Shapeshifter Tarot study group?

I think a study group would be a great idea for anyone wanting to still get to grips with the deck.

I think it is a difficult deck to interpret but I like the idea behind it so I am determined not to give up too soon.

Just to start off for anyone who wants to have a go I picked a card at random, I don't intend to refer to the book and want to see if it comes naturally. Please give your interpretations of this or any other card.

3. The Mother - I read once that if nothing comes intuitively start by describing the object or card so here goes.
A woman with long white or grey hair who is pregnant and draped in a green robe is standing in a stream holding and apple next to a white winged horse who is drinking from the stream.
Around the woman are stars and above is what looks like a milky way in orange and yellow.
The dominating colours though in the ard are blues and greens.

It obviously relates to The empress because of the pregnancy. And the fruits she bears (apple). The stream she is stood in is whooshing upwards towards the milky way at one side. Could this mean lifting emotions to the stars or Cosmic consciousness? The grey or white hair of the woman would signify experience and knowledge, and as the hair goes down and mingles with the stream I would say that it meant emotional maturity. The winged horse their ready to carry her to better things. Blues and greens suggest peacefullnes and harmony to me and the pale yellow ground and milky way would suggest the warmth and welcoming of the earth or earthly things.

I think this is probably one of the easier cards to start with.
Anymore for anymore?

count me in.......

I have not read all there is to read about shapeshifter, as I really would like to keep my readings intuitive and not depend all that much on the book.

But I have discovered in my habbits, that if I do not connect with the image I have waite in mind, and I look up in the book to see what the animals means.

A card at random:

Goddess of Fire; A woman is stand in a liquid that seems to be of shiny gold, though I think it is water of a kind. Her hair is very long and blond and is all over the image, shape shifting to the waters she stands in, become some of the branches of the tree right behind her. It almost looks like her hair is a huge bat of gold or fire, spreading its wings behind her.
Her self is shapeshifting to a fox, and the tale and colours are merged in with her hair.
One of her hands is a humanised fox foot, in the other hand she holds an arrow of gold, it is sparkling.

Compared to waite this card should relate to King of Swords, and it does in some areas, though hardly in the most areas.

Goddess of Fire is the one sneaky and quick thinking as a fox, mysterious and silent as the bat, hot and determind as the fire, with the ability to shoot right through any discussion with her sparkling arrow of fire, words, thoughts and original ideas.
She is intouch with her emotions, she is grounded and yet she has the skill to merge it so divine that you can never be quite sure whether she tells you her stories because she believes in them in her heart or it is the right story to tell you.

I know shapeshifter has no reversed meanings however they do have reversed energie, so I think that if you get on the wrong side of this beauty, she will throw that arrow right at you and turn into that bat you hardly can see in the pic.

Well that is my story of goddess of fire anyway
bec

***Re above. I thought your description was inspiring and brings a lot more to the card. I feel more enthusiastic about sticking with the cards when such a description clarifies the card.

Also, I picked up this passage from the other shapeshifter thread on Tarot Decks.

Thirteen's Basic Assignements for exploring this deck. Just an idea, Bec knows where the assignments are and I am sure Thirteen would not mind sharing them again!

Perhaps you could let us know what these basic assignments are.

I tried a new tact last night.

I took the pack and divided into Major arcana and the different suits.

I firstly laid out the majors and looked at them in detail one at a time to see what the card suggested amongs the others. This did actually help quite a lot to clarify the card.

I then put all the minors into order in their individual suits and looked at all of the Aces together, then all of the two's etc.

I felt much more attuned to the deck after going through this process and it prompted the dream that I had (see Talking tarot)

As above I had no connection with the meanings of the cards. Only in the fact that I liked the idea behind the deck, and the cards are pretty.

Bye the way. Have any of you tried to shapeshift and what happened?

Since I have no idea in how to make links and take old threads with me I have gathered this one from the deapths of the pile.

Wigwag actually did start a shapeshifter SG many moons ago and we sort of drifted to nothing.

What if we did something like this :

-describe what you see in the card
-describe what you feel the card is telling you
-inform what the book or your own knowlegde tells about animal symbols

One card at the time, to get the full deck covered in interpretation.
This will take a veeeery long time I am in no hurry really ...

Later we could make a enter/meditate on the card

and we could get into the persona cards, soul cards, shadow cards - bound to be a twist in them eh, since 23 are made a 5 in traditional decks, but here we got dreamer staring at us instead.


What you say, anyone up for continueing this group ?

I recently bought this deck. The first card I drew was the ace of pentacles -- it wasn't a good start. A man and women, smiling together with assocated animals (cat and snake). Being a book-person I read the pamphlet and it basically said 'you will start a relationship'

I thought
1) who says that physical contentment [the base meaning of this card] = relationship
2) Whose says that romance is always heterosexual?!

I mean -- it's based on metaphysical were-wolfry and still so damned conservative about what makes physical/material contentment???

The only thing I liked on the card was the heron -- a message to chill out and be patient -- so maybe I will get over first impressions and come to like this deck in time...

Hey everyone

I have been using the Shapeshifter tarot for 2 years

and its so hard I did not really dare to get onto the minors.....

I strongly recommend others to learn the Rider Waite before using this, when you see the connection between both decks, you should almost have got it

I think that the mother means that its time for you the act, it is obvious that she has been pregnant(ideas) for a long time and its now time for the baby to be born, which means to do what you had in mind.

The stallion should be a helper, a person who understands how you feel and therefore comes to help you

the cosmic star above should show that it is time to do what you want

hope that helps

its a deck that extended time studying a reading will get you nowhere fast. the reason is that the pictures are so developed and complicated that they change the meaning of the reading almost too fast. The connections withthe Rider Waite help a great deal, but also keep in mind that many of the keywords have been borrowed from the Thoth direction of tarot interpreations (Crowley is mentioned in the book).

I like using this deck with the Celtic Dragon Deck for dual deck readings. they clerify eachother.

Dual Reading?

Hi


Can someone please tell me what is a Dual Reading?

sounds very interesting to me cos I have got 2 decks

and would love to use them at the same time

make a reading with one deck and put the same cards up from the other deck and then you have a dual reading.

ex: card one shapeshifter -initiation and RW - Fool