I’m so bad at holding back when it comes to buying decks. Lol. I ended up getting the TaRat by Nakisha. This deck is so freaking cute. I love it. It’s also interesting because there are quite a few cards that don’t fit the traditional RWS system. Two of those cards are pictured. The Two of Cups is jealousy and anxiet, and the Two of Pentacles is difficulty, obstacles, and setback. Those meanings come from the foldout that comes with the deck. It’s definitely going to be interesting. So far, I’ve interviewed it, and the deck comes off as a rat. Lol. I thought that might happen since my cat decks are like cats.
I got both the mini and regular sized decks. (The regular is the size of playing cards.) The mini is getting put away for Christmas. I also knew that the decks came with eighteen rabbit art cards. However, the decks came with a bit more. Nakisha also added a card (The Hermit) from the mini version of the Rabbit Tarot, two art prints, and original mini art. That’s so freaking cool. I love it. I have some of the other decks by Nakisha on my Deck Lust list. I don’t know when I’ll end up getting those since they are quite a few others that I want first, but I do know that when I do get them, I’m going to be really happy. I mean, when I got it, I was even messaged that they were going to be shipped the next day and would take 3-5 business days. That’s so nice to know. I mean, I’m still waiting on these pillows that I ordered from someone on Etsy, and I ordered them two weeks ago. (The tracking says that they are still waiting for the package.)
Really happy with this order. Now I just have to think of what to name it. Lol. I could name it after my rat, so I could always have a way to remember him even when he’s gone. I still have a year or two with him. I have another name, Peter, but I wanted to name the second rat I get that. Hmmmm. Lol.
Tag: deck
Well, I deserved that
Sitting here feeling the medium-grade anxiety that is my normal, complete with hypervigilant perseveration, and thinking, y’know, I have Valium now. I’ve taken it once since being prescribed it, for a severe anxiety dream that woke me up in a panic, but I haven’t been taking it for the crap I deal with as a matter of course.
So I thought, well, I’ll draw a card first. See what it says.
I shuffled the heck out of my Wild Unknown and drew The Moon, reversed.
Which is basically the card form of saying, yeah, you have fear and anxiety, and you know they’re about illusions, not reality, BUT YOU HAVE TOOLS SPECIFICALLY FOR THIS, YOU INFANT.
So, I took a Valium.
What my decks lack in subtlety they make up for in smacking me upside the head, apparently.
I found a beautiful copy of the Faeries’ Oracle in a secondhand bookshop for $15 a couple of weeks ago. An impulse purchase, but one I felt very strongly was the right decision… and, having just done my first tentative reading with it, I am all the more sure. It’s such a WARM, friendly deck, and Froud’s art is absolutely stunning. And, just to prove my decks are in cahoots, the reading is, I need to be sensible, wise and creative. I need to open myself to creativity, and focus on the dance and flow of it, not get caught up in trying to be perfect.
tarotprose replied to your photo post: WOW. This deck is so gorgeous!!! I am so happy for you. Have a great time bonding with it. Also do you have a favorite card or cards?
It’s really beautiful, truly. I bought it in part because I was getting interested in decks I could use to help me, and also because one of the books I lost recently, that were destroyed, was my edition of Lady Cottington’s Pressed Fairy Book, which was also by Froud. I hadn’t replaced it yet, and though the pictures are different, I knew the deck would be something I could use rather than a book I’d thumb through maybe once a year at most. I don’t have a favourite card yet. Once I know them and their meanings better, then maybe, but right now, the answer’s pretty much ‘all of them!’. 😀
After a few weeks of getting readings about how rotten the last couple of years had been, now I keep getting cards telling me that good things are coming, that I need to chill out and focus on my health, and that all the fear I have is just my anxiety telling me the sky is (still) falling.
tarotprose replied to your photo post: With your consent, sending you good vibes. ♥
Thank you! I’m such a newbie. I started this thinking I’d be maybe the only person using tarot to help organise my thoughts to help my mental health, or maybe the only person who’s an athiest using tarot, or the only queer person using tarot (given it’s traditionally got rigid gender roles/interpretations) and I’m really not. It’s making me feel a lot less alone, knowing there’s a bunch of people out there who are using cards to do something other than telling fortunes. Your good vibes are very much appreciated. 🙂
fan-of-encouragement replied to your photo post: *hugs you*
Thank you! *hugs back*
I found a beautiful copy of the Faeries’ Oracle in a secondhand bookshop for $15 a couple of weeks ago. An impulse purchase, but one I felt very strongly was the right decision… and, having just done my first tentative reading with it, I am all the more sure. It’s such a WARM, friendly deck, and Froud’s art is absolutely stunning. And, just to prove my decks are in cahoots, the reading is, I need to be sensible, wise and creative. I need to open myself to creativity, and focus on the dance and flow of it, not get caught up in trying to be perfect.
