Not connecting to a new deck

[katrinka]

3 hours ago, timtoldrum said:

Generally, I would define a Tarot as a deck comprised of trumps and pips.

In this case, the simplest explanation really IS the best. 🙂

As for guidebooks - yes, the more changes are made, the more comprehensive the guidebook should be. If Duchamp's Fountain is chosen for the Star, I want to know why. (Why THAT image, and why not let it stand in for the Ace of Cups instead? LOL.)

 

The reason for choosing a certain image could be genius that I'm just not seeing and need to have explained. Or it could just be a sloppy Tarot made by someone who doesn't know or care about Tarot. I need to know which in order to decide if the deck is woth keeping and investing time in.

Edited February 26, 2021 by katrinka

[gregory]

I think she thought about it. But I don't think she adequately explained where those thoughts took her.

 

It has trumps and pips, as I said....

[Guest]

1 hour ago, katrinka said:

In this case, the simplest explanation really IS the best. 🙂

As for guidebooks - yes, the more changes are made, the more comprehensive the guidebook should be. If Duchamp's Fountain is chosen for the Star, I want to know why. (Why THAT image, and why not let it stand in for the Ace of Cups instead? LOL.)

 

The reason for choosing a certain image could be genius that I'm just not seeing and need to have explained. Or it could just be a sloppy Tarot made by someone who doesn't know or care about Tarot. I need to know which in order to decide if the deck is woth keeping and investing time in.

It is the only definition I can find that works in my head. But I know others feel different. It is the same with oracle cards: what constitutes an oracle versus the Petit Lenormand or the Hungarian Fortune Cards?
 

Although I could not ever foresee buying this deck, the lack of explanation would put me off. I enjoy meeting a deck on a level playing field. On looking at the cards, the Divine card evokes the Pape card rather than the Lovers. 
 

Seeing the artwork and reading the thoughts of the creator is a good test of the cards’ essence.

1 hour ago, gregory said:

I think she thought about it. But I don't think she adequately explained where those thoughts took her.

 

It has trumps and pips, as I said....

 

That could be the publisher... 

[katrinka]

16 hours ago, timtoldrum said:

It is the only definition I can find that works in my head. But I know others feel different. It is the same with oracle cards: what constitutes an oracle versus the Petit Lenormand or the Hungarian Fortune Cards?

Those have been scrambled by word usage, LOL. 

A 36 card Lenormand is actually a Hechtel, as we all know. A Grand Lenormand might or might not be a Lenormand. Cards with playing card insets could be termed Sibyls or Sibillas, but people see them as a separate category from Lenormand. 

"Oracle" is now being used to refer to non-predictive decks. I think it's more properly the other way around - predictive cards are oracles; decks with cards like "laugh" or "dance" would be affirmation decks, if you think about it.

Recently someone posted an old deck on facebook that was almost identical to the Biedermeier cards, except that it had been redrawn. The thread was full of people piping up saying "That's a Kipper!" 

I tend to think of them regionally - german decks certainly have a different "flavor" than italian, french or eastern european ones, but a Lenormand is not a Kipper.

I suppose all we can do is to wait for the dust to settle. 🙄

 

Edited February 27, 2021 by katrinka
typos galore!

[gregory]

17 hours ago, timtoldrum said:

That could be the publisher... 

 Her booklet references majors and minors, and suits.  And said it was a tarot deck.

 

She needed to say more, IMNVHO, she really did.

[katrinka]

31 minutes ago, gregory said:

 Her booklet references majors and minors, and suits.  And said it was a tarot deck.

 

She needed to say more, IMNVHO, she really did.

I agree. 
It's not like the Apesos, where there obviously is no explanation. That deck makes no promises, you're charting unknown waters, lol.
 
This deck was obviously designed as some kind of Tarot, and she must have had some line of reasoning - but nobody's telling. 

It's like the difference  between a Zen koan and classified information, except there's no reason for it to be classified.

[Moomintroll]

For me, lovers is number six and the hexagram and where the heaven and earth meet.

But I don’t mind exceptions. I like to ponder new ways and angles to see things.

I find the structure helpful, though, and I use numbers, astrology and kabbalah.

This thread was about connecting and so there is a link to lovers and making the right choice.

Talking further about the lovers card there is the need to find the balance between polarities, between masculine and feminine, so that neither of them dominates or is submissive. And both has the ability to support each other and strengthen each others’ weaknesses when needed. So it’s true that the image is quite far from tradition and the artist had something different in mind.

[gregory]

Back to the Harmony deck - there is a card called Lovers, and it is not that one shown here as number 6. It's exactly the kind of thing that makes the deck so confusing, as the book doesn't explain.

[Guest]

22 hours ago, Moomintroll said:

Talking further about the lovers card there is the need to find the balance between polarities, between masculine and feminine, so that neither of them dominates or is submissive. And both has the ability to support each other and strengthen each others’ weaknesses when needed. So it’s true that the image is quite far from tradition and the artist had something different in mind.

