NEW MEMBERS - Tell us your Tarot Story

[KorraBlack]

As far as I recall, I've been interested in Astrology and, in particular, on the symbolism behind it. I've always thought that, beyond the mere influence on our lives of each planet/luminar/..., there must had been a reason why that particular symbol was chosen to represent that astral object.
Starting to dig into it, I came across the concepts of Jungian archetypes, synchronicity and collective unconsciousness and, therefore, the I Ching, which I tried to "study" without particular success.
For some reasons, despite my emotional and spiritual closeness to Eastern philosophy and culture (also due to my paternal influence and upbringing), I couldn't connect to it.

But the importance of the Jungian principles couldn't cease to exist in me.

I used to look at Tarot as some kind of fortuneteller game, before I actually realised there was - of course, I'd say now - a fil rouge weaving through my studies and interests which, in the end, aims at understanding the very mechanisms of the Universe, what makes the clock tick.
Not by chance I graduated in Theoretical Physics at the University, which - instead of pulling away - has added further magic to the intricated and delicate threads of the Tarot world I'm finding my way in.

I'm still a humble student and always I will.
I like watching YouTube videos on readings not only for the content per se, but also - and especially - to grasp different ways of seeing cards, by themselves and together.
Wrapping up a story from how the cards talk with each other. Inspired to seek and rely on my intuition more and more.

It's an exciting and colourful journey that is giving me a new pair of glasses to understand and cope with this weird world.

[Pen]

Welcome, KorraBlack and thank you for a fascinating glimpse into your journey. There's so much to learn and so many directions - who could ever become bored...

[Joan Marie]

It's an exciting and colourful journey that is giving me a new pair of glasses to understand and cope with this weird world.

Thank you so much for sharing your story. Welcome to the forum!

[Ade]

Hello all

As a new member, I thought I'd share a little about myself before diving into other parts of the forum.

How did you get started in Tarot? Oracles? Lenormand?
Since childhood, I've been drawn to what I may broadly call esotericism. Firstly, it was the Greek myths but I was always most interested in the complex relationships between the gods and mankind. Then it seemed to be an infinite number of small steps through meditation, visualisation and then to the tarot. It's taken me in other areas as well, but I do keep coming back to the tarot.

But, and I need to confess something here, my interest is almost exclusively around self-improvement and self-awareness. If I draw cards, it is to enter the world of the image and discover new ways of looking at the world. And here's the confession. I don't actually believe in divination as 'a thing' and never thought about using the cards fo that purpose. I'm not going to jump in on other people's threads when they do talk about divinatory aspects of the tarot; I'm not that sort of person. But reading the cards is just not for me. Though, who knows, I may have my eyes opened by being a member here! Hopefully, the community here is broad enough that I can find a place here but I needed to get that out in the open now.

What was your first deck and where did you get it?

It was a Fournier Spanish TdM deck, purchased in a local bookshop in Essex (UK) in about 1979. It was all they had at the time. I accompanied it with the Alfred Douglas 'The Tarot' guide book. Again, all they had. not easy translating between one and the other. I then got a blue box 1975 RWS deck (not a blushing fool, unfortunately) and felt much more comfortable so still think of that as my first deck, and still have it.

Do you have a favourite deck? Why?

I've started getting a small collection together, over the last few years. I've found an original 1972 Sheridan Douglas to go with my guide book so am enjoying that now. I also really like how the images in the Tarot of the Sidhe seem to speak to me when I take them out. But the one that I find myself reaching for most is the Morgan Greer. It's about 30 years old now, and a bit dog eared, but it just feels so comfortable and 'right'.

So that's me. I hope that I can become a useful member of the forum and give at least as much as I receive.

Peace.

[Joan Marie]

So that's me. I hope that I can become a useful member of the forum and give at least as much as I receive.

Hi Ade, thanks so much for sharing this. So glad you have found us. It's lovely to have you here.

[Pen]

Hi and welcome, Ade. I'm sure you're not alone here in not reading with your cards. I don't read for others but use mine mostly (I have about 100 decks) as miniature art galleries and for introspection, but often they'll seem to point the way or reflect where things are for me at the present time.

