Intensive Deck Study (IDS) Support Lounge ~ Part IV

I just think I have massive commitment issues. I look at my Victorian Romantic and Bohemian Gothic decks, and I know I want to do something intensive and studious with them... but I don't think I quite know what that will look like yet. Since deciding to IDS with them, I haven't even touched them!

It's me. For sure. Possibly. Except, there is one deck I've been faithful to ever since I got them. A deck I thought I'd put to one side and use only occasionally. A deck that offers up such riches every time I use it: I'm still surprised, still doubting that such a seemingly simple deck can give so much.

My little Tarot of Trees. It's weird, really: I used it last week, with other people, and one of the other readers looked at the cards and said 'It's so simple, its almost abstract.' And I was surprised, because that hasn't been my experience. Abstract? Simple? Not at all. I pull the Page of Pentacles and I'm on a darkened hillside in the snow, seeing that small, single tree standing alone and clutching its single pentacle, feeling the chill wind and the scent from the distant farmhouses and the heaviness of solitude on a cold winter night, but protecting its treasure nonetheless...

I'm no scholar, though. I look at what everybody else is doing in this thread, and I'm intimidated. I don't want to spend a long time studying - not yet, anyway. At some point in my future lies the Templar, the Victoria Regina. They'll entail the reactivation of my academic self. But first and foremost I'm a storyteller, and I've been waiting for a deck that allows me to be that.

What's this long post doing? Asking if I can change my front page entry to Tarot of Trees. But also begging forgiveness: if and when I post about my little deck, it'll be as the minstrel, not as the academic. It makes this a far more subjective study; one, possibly, that won't be much use to anybody else. I'm not even sure what form it'll take: it's less a study and more an Intensive Deck Musings

We'll see. I'm already doing it, though, so I'm not excited about starting. Just exciting about carrying on. Oh, and ready to see if my commitment issues will step in and interfere with this...

Good for you Daisy! I will be happy to read your posts. This thread is not a competition or an academic gathering. It is a place where we support each other as we each explore our chosen deck.

How we go about it is irrevelant to any but ourselves. So spin your tales of Trees! I for one will sit and gladly listen.

I really did my studies on the HP last week, but never got around to posting. My plan is to get the laundry done, and then sit down and write it out. Hope everyone is doing great.

DaisyDragonfly,

Who's to say that storytelling isn't as valid a form of "study" as academic "book" studying? You'll still be deciding what the images in your deck mean to you and forming a unique relationship with your deck. I think those things are what make a successful IDS, regardless of how you get there.

I have the Tarot of Trees, and while I haven't given it much of a chance (I am IDS-ing with a different deck after all.... ), what you describe in the Page Pentacles absolutely sings and would otherwise cause me to pick up the deck and see if I can see what you see in it.

Rodney

emmsma said:

Good for you Daisy! I will be happy to read your posts. This thread is not a competition or an academic gathering. It is a place where we support each other as we each explore our chosen deck.

How we go about it is irrevelant to any but ourselves. So spin your tales of Trees! I for one will sit and gladly listen.

Click to expand...

What emmsma said.

Also, please don't forget that some of us choose the "academic" route because storytelling just isn't our strong point (no matter how much we'd like to be great storytellers). I'd be an example of that.

I'm still considering the Greenwood animals. I've sat down and made a list of all animals in the deck that I could find/identify and the cards they appear on. Deer (and its variations) is appearing most often (on 17 cards). Horse (including the Uffington Horse) is featured on 11 cards. Snake (7), Cow/Aurochs (5), Heron and Bear (4 each), and Lion (3) also appear in noticeable numbers. All other animals (34 of them altogether) show up once or twice. I plan to eventually compare all cards that show the same animal(s) to see if that brings any additional insight.

I've also started reading "The Clan of the Cave Bear" and find it very helpful in getting an indea of European prehistoric life (although I'm unsure if I should take all gender-related issues as fact or if I should read them as the author's imagination - I may have to do some other research about that...).

I'll also do my first reading for someone else in this week's IDS exchange. I'm curious to see how the deck reads for someone else but me.

Daisydragonfly, my entire study of the Templar consisted of me writing up the meditations I had done on each card. It never occurred to me that my writing might be incomprehensible to others, or that my work might not be valuable to them. Quite frankly I didn't care. I knew what each card study meant and they were valuable to me. You go right ahead and write - you're a talented writer, it'll be so interesting to read your insights into how you feel about the deck. The hell with whether what you feel is what Joe Bloggs can expect to feel.

Your IDS is you communing with your deck in the way that means you get most from it. If we pick up and glean ideas and thoughts from your writing that's wonderful but it's not the point of your IDS....

You do what it suits you best to do. Use your gifts...

Hi everyone! I'm finally back after being decimated by the end of the semester. I can honestly say that I have never been through such a difficult or rewarding experience. And look! A whole new IDS thread! Hello all!

My IDS has changed, a bit. I'm still working with the Fairytale, but over the past month of so my work with it has shifted almost exclusively toward writing/plotting/creative inspiration. I was happy with that for a while, but I miss reading the cards.

So I decided to pull out another deck to work with in conjunction with the Fairytale. I still want to work with the Fairytale for writing and creativity, but I also want to have a reading deck, which is what the IDS for me is all about. So I reached into my basket-o-decks a few weeks ago and pulled out...Tarot of the Four Elements! Yes! The deck I started my IDS journey with...goodness...last year sometime was it?

Somewhere along the way, that deck became my comfortable, lived in, reading deck of choice, which is funny in a way because I don't think it would be that way for everyone. I was going through some pretty difficult stuff toward the end of the semester, though, and not all of it related to school, and I guess I wanted to read with something comfortable.

So, my IDS going forward (indeffinately) is giong to be the Fairytale (for writing) and the Tarot of the Four Elements (for reading). I honestly cannot think of two more different decks, but I guess I'm a pretty eclectic person because they both feel right. It feels like I'm coming full circle, in a way, because I started this journey with the Four Elements. Also, this time around I want to get a bit more focussed, maybe do a bit more journalling, contribute a study thread or two.

So there's my update. Sign me up for two decks? I guess??

*Rushes off to read the rest of this thread.*

So come and join the super shiny IDS Reading Exchange - ta daaaa!!!

No, seriously - signups are now - come and join us here

Thank you everybody for your encouragement I guess I just worry that skipping down the subjective story route is less structured - I want to stick with this! I do understand that different studies can take different forms at different times.

But no matter! What is important is that I declared my commitment to my little Trees last night... and I'm still using them. Hurrah! I will get through my commitment issues, I will...

OMG don't tempt me! I just finished the craziest couple of months of my life. Christmas week is going to be all about relaxing and remembering what it is to sleep more than four hours a night.

Next exchange, though? I am so there!