card, I know, but I just get terrible feelings with some of her readings. Does anyone know what to make of that??

I pulled the Emperor to study today. I do not like this card. Perhaps I should say that perhaps I am unfamiliar with this card's true meaning and that is why I show no affection toward it whatsoever. But I don't think that is true. I understand what he represents, what he stands for, what the numerology declares about him, I have dissected every symbol, color, and myth linked to this card and still, I have no hint of pleasure when I see him. I think the only thing I like about this card is the stone carved rams into the throne he is sitting upon, which I perceive to mean stubbornness, power, and the inability to change…but maybe that is only the activist feminist in me talking [wink]. A thought just crossed me. I have not the greatest relationship with my father at the moment…perhaps since this is the 'father' figure card, this is why I just cannot stand it, but I don't think so, seeing as I just thought of that. And don't get me wrong, I am not generally a radical feminist. I am only a feminist in the way that I believe that men and women sometimes have different thought processes…but that is the extent of my feminist-ocity. All I can fathom to say about the card study today is thank [the higher power/those who watch over us] that I don't have to do it again.

I was reading through something someone wrote on AT [Umbrae's guide to reading with others]. It mentioned something about recognizing and voicing the flashes of scenes and feelings in order to develop the skill to become more accurate and frequent with these flashes. This is something I'd like to work on. I think it is fascinating. Also because of this story/guide I have decided to write in my tarot journal with pencil-if only just to remind me of the atmosphere of it :-]

 

P.S. The reason I picked Margot for my best friend's 'cover' name is because they both start with 'M' and I am listening to Margot and the Nuclear So & So's. If perhaps you were wondering.

November 27th, 2009

Oh man. I am feeling a little...frustrated. I have been planning on doing an IDS for tarot of the trees (Intensive Deck Study-where you work with one deck and one deck only until you discover all the secrets of a deck and feel like old friends-it becomes readable in instants) but now that I have it, I realize I have bitten off more than I can chew. Because I am SO NEW to tarot-and because it takes a lot of work to become acquainted with each card and the meanings to where you don't have to even look at the book (A point I haven't gotten to yet)-I think trying to switch from the traditional cards to cards with nothing but trees on them is a little silly. Of course I think the cards are beautiful, but I need more time to just get acquainted with each card and the basics of tarot still. Then perhaps after I have completed an IDS with my Rider-Waite deck I will be able to unlock deeper meanings hidden in other decks with themes attached. Frankly, I am not at that point yet in my tarot skill. So I will simply continue learning with my RW deck.

As far as readings go, I haven't kept up as much as I'd like. I find myself doing them almost exclusively when I am home alone (with Mollie) where I can work with no distractions or expectations, can center myself, and can focus on nothing but the cards and the pictures and the meanings. This week has been pretty busy though, so my tarot study has suffered from that. I have been working almost nonstop and when I am not working we have somewhere to be. Monday and Tuesday were my last readings. Wednesday I worked all day, went home and read a little about tarot (no readings though), went to my best friend's house, got a little tipsy and tried reading a 'year ahead' spread for her…let's just say we didn't exactly stay on task. Yesterday was undeniably filled with holiday errands, my moms, Zack's moms, then home for a nap that lasted until this morning, when I headed off to work again. Now although I don't do a whole lot of busy work while I am there, there is a lot of buzzing and people walking through and I find it very hard to focus. I really wish I could find some way to enhance my tarot skills while I am here, seeing as I spend most of my time here. Luckily, I am blessed with a boyfriend who supports me in everything I do or hope to do. It makes it easier because I have no thoughts of self-consciousness with him as I do with most everyone else.

Since today is my birthday, I am hoping to buy a new deck or some new books, or spread cloths, or card bags, crystals, pendulums, anything tarot really(!) with my birthday money. I think I have spent enough on it with money of my own for now, especially considering I am very early in my learning stages. I have ordered 'Mary K. Greer's 21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card' and I'm hoping that will give me more of a focused direction in my learning journey. I am hoping to receive that sometime next week or early the following week. Then comes Christmas, and if nothing else I will get a little extra money then too to maybe expand my deck collection, or, hopefully my book collection. I am wondering which books will be the most helpful in developing reading skills…I keep saying that when I KNOW that the only way to really learn is to continue to practice.