Quite far from one traditional interpretation of one deck. You could not interpret the Marseille L’amoureux thus. 

Edited March 1, 2021 by Guest

[Moomintroll]

Correction accepted and appreciated🙂.

Wise words from the deck I adore, the Dark Goddess Tarot from Ellen Lorenzi-Prince. I pulled today the 4 of earth, The Sphinx.

Direct quote: ”How you define your life limits your life. Definitions work two ways, helping you understand reality and separating your perception from reality. Upholding or debating rigid definitions can require endless vigilance. Find your own reality, the only position you must defend, and find the center of your power. Write down four pillars of your situation, things that appear fated, concrete or absolute. One by one redifine them in words that allow creativity and transformation. Rewrite them in words that question or embellish their necessity...”.

I think this is true also with the images, if they allow and bring creativity, insights and transformation for you, they can give your the answers you are searching for.

[Moomintroll]

On 3/1/2021 at 8:59 PM, timtoldrum said:

Quite far from one traditional interpretation of one deck. You could not interpret the Marseille L’amoureux thus. 

I understand where you come from. Maybe the Marseille should be the first deck to learn. A skeleton for new variations, one at a time. Like when learning to play one has first learn the notes and then, some day could interpret music pieces. But of course you teachers and scholars already are aware of this. And I sound like a fool because of my lack of knowledge.

I learned first to combain numbers and elements after reading Gail Fairfield, and her book, as far as I understand, is not strictly about the Marseille. From that on my understanding have increased further from Waite and Crowley who, at least for me, are many times misleading. Spirit of the time has changed a lot from those days when they lived and happily today we have wide range of decks from which to choose.

 

Edited to add that at the time I first begun to use Waite Smith and Crowley I wasn’t mature enough to understand them properly. Now that I have larger perspective I can better see the value in them. Thanks to Tabula Mundi of M. Meleen I now understand the Toth tarot in a fully new way.

 

Edited March 6, 2021 by Moomintroll

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Moomintroll said:

I understand where you come from. Maybe the Marseille should be the first deck to learn. A skeleton for new variations, one at a time. Like when learning to play one has first learn the notes and then, some day could interpret music pieces. But of course you teachers and scholars already are aware of this. And I soud like a fool because of my lack of knowledge.

I learned first to combain numbers and element after reading Gail Fairfield, and her book, as far as I understand, is not strictly about the Marseille. From that on my understanding have increased further from Waite and Crowley who, at least for me, are many times misleading. Spirit of the time has changed a lot from those days when they lived and happily today we have wide range of decks from which to choose.

 

Despite its reputation for being too challenging for beginners, I do feel that the Marseille-style is perfect for beginners and seasoned cartomantes. I am biased — the Grimaud Marseille is my tarot.

 

The issue is that each tarot is different. The Smith-Waite tarot associations are for the Smith-Waite. The Harris-Crowley for the Harris-Crowley.  Also, a lot of what is considered traditional for the Smith-Waite tarot, doesn’t come from Waite but latter writers. 
 

Good tarots are time-neutral; free of fashion and crazes. These tarot can mirror the strands of fate upon which we are all but events.  Quite a few of the newer tarots become dated and trapped in its epoch - lost in their knot of the great web.

[katrinka]

29 minutes ago, timtoldrum said:

Despite its reputation for being too challenging for beginners, I do feel that the Marseille-style is perfect for beginners and seasoned cartomantes. I am biased — the Grimaud Marseille is my tarot.

 

People are scared to death of pip decks. But anyone should be able to do a rudimentary reading with only a bit of study - beginning can be just a matter of remembering interpretations for ten numbers and four suits, and combining those. As the reader gains experience they can flesh that out with more techniques. But the basics have an elegant simplicity.

I don't subscribe to the idea that new readers need scenes on every card. Most people are at least in their early teens when they start to read. Many are adults. If they prefer scenic decks, that's fine, but their minds have developed past the Dick and Jane stage. 

 

29 minutes ago, timtoldrum said:

The issue is that each tarot is different. The Smith-Waite tarot associations are for the Smith-Waite. The Harris-Crowley for the Harris-Crowley.  Also, a lot of what is considered traditional for the Smith-Waite tarot, doesn’t come from Waite but latter writers. 

 

Yes, it's odd - a good many of the popular Smith-Waite interpretations strike me as misunderstandings that got picked up and repeated until they became canon. 

 

29 minutes ago, timtoldrum said:

Good tarots are time-neutral; free of fashion and crazes. These tarot can mirror the strands of fate upon which we are all but events.  Quite a few of the newer tarots become dated and trapped in its epoch - lost in their knot of the great web.

 

Agreed. And I don't mean clothing or hairstyles, I mean popular thought. Like the new age idea that everything had to be gentle, so Death cards started featuring butterflies and the like. Now people are tending towards edgier things and you sometimes see whole decks full of skeletons. Neither really does it for me - just put the bodies where they belong, lol. 

 

Death, love, change, all the things in the Tarot are constants in life. I like to see them presented clearly.