as part of my bigger year of contentment, i decided to really focus on using the tarot decks in my inadvertent collection. deck acquisition has been a long and winding road for me. as a teen i wasn't really advised well on where to start (the worst of both worlds: a "lazy-pips" deck with curated art for the majors and courts), so from the get-go there was the sense that i might be able to "buy myself into" a better understanding. obviously the tool you use makes a difference, especially at the learning stage. and over the years, what with the rise of tarot's popularity, the boom in indie publishing, the rise of tarot youtube channels - intentionally or not - promoting acquisition and having a wide choice of decks, well it all got to me and i bought in.
i know my collection is relatively modest and i don't think i've ever even had 100 decks at one time. but i certainly made my way through that and more, acquiring and releasing decks over the 25+ years i've been reading. for a long time i was searching for "the deck", that one perfect deck which would balance beautiful aesthetics with clear symbolism and structure, that would somehow "reflect" me, my reading method etc. but in more recent years tarot decks have just become a convenient vehicle for the dopamine of purchasing, of novelty. so not only did i want to break that behavior pattern, but i've been very wistful about the early days. back when i only had the One Deck, while it wasn't very conducive to study, it definitely felt much more magical. that one deck Was tarot, the entirety of tarot. it was mysterious and magical and precious in its uniqueness.
i also love the idea of building relationship and really knowing a thing. using it enough to show wear and tear. knowing a deck inside out, having done enough readings with just that one to build an entire personal lexicon of how each card shows up in different situations and subjects of reading. this year's project is laying the groundwork for that. i'm honestly trying out 24 of my decks, the ones i believe have potential to become such lifelong companions. i no longer aspire to have just One, but i'd definitely like it to be fewer than 10. i mean 1 would definitely be ideal but i don't want to get hung up on that. if i make it down to 5 i'd be over the moon!
what i'm not doing this year: purging any more decks. for one reason or another i have plenty of attachment to certain decks i don't use. they might be a first edition, or an example of an early historical deck that feels like it might come in handy if i ever want to study tarot like that, from a historical perspective. there are unique decks that definitely don't work for my style of reading but do make me think and i'd like to be able to have a look at them occasionally. there are out of print decks. there are all of my partner's decks. i can't just get rid of all the things that aren't being actively utilized and i don't want the sense that i "should" clean them out nagging at me. aside from the 24 decks i'm using this year everything else is stored away - out of sight, out of mind. decisions about the collection are not part of this project. i'm purely "auditioning" all the decks i've been actually drawn to use in the past at one point or another.
stay tuned for a post explaining my selection for the year and an update on how it's been going with each deck.
so far the most surprising thing is that i'm actually sticking to the narrow selection for each month. i've tried doing projects in the past where i'd select decks for the week or fortnight, just to get them all in rotation and force myself to use them and it never really stuck. i'd get frustrated very quickly and abandon the idea. i think it might mean i've already learned a lot about what decks just have no chance of working for me and i simply haven't included those as candidates for this project.
although at one point i did kind of slacken the rules. if i've given the decks of the month a fair shot and i'm really struggling to enjoy and use them - i'm allowed to dip into any of the previous month's decks. after all if the point is to get the most use out of my decks, it's entirely in the spirit of the project to spend more time with an old favorite. as long as i don't spread myself too thin between decks, or use the switching as a distraction - it's alright. so far i've only done that in february, i think.
