So, what's up with the Wildwood Tarot?

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.
 

Le Fanu

Parts of the Wildwood book just copy pasted the Greenwood companion book so the descriptions are describing cards which are not the Wildwood. Good, huh? :) It's describing the deck the Wildwood wanted to be...
 

adanawtn

I had that deck for a little while, and I tried to like it. I did a few readings with it, because I really do like the artwork. Plus, I like the nature theme of the deck, as I would love to live in a cabin in the woods someday.

But I just couldn't connect with it. Something about it just didn't sit well with me. I ended up giving it to a friend of mine. Though I've yet to hear her mention anything about it...
 

nisaba

I don't have the book. But a friend gave me the deck before I ever saw the Greenwood, and it works beautifully for me. It helps that I never look at card titles - I just look at the images, and it works well and feels very comfortable.

A year or two after I had it and was used to it (and years after I heard all the hype and hyperbole surrounding the Greenwood), someone else gave me her used copy of the Greenwood. I was looking forward to great things. I was disappointed. Several of the cards reminded me of badly-drawn versions of their Wildwood equivalents, and the Ace Stones, in particular, is an awful card.

So, the Greenwood was disappointing, but the Wildwood works and is appealing. Does this make me a freak?
 

Asbestos Mango

LeFanu, soooooo.... if I could manage to rustle up a Greenwood, I have the companion book for it? Not that I could afford a Greenwood at the prices it's going for, but still.

nisaba, I do enjoy the imagery, and though I generally do look at card titles, I don't stop there. I think as for a reading deck, I'll keep them for myself, I don't want to have to explain to any potential sitters why my interpretations are 180 degrees off from what the words at the bottom of the card say. Did yours come with an LWB?
 

Melia

When doing readings, you read the cards, not the book. Granted the book isn't the best of companion books, but the deck reads beautifully for a lot of people (me included) if you give it a chance and spend some time studying the symbolism in the cards; and if you don't get caught up in the hype of the Greenwood.

The 2nd edition has more info on the court cards in the book than the 1st edition. Good luck though trying to obtain a copy, because if you're wanting to buy the 2nd edition there's no way of distinguishing between the 1st and 2nd editions from the outside packaging ... none at all ... and the sellers have no idea what they have (or if they do they may not want to say). The 2nd edition also has a lovely tree of life logo on the back of the cards, whereas the 1st edition card backs are plain.
 

Padma

I really enjoy my Wildwood :) I have the first ed and would prefer the second, because I don't like the plain backs, but I do find it an awesome intuitive reading deck!

Sometimes, if I can't get on with the ascribed meanings from the artist, I just put the book aside and use the cards with all my heart and soul...

Le Fanu, that is wild about the book! Surely copyright infringement would have prevented such a thing! A bit shocking...
 

Asbestos Mango

Melia said:
When doing readings, you read the cards, not the book. Granted the book isn't the best of companion books, but the deck reads beautifully for a lot of people (me included) if you give it a chance and spend some time studying the symbolism in the cards; and if you don't get caught up in the hype of the Greenwood.
Click to expand...

Well, yeah, I thought it was pretty clear that that's what I intend to do, but I still need to give my intuition something to work with. I really don't know much about Celtic folklore and mythology or Druidic animal symbolism, and the book really just kind of glosses over these things in favor of pseudo-Jungian talk about archetypes which isn't much help in interpreting the cards, and, in the case of the Courts, a couple of brief sentences about the animal symbolism and a lot of divinatory meanings that just don't seem to fit with the imagery.

Oh, and I do have the second edition, but it's not much help. Really, there should be more information about the mythology and symbolism. This book is freaking shallow.

I've been searching on the intertubes for a good website that will give me some good info especially on animal symbolism, but so far, all I've been able to come up with is shallow "what's your Druidic animal totem" drivel that reads like a newspaper horoscope.

Does anybody know where I can find on the internet good information that will give me enough info about the mythology, folklore and symbolism I'm working with that after a good IDS, I can actually use these cards?

*grumbles something about should have found a Norse Tarot because I know enough about the mythology to be able to work with it*
 

Padma

I believe there is a Wildwood study thread here, Asbestos Mango! Maybe that might help...?
I do know there is another thread about the Wildwood that is several pages long, I think it is in the Tarot Decks subforum...?

Good luck! :love:
 
Public domain decks? Native American Tarot by Magda Gonzalez