Creating a bond with your Tarot Deck

Intro

Going back hundreds of years, people have been using tarot to provide insight to the future, navigate their present, or heal the wounds of thier past.

In modern times, loads of practitioners—from Old Crone to Baby Witch—used tarot in their daily practices. But, are we really connecting with our tarot decks, or just using them like the Google search bar? 

With over a decade of experience, I can confidently say that each Tarot deck has its own—for lack of better term—personality. 

Some decks don't like to be bridge shuffled, others prefer it. Some decks would rather throw the appropriate card out as you're shuffling, instead of letting you draw them. Some have a genderless energy, others lean more in one direction or another.

So in the interest of exploring all of this with each one of my decks, I've formulated a simple yet effective one card spread specifically to figure out their personalities.

My "Getting to Know You" Spread

*Start by cleansing your deck using whatever means suit you best, (this could be smoke, knocking, using your breath, etc.) just to make sure no energy is lingering from your last set of questions.

*Next shuffle your deck paying close attention to your intuition and how the cards feel.

 For example, if bridge shuffling is just obnoxiously difficult (card sticking together, entire chunks of the deck flying out, the whole deck just being really hard to hold on to, etc.) this could indicate that this particular deck doesn't like to be bridge shuffled. Think of it like a toddler who hates wearing shoes kicking them off in a tantrum. 

Alternatively, if the bridge shuffling works out perfectly and something still doesn't feel right, this too could be an indication that this deck doesn't actually like being shuffled this way. It just isn't a tumultuous shoe throwing toddler. Try a different shuffling method and see if the feeling persists.

*Now that your deck is ready, think of this reading like a work interview. Ask your deck what it would like to tell you about itself.

This is your deck, and your relationship with your deck, so you can be as specific or broad about it as you want.

You can also ask your deck to elaborate on specific aspects of it's initial answer if you're unsure.

Tip: If you are blessed to have multiple decks like myself, you may want to write notes to leave in the deck so you don't forget which one feels a certain way.

Answers I've Gotten From My Decks

As I've mentioned, I have quite a collection of decks. So, as you can imagine, I've gotten a wide variety of answers to this question. Everything from "I would like to work with you more often." to "I prefer deeper 'what's the meaning of the universe?' over the more mundane 'what happens if I take this job?' questions."

I've even had a couple of my second hand decks mention missing their previous owners.

A Few Things I Feel Need To Be Mentioned

This is not a requirement to read tarot. It's simply something I haven't heard anybody else talk about, and something that I do with my decks that I thought perhaps somebody else would find helpful. My only purpose in writing this—admittedly very short—little article, is that you find something useful here. It is not to dissuade anyone from reading tarot, make anyone feel like they're doing so poorly, or point negativity at anyone.

Also, every bit of this article is either my opinion or from my experience. So, I have no sources to provide for you; aside from the "tarot has been practiced for hundreds of years" portion, which came from Wikipedia.

In Conclusion 

I hope you found this article helpful in some small way. 

I've heard many practitioners across multiple platforms talk about bonding with their crystals, but never their Tarot decks. I felt like that glaring ommission needed to be addressed.

Have yourself a magical day, and happy tarot reading!

Photos courtesy of: https://unsplash.com