If I may be so bold as to ask, how do you bond with your deck?
It kind of depends on the deck. With my go-to deck, Tarot of the 78 Doors, I really didn’t like the imagery at first. It sat on a shelf for a while. I took it down and, as I’m a writer, started making up stories about the images. Eventually, I really got to liking it. I found things in the cards that I loved. I did a month-long, no-book challenge with it and fell in love.
For other decks, I’ll usually just use them for a while. I try to find a challenge to work through the deck. I really love the Tarot of Delphi for the poetry challenge that’s going around right now. I might not finish the challenge in time, but I’d like to work through the whole thing slowly with the Tarot of Delphi. It seems to fit the deck.
Once I’ve worked through the deck for a while and gotten to know it, I’ll do a deck interview to get to know it and our relationship better. I try to interview from time to time (maybe every 6 months for heavy-use decks?). That actually reminds me that I need to do some interviewing here soon! I guess the new moon and a new (lunar) month are pretty good times for that.