Patience and shuffle the cards. -Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

This post is about the care and keeping of tarot cards.   When I first got mine, I had no idea what to do with them, and – get this – there was no Google.  I know.  How did we survive?  I kept them in the bag that they came in, and didn’t really think about how to treat them, other than not getting food on them.  I keep my Shadowscapes deck in a tarot bag that I sewed myself.  It’s ugly, but it’s mine and I like it.  My little Trees deck is in the box it came in, because I haven’t found anything else to keep them in yet.  I have friends who wrap them in silk and put them in lovely little boxes – that’s awesome.  I would never remember to put mine in a bag and in a box, but I think it’s respectful, you know? 

When I started reading cards in earnest, there were a lot of opinions about how to treat a deck.  The first thing that I remember hearing was that it was bad juju to buy your own cards.  I’m not sure where this came from, but I’ve never found it to be a problem.  I like getting decks as gifts, but I just bought my very first deck and it works beautifully.  It took me about a half hour to pick out, and I think that that’s the important part.  I’m not sure that the source of the cards is as significant as how they feel to you.  When I get decks as gifts for people, I bring them along to pick out their own.  Every deck has it’s own personality.  I felt so bad for Dan Pelletier from www.tarotgarden.com.  He was trying to run a booth at Archon, and I asked him to hand me about fifteen decks so I could handle them.  Poor guy.  It was worth it, though.  Some were pretty, but felt weird in my hands.  It doesn’t matter how they get in your hands, but how they feel when they get there. 

Another thing that I heard was that I should sleep with each card under my pillow each night and journal about my dreams and feelings the next day.  I tried this, and it didn’t work.    I do think that learning everything about the cards that you can is helpful, and the dream thing might work for other people, but I was so anxious about mussing them up that it didn’t work for me.  I’d definitely encourage keeping a journal.  This blog, for me, is my tarot journal now.  I’ve written notes in the margins of fifteen or twenty different tarot books, and I’ve bookmarked blogs out the wazoo.  If you’re going to be a serious tarot reader – whether for yourself or professionally – you’re going to become a tarot scholar.  It’s fun, and will give you lots of new connections with each card to facilitate readings.

Another question that I hear a lot is do I let other people touch my cards.  Again, I’ve got friends who are totally cool with people playing with their cards.  I am to some extent, but I get very pissy if people don’t ask first.  I’ve had some bad experiences with people who are anti-tarot for whatever reason, and I’ve had them push my cards off my table or spit at them.  o.O  This didn’t work out too well for them, but also made me very nervous about people getting all handsy around my deck.  First of all, those are my tools.  This is my job.  Secondly, that’s my DECK!  Come on, man.  Use your manners.  Ask first.  That being said, if you use your good manners, of course you can touch my cards.  I love talking to people about cards and showing them the lovely pictures and symbolism. 

Cleaning the cards.  I know this is going to sound all esoteric and odd, but cards get funky after a bit, and I don’t mean dirty.  I have a booth at St. Louis’ Pagan Picnic every year, and I give about 50 readings in a weekend.  After a while, they just feel heavy and gross.  Do you know how if you enter a room after someone has been fighting, the room feels charged?  Wrong, almost?  That’s what it’s like.  My cards feel wrong – like they’ve been swimming around in fifty different emotional crises and they’ve sucked up all of that energy and they’re just funky as all damnit.  SO, when I get home, I clean me AND my cards.  Cards are easy.  You can throw some sea salt on them or put them in the window to soak up some sun or moonlight.  You can even rap on them with your knuckles – it’s weird, but it works – and knock some of the funk away.  You, though.  That’s trickier.  Because your cards have been sucking up all of that emotion, and so have you.  A couple of years ago, I met Ellen Dugan.  She’s a fantastic author and clairvoyant and a badass reader.  She stood about a foot from me and said she could FEEL that I was fried.  I was – I was FRIED.  She told me to go home, wash my clothes, take a long, long shower and to put all of my jewelry in a bowl of water and let it sit.  I did, and I felt a ton better afterwards.  It was like a three point shower – mind, body and spirit.  I do this all the time, now.  Thanks, Ellen!    I also scrunch my toes in the grass and sit next to trees a lot after readings.  I’m a hippie, so sue me.

I think that the important thing with the care and keeping of cards (and of you) is to do the research (yay, Google!) and then figure out what works best for you.  Reading cards is personal.  You can either do it for entertainment, or professionally.  You can take it seriously or read for fun.  Silk bags or cardboard boxes.  The important thing is that you’re being authentic to yourself.  That’s the one thing that doesn’t change reader to reader.  However you approach the cards, if you’re authentic, it will come through in your readings.  xoxo

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Tags: caring, Ellen Dugan, St. Louis Pagan Picnic, tarot cards, www.ellendugan.com, www.tarotgarden.com

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