Using a New Tarot Deck

It’s strange for me to consider that I’ve been doing Tarot for over a year - close to two, now that I think of it - and the Rider Waite deck has become my favorite. Though I’ve misplaced my first deck somewhere at my mom’s house (A tiny pocket size tarot that cost me $5), not counting that one, I now own three decks. The first deck is the Thoth Tarot, which was given to me by some friends who found it in a room they were cleaning out, the second my Rider Waite, and the third the new deck which I mentioned in my last post - the Manga Tarot.

I’ll admit - when I first unwrapped it, I was a little tentative. A Manga based tarot? My first instinct was that it would be sort of cheesy and childish - for me, other decks using a ’manga’ theme are usually just fad decks, cashing in on people who enjoy anime and Japanese comics. In my opinion, most of these look terrible because it’s not truly manga style art but imitation, and cheap looking to boot.

However, as I looked through the deck, my excitement grew. Though this art doesn’t look precisely ‘manga-ish’ (in fact the work of an Italian illustrator), and while the images and symbols chosen for each card are perhaps more blunt than the traditional deck, they are still very well thought out.

Joyful Yule

Though this is a post regarding Christmas/Yule, I’m not here to talk about it’s decidedly pagan roots - a quick bit of googling will clear that up for you pretty quick if you didn't already know about all that. What I want to talk about today is what was probably the first stress free and completely wonderful Christmases I’ve had in some time.

The days leading up were a little awkward for me - this was my first year sending out my own Christmas cards, and shopping around for gifts on my own. But a white-elephant party with my friends and a family gathering with my boyfriend’s family wrapped up this holiday very nicely for me.

The dinner was fantastic, and so were all the gifts. I got pretty much everything I directly requested, and a few surprises as well.

A chip off the block in the road

As wonderful as my spiritual journey has been so far, it hasn’t all been rainbows and metaphorical unicorns.

Lately, night after night, I find myself sitting up until the sun rises. Two, three days go by before I give in and lay down, close my eyes, and pass into black sleep and wake feeling sluggish and worse off than I did before.

It’s the dreams.

I can’t remember most of what happens in them, but I know this - it’s almost always my father.


Hit the jump if you want to read more - but be forewarned that this is a seriously ‘downer’ post.