[clairewetzler]

Hi! My name is Claire Wetzler and I am excited to be here!

I got started into the mystic side of life when I was around 11 years old. My Mum and I would watch Russell Grant on Breakfast TV and we would wait until I heard my ‘stars for the day’ before heading off to school. Following the love for astrology, I became fascinated with numerology and working out numbers that corresponded with birth dates and full birth names so I could find out more about my latest celebrity crush, friends, and of course boyfriends!
When I was 17, my good friend took me to my first tarot reading, and I can still remember what she said. It was uncanny the information she gave me, especially as I went in rather skeptical. I came out of her house absolutely amazed and hooked. Ever since then I have consulted tarot readers and continued to dabble in all 3 modalities. A couple of years ago I decided that I could combine my personal calling of helping people by use of the cards and knowledge of the other modalities. I invested in courses about how to read for others, and every day am honing my skills, using intuition and life lessons to help others gain clarity where they feel stuck.

My first deck was The Gilded Tarot by Ciro Marchetti. A couple of years ago, my puppy took it off the table and went outside where all the cards ended up all over the yard. I found every single one. Justice and Judgement were torn a little and had puppy teeth marks in them – rather apt, I think! I have retired that set and going to arrange them in frames to hang in my office.

I have quite a few decks. Most if not all from Ciro Marchetti, and I do love the Gilded Tarot Royale. It depends on who I am reading for which deck I choose. I find the Mystic Mondays very straight forward, no BS, kind of deck. I also like Endless Skys Tarot deck which you can get from Etsy.

I am in the middle of creating a deck and will elaborate a little later.

[Pen]

Hi and welcome, Claire - good to have you here!

[Joan Marie]

I am in the middle of creating a deck and will elaborate a little later.

Hi Claire! Welcome and looking forward to hearing more about your work!

You'll find there are a few paces here specifically for artists to share work in progress or make other announcements.
We love hearing about what people are working on all the time.

[Olui]

Hey I am Olui. Looking forward to take part in activities here in this forum

• How did you get started in Tarot? Oracles? Lenormand?

I started with Tarot when I was a teenager but stopped after moving into my first apartment when I was 20. Now with 34 I am using Tarot for four years, Lenormand for two years and a bit of Kipper.

• What was your first deck and where did you get it?

it was Rider Waite and I bought it in a book shop.

• Do you have a favourite deck? Why?

I like the blue owl lenormand cards because they have a beautiful simple symbolism.

• Do you have a favourite topic or area of interest in Tarot, for example, symbolism, history, reading groups, collecting, etc..?

I am interested in reading groups, learning more of the symbols and improve my reading.

[Joan Marie]

Hey I am Olui. Looking forward to take part in activities here in this forum

Hello and welcome! Thank you for sharing your tarot story.

[Ciderwell]

Hello there,

My tarot story isn't much to tell. I've been fascinated with the cards long before owning a deck. As a teenager reading Michael Moorcock's Prince Corum series, The Knight/The Queen/and The King of Swords. Also Piers Anthony's tarot novels have been a strong source of enchantment. So I've tended to read the cards as I might read a story book, picking up on plot points, themes, and symbolism, etc.

I've been lurking around your forum for a while and have now decided the Rider-Waite-Smith is my favourite set of cards - and next on my wish list, as I'm currently waiting on the Tarot of the Sacred Circle/and the Wisdom of the Trees Oracle - having never owned an RWS.

I have been enjoying your discussions and the way you treat each other. So much so that I felt compelled to join your forum and perhaps learn how to read the cards properly.

Thanking you,
Rod.

[Jana Naga Costta]

Hello,
I'm Jana from Brazil
I'm a tarot/oracles lover. Got my first tarot (Marseille) tried hard but couldn't feel secure to keep doing it
then 2017 i'd another tarot class also Lennormand.
I'm not able to judge, but i didn't like the method.
Then a couple of months ago i had the chance to do a free online introduction of Lennormand and i loved the "tutor" method and that's how i heard about Andy Boroveshengra. Then Googled and found this forum.
I'm very excited and focused.
Thank you all!

