Inaugural Intensive Deck Study (IDS) Support Thread

thorhammer

Here we are - the official IDS support and discussion thread! Welcome to all, welcome! The original thread has details of the evolution of this gathering.

If anyone else wants to join in, you're more than welcome, or if existing participants have changes to their deck or rules, could you please PM me as well/instead of posting here? I'm terrified I'm going to miss someone's post :eek:

Guidelines

1. Start date at the Equinox, which is apparently the 19th of March (although I realise that some people have started theirs already and others are away on holidays or suchlike over that day and will be joining us later). At this stage the "official" end date is 20th of June, but everyone is free to continue as long as they like, of course! But we are all aiming at three months to begin with.

2. Only one deck should be used for readings (at all, including reading for others), study, journalling, idle flicking-through, mindless shuffling, etc.

3. The only time you pick up another deck is a new arrival from an order, and only for the purposes of checking quality and completeness. Then put it away and forget about it.

4. Reading material including companion books and non-card-specific texts (eg. 21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card) are allowed, unless a participant chooses to eliminate them for him/herself.

5. Handle your deck every day, even if you don't read with it or actually study any of the cards. Physical comfort with the cards is important to knowing a deck.

6. Journal with the deck at least once a week, if not more often. Use the threads for the group to help motivate you and encourage you to delve further into the symbolism and meaning of the cards.


Participants:

rwcarter - ..........Ancient Egyptian Tarot
thorhammer - ......Wheel of Change Tarot
Skimo - ..............Halloween Tarot(till Halloween)
Knight of Wands - .Baroque Bohemian Cats
Llynn - ................Druidcraft Tarot/Druid Animal Oracle
lilith_in_tree - ......Victorian Romantic Tarot
Emily - ................Liber T: Tarot of the Stars Eternal
PeterS - ..............Liber T: Tarot of the Stars Eternal
Scion - ...............Liber T: Tarot of the Stars Eternal (inc. Thoth side dish and book writing :D)
Gazel - ...............Universal Waite Tarot
Azarial - .............Universal Waite Tarot
angelegg - ..........Universal Waite Tarot
Oddity - .............Rider-Waite Smith Tarot
Maxwell - ............Rider-Waite Smith Tarot
kisou - ...............Amano Tarot
Star-Willow - .......Thoth Tarot
missycab - ..........Thoth Tarot
mosaica - ...........Thoth Tarot
franniee - ...........Thoth Tarot
afrosaxon - .........New Orleans Voodoo Tarot
Faolainn Storm - ..Tarot of Dreams
cybercat - ..........Tarot of Dreams
Sinduction - ........Tarot Art Nouveau
Le Fanu - ............Jaques Vieville Tarot
Raya - ................Stuff Set :D
WolfSpirit - ..........Steele Wizard Tarot
SilverLotus - ........Steele Wizard Tarot
Astraea Aurora - ..Bohemian Gothic Tarot
fluffy - ...............Bosch Tarot
tarot4fun - ..........Sharman-Caselli Tarot/My Southwest Postcard Oracle
Prism - ...............Tarot of Prague
Nina* - ...............Tarot of the Sidhe
Fudugazi - ...........Tarot of the Sidhe
Allure - ................Lovers Path Tarot
Starlily - ..............Fairytale Tarot
sapienza - ...........Alchemical Tarot
PolarBear - ..........Llewellyn Tarot
kwesifriends - ......Robin Wood Tarot
Aulruna - ............Lo Scarabeo Tarot
Disa - .................Tarot of the Crone
bleuivy - .............Shining Tribe Tarot
oak_woman - .......Waking the Wild Spirit Tarot
Xarokys - ............Mythic Tarot
blackroseivy - ......Da Vinci Enigma Tarot
raventepes - ........Wormweird
lilangel09 - ..........International Icon Tarot
Myrrha - .............Cosmic Tarot

Feel free to introduce yourself with your *pledge* post, or not, as you wish.

We are in illustrious company here - so many excited, committed people joined in the desire to devote time to one deck so that they can learn it (and themselves as readers) better. I hope this will be a great experience for us all, and that we can support each other and add to it through the group medium.

\m/ Kat
 

Star-Willow

Thanks Kat for getting this all underway thus enabling me the opportunity to learn a deck that I probably wouldn't have, on such an intense level......

No doubt I will be looking for support along the way :)

I am really excited about it all, I'm off to find myself a journal today.... I have my Thoth deck and along with that I'll be using Lon Milo DuQuette's book "Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot" aswell as Aleister Crowley's book, "The Book Of Thoth".......


So :thumbsup: to you my friend :)

:heart:
 

thorhammer

Star* . . . hi, honey :). So good to see you here. I'm almost jealous of you with your Thoth (still waiting for my *borrowed* one to arrive, almost given up), as I'd love to get into that deck. It will happen one day. Now, it sounds like you've got lots of reading material, but I also possess Snuffin's Thoth Companion which I'd gladly lend to you if you want it. So let me know if you decide you want another reference point.

Gods, I wish I didn't have to work. I would love to sit here all day and journal with my Wheel of Change, but it's just not happening. You know, I think that the structures of my life (what I associate strongly with the Emperor), unpleasant though they are, are what keep me interested for long periods of time in one thing. So "work" in this case, might be an important factor in driving me along this path with the one deck. As in, I'll be at work, lusting after my deck and therefore spend more time with it in my spare time. Anyway, rambling again . . .

