Getting to know a tarot deck

As I was reading through the opening pages of The Faeries’ Oracle guidebook I came across an idea that I thought would also be a great way of getting to know a tarot deck. So, having tried it with The Faeries’ Oracle, I then tried it with the Golden Tarot. And wow, the notes from three of my five categories feature the same word — surprised. To put this into some context, the Golden Tarot isn’t a deck new to my collection, but, during this exercise, it felt like it was.

The exercise

So what’s the exercise? It is simply to divide your deck using categories of your own choosing. That’s it.

In part, its power is in its simplicity. Once you start there are so many ways to divide a deck beyond the typical by suit, by number, by arcana, or astrologically.

For the Faeries’ Oracle, my first categories were ethereal and grounded. Next I divided them by colour. Then because of my aforementioned curiosity I moved on to trying it with a tarot deck.

For the Golden Tarot my first division was the number of people — none, 1, 2, 3 and 3+. The second was animals and no animals. This was the first category to surprise me. More than two thirds of the cards featured animals. As someone with a disproportionate number of animal decks I felt I should have been more aware of this. This led me to do some brief art history research which in turn changed how I saw the deck and the overall messages it was trying to portray. And here I thought I was just breaking my deck up into some categories.

My third categories were divided by direction. In other words were the people looking left, right, up, down, or straight at me. I was surprised to discover that only eight people were facing towards me. That had me reaching for one of my RWS decks to see if I had been oblivious there too. The RWS has twenty two forward facing people, more if you count body position, rather than just gaze. That’s quite a significant difference.

Therefore, in combining that realisation with my art history research, I now feel that the Golden Tarot is urging me to explore what’s going on around me and what that might mean. Who would have thought a “high art” deck would be the one I would now see as the perfect choice to connect me to my every day outer world rather than my interior one? Prior to this exercise I know I didn’t.

My fourth division was full vs partial body. I was surprised by the impact those categorisations had too. I’d never consciously considered what that might mean in readings before. When I was actively looking at the partial group I started to wonder about what I couldn’t see and what the close up view might be telling me. It made me realise that not only does this exercise help you in getting to know a tarot deck it also has the potential to open up interpretive possibilities.

My final division was simply to see how many cards featured the colour red. I can’t remember why I picked red and obviously nothing stood out to me because I have simply listed the category. I hadn’t made any additional notes at all. I’m curious as to what would happen depending on the colour choice though.

Nevertheless, at the time I stopped there. But while writing this I came up with some additional categories that might give you some further ideas also. They are:

• eyes open or eyes shut
• inside or outside
• men, women, children, combination
• headwear or bare headed
• visible built environment, nature setting
• busy imagery, clean/simple imagery
• how they make me feel
• love, like, neutral, not a fan, really dislike

Then, depending on the particular art style and the included elements, (moon, stars, food, a particular animal, runes, crystals, and so on), you can continue to explore more and more category options. The act of choosing the categories in itself encourages you to look more closely at your deck.

Wrapping it all up

As someone with a lot of decks, I am constantly trying to find ways to reintroduce myself to the them and to see them through new lenses. This is one such way that I feel will be beneficial on many levels. I am so grateful to Jessica Macbeth for suggesting this exercise.

If you give it a try let me know in the comments or by sending me an email. I’d love to hear what you discovered and the categories you chose.

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Publishing details for decks mentioned

• The Faeries’ Oracle
  • created by Brian Froud with text by Jessica Macbeth
  • published by Atria Books in 2020
• Golden Tarot
  • created by Kat Black
  • published by US Games Systems Inc in 2003