A - What can I learn from you? (3 of Water)
B - What is your strength? (Ace of Air)
C - What makes you unique? (The Wild Unknown [Arcanum XIII])
D - How would you like to be used? (Soldier of Earth)
The 3 of Water was the hardest card for me to understand, so let's come back to that.
What is your strength? The Ace of Air plays on the idea that the pen is mightier than the sword. The cursive/longhand writing in the background reveals another truth about the pen. It may be mightier than the sword but it tends to be neither quick nor decisive. I understand this as saying that this is a deck well-suited to long, thoughtful readings rather than quick answers. This probably isn't a great deck for the bar.
What makes you unique? This is a similar, but definitely distinct, question to the previous one. I like posing this kind of not-quite-the-same question to a new deck in order to see how it will handle it. Is this a deck that can deliniate fine distinctions of meaning? Here, I drew The Wild Unknown, this deck's equivalent to the Death card. This is definitely an appropriate card to pull here because it highlights the deck's uniqueness in two ways. One, it's a card who's artistic representation and titling are very far removed from those of traditional decks. Second, and more importantly, this card is a particularly clear example of the fact that this deck operates within a different interpretive/symbolic framework than most other decks out there. Rather than portraying death as a metaphor for transformation, this deck forthrightly states that we have no idea what death entails. By appearing here, The Wild Unknown says that what makes this deck different is that it's different. This would be a tautology except for the fact that the deck then illustrates precisely how its differences manifest themselves.
Finally, we have the Soldier of Earth, another slow paced card that reinforces the Ace of Swords. Like his pentacles counterpart, the Soldier of Earth is a figure of slow and steady service.. The deck would be used when and where there is a need for the kind of services it can provide: lengthy, thoughtful, and perhaps even literary examinations of a question/situation/issue that requires a distinctly different perspective.
And lest I forget...
Ahh...The 3 of Water. In RWS, "friendship" is a common 3 of Cups keywords. In my TdM practice, I'm most likely to think of it as a card of family and children. In any case, none of my surface reactions match particularly well with the question of what can I learn from the deck. It would have to be a pretty distant metaphor to think that this deck is going to teach me how to be friends with people. But, then again, this deck does seem to speak with the voice of a different age. Perhaps the 3 of Water (as freindship) is saying that it will connect me with the spirits and perspectives of that past time, that I will learn how people used to see the world differently. Perhaps. Perhaps not. Looking at the card itself more closely, I see the three waters blending together into one tub. Maybe something to do with the idea of blending or synthesis. Looking at the LWB, Freder uses the words "convergence" and "renewal." Of course, time will tell what I actually learn from this deck, but here is a speculative answer: The deck will provide a means for me to converge the work I'm doing with Modern Anglo-American decks with the work I'm doing with pre-GD exoteric continental decks. Although the pips are illustrated in this deck they do not slavishly follow the RWS. Numbers and elements will likely be of increased importance if I'm going to figure out what's going on. The deck has no antipathy to the esoteric correspondences but doesn't, at first glance at least, seem to revel in them either.
