So I had the flu...I was miserably too sick to do anything active and too bored to sit still. So naturally I pulled tarot kits from the bookcase right next to my bed and played with those while reading the books that came with them. Of course being bed meant I had only a lap tray to put cards on so I used the mini Sharman-Caselli deck that came in my nifty "The Tarot Box."
The very nice Tarot Box
The clever packaging and flip top of the Tarot Box. See how the divider neatly organizes the deck, book and puzzle pieces for quality storage.
The useful book and miniature Sharman-Burke - Caselli deck. The ball point pen gives good reference of the size of the useful items in this kit.
The not so useful puzzle pieces are supposed to fit together to create a spread surface but it's too difficult to use because the colors are the same on both sides so it's really hard to figure out which pieces go with each other and once you get it together it's too clunky to use as a reading surface. They would have been a lot more useful (and probably cheaper) to have used a printed handkerchief or plain violet or black handkerchief neatly folded with in the box in the slot they used for the useless puzzle.
I worked from the book that came with my "The Complete Tarot Pack" it came with two full size decks; one full color and the other simple line art for coloring your own deck. It also came with a book. The larger book contains most of the text from the Tarot Box book with better pictures, larger type and exercises to enhance your learning. The book that came with the Tarot Box has more spreads to play around with. Since I was stuck in bed I got through the book in a couple of days.
I like that the book starts you off with the minors. Most start with the majors and I've found in trying to read a book on tarot I often get bored down i the majors. While going through each suite there were mini exercises with just the suite. I didn't record those, I did record the first spread with all the suites (no majors). It was the ubiquitous Celtic cross spread. I worked so much with that spread as a novice in my teens that I've come to dislike it. I prefer to simply lay the cards out in a line so I can see the linear story...anyway...
This is how I recorded my academic perusal.
The next exercise came after study of the majors. It was a star spread with majors only. I found this spread to be a bit more fun than the Celtic cross.
This is my academic study of the spread.
The final exercise was using the entire deck in a horseshoe spread. I don't mind this one because it's linear within the curve so easy to see the story and if I need clarifiers than it's easy to line them beneath the card I pulled them for.
And of course here's my academic study of the spread I pulled.
In the past I was using the mini deck for playing solitaire. I loved the artwork but I hadn't tried to read with it. I've found with these exercises that the deck doesn't jibe with me so much in a reading. This may just be because of the small size and I may later find that working with the full size deck is wonderful. Until then I still have many kits that I haven't worked with yet so I'll continue study from my cozy bed even though I'm very well now. I've found that:
1. it's very comfortable
2. it's freedom from television
3. it's conveniently right next to my tarot collection bookcase
4. it's neutral territory with the cats so they peacefully cuddle with me and keep my feet warm.
The book I started after this was from a newly released kit called Tarot Made Easy.
This kit comes with Barbera Moore's book Your Tarot Your Way and a lovely Waite-Smith based tarot deck by artist Eugene Smith. It has a lot more quick and easy exercises that are excellent learning devices. In the next few days I'll post some of the exercises I've done so far with this very nice kit.
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