I love pretty journals, but I start them and then don't use them properly. So I've gone utilitarian. I have two large lever-arch files, and lots of loose-leaf A4 paper. One file is for Deck Studies, the other for Readings (which I write out longhand, almost every one now). The Readings one is much more full than the Deck Studies one, but that will even out now that I'll be working with this deck every day. I have lots of thoughts to put down about the cards already, but they're still forming and I must try to pin the suckers down and make some sense of them. There's no study group for this deck :( so I'll have to do it all on my lonesome!

Should we have an dedicated IDS daily draws thread? Or is everyone happy enough to work with their decks separately, and use the existing threads where they want to post their draws?

\m/ Kat
 

mosaica

Thoth or Liber T?

I'm still considering joining the IDS with my Thoth. I have a regular, and I'm waiting for a large Swiss to come in the mail. But I'd also like to get a Liber T. Which to use?

Can anyone tell me more about the differences and similarities between the two decks? I'm just beginning to get into the Thoth. Should I stay with it for a while before I get into the Liber T? Any advice from the Thoth/Liber T lovers?

Thanks.
Mosaica
 

Promise

Alright, I have made up my mind.

Scratch the Noblet out, and put me down for the BG.

I have both the standard and the Silver, as well as the lovely book, and you know what? They deserve attention. A good bit of it, too. I feel I need a stronger grasp of the RWS-style pips before I delve off into the deep end with the Marseilles.

I feel more comfortable with the BG than I do with the Noblet, and I think this decision will be for the better. The Noblet was a valiant effort...for an hour or two, and then I started cringing and wanting to pull out my pretty decks and put the two side by side.

The guidelines I had for myself still stand, though. Same thing, different deck.

*sighs*

Off to start a new journal...
 

lilith_in_tree

oh dear Promise, I just responded to you in the other thread before I saw this--but no matter, you've hashed it all out and made a very good choice for your deck--we must have very similar taste, the BG and the Noblet are two that are going to require my full attention sometime in the future as well ;) And don't despair over changing decks--you must feel good about your choice, and if the Noblet wasn't going to work for you right now it's best that you changed now, before you got too involved.
And thank you to Kat for organizing this whole thing--I'm so happy to have other people to talk to as I do this study, I'm sure it's really going to help!
 

PeterS

Promise you are cracking me up. I feel better that there are others out there that are like me and wondering if I made the wrong choice. I keep thinking over and over. It is almost like what I would imagine being in line on an airplan for my turn to sky dive, that last minute cold feet and asking myself am I really sure I want to do this.

Peter
 

PeterS

Thoth vs. Liber T

Mosaica,

The similarities are easy to make. All the Majors of the Liber T are redrawn versions of the Thoth. They are a little more warm and fuzzy than the original. In my opinion they are more clear and easier to understand. But trimming my Thoth deck helped me to see the pictures better but that is a whole different thread issue.

The Courts are also redrawn from the Thoth images, keeping the same structure, and all the Aces for the Minor Suits are very similar with only minor changes if any.

Now the differences are the 2 thru 10 of the minor suits. While each card in the Liber T has an image of the Thoth pips, it is just a small part of the overall image on the card. Because forty of the cards are substantially different yet hold the image of the Thoth, but 38 are essentially the same there is a sense that what is true about the Thoth will likewise be true of the Liber T. But in is not necessarily conversely true.

Now I may be off the mark a bit but I am sure there are others who have opinions on this. Emily, Scion? If nothing else this was a good question for me to answer as a preliminary opinion of the deck. It will be the before picture in this exercise regime and I can compare it to the eventual after impression I have in three months.

Here is a link to a website that shows all the cards of the Liber T.

http://draktarotlibrary.multiply.com/photos/album/129/Liber_T_-_Tarot_Of_Stars_Eternal

Peter
 

Promise

It really was a difficult decision for me to change decks, but I started to feel that an IDS with the Noblet at this point would be like putting my head in a mulcher.

Yes, I will definitely be studying it in-depth, but I feel that for me, it's going to have to be a "lesson by comparison", if you will. I think it's going to take sitting down and comparing it with other decks and seeing where the similarities lie, where the differences lie, what clicks, what doesn't, etc.

The BG is one I feel drawn to in terms of concept and imagery, and I feel that there's so much "meat" there just waiting to be delved into. It's a deck I feel more comfortable with, yet some of the cards are very outside of my comfort zone, which makes it more of a challenge to me, something to work through and reconcile within myself.

Ugh, sometimes I'm a walking contradiction.

12 hours ago I was chomping and the bit with the Noblet, and now I've all but forgotten it in the drawer of doom and despair with the rest of my decks.

*shakes head*

Now I know why mom spent so much on therapy for me.
 

Maxwell

Thanks again Thorhammer for getting this going.

One of my goals with this is to get better at not just "reading" the cards but at telling the tale. Out loud. In a conversational voice -- not a shy whisper. I've been playing with this idea/practice for a little while and there is a big difference, for me at least, in pondering and writing down a reading and in speaking/telling the cards out loud.

Six months of telling the cards should do wonders for my abilities! (Then again it could just lead to me roaming the streets spouting off about the poorly shod 7 of wands!)