Hiya!

[moonglow]

Hi all! X/

 

tl;dr - Super anxious procrastinator hoping to finally get working with my cards and participating in the community.  :love:

 

I have been lurking for a while and have finally gotten up the nerve to post an introduction. I’m a pretty anxious and reclusive person, so you might still see more lurking than posting, but I really hope to be able to contribute. I just don’t have all that much experience interacting with people, so please, if I say something a bit off or whatnot, I’d appreciate a PM about it!

 

I am quite new to tarot. I got my first deck last April, but haven’t yet done much with the cards. I started a couple deck interview spreads, but mostly just looked at and shuffled the cards. :P 2018 was not a great year for me, so I am hoping to finally really get started. I’m not, personally, keen on divination, or even reading for others, but I found a few books that seemed to indicate I might still get a fair amount out of working with the cards regardless.

 

I have two copies of the Centennial Edition RWS. I got the one in the tin first, and then I got the “regular” size, as I thought it might be nice to have one to shuffle and do spreads with, and another that I’d keep ordered to work through some learning exercises I copied down from Dusty White’s book The Easiest Way to Learn the Tarot—EVER!! They seemed like good ones to start out with. I also bought the books 21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card by Mary K. Greer, and two books by Andy Matzner: The Tarot Activity Book and Tarot Journaling. Should be enough to keep me occupied for quite some time!

 

I also bought the Tarot of the Pagan Cats for my husband, and he’s done a lot better at just jumping into things than I have. I have yet to really pull together my interpretation for the “Year in Review” spread I tried New Year's Eve, while he managed to complete a 27 card spread (3 cards x 9 topics) and “year ahead” spread that night.

 

Right now, I am still trying to pull that spread together, so that I can try out Raggydoll’s Imbolc Spread posted here... and also doing my best to resist ordering more decks! I really think I should stick to the one Tarot deck for now, but I keep looking at some “oracle” decks. I recently watched a video by Imogen Walters about combining multiple cards for each position in a spread, and then using another card to pull them all together. I keep wondering if it would help me out or cause more trouble with my readings... Really, I should just not worry so much and complete the darn readings.  ::)

 

Oh yeah, it would seem I have somewhat of a tendency to ramble on for a while... Sorry!

 

Anyway, hello there!  :biggrin:

[Elin by the Sea]

From one reclusive anxious procrastinator to another, hello and welcome, moonglow!  X/  It's nice to see you and your husband are both getting into Tarot together.

 

A 27 card spread is an awful lot for someone new to reading, but no better way to learn than by doing.  Sometimes it's better to work with small 3-card spreads when starting.  I've been reading since the early 90s and I still tend to prefer small spreads.  It's easier to keep things narrowed down to specifics - you can always add a card or two (or three, etc...) for clarification.

 

Some books that really helped me get a solid understanding (at least of RWS) are anything by Rachel Pollack.  Those can be a bit heavy reading at first. Joan Bunning's "Learning the Tarot" is an excellent book that keeps things short and sweet and to the point.  She also has a website with many of the materials from that book.

 

Welcome!

 

~E

[AJ-ish/Sharyn]

welcome Moonglow! Please don't lurk, posters are the strength and gold of any forum, and fresh outlooks are always a good thing for everyone!

 

welcome home!

[Guest Night Shade]

Hello and welcome moonglow[/member] .  I'm not that great at interacting with people either, but posting here has really helped.  I encourage you post more - I think it will help you too.  :) <3

[moonglow]

Thank you for the warm welcome. It’s nice to meet you all. :)

 

Elin, that just seems to be the kind of guy he is. He likes to work with a lot of info if it’s available, rather than keep things simple. I don’t know anything about Lenormand, but I’ve been tempted to get him a deck and information on working with the Grand Tableau, hehe. He may not read something the way other people (or I) would, but he just jumps in and says “that’s obvious” and gets it down and is done pretty quick. He isn’t all that interested in studying interpretations all that much, so far. It’s just for him - though, he does also like to interpret my spreads as well. Part of it may be how barebones the LWB is that came with his deck. Personally, I would have loved some info about why they portrayed each card as they did. Some cards I see the resemblance to the RWS, and others not so much.

