My Top Three Tarot Decks and What I Use Them For

I have quite a few decks by now, but still there are a few firm favourites that I use most regularly. Some other time, I'll share some of my more unusual decks with you, but for today, I thought I'd introduce the decks I use most often. Decks do tend to have a character, so they are suited to different kinds of readings, much as different friends will give you advice with a different tone or flavour.

Deck Number 3: The Gilded Tarot

This is my favourite Rider-Waite based deck. It's beautiful and luminous with jewel-like colours. In terms of readings, this is a good one for straight talking. I always know if someone chooses this one (I usually give querents a choice of decks), then they need some straight-up advice. It's also quite easy to read, as the images are pretty clear and representative, so it's good for face-to-face readings as the querent can see I'm not just making it up or going from hunches.

Deck Number 2: The Druidcraft Tarot

This deck, fusing druidry and wicca, is gorgeous in a more gentle, less showy, way than the Gilded. I find it works well for both practical and spiritual questions. I particularly like the re-presentation of The Lady and The Lord for the Empress and Emperor, and found that the pagan sensitivities in this deck have added to my general understanding of the cards. Querents generally respond well to the gentle images on these cards, although they are huge and difficult for most people to shuffle (I turn them 90 degrees and shuffle them lengthwise).

Deck Number 1: Songs For the Journey Home

I love this unusual round deck. I find it beautiful and also incredibly gentle and supportive in its readings. It's good for any topic but works particularly well with emotional and psychological issues . This is a really special deck to me; I was fortunate enough to meet and have a reading with its illustrator. It's a non-traditional deck in many ways - the suits and court positions are renamed, as are many of the Majors, often revealing a slightly different slant on more 'standard' decks. Those who choose it often are in need of its warmth and non-judgmental approach to their concerns. I also find for personal readings it's great for pointing out the things I'm ignoring. Finally, it's a very woman-centred deck (as are many of the round decks - rejecting the black/white opposition of upright/reversed seems to be a feminist approach, interestingly).

So there you have it - the straight-talking Gilded, the pagan-themed Druidcraft and the warm and supportive Songs - my top three decks for reading.

Reading: revisiting an abandoned project

As a writer, I have various bits and pieces of ideas and half-completed things lying around and there's this children's project which I've been poking at for a while now. I had a complete first draft, then really shifted things around (added two new main characters, changed the perspective, constructed a new setting - no small thing) but failed to finish that rewrite. So, here I am with an okay-but-not-outstanding first draft and a half-completed rewrite. Do I return to that rewrite? Start fresh using some of the same ideas? Draw a line under it altogether? This seemed a good question to ask the beautiful Druidcraft deck.

It presented me with the following three cards:
What is the best course of action to take? Six of Pentacles
What is the likely outcome of this course of action? Rebirth
What have I been overlooking? Seven of Wands

The Six of Pentacles is about generosity and giving. As a Pentacle, it's also about work and there is no hint of a new start or going back to the beginning - and of course, as a Six, it's a good distance along the path of the minors, reminding me perhaps that I have already gone quite some way with this project.

The card of Rebirth is more traditionally Judgement, but the representation here is much more clearly about entering a new phase, rather than the ending which is quite clearly connoted in the traditional, Christian-influenced presentation of the day of Judgement. Maybe completing a new version of this story would help me shift up a gear in my (fiction) writing?

My final card, the Seven of Wands, is a rather familiar card - I've been getting this one quite a bit recently. This is always a card about determination and persistence. If I'm honest (and why not be here, right?), I struggle to keep focused on the writing I want to do. I've been quite successful of late in getting writing work in terms of educational materials and teaching resources, but it's very easy to neglect the fictional stuff which I want to write but which (at the moment) no-one is paying me to do. Maybe this card is here to remind me to stand my ground and defend my fiction writing against the other pressures on my time that threaten to push it out. Otherwise, I can't keep claiming that it is what I really want, right?