I’ve got like half a dozen decks, thanks to Kara’s eclectic approach to the occult. listed in approximate descending order of when I acquired them, the decks are
1. the Ibis Tarot
http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/ibis/
a gift from my witchy friend Kaylin Evergreen, who intended it to deepen my bond with Thoth, a god whom we both honor. and indeed it has become an enduring link with “birb god” (to use Kel the Purple’s fanciful term for Thoth). lately it has been my primary tarot deck—not counting “virtual” tarot through Discord bot, which is a convenient ancillary tool.
this wasn’t a gift from Kaylin but she was with me when I found the deck in a bookshop we both frequent, so I associate the deck somewhat with her. it’s a deck influenced by Germanic (not just Norse) paganism, and there’s something unsettling about its imagery for me...I think it’s because of the all-white background. there’s a very amusing depiction of Fenrir in the deck somewhere (can’t remember which card exactly.)
more below the cut!
3. the Thoth tarot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoth_tarot_deck
the deck designed chiefly by Lady Frieda Harris at the behest of notorious (but useful) Victorian occult figure Aleister Crowley. I have a complicated history with this deck: I bought one on sight at an occult store in Portland, Oregon, the day after (or was it the same day? it was afterward, anyway) the noteworthy solar eclipse of 2 July 2019. I had travelled to Oregon to see the eclipse from the home of an old friend’s brother who happened to live within the path of the eclipse, and on the way back we went to a witchy shop and I bought the Thoth deck there because it was a small-size deck (I had some idea back then that a smaller deck would be easier to carry around and be more handy) and because I was favorably inclined to the imagery, which seemed to draw heavily from the conventions of scientific illustration. I used that deck for a time, chiefly when doing tarot at my workplace. it suffered some water damage, to the Prince of Disks card specifically, and I ended up substituting the unicursal hexagram card included in the deck (see below) in its place. and the deck ended up destroyed due to water damage, in transit to and from work ☹️ as a result I’ve tended to associate the Prince of Disks card with that particular job, a dirty and exhausting one, at a factory that turned waste oil into biodiesel.
the Thoth deck I currently own is another gift from Kaylin, and it’s an “ordinary” size deck. I used to employ this deck (and its smaller predecessor) as my primary link to the god Thoth, despite the lack of any real connection in tradition. Crowley was a horrible appropriator of other cultures’ mystical traditions, and I am uncertain as to the reason for the “Thoth” name, but Thoth liked that I was using something with his name on it, at least. he’s been pretty forgiving of my use of pop-culture associations instead of a more traditional approach. but then I switched to the Ibis Tarot as my Thoth-connected deck.
this was the “portable” (i.e. smaller-sized) deck I got after I lost the small-size Thoth deck that I talked about previously. it’s had a rather specific place in Kara’s and my magical practice: it’s the deck that’s tucked away in the coffee-table drawer for when I’m watching TV and suddenly feel moved to do a quick shuffle of tarot cards. and you know, I think that’s a good place for it still. it’s a very nice average tarot deck
5. the Fenestra tarot
http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/fenestra/
this deck was another gift from Kaylin. (Kaylin’s been really keen to get me into magic, can you tell? I love her) anyway, this was her personal deck for a time, and I keep this deck near to me now. for a time it was my main deck, but I’ve been working the Ibis Tarot more for that, lately. the Fenestra deck is the one I reserve for more personal work. I should do that more, heh
I find it interesting how often, when I do a two-card tarot reading, that the keyword in the meaning of first card is repeated in the second card. For example, the first card of today’s reading was the Seven of Sceptres. (In this deck, the Ibis Tarot, the sceptres replace the wands.) The meaning of this card as set out by Josef Machynka (the Austrian artist who designed the Ibis Tarot) is “a…
accident card: Six of Cups (hrm, that’s sort of a bad omen, maybe Chara has some relationship trouble inbound)
comment card: Seven of Pentacles (success with money? it seems impossible)
message card: Slave of Swords (which, in the form of the usual “Prince of Swords”, has come up twice already in informal Thoth deck draws using a Discord bot)
comment card: reversed The Balance and the Sword (so, reversed Justice...what Chara thinks of as the Akemi Homura card, and it’s not a cheerful thing to see.)
