stolen from maidengurl

[arliss]

1. Scan my interest list and pick out the one that seems the most odd to you.

2. I’ll explain it.

3. Then you post this in your journal so other people can ask you about your interests.

Comments

[maidengurl.livejournal.com]

Yo, you need to list more interests...this is hard when you only have a couple things there *grin*

So, explain tarot to me.

[cindywrites.livejournal.com]

She said what I was going to say (on both accounts), so I'm just going to be a spectator.

[fufaraw]

I'm really only a beginner at tarot, and I don't read for others. Basically, I consider it a meditation tool. As often as I do a "formal" one or three card reading for myself, I simply take a card at random and hold it in my hand, then in my mind's eye, and let what comes to me, prompted by the picture, come. Or I page through the deck while keeping the cacophony of mundane daily thoughts at bay. Occasionally, something on one of the cards will leap out at me and demand my attention. It's usually to do with something going on, either in my life, or the life of someone close to me. Although I admit that lots of times it makes no sense, until later.

I'm also a magpie when it comes to decks, and at last count I had more than 80 tarot decks, not counting I Ching, Ogham and oracle decks. The art intrigues me--each deck is a collection of miniature paintings, and examining the traditional meanings of each card as interpreted by different artists is sometimes relevatory, but always interesting.

I find myself drawn, for the most part, to colorful decks rather than black and white ones, to wider interpretational art, rather than the more traditional, and to the lighter, rather than the darker decks in spirit. My very favorite tarot deck (that I only meditate with) is the Osho Zen. My favorites for reading are the Fey Tarot and the Gill Tarot (click on the "boutique" link, and then the "more samples" button in that last window).

I do buy used, often from ebay, and I research a prospective aquisition as thoroughly as I can, reading reviews, and studying the artwork on as many sites as I can find cards scanned. I have a few decks that, while not other than represented, have left me cold. I've also put decks away for months or years, and when I took them out again they'd gained appeal.

But basically? Me = magpie + the art is the whole appeal of tarot for me. Incidentally, this icon is the Sun card from the Roots of Asia tarot, another I meditate, rather than read with.