Thanks everyone for your interest, this is great!
I'm not really sure what you mean, are we to just go by her meanings? You have our own alternative interpretations, but then still use her meanings in the card interpretations in the new card combinations? Sorry I'm a bit confused as to what you want to accomplish!
This is an excellent question.
Here's more detail on what I have in mind: Each study group thread would take a single reading example from Rana's book. I would post three exercises based on that reading sample.
Exercise A would be to look at and discuss Rana's interpretation, ask questions, make comments, point out interesting things.
Exercise B would be to take the same question and cards but formulate a different interpretation. As we all know, the same cards in any cartomantic system can always be interpreted differently by different people, yet still validly. The point here though is to limit the interpretive possibilities to Rana's own lists of meanings.
Exercise C would entail my posting a new combination of cards (but including the card from whose chapter the Exercise A reading was taken) for which we could all try our hand at interpreting, again using Rana's meanings to put together the interpretation.
Members can in their posts address any one of the three exercises, or all of them, whatever they like.
Let's take for example one of Rana's readings in the Introduction to the book:
Exercise A: "Jane has been seeing Zane for a month and wonders about his intentions. 'Is Zane interested in a long-term relationship with Jane?'"
Ring + Dog + Man + Crossroads + Woman
Rana's interpretation: "No, he is already in a committed relationship, and all he wants is another dish on the side."
My comment here is that it's interesting that Ring+Dog would seem to suggest "Yes, he is interested in a committed relationship," but Rana takes her cue from the Crossroads card ("Cheating, infidelity, adultery") to interpret the first two cards as being a committed relationship
with someone else. I think this is a key to interpreting lines of cards -- narrow down the possibilities by letting one card jump out at you, then seeing the other cards in light of how that one card strikes you.
Exercise B: Same reading, but what other interpretations can we come up with for the same cards, and limiting ourselves to Rana's meanings? This isn't about coming up with the "best" interpretation, but rather simply doing a mix-'n-match from Rana's meanings to see what other interesting interpretations we can come up with.
For example, how about: "He wants very much to have a committed relationship (Ring+Dog), but he (Man) is still undecided (Crossroads) whether he will choose (Crossroads) Jane (Woman) as the person he wants."
In that example, I've used meanings/keywords from Rana's lists but chosen some different ones than she did, resulting in a completely different interpretation.
Exercise C: Let's assume that the A and B reading was in the Ring chapter. So for Excercise C, I would post a new set of cards for us to interpret, including the Ring, using the same question as Rana's example.
Example: Scythe + Key + Ring + Clover + Anchor
Same question: "Jane has been seeing Zane for a month and wonders about his intentions. 'Is Zane interested in a long-term relationship with Jane?'"
Participants can interpret the cards any way they want, as long as they take their individual card meanings from Rana's list of meanings to do so. I would post my own interpretation only after several people posted theirs, because while I consider myself to be leading the study group from an administrative perspective, I'm not "teaching" it per se and won't be commenting on or criticizing members' interpretations.
While it's true that Rana says, "Eventually you will build on the traditional meanings and cultivate your own successful readings," I think it would make most sense in this study group for us to stick with her meanings so that we can study her interpretations and follow her mental process in arriving at them, which seems to me to be an excellent way to begin to internalize her approach.
Again, members can feel free to post solutions for any one of the three exercises, or two of them, or all of them.
Does all that sound too complicated? I'm still kind of formulating in my mind how it would work, so any feedback or suggestions at this point are welcome.
