Asbestos Mango
I bought the Wildwood a few months back, but do to life circumstances, never got around to reading the companion book or giving the deck more than a casual first looking-at.
When I first got it, I thought it would be a good, earthy, grounding deck. Now that I'm reading the companion book and looking more closely at the cards, I'm finding it very, I don't know. It seems like Will Worthington tried to force Pagan and Celtic mythology and symbolism on the Tarot is ways that just don't fit.
Reading the companion book is worse. In reading the pages for each card, I find myself wondering if the authors were even looking at the cards. It seems like often the explanation and "reading" points just don't go with the image on the cards, and in many cases are antithetical.
I'm not ready to put this deck on the auction block yet. I plan to do an IDS with the Wildwood and spend some time researching the actual Celtic/Druidic symbolism and meanings of some of the deities and mythic figures, as well as the animals that serve as the court cards- the explanations of the significance of the animals is nowhere approaching adequate.
I still think I can use this deck by interpreting the cards intuitively, if I can let go of the RWS system for the time I'm using them. I may also have to trim it, since the titles/keywords often seem to be completely at odds with what the image on the card shows.
I didn't find out until after I bought this deck that it's widely considered to be a watering down of the Greenwood. If I had known, I probably wouldn't have bought it.
When I first got it, I thought it would be a good, earthy, grounding deck. Now that I'm reading the companion book and looking more closely at the cards, I'm finding it very, I don't know. It seems like Will Worthington tried to force Pagan and Celtic mythology and symbolism on the Tarot is ways that just don't fit.
Reading the companion book is worse. In reading the pages for each card, I find myself wondering if the authors were even looking at the cards. It seems like often the explanation and "reading" points just don't go with the image on the cards, and in many cases are antithetical.
I'm not ready to put this deck on the auction block yet. I plan to do an IDS with the Wildwood and spend some time researching the actual Celtic/Druidic symbolism and meanings of some of the deities and mythic figures, as well as the animals that serve as the court cards- the explanations of the significance of the animals is nowhere approaching adequate.
I still think I can use this deck by interpreting the cards intuitively, if I can let go of the RWS system for the time I'm using them. I may also have to trim it, since the titles/keywords often seem to be completely at odds with what the image on the card shows.
I didn't find out until after I bought this deck that it's widely considered to be a watering down of the Greenwood. If I had known, I probably wouldn't have bought it.