Intensive Deck Study (IDS) Support Lounge ~ Part IV

Yvresse

thorhammer said:
Yvresse - just saw your post. I'll add you to the list.

\m/ Kat

Thanks Kat =)

emmsma

thorhammer said:
emmsma - I don't even know the AGM deck you're using I'm tempted to go off and have a look . . . and I know that the Noblet is very *clean* looking and kind of intimidates me where other TdMs are much more approachable. Warm, as you say.

\m/ Kat

I had a hard time finding images for you. This is the box. (If I can figure out how to get the picture in.) Think that did it. Also added the picture from the last reading I did. Should give you an idea.

thorhammer

Thanks! I wasn't fishing, honestly

But that's nice, to see them like that. It does have a much friendlier feel than the Noblet (not that I have one - it's the unfriendly feeling that has turned me off getting on

) and I can see why it would be a really relaxing deck to use all the time.

So cutting it down from TdMs in general to just one has helped you?

\m/ Kat

emmsma

Oh, its helped me immensely. I am not torn, wasting precious free moments trying to choose a deck to work with for the day. When contemplating a card for the 78 week study, its only one Magician, Priestess, Empress I need to picture in my mind.

Decks are so individual and while trying to decide what I feel about them, having the one image is so helpful. And I finally feel like I am making friends with them. (I know with Zan, he communes with Hermann when he handles his deck. For me, I am getting to know The Empress herself.)

Its a lovely feeling.

And I do love my little deck and am happy to show it off. I really need to figure out my scanner so that I can have better images for the sharing.

jcwirish

Hi everyone,

I have been checking in to read everybody's posts, but have been so busy with family visiting that I haven't been able to writer till now. A friend gave me "Tarot for Writer's" for Christmas, and I'm going to incorporate it into my studies this week. I've also been given a Barnes and Noble gift card that is burning a hole in my pocket. I want to get another book that I can add to my growing library.

I've been inspired by Zan to give my beloved Golden a name. I really do love my deck. It just makes me happy, and it provided me with the best introductory deck spread I have ever done. This deck just seems to know everything about me, and speaks to me in the best way. The name, Miss Kitty, has been stuck in my head for a few days now. I think it's appropriate in honor of Kat Black. So, Miss Kitty it is! She and I will be finishing up our work on the Empress tomorrow. Hope everyone is getting back on track now that the holiday is over.

zan_chan

jcwirish said:
I've been inspired by Zan to give my beloved Golden a name. I really do love my deck. It just makes me happy, and it provided me with the best introductory deck spread I have ever done. This deck just seems to know everything about me, and speaks to me in the best way. The name, Miss Kitty, has been stuck in my head for a few days now. I think it's appropriate in honor of Kat Black. So, Miss Kitty it is!

Hermann and I are thrilled that you've bonded with your deck to the point of naming her. It seems silly at first, but you'll be surprised. Humanizing your deck really begins to offer a new level of closeness and communion. Rather than reading the cards, or saying to myself something like, "I wonder what a reading would tell me about such and such issue," it feels much more like Hermann, my guide, is directly speaking. I find myself so often wondering, "I wonder what Hermann will think about this!" whenever something comes up that seems to require a reading.

Man, sometimes I wonder if I'm really starting to lose it, or if all of this is merely a representation of the fact that I never had it to begin with...

Also, don't get the wrong idea, future IDSers who happen to be reading this thread. My bond with Hermann certainly wasn't an instantaneous connection. Hermann, as he exists within my consciousness, is an ever evolving entity. The more I study, the more I read my Pollack, the history of the courts, books on Thoth, etc. etc., the more "Hermann" becomes a fully-realized individual. Only through studying my books, and getting to know my cards as well as I can, did the Haindl Tarot ever morph into "Hermann" in the first place.

So don't think you can just buy a deck, give it a name, and be good to go. It's a lot of work!

Wendywu

I love the look of that AGM TdM - does it have an actual name? I don't know quite what to look up

Cat*

SolSionnach said:
It's from the Le Trois Freres cave in Ariege, France.

Thanks! I tried googling for that, but still haven't found an online image of that particular lion.

SolSionnach said:
You guys should look up the book "the Myth of the Goddess" by Anne Baring and Jules Cashford ISBN 0-670-83564-1 (Hardback version) I got this book originally in paperback, and looked up the HB version because I loved it so much.

I found it on Amazon but didn't have time to take a closer look, so it's bookmarked for later. Thanks!

SolSionnach said:
The lion is on p. 30 in my edition. The text reads

In Les Trois Freres the lioness is given the most prominent place directly facing the one who approaches the innermost sanctuary of the cave. As the most ferocious animal and the "King and Queen of the Beasts", the lion as the guardian would have commanded most respect. Unlike the other animals (i.e. painted on the walls), this lioness is not engraved in profile, but confronts head on. With the startling impact of her eyes she appears to be challenging the one about to enter the sacred cave, as though guarding the mysteries against the uninitiated.