[Pen]

Hi Jana, welcome to CoT!

[Joan Marie]

Hello,
I'm Jana from Brazil
I'm a tarot/oracles lover. Got my first tarot (Marseille) tried hard but couldn't feel secure to keep doing it
then 2017 i'd another tarot class also Lennormand.
I'm not able to judge, but i didn't like the method.
Then a couple of months ago i had the chance to do a free online introduction of Lennormand and i loved the "tutor" method and that's how i heard about Andy Boroveshengra. Then Googled and found this forum.
I'm very excited and focused.
Thank you all!

Hi Jana! Welcome.
I look forward to your ideas and questions about Lenormand!

Thanks for joining us.

[Jana Naga Costta]

Hello,
I'm Jana from Brazil
I'm a tarot/oracles lover. Got my first tarot (Marseille) tried hard but couldn't feel secure to keep doing it
then 2017 i'd another tarot class also Lennormand.
I'm not able to judge, but i didn't like the method.
Then a couple of months ago i had the chance to do a free online introduction of Lennormand and i loved the "tutor" method and that's how i heard about Andy Boroveshengra. Then Googled and found this forum.
I'm very excited and focused.
Thank you all!

Hi Jana! Welcome.
I look forward to your ideas and questions about Lenormand!

Thanks for joining us.

Thank you! I'm glad and i'm sure this place will help me to improve my readings.
Since now i apologize, 'cause my english isn't that good hehe, also my skills on foruns, so please, be patient
For now i've lots of questions flying on my mind, so, when i've a pertinent question i'll ask, meanwhile i'll be studiyng and try to get track of the topics here

[Joan Marie]

For now i've lots of questions flying on my mind, so, when i've a pertinent question i'll ask, meanwhile i'll be studiyng and try to get track of the topics here

Take your time! There is a lot of good information here.

[Martha Mountain]

I've been studying and working with Tarot for about a decade. My favorite deck is probably the original Rider Waite Smith, with the muted colors, BUT, I think I have about twenty second favorite decks. Currently reading with Sabat Magazine's Le Tarot de l'Etoile Cachee (Elisa Seitzinger and Pam Grossman) and True Heart Intuitive Tarot (Rachel True) and the 5th edition of the Alchemical Tarot: Renewed (Robert M Place). For now I read for myself and a very few close friends. I aspire to create a deck and am not quite ready to do so - I need to drill down into what purpose my deck might serve. Benebel Wen introduced me to this site. I have some Lenormand and other oracle decks, but don't have much practice with them. Happy to have found this.

[TheLoracular]

I've been studying and working with Tarot for about a decade. My favorite deck is probably the original Rider Waite Smith, with the muted colors, BUT, I think I have about twenty second favorite decks. Currently reading with Sabat Magazine's Le Tarot de l'Etoile Cachee (Elisa Seitzinger and Pam Grossman) and True Heart Intuitive Tarot (Rachel True) and the 5th edition of the Alchemical Tarot: Renewed (Robert M Place). For now I read for myself and a very few close friends. I aspire to create a deck and am not quite ready to do so - I need to drill down into what purpose my deck might serve. Benebel Wen introduced me to this site. I have some Lenormand and other oracle decks, but don't have much practice with them. Happy to have found this.

Welcome! Those are some beautiful decks. Alchemical Tarot: Renewed is on my wish list so I'm really looking forward to hearing about your experiences with it.

[testpattern]

I think that I have always had a deck laying around since I was 13 or 14 years old, when my friend James gifted me his Mythic Tarot. I gave that one to a girlfriend in high school (I see it's fetching quite a high price on eBay these days), and a few years later another friend passed me on her grandmother's Rider Waite Smith. Since that time, I have had a basic idea of the meaning of the RWS suits, and some superficial ideas about the majors. I probably got drunk and drew cards a few times a year, but I never really put much effort into developing the craft until this very recently.

