Decks with strong "associations" for you--a place, a season, a time

Chiriku

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I thought about titling this thread "Your 'nostalgia' decks," but then I reflected that nostalgia has both a very positive connotation and a temporal component (i.e. the past), while the decks that have strong "associations" for us may not necessarily have positive ones, nor may they be tied to the past.

I am interested in hearing about what decks, when you think of them, instantly conjure up a host of environmental, seasonal, emotional, fantasy or any other "associations."

Maybe they take you to a specific time or place in your life.
Maybe they take you to a season or time of year.
Maybe they transport you to a holiday or trip you once took.
Maybe you associate them with a certain group of people or a person with whom you spent a lot of time when using the deck.
Maybe they take you straight back to that job you used to love or hate, when you closed the office door or found a deserted bench in the park and pulled out the cards for a draw.

These decks say "__________" to you.

For a few examples from my own life:

  • The Buckland Romani and the Hallowquest/Arthurian say "summer" to me. Although each deck pays lip service to other seasons (a card here or there with some paltry snow), I find that the majority of cards in the Buckland and Hallowquest are set in a golden late summer or a leafy green late spring/high summer, respectively. I find I use these decks a lot more between May and September (late spring/summer in my part of the world).

    It is not a nostalgic connection because although I was fond of the Buckland when it first came out, I did not use it all that much, and I only began using the Hallowquest in earnest a little over a year ago. But the connection is a strong one.

  • The Robin Wood is another deck with strong summery associations for me, but the summer link (heat, blazing sun, a season culturally associated with youth and vigor) is magnified for me by the fact that I have a strong nostalgic connection to the deck (it was, in essence, the deck on which I "learned tarot"), that I was a young adult when I first became acquainted with it, and that my own birthday is in summer.

    Robin Wood also says "Wands, Fire, energy, strength, force of will, dynamism, the Sun" to me. I associate it with a strong so-called "masculine" (to use the gendered language of Western mystery schools) energy. Perhaps it's because of all those smiling, healthy young faces and sunny blondes, or those fighting- fit Wands characters or the welcoming, bearded, leonine energy of the Magician and the man in the Lovers.

    The funny thing is, for some time now, I've felt I've outgrown that deck for a number of reasons, and I'm not entirely sure I like it all that much. But last summer, I realized that several powerful associations remained for me with the Robin Wood, that the associations were undeniable and persuasive even if my intellectual side offered rationales for why it wasn't a great deck---and I even went so far as to purchase a new copy to replace my one that's been locked in storage for years.

    I used the new copy for a large birthday reading and all the old associations of Fire, sunlight, energy, enterprise, forceful will and leadership came flooding back. It was as if no time had passed between the last time I had used it, perhaps a dozen years earlier.

  • The Wheel of Change says "Tarot Unknown" to me, because it was the first deck I bought with a card system and meanings markedly divergent from the RWS paradigm in which I'd been immersed. I recently found an entry in an old tarot journal that questioned whether or not I should try to enter this new "world," whether it would throw me off my game and whether I had time to learn and internalize a whole new system.

  • I associate the Morgan Greer with the parties and events at which I first read for querents. My original copy (which I don't use; I use a new copy) is still marked with the drippings of wax from the candles on my table at the Halloween parties .

  • I strongly associate the Nigel Jackson Tarot with a place, a specific location in the U.S.: the wooden pier on a lake I used to visit, where I conducted self-readings (and of which I have the Polaroid photos of my spreads to serve as a reminder).

  • I associate the Tarocchi di Alan with cobbled streets of Temple Bar in Dublin, as that was the general area of the tiny shop in which I stumbled across it, buried among kitschy home decor items I otherwise would have passed by.

These are just a few of my strong associations.

What are some of yours?

Which decks transport you, and to where (or when)?


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Carla

The Anna K says autumn to me. It makes me think of the dark months. I like to use the Anna K Sep-Oct-Nov, particularly. I much prefer Anna K as a seasonal deck to the Halloween Tarot.

I agree, Robin Wood is a summery deck. I haven't used it in a long time but I'm sure its time will come around again.
 

desertrat

The only deck I can think of that has strong associations for me is the Tarot of the Cat People. It always brings back the feeling of being in college in Tucson oh so many years ago. Go Cats!
 

adrilem

I know it's not the most popular of decks, but Universal Waite will always be a meaningful deck for me because it was the one used in my first ever tarot reading. Of course, being a young woman in a new relationship, I wanted a love/relationship reading. The reader did a celtic cross for me, and the Moon came up in the outcome position.