One of the biggest struggles at sitting down and practicing is which questions to ask. I don't like doing many personal readings more in depth than a daily 3-card spread, mostly because honestly, I'm a coward. I don't believe I could be objective enough in my readings to get a card which looks negative and read it and BELIEVE that it isn't a sign of impending doom. It would always be lingering in the back of my mind and I would just be waiting for something to happen. So, until I have more experience with each card to where I can see all sides of meaning before jumping to (possibly terrible) conclusions before I can stop myself. So keeping that in mind I am very limited to the questions I am able to practice with and people also. Mainly I practice with my best friend and my mother. I've done spreads for my boyfriend and my brother, but I am just having a hard time thinking of new ways to practice. That will be my biggest goal for this weekend. Figuring out ways to get more acquainted with my deck. Asking it direct questions about itself the 'New Deck Interview' spread could be interesting. I like thinking of them as having…almost a personality. Considering it a friend instead of a tool. Although I haven't been practicing much I HAVE carried my deck with me everywhere I have gone since it has come in. It is almost always right here with me :-)

November 25th, 2009

Honestly I have been a little at ends with how I'm going to do this blog. I have had journaling blogs before but they have never lasted and have always been so inconsistent, and no one ever read them because they weren't interesting…and I never ever updated anything. I believe this one will be different because it has a focused intent-tarot-and it's something I'm very interested in. I've kind of been forming an outline in my mind of what this blog is going to be about. I've had ideas of only posting readings, but as I read on the AT forum I find that I'm not interested really in just reading what cards are in what positions in spreads about so and so that I don't care about. So I've decided against that, though I will keep record of my readings in my tarot journal, I will try to keep actual readings to a minimum here and use this as an outlet of my learning and creative expression of sorts. I'm planning on posting revelations I have, as well as card and deck study focus. Of course there will be little bits of my life revealed here and there as well-unavoidable. Perhaps this will be something that doesn't fade out quite as quickly for me-something that will motivate me to keep me going-whether or not anyone but me is actually reading, though I hope I do gather a few followers to inspire and motivate me further.

Yesterday I picked up my tarot of the trees deck. I was unable to afford the book - -actually, I was unable to afford the cards also…but I was REALLY unable to spend the extra $20 on the book, so I'll have to wing it a little here (and I hope to order the book…fairly soon). I spent some time at work looking at the website (tarotoftrees.com) and getting pumped up to finally get this deck and work with it, but when I picked it up, I saw that it is almost smaller than standard playing cards. I was a little surprised at how small they are…I'm sure it listed the dimensions of the cards online, and I must have skimmed right over it. At first, I can't lie…I was a little disappointed. I find the larger size of standard tarot cards very specific to the practice and appropriate for the use…large, clear pictures that are easy to get nice reading meaning. But the more and more I think about it and shuffle these cards (which was a little difficult also at first…now I understand why everyone is posting 'How and the heck am I supposed to shuffle these cards' threads on AT), the more I think, 'Wow, I'm really glad I didn't know they were smaller, because then I probably wouldn't have ordered them'…because it is a little more of an 'on the go' kind of deck. It fits easily in any purse I have…The book I use as a reference of interpretations is also fairly small so I can tote them both around. I'm trying to be a little more optimistic, trying to put my previous false (and irrelevant) assumptions aside and be happy with what it is--A beautiful deck…completely original, bright and full of color, exactly what I wanted. So, while I think it will take a little while to get used to using this surprising new deck, I think I will have a beautiful relationship with it in the end.

My plan was to start readings with this deck right away and get to know the little nooks and crannies and unlock the secrets of every one of these cards. Now that I'm holding them in my hands, I realize it is never that simple. It is going to be a little slow going, especially at first, 1) because I don't have the book with the artists notes and inspirations and 2) because I am still brand spanking new to tarot and have not even pulled all the cards in the readings I've done yet. I'm thinking for my Intensive Deck Study I may need to use my Rider-Waite deck as reference for this one. Perhaps I was a little too gung ho about attempting such a commitment to a single deck…not that I think it will be difficult…I'm already in love with the images of each card, but because I'm going to need a reference point to build from. So in the end, I am still working to better understand the tarot of the trees, but I will not hold myself back from researching other decks and deeper meanings for each card (in any deck) to enrich my understanding of these specific cards, but also tarot in general. Because tarot of trees is almost exclusively exoteric symbolism (in other words, pretty obvious, instinctual symbolism) and from what I've seen just glancing at each card so far is based widely on the Rider-Waite pictures, I think this is the wisest way to go.