I'm sure we're all aware that 2020 has been a year of challenges. I'm absolutely certain that I am not the only person on the planet to attempt to develop a spiritual practice this year. By September this year, I had three decks banging around my desk drawer: my Rider Waite, the Solleone Tarot, and the Medieval Cat Tarot, the latter two picked up for less than five dollars at a garage sale or thrift shop. I started reading with the very simple idea that I didn't take enough time out of my day to just stop and think about things. I very quickly began to find real benefit in reading for myself, to the point where I have to admit that they have influenced some very big life decisions.

As my practice evolved over the past few months, I began to get impatient with the rigidity of the Waite system. I kept feeling like the Minors were stepping on my toes: "What the hell does the three of swords have to do with mind or communication?." I also confess that, while I love Coleman Smith's art, there is a certain sort of early-Modernist self-seriousness to the idealized Medieval imagery that I began to dislike. I'm a fairly ungodly person, not quite an atheist, but definitely a nontheist. What business do I have mucking about with emanations and sephiroth? And I have no interest at all in astrology as a practice (although I have nothing but respect for those who find it useful). The Solleone is its own dark, impenetrable beast, so I found myself going to the Cats. The Medieval Cat Tarot is a hybrid pip deck, with a small lunette displaying Rider Waite-inspired imagery in the middle of the pip arrangement. It's ungainly for pip reading, as the emblems are done as computer art, which I find renders them less fluid. But it encouraged me to start thinking about what was important to me about number symbolism.

And so I came to the Marseille. I bought theCBD and the Maria Celia within days of one another. I don't think that I could ever go back. The fluidity and richness of the pips more than satisfy my frustration with the illustrated minors. And I was overjoyed to jettison the fussy esoteric cruft of the English decks (again, I have nothing but respect for those who use those tools, even if I do have Opinions about why I don't). My educational background is in literary studies, and my most recent writing interest was in narrative theory. The boundless fluidity of the Marseilles tarots as aleatory narrative generators is very appealing to that part of me. I also like that it seems less distant from the deck's ludic roots. I very find that it's a much more roomy set of images for my needs. Sure, I have a relationship with these kings and angels and popes as a person who is a descendent of European forebearers. But I have no allegiance to them. They can speak to me as artifacts of the Middle Ages or Renaissance if that's how the spread animates them. Le Pape can be a benevolent tutelary figure, if that's what he wants to be. Or he can just as easily be Gregory XI, or any of the other venal gangster-priests whose condottiere spread murder across the Italian peninsula in their squabbling greed for earthly power. Like all of the characters of the Tarot, there is a breadth of possibility in his role. I can never understand them as one of their original contemporaries would have, so I feel no compunctions about finding my own ideas within them.

I've been lurking around here for a couple of months now, and I have already learned quite a lot from the habituées. I look forward to more learning and stimulating dialog.

[Joan Marie]

I've been lurking around here for a couple of months now, and I have already learned quite a lot from the habituées. I look forward to more learning and stimulating dialog.

So glad you've decided to join us and thank you for sharing your story! You probably kind of know your way around here, but if you have any questions at all let me know.

[tarinn]

Hello I am Tas. I love the tarot and have been researching it for many years. I am a pagan and use tarot and oracle decks in my craft. I love how the decks have evolved over the many years i have been around:) I am always into the obscure and shadow aspects of tarot as well.

[mandymk]

Hi, I'm Mandy. I became interested in Tarot a few months ago after I won a free reading online. The reader was spot on! I just finished up an 8 week class taught by the owner of my local metaphysical shop (who has been a professional reader for 15+ years). Right now I just want to learn and practice as much as I can.

[Joan Marie]

hi Mandy! Welcome to the forum. Glad you found us. I hope you find a lot of knowledge and inspiration here.

[fungi_john]

Hi everyone, I'm John.

I got started in the tarot at the age of 10, my first deck was the Aquarian tarot which I still have and love now I've added many decks to the pile over the years. A few years ago I have a stroke that left the left side of my body paralyzed and unfortunately, I suffered some pretty weird brain damage as well. So I'm starting to really learn the cards (now no longer on easy mode) but still a whole heck of a lot of fun. I look forward to being a member of this community, and I hope that someday I might be helpful as well.

Cheers