Click to expand...

Note: there are some accents in the name of the cave and the town, I can't figure out how to do them on this keyboard.

Very interesting quote, thanks for sharing!
(I know a little French: the accents are "Les Trois Frères" and "Ariège" - we have them on the German keyboards)

SolSionnach said:
That might have been me??... Those books, plus the Goddess book I mentioned above, plus the Druid Animal Oracle book = WIN.

My fav in the series is/was the Mammoth Hunters. Or the last one. I found the ongoing hassle between Ayla and Broud to be quite trying in book 1.

Yes, I think it was you who mentioned the Auel book series first. I'm through the first one and have started the second one now. I liked the first, especially the detailed descriptions of plant and animal life and of how things were made/done. I'm not liking the focus on sexuality at the beginning of the second book (Valley of the Horses) - it just doesn't read very believable to me. Not that I'd have any definite idea of Stone Age sexuality, or that I'd generally mind erotic scenes in books - they just bother me in a book that I read for its historical background.

SolSionnach said:
Did you count the horse on the ace of air? To me that always looks like a bird (fitting with air, no?), but evidently it's also the Uffington Horse.

Yes, I counted that one. It also looks like a bird to me on that card, and I agree: it fits the suit of air.

SolSionnach said:
One thing that always interests me is species dimorphism. In species where the males are much larger than the females (think gorillas), there is a harem-style thing going on. In our species the males are usually larger than the females, so one could make the argument that there is enough of a sexual dimorphism to account for patriarchal attitudes such as what Auel credits the Neandertals with. As a female (and a 5'1" one!) I have a real problem with that.

I should ask my biologist-come-sociologist professor-friend about that. She's done a lot of work on animals and gender and is currently working on the ways we use animals and their behavior to think about human gender and sexuality. Very interesting!

I'm also not convinced by the idea that within the larger 'Clans' the Neandertals basically lived in small families each of whom cooked for themselves (except for feasts). It seems so much more likely to me that a group of 20 people would cook communally (and do the rest of the work communally, too, at that). It would be so much less work, and would also save resources. Also, it would seem more likely that all men hunted for all women, instead of one man taking care for one woman and her children (and sometimes a grandparent or a rare second woman). More so when the role of men in making babies hasn't been known then. Animals/mammals that live in groups of that size don't mate in stable couples, right? So why would humans if there wasn't any noteworthy property to keep 'in the family'?

SolSionnach said:
Once you get to the later books where Ayla encounters human societies, Auel credits them with a much more "enlightened" relationship between the sexes. Frankly, I wonder how accurate *that* could be! IOW - it's Auel's invention and it's based on some assumptions.

Don't get me started on that! From what I know about human concepts of gender throughout time and cultures, Auel's version seems a bit too much of a contemporary utopia to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with stuff like that in a fantasy novel or whatever, but that's what I meant above about not finding it believable for the setting. It's not so much the 'equality' that bothers me, it's the way she has her characters think about gender and sexuality. I'm just waiting until I get so annoyed that I start researching Stone Age genders...

SolSionnach said:
Cat* said:

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.

Click to expand...

I want to read that!

Feel free to do so! It's here.

SolSionnach said:
re: my IDS: I had a really good reading from Rodney, and I'm taking from it that I should cut back to just one deck. I'm going to stick with the Noblet, but I won't be able to keep from sticking my nose in around here re: the Greenwood, because the conversation is so good!

I'm revising my IDS: Noblet until March 22, 2010, then the Greenwood after the Spring Equinox.

I'm glad you'll stay around for the Greenwood conversation! I'm actually planning to create a huge post over in the Greenwood study group area with links to Greenwood-relevant posts in the IDS threads. We've collected so many great links, thoughts, and insights that it would be a shame if they were lost to others working with the deck!

(...my catching up continues...)

thorhammer

Cat* said:
I'm not liking the focus on sexuality at the beginning of the second book (Valley of the Horses) - it just doesn't read very believable to me. Not that I'd have any definite idea of Stone Age sexuality, or that I'd generally mind erotic scenes in books - they just bother me in a book that I read for its historical background.

Get used to it. There's a lot more of it coming . . . I read them years ago and loved them, but wouldn't go back to them in a hurry.

\m/ Kat

Wendywu

That's exactly why I preferred the first one - I enjoyed the descriptions of how to make stuff and just how to survive. I really, really didn't appreciate the increasing sexual emphasis in the books. I feel that as a people their emphasis would have been more on survival than sex in those days. I felt quite often as if it was intrusive and the story didn't flow simply because there was too much gratutitous sex.

Nonetheless I am digging out Clan of the Cave Bear for a re-read (once I've ploughed my way through the current reading list.....)

Intensive Deck Study (IDS) Support Lounge ~ Part IV

Yvresse

emmsma

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