 

As for myself, I keep itching to do spreads, before I’ve really learned the cards, so I have been trying to do both at the same time which has things taking longer. I will copy down the spread and positions, and then draw the cards, but then for each card I’ll write down anything I can think of, then consult a couple of other resources, and only eventually hope to pull it all together with what the positions are actually asking. I think this will work best for me in the long run, as it’s right out of the gate really pushing me on finding meanings in the cards. For example, looking at V of Swords on it’s own, I could probably come up with a fair amount of possibilities, but then trying to apply it to “What is my proudest accomplishment from this past year?” needs a bit more stretching than I might have originally done. :o

 

So far I am going with the idea that any card can apply to any position somehow. No “this doesn’t make sense” and doing it over. I was watching a documentary on tarot the other day, which suggested finding a piece of “advice” for each card as well, which should be interesting. I haven’t been doing reversals, though I was tempted when I still ended up with a reversed card (and all others in the deck were upright). Hmm.

 

The book I am using right now, for backup on the meanings, is my library’s copy of Tarot for Life: Reading the Cards for Everyday Guidance and Growth by Paul Quinn. Its approach seems to be closest to what I am looking for. I can get 78 Degrees of Wisdom and Learning the Tarot through interlibrary loan, and have checked them out briefly. I did plan to come back to them later on, so thank you for the recommendations, Elin! There are so many books that it’s quite easy to get overwhelmed.

[HOLMES]

There are so many books that it’s quite easy to get overwhelmed.

 

true that,, I got 30 bucks or more..it was an addiction,, now I got a big box of books I hardly ever read but for refrence..

 

your best best would be to spend time looking up book reviews (atf before they went down, had books catagorized by beginner, intermediate,, and advanced ).. and to ask yourself what are you trying to do with the tarot..

learn tarot and qabalah ?  tarot and astrology,,  tarot and psychology ,, tarot and intuition ?

 

myself got some books on tarot court cards, reversals,, to help me understand them better...  course you could always get one of those huge textbooks approach to the tarot..

 

the main thing is to research ,, set your intentions,, I remember one day feeling disappointed that the after 10 books they started to say the same thing so I wanted to get more specialize books.

 

also sometimes books won't just gel wit you, the heart of the tarot, and tarot interactions was such boks for me.. and tarot and individuation was to much language for me to understand.

[joy]

Hello moonglow[/member] welcome to the TT&M Family  X/

[Thoughtful]

Welcome Moonglow nice to see you here  X/

[moonglow]

There are so many books that it’s quite easy to get overwhelmed.

 

true that,, I got 30 bucks or more..it was an addiction,, now I got a big box of books I hardly ever read but for refrence..

 

Yup HOLMES[/member] - When I get even a vague interest in something, I end up grabbing out "all" the books the library has on the subject and bringing them home... Only to return them all unread because I'm way too overwhelmed. ::) However, I haven't really been able to do that with Tarot. The library hasn't got much. Thankfully, there's so much content online that I'm not too worried about having to do without all the books.

 

It's funny that you mention Tarot Interactions, as it's the latest book I've been rejected for through interlibrary loan. Only one library in the province had it, in which case they generally won't lend them out. As long as a book is less than two years old, my local library is pretty good about buying my requests. They kindly granted my request for Tarot at A Crossroads: The Unexpected Meeting of Tarot & Psychology. Not quite as pleased with it as I'd hoped, so I've been glad not to have had to pick it up myself.

 

the main thing is to research ,, set your intentions,, I remember one day feeling disappointed that the after 10 books they started to say the same thing so I wanted to get more specialize books.

 

also sometimes books won't just gel wit you

 

Definitely finding this to be the case, but kind of expecting it since most books are about divination, and I really don't seem drawn to that at the moment (or numerology, astrology, etc). I'm rather shocked there are any books that appeal to me! Not to say that I can't get anything out of the other books, of course. Right now I guess "tarot and psychology" or "tarot and intuition" are what I'm mainly looking at. Thank you for the ATF recommendation. Not sure I'd seen it before. I've bookmarked it to check out later.  :thumbsup:

 

X/ joy[/member] and Thoughtful[/member] ! Thank you for the warm welcome.