So you've got a new tarot deck.
What does bonding with your deck mean, why would you need to configure the deck by bonding
with it, and how do you even bond with a tarot deck?
This video lecture addresses how to program 78 pieces of cardstock to your personal specifications.
How do you take that off-the-rack tarot or oracle deck and custom tailor it to you?
First of all, is bonding with your deck necessary?
No.
Part of it falls within the scope of superstitions.
That said, in terms of personal psychology, there is a rational basis for going through
such an exercise of bonding.
You’re adjusting your own mindset and prepping your mental state for more impactful tarot
readings.
Bonding with your tarot deck isn’t about magic.
It’s psychology.
It’s an exercise of mental preparation and to warm up your intuitive functions.
Another part of bonding is practical.
It’s about getting acclimated with your tarot deck so you become more familiar with
its imagery.
For me, even now after decades of tarot reading, I can still have trouble getting acclimated
to a brand new tarot deck, especially if the deck creator has made significant changes
to some of the traditional or classical systems.
So bonding for me is quite practical.
The techniques we’ll be talking about in this video can also apply to oracle decks.
Bonding with new oracle decks to get you acclimated can be helpful as well.
Since the exercise of bonding is subjective, personal, and the whole point is about custom
tailoring the deck’s energies to your energies, there is no one set way of bonding.
This video will offer a couple of different approaches, set forth my personal approach,
and then you’ll need to figure out what is going to work for you.
The most practical would be to just study your new tarot deck closely.
On the “Holistic Tarot Study Guides” page on my website, scroll down under the “Beginner”
section and download the MS Word document, “Template Form for Logging a New Tarot Deck.”
This template helps you to organize your study notes and card descriptions in your own words
for each card.
Fill in this template form for each newly acquired deck.
This works for tarot or oracle, though of course, if it’s an oracle deck, you’ll
have to tweak the outline of this template form.
Assuming you’re working with the DOCX file in Microsoft Word, click on the “Insert”
tab in the top row of the program, then click on the icon for “Picture,” and insert
photographs you’ve taken of the deck.
Then follow the document outline and write in descriptions of imagery and symbolism for
each card in the deck.
Keep a completed template form for each tarot deck you have and continue to add or edit
the document as the deck becomes more familiar to you.
Keep these references in your tarot journal.
If the deck comes with its own guidebook, start by consulting the guidebook to get a
sense of the deck creator’s intentions.
This, too, is a practical way to get to know the deck better.
Another common method is to interview the deck.
Think of yourself as having a conversation with the tarot deck.
Yes, let’s anthropomorphize the deck.
It sounds silly, but it helps open up our imagination, and an open imagination is open
creativity; open creativity is open intuition.
So anthropomorphize your deck.
Here, if I may, I’ll walk you through the process.
Get out the deck you’d like to bond with and I’ll guide you through what to do.
Shuffle your deck and try to visualize two goblets, one goblet embedded into the deck
and one goblet embedded into you, generated through the action of your hands.
As you shuffle, a stream of light passes between the two goblets.
Call to mind the imagery on the Temperance card.
That’s what you’re visualizing as you shuffle.
Ask the deck, “What is your point of view?”
And, “What is your persona?”
“Harmonized together, tarot reader to tarot deck, what are our combined strengths?”
Try to get a sense of the chemistry between you and this particular tarot deck.
“What do I need to know about you?” is another question to interview your deck with.
Another exercise I like for bonding with a new deck is to fan out the cards and as you
fan it out, ask: “Through which window may I best connect to your heart and soul?”
Then, yes, for this exercise, anthropomorphize your tarot or oracle deck a bit, but to make
it less strange, think of the deck as an extension of its deck creator, visualize the person
who created the deck and in so many ways, this deck is part of that person’s spirit,
essence, persona, love, work.
Then pull a card and sit with that particular card for a while.
If you prefer, pull three cards for a narrative instead of just one.
Connect to the imagery on that card or cards.
Perhaps even keep it out somewhere prominent or in sacred space around your home for a
week, so you can gaze upon the cards every day.
Through that particular card or cards, your vibrational frequencies can temper and match
with the card’s vibrational frequencies and thus connect, attune.
Since each one of us as individuals possesses a unique metaphysical imprint, this card or
cards will reveal the synapses, the exact connecting point between who you are and who
this deck is, via the deck’s creator and that deck creator’s persona.
Here, as you can see, I pulled the Six of Pentacles from Roxi Sim’s Pearls of Wisdom
Tarot.
The Six of Pentacles is about social justice, the “have” giving to the “have not”
(which, by the way, is examining the Six of Pentacles through a Marxist paradigm) and
how one must give to receive, and when you’ve received, you must give back.