I am very excited to begin this adventure forming an intimate and knowledgeable relationship with this beautiful deck. I hope to update here as much as possible with new insight I have uncovered. Where do I begin?!

 

-Emmaleigh-

November 24, 2009

This is the story of the last month or so concerning my fascination and progress with learning tarot.

I have been doing tarot readings for less than a month, and the first deck I had ever used was a borrowed Herbal Tarot deck from my mother. I promptly ordered as many decks I could afford at the time (three) and waited and waited. All three, along with two all encompassing tarot how to books arrived early last week. I was disappointed in two of the decks (not because of the decks, I'm sure I will learn to love them all, but because of my expectations of them). The third was Rider-Waite :-] I guess I didn't understand that such esoteric knowledge was required to read with such decks a Celestial (all based on astrology and astronomical myths) and Hermectic (to which I have no idea where to even begin!). Rider-Waite was more perfect than I imagined it to be to learn and be able to fathom meaning without looking up each card in an index. The herbal was based upon this deck, but wasn't as easy to pull meaning intuitively as each illustration had to include which herb was associated with each card as well…but a great starting point for me.

I was hesitant to even order the Rider-Waite if you can believe that, because I wanted to be a 'professional' right away, a complete natural card reader. I thought all decks were virtually the same for some reason, and thought I could start wherever I wanted. Boy was I wrong. Each new deck is a separate journey toward understanding and tarot fluency. You have to become acquainted with a deck before you can even think about using it. Now I understand that. So though I have looked over each of the decks I now own, I have only really used the RW deck. I feel more acquainted with this deck now, I have channeled a lot of my energy through the cards, spent a lot of time with them, a little (or a lot) each day. I've shuffled them for readings and shuffled them just to shuffle. They are feeling more at home in my hands now, easier to shuffle, and I can read them more with ease (but still look up meanings most times just to clarify/double check. I am brand new at this after all!).

I'm not sure what it is exactly that drew me into tarot reading. Of course I'd heard of it before, but never really took note of it. I'd never even considered if it could have been a real practice/ritual before. When driving down the road I've seen signs of home shops for palm reading and fortune telling, those sorts of things, and I've always wanted to go into one of those just to see. I think my mother said that her mother had her cards read once (or maybe her mother…someone down the line anyway) and they predicted the outcomes of all her children: which would take care of her, which would have money issues, and which would die young. This information has been passed down to me, so obviously it had some profound effect on this woman. So here I am, just going along in my life, making progress, working a lot and contributing to society, moving in with my boyfriend, got a new dog (black lab, Mollie), and one day I'm visiting my mother and she pulls out these tarot cards she just got in the mail that she'd ordered. We play around with them, doing readings and not understanding really anything about them-like a party game or something-and forget about them. Then I see an episode on TV that includes tarot card readings. Then I read a book where one of the characters is a bruja (a sort of catholic witch from the description in the book) in which she read tarot cards. This all within about two weeks. As soon as I finish reading the paragraph of the tarot reading I put down my book, grab my phone, and start googling. The next day I went to the library and checked out every single book they had on tarot and doing readings, called my mom asking if I could borrow her deck until I bought some, did some research online about different decks and ordered the ones I mentioned above. Also I found an amazing website and forum on aeclectic tarot which has been really insightful and just a wonderful resource on my journey to become a tarot savant. Now here I am, sitting at my computer starting up a blog dedicated to my personal tarot studies. I even have a separate e-mail account set up for tarot correspondences. (tarotreading.emmaleigh@gmail.com)

The most stand out experience I have had with tarot so far was a daily reading I did for my best friend (who lives about an hour away). I did a three card spread: Challenge/Advice/Outcome and got Two of Wands/The World/Ace of Cups. I came to the conclusion that she was currently waiting on results for something to come in, something she was examining/assessing (the world in his hands), that she had all the knowledge she needed at this point to attain her goals and that her current experiences were making her stronger, and she will obtain the results soon and that she will have done better than she expected-or than she has done previously. When I sent this reading to her (via text message) she texted back immediately and said "You mean my physics test?" Turns out she was getting the results later on that day, she was expecting to get between a 60 and 65 but ended up with a 72.