After a few weeks of getting readings about how rotten the last couple of years had been, now I keep getting cards telling me that good things are coming, that I need to chill out and focus on my health, and that all the fear I have is just my anxiety telling me the sky is (still) falling.
Not really reading, today, just trying to improve my knowledge and recognition. This spread stuck out because it was all majors. (My deck is so pretty.)
After I bought my two big decks, I saw this listing on eBay. And I figured, what the heck? It’s about three bucks. It’s called either Destiny Tarot or Secret of Destiny Tarot, depending on which part of the box you read.
If the whole deck had been like the minor arcarna, I probably wouldn’t have bothered. They’re essentially pip cards. the pictures don’t mean anything. The whole suit of swords have swords, and the Ace, King, Queen, Knight and Page of Cups have cups, but none of the Wands or Pentacles have symbology. They’re just anime girls, not posed to be anything other than pictures of girls.
Why I bought this deck? The major arcana. The listing didn’t even have pictures of the whole deck, but those major cards I could see and identify? I loved. See The Hanged Man? How she’s hanging, but in a delicate cradle of roots or branches. And the Sun, Moon, and Star? The Star is my card. And I looked at that eBay listing with a picture of that tiny, spiral galaxy in a bottle… I bought the deck on the strength of that card alone.
As you can see, especially from my first post, it’s tiny! The cards are literally half the size of my Celtic Dragon Tarot. They’re significantly smaller than playing cards. The card stock is thin, but it feels nice and the printing is lovely quality. As you can see from the closeups, there’s a super subtle patterning of almost black on black like wallpaper behind all the images. And ignore the listing, this is a FULL 78 CARD DECK. Actually, it’s 80, because there are two cards with information on them of some kind, and a paper information booklet. No idea what they say, because they’re in Chinese, but comparing the page headers with the symbols on the cards made me able to sort out the major arcana, which, unlike the minor, didn’t have any English at all. The 22 cards, as far as I can tell are a standard Rider/Waite/Smith order, and range from fairly conventional depictions (Wheel of Fortune) to unconventional (Strength – Thor’s Hammer, The Chariot – a lightning charged snapping turtle with a clubbed tail).
Was it worth it? Absolutely. It was cheap. It’s portable. It’s got some lovely unconventional cards and it’s going to help me to learn how to identify my minor arcana just based on the suit and number rather than the pictures, and therefore interpret without that prompting. And as a bonus, they got to me about a month sooner than eBay thought they might. 🙂
So, replacing my teenage deck feels like coming home.
I just love watercolour art – I grew up reading the Alan Lee illustrated Lord of the Rings – and I also love decks that aren’t as focussed on people, because as a queer person, most decks I saw as a young person were incredibly heteronormative. I didn’t get that vibe from the Celtic Dragon Tarot. The fantasy art, the grounded earthiness of the pictures, felt a lot more like something that spoke to me than the traditional Rider/Waite/Smith decks or Angel cards that were pretty much all I could find otherwise in my town’s New Age shops in the ‘90s.
The minor arcana are just as lovely as the major, and the four suits have subtle elemental imagery woven in – wands/air, swords/fire, cups/water, and pentacles/earth. It feels like a really calming deck to me, and I have to admit that I like that the light colours will balance out against the two other decks, both of which are fairly dark.
I’m just so happy to have my deck back.
New decks! YAAAS
So, I ordered some decks.
The Celtic Dragon Tarot was my first deck. I was a teenager. I’ve forgotten whether it was a gift or I bought it myself. But I loved it, and it was one of the many things I lost that I thought was stored safely at my mother’s house. (It wasn’t.) So, I decided I needed to replace it. It’s anchored to a very specific time of my life.
The Wild Unknown Tarot spoke to my self as I am now. I clicked with it immediately. I knew I’d work well with it, even with it coming from the other side of the world, just having seen pictures.
And then there was the tiny deck I impulse-bought from eBay for like, $3. 🙂
So far, just the tiny deck and the Celtic Dragon Tarot have arrived. So here are some pics! (I hit Tumblr’s image limit trying to post the detailed deck pics, so I’m going to post those separately.)
knitting in the dark 