Let that karmic circle remain unbroken.
If you want to get a sense of the deck creator’s intentions, then you definitely want to check
out any guidebook or, as tarot readers affectionately call them, the LWBs (Little White Booklets),
and here, I’m looking into the LWB that comes with the Pearls of Wisdom Tarot.
In Sim’s words, the Six of Pentacles “signifies balance and abundance.”
It’s a “time to pursue passions and form new relationships.”
For me to best connect to this deck’s heart and soul, the window through which I will
see that heart and soul is the window of passion, new relationships, compassion for others,
social justice, and giving back when I am in a position of abundance.
Sim’s deck is one of those incredible tarot decks for readers to use when consulting the
tarot under duress, feelings of bereavement, anxiety, physical pain or when one is on a
difficult journey toward personal recovery.
The vibrant colors and Impressionistic style draws out your inner child and helps that
inner child to heal.
SIDEBAR: Let’s consider a traditional literary examination
of the Pearls of Wisdom Tarot.
The deck took seven years to complete, inspired by profound sorrow when the deck creator lost
her health, her nine-year-old son, followed by the loss of her mother.
To heal herself, Sim needed to spend time with her inner child, and through that time
came the images the visions that became the Pearls of Wisdom Tarot.
And if you want to talk about a structuralist approach, the immaculate detailing in every
card renders it ideal for storytelling with the cards.
This is a quick preview of what’s to come in a subsequent video lecture.
We’ll be discussing the many ways to interpret a tarot card by breaking down those different
methodologies into paradigms, or critical theories.
We dipped our toes into this chart without you knowing you did so back in Video 6 when
we examined Key 13 the Death card.
Full immersion is soon to come.
Okay, back to bonding with a new deck, in this case, I’m using the Pearls of Wisdom
Tarot to demonstrate.
Given what we’ve covered about the deck and deck creator’s background, it makes
sense to me that I’ll best see what I need to see about these cards through the archetypal
expressions indicated by the Six of Pentacles.
The earth energy of the suit of Pentacles also tells me this deck grounds me, that I
connect with Earth Devas through this deck, which by the way, is exactly the deck creator’s
intention.
Sim has talked about how this deck features odes to the Triple Goddess, Earth Devas, and
tree spirits.
One way to bond with a deck is to simply ask of it: “Through which window may I best
connect to your heart and soul?”
By presenting the question “Through which window may I best connect to your heart and
soul?” to the deck you’re bonding with, you can really unlock the mysteries and knowledge
contained in the deck, through your very own key,
the key that attunes or tempers you to that deck.
Back in the day when I was learning tarot, when learning tarot also meant learning a
portfolio of fun superstitions, I was taught to sleep with a newly acquired tarot deck
and that by doing so, I’ll bond with it.
I would do this by placing the deck in a drawstring tarot bag and then tucking it into my pillow
case.
Or keep it on your nightstand next to a selenite tower.
In the world of New Age mysticism, a selenite tower acts as a spiritual antenna.
Personally, I just like selenite towers.
Before calling it a night, sift through your tarot deck and study the imagery of each card.
What thoughts, ideas, expressions, and emotions does each card’s imagery inspire in you?
Simply by reviewing the cards each night, you’ll familiarize yourself with the images
and in effect, bond with it.
You’re also inscribing the symbols of the cards as a psychic language into the walls
of your inner temple, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Let’s just leave it at this is really good for helping you remember card meanings.
We talked a bit about consecrating or charging tarot decks back in Video 5 on superstitions.
If passing each card in your tarot deck through the smoke of incense feels like an empowering
ritual to you, then do so as a means of bonding with your deck.
As you handle each card, visualize, again, a temperance going on, where your energies
and the energies inherent in the deck feel like they’re merging, synthesizing.
Consecrating your deck, done here with incense, is a form of bonding.
In my personal practice, if I feel like my deck is, you know, taking on too many different
energies from too many different readings and it’s starting to feel a bit toxic or
atrophic, then I’ll consecrate in this manner during a dark moon, entering into a new moon.
If I’m consecrating to charge, empower, and, well, bolster the oomph factor for my
deck, then I’ll consecrate during a full moon.
There are astrological reasons for this based on the angular positioning of the sun and
moon.
As for incense, I like to use sandalwood.
Here’s something else I like to do, though this is perhaps not so much about bonding
as it is about consecration.
Scan a selenite wand across each card lengthwise, one by one.
Here I’m using a selenite wand that’s about five inches in length and less than
half an inch across.
I personally find that such an exercise both consecrates the deck and also tempers its
vibrational frequencies with mine, so in effect, a form of bonding takes place.
In my view, this exercise is best for cleansing or clearing atrophic energies in the deck
and heightening it for divinatory uses.
