katrinka Posted October 21, 2021 Posted October 21, 2021 6 minutes ago, gregory said: Not to mention that NO CARD IS ALL BAD. Death itself is not all bad. Or at least it beats living in pain and misery with no end in sight. That's why we have pets PTS.
euripides Posted October 21, 2021 Posted October 21, 2021 57 minutes ago, gregory said: Not to mention that NO CARD IS ALL BAD. So many people miss that point. EXACTLY! I have had several versions of the Death card (as well as 10 Water) of late and this has been a GOOD thing. I had to let go of some old selves and it's absolutely a sense of death, for that person I was going to be. I needed that message to let go and move on and not many other cards were going to get that message through to me. I remember something someone said when my dad passed - that they had to let him know that it was okay, that he didn't have to stay to take care of mum, that he could go... sometimes you need that message.
katrinka Posted October 21, 2021 Posted October 21, 2021 It can be a slippery slope to sugarcoating, though: "Oh, Death! That just means transformation! Like a butterfly!" Uhhh...NO.
caliway Posted October 21, 2021 Posted October 21, 2021 I agree, probably should use an oracle deck instead if can't handle death card in tarot lol It reminds me of a friend who says she found a tarot deck in a thrift shop in a small town, and the shop owner told her he removed all the "scary" cards: death, the devil, the tower, because he didn't want "to scare the kids that come in here" lol she bought the deck because she thought that was funny There's a card I've removed from decks before: blank cards. In runes, there's a card called the "odin" card that's a blank card. I've seen so much controversy around this rune / card. It's not part of my practice, so I remove it from both rune stone sets and card sets. But some insist a rune set is incomplete without it. I asked about this card on a rune forum on Reddit, and the thread was taken down for being "inappropriate because it's not part of rune tradition," so people feel pretty strongly and even knee-jerk-reaction about it, in both directions. I myself just don't resonate with the card and remove it, because it doesn't say anything to me and feels weird and wrong. Possibly that's how some might feel about the Death card, it's possible. I like to keep an open mind 🙂
katrinka Posted October 22, 2021 Posted October 22, 2021 Asa/Ansuz relates to Odin, to the best of my knowledge. The blank rune was cooked up by Ralph Blum in the 1980's IIRC. I don't use it either.
euripides Posted October 22, 2021 Posted October 22, 2021 5 hours ago, katrinka said: It can be a slippery slope to sugarcoating, though: "Oh, Death! That just means transformation! Like a butterfly!" Uhhh...NO. Yeah, for sure, and I always check myself to see if I'm trying to dodge something I don't want to hear. So many decks make such a deal of the transformation thing, like they'll have the death card there but tie themselves in knots trying to avoid that straightforward interpretation. The Gaian does a bit of both, but is very much about death itself being a part of life - and comments on how our culture hides from it.
Marina Posted October 23, 2021 Posted October 23, 2021 On 10/21/2021 at 8:55 PM, caliway said: I asked about this card on a rune forum on Reddit, and the thread was taken down for being "inappropriate because it's not part of rune tradition," so people feel pretty strongly and even knee-jerk-reaction about it, in both directions. I myself just don't resonate with the card and remove it, because it doesn't say anything to me and feels weird and wrong. Possibly that's how some might feel about the Death card, it's possible. I like to keep an open mind 🙂 I totally agree with you. There is a problem if you are not even able to DISCUSS something without people jumping with torches and forks screaming “tradition”. You may not like or use the blank rune, but forbid it from even being mentioned or discussed? Sounds like insecurity to me. Which basically is what happens when you remove unpleasant cards from a tarot deck: it means certain aspects cannot even be discussed or thought about. It reminds me of Orwell’s 1984, in which certain words were removed from the newspeak until the ideas behind them were lost and people were unable to even discuss or think about them. You may not like what the Devil or Death stand for, but removing them altogether from the your “oracular” vocabulary? Insecurity, again.
Jewel Posted October 26, 2021 Posted October 26, 2021 On 10/20/2021 at 10:17 AM, gregory said: If you can't read with some cards in the deck - use an oracle deck instead. A tarot deck with cards deliberately removed is not a tarot deck. (A tarot deck with a card that accidentally fell under the table on one occasion when you shuffled is not the same thing,. in case anyone...) THIS! I completely agree with you @gregory
ilweran Posted November 5, 2021 Posted November 5, 2021 On 10/21/2021 at 9:51 PM, euripides said: Looking at 'the mirror' card in the Wildwood and thinking 'eh?' .... The WW re-does the Majors though so the Mirror card is not a card that is in a standard deck. Anyway, interesting thread. The only deck I've ever taken any cards out of is the Zillich and that was because I didn't like two of them - I also trimmed the titles off the whole deck to use it as an oracle rather than a tarot. And that feels slightly wrong. I don't think I could leave cards out of a tarot deck, unless it were extra cards. But I also don't find any of the cards scary.
Bodhiseed Posted November 5, 2021 Posted November 5, 2021 (edited) For me, taking out one of the 78 cards of a tarot deck would be like ripping out a few pages in a book. However, I have been know to take out some of the 'extra' cards - like the Osho card (titled 'the Master') from the Osho Zen Tarot. I love Ma Deva Padma's art, but Osho I can live without. Edited November 5, 2021 by Bodhiseed
euripides Posted November 5, 2021 Posted November 5, 2021 6 hours ago, ilweran said: The WW re-does the Majors though so the Mirror card is not a card that is in a standard deck. I'd misread the number and thought it was Death, but it's 12, which makes more sense. Though I think if a deck re-envisions cards it's perhaps not helpful to try to equate them with the RWS, because the deck obviously has its own internal logic. It just kinda threw me.
ilweran Posted November 6, 2021 Posted November 6, 2021 12 hours ago, euripides said: I'd misread the number and thought it was Death, but it's 12, which makes more sense. Though I think if a deck re-envisions cards it's perhaps not helpful to try to equate them with the RWS, because the deck obviously has its own internal logic. It just kinda threw me. I'm not sure what the Wildwood book says about it, but it was Reflection in the Greenwood and meant to represent Prudence: "Having studied medieval symbolism, I knew that there was a conservatism and consistency in its use; I therefore found it strange that only three of the four virtues, Strength, Temperance and Justice are usually included in a tarot deck. Prudence is missing." To be confusing some of the cards are equivalent to the RWS, and some aren't.
katrinka Posted November 6, 2021 Posted November 6, 2021 Yes. The Greenwood is a fusion, RWS is there to a point, but there's a lot of other things going on. And some of the references are purely visual - there are cards that allude to William Blake: https://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=132233 I don't have the Wildwood, either, but from what I've seen online, the Blake references don't seem to be there. Still, I wouldn't simply transpose RWS meanings to either deck.
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