I could not have understood at the time what the Moon really meant and how accurate that reading would turn out to be. Two years later, the end of that relationship became the beginning of a long and difficult time for me, which started with experimenting with psychedelic drugs and ended in acute mental illness. Only later, as I read through the card meanings on Aeclectic attempting to learn tarot for myself, would I come across this interpretation of the Moon: "At its darkest this can be a very scary card warning the querent of hidden enemies, mental illness, alcoholic blackouts or a bad drug trip."

I will never forget that reading or get rid of my copy of that deck, because it showed me how accurate tarot can be, even if you don't realize it at the time!

PS: Not trying to be depressing, sorry! :|
 

Chiriku

The Anna K says autumn to me. It makes me think of the dark months. I like to use the Anna K Sep-Oct-Nov, particularly. I much prefer Anna K as a seasonal deck to the Halloween Tarot.

The Halloween Tarot has always been a pleasant novelty for me, not a genuinely autumnal or Samhain-feeling deck. Anna K does have a lot of "harvest"-time feel to it. I also appreciate that it is one of the very few decks with a decent Winter represented.

I know it's not the most popular of decks, but Universal Waite will always be a meaningful deck for me because it was the one used in my first ever tarot reading.

Not the most popular? To the contrary; the Rider Waite Smith in its many incarnations (including the softer hues of the Universal) is wildly popular! If you were trying to avoid interacting with that deck (you must not be, seeing as how you kept it in your collection), you'd be hard-pressed to avoid it.

On a side note, the Moon has, for me, always held that connotation of mental illness--perhaps because of the etymological link ("luna").
 

Chiriku

The only deck I can think of that has strong associations for me is the Tarot of the Cat People. It always brings back the feeling of being in college in Tucson oh so many years ago. Go Cats!

Funny how objects and even scents can be veritable time machines, transporting you back (or laterally in the present, to a specific place or season) in an instant.

That's what this thread is all about.

Some decks seem to have touched a wider range of people in that respect.

The Morgan Greer, for instance.

A few years back, people were sharing great stories about the strong associations that deck held for them. Someone shared a vivid memory of using the deck on a cross-country train trip one summer, and how The Morgan Greer deck is now inextricably linked for them with the verdant English countryside .

Imagine--every time you open up a box or unwrap a deck , you are transported. It's like something out of Ray Bradbury.
 

Thoughtful

The Pagan Cats always give me a nice feeling and remembrance of summer and my daughter.
When l first acquired them my daughter was staying one summer and we sat out in the garden, lovely sunny day, birds singing their hearts out. l was showing her the cards and teaching her how to read with them, it was a lovely day of togetherness.
 

SwampLady

There is a deck that is out there, that makes my heart ache with homesickness. I grew up on the large Island of Indonesia That most know as Borneo. That Javanese Folktale major deck is calling to me. But is is out of my price range and something I have to save up for.

But I go back to the site and stare at the cards, because they remind me of the time I spent there. I loved the shadow puppets it is based off of and own two of the puppets myself. I haven't know a place as beautiful as when i was there. One day it will be mine. lol So i guess i fall under two of those. That deck reminds me of a place, The beautiful Islands of Indonesia and the time of my early childhood.
 

Padma

beautiful memories and impressions here, everyone!

My nostalgia deck is the Aquarian - it was the second deck I ever owned, and my father gave it to me. So there is that memory - just the odd idea of my father even giving me a tarot deck is surreal! lol! When my son turned 16, I gave him the Aquarian too. So even though I no longer read with it very often, it will always have "family memories" for me.

I don't have decks that I equate with seasons, or places even, really. But I do associate certain decks with eventful times in my life, when one or another deck may have seen a lot of use!
 

adrilem

Not the most popular? To the contrary; the Rider Waite Smith in its many incarnations (including the softer hues of the Universal) is wildly popular! If you were trying to avoid interacting with that deck (you must not be, seeing as how you kept it in your collection), you'd be hard-pressed to avoid it.

I guess I didn't say that right... I know the RWS in general is well-respected and many prefer the coloring of the Universal, it just seemed to me that lots of people around here find the RWS images boring, or prefer Thoth style. To each their own! Occasionally I will notice people using the Universal Waite in 'Your Readings' using it but not very often.

I definitely don't try to avoid interacting with it! I don't use it much anymore because I just got a couple of new decks, but I actually find the images very soothing and comforting. It was the deck I learned with after all.