This is a slightly thicker selenite wand, also about five inches in length.
After I’m done, I’ll set the deck to rest and place the selenite wand on top of it,
to shield it.
Or as you see here, a selenite palm stone.
If you’re wondering why selenite, I provide a pretty lengthy free gemstones and crystals
glossary of metaphysical correspondences that you can download for free from my website.
I’ll provide a link in the description box below.
Another way for a tarot beginner to bond with your deck is to do a guided tarot reading
with your new deck.
Revisit Video 6 of this companion course, titled “Cards and Spreads,”
and start at timestamp 26:59 in that video to do a guided reading using the Wirth Cross,
with your new tarot or oracle deck.
It’s a great way to begin bonding with your new deck.
Bonding is about establishing a working relationship between you and the tarot or oracle deck so
that it will be an effective tool for you when you seek access to information resident
in the personal or collective unconscious.
Bonding is about tethering you to the deck and the deck to you so that it energetically
becomes yours.
That way it can serve your needs more faithfully.
Here, demonstrating another technique, I’m energetically inscribing sigils as a form
of bonding.
This is more ritualistic and may not be a palatable exercise to beginners, but I’m
showing it to here so you can see a broad range of ways tarot practitioners bond with
their decks.
If you’d like to try it out, inscribe your signature, initials, or seals over each card
as I’m doing.
And it’s not all mystical.
Keeping journal notes of the deck is practical.
It’s an academic way of bonding with your cards and familiarizing yourself quickly with
the deck’s imagery and card meanings.
Interviewing or doing question and answer exercises with a deck acclimates you with
how to read with that particular deck.
Bonding, even the more ritualistic New Age-y methods I showed, is about psychology.
Ultimately, bonding is about priming your mindset for divinatory work with your newly
acquired tarot or oracle deck.
It’s about looking under the hood, kicking the tires, and checking out the features before
taking it for a test drive, and of course, you do want to take it for a test drive, as
that, too, is part of the bonding experience.
Your first few readings with the new deck is also part of bonding with it.
It’s as much about the divinatory reading as it is about how you and the deck of cards
are going to be interacting and engaging with one another.
It’s about how resonant the deck’s imagery is with you and arbitrating whether or not
this particular deck is going to be easy for you to read with or if it’s going to be
a bit of a struggle.
Let me offer you a perspective on why bonding with a deck, especially one you don’t think
resonates with you, is a valuable personal experience.
Some people I meet are immediately kindred spirits.
They’re a brother or sister by a different mother.
I don’t need to bond with them.
The connection is there immediately.
And then there are some other people I don’t connect with right away.
In fact, I’m not even sure that I like them.
We have totally different points of view, totally different ways of doing things, seeing
things, different personalities…
When that happens, I have a choice.
I can get tribalistic, draw lines in the sand, build up walls, and say we are just different
folk, it is what it is, and move on with my life to hang out with the kindred spirits
only.
Only the people who understand me.
Or, I can make the effort to bond with them, to try to understand them, feel out their
personal energies, and who knows, just maybe, that openness and receptiveness to something
different changes my world.
You know why diversity is important?
Because you learn things you didn’t even know you didn’t even know.
Innovation can only happen when there is diversity, because you need that ideological contrast
for truths to emerge.
By the way, I’m not talking about social politics here.
Totally talking tarot here.
In fact, I’m kind of talking to the intermediate and advanced tarot readers watching right
now.
By this point, we all think we know what genre of tarot decks we like, often to the exclusion
of others.
And the ones we often exclude are the ones in stark ideological contrast to the ones
we like.
I challenge you to pick up a tarot or oracle deck that is as different and as stark of
a contrast from your personal vibes as you can possibly go.
And try bonding with that deck.
Don’t give up after one day, or even day two, or even day three.
Keep at it persistently, loyally, faithfully for a month.
Even if your conclusion doesn’t change after the month, I can almost guarantee something
in you will.
Got some tips and tricks for bonding with a tarot or oracle deck that you’d like to
preserve for posterity?
Leave your contributions in the comments below.
Seven video lectures in to this tarot series and we still haven’t addressed how to actually
read the cards.
Why?
In terms of my particular method of instruction, it was about building your foundation.
Also, just to offer some direction, at this point you should have completed the Beginner
level syllabus or have proficiency over the tarot at a Beginner level, as outlined by
the course syllabus for Beginners in the Holistic Tarot series.
From this point on, I will be assuming you’ve completed that Beginner level course syllabus
and now you’re an Intermediate.
In Video 8 and onward, we begin the immersion into tarot operation.
BLOOPER:
syllabus for Beginners in the Holistic Tarot series.
From this point on… (pause)
…wrong book…