New purchases

It seems I have been purchasing more decks than I have been reading lately… A little bit of both is true. Today I caved and purchased a Marseille deck by Fournier at my local botanica. I have been wanting a Marseille deck for a while, recently finding myself craving a more intuitive read, by intuitive I mean free of esoteric information, whether astrological, kabalistic and everything else in between. Not that those decks are bad, and neither do I dislike them. On the contrary, I love esoteric decks, I have a couple. Yet, I have been craving a pared down landscape in my decks, where I just let my mind whirl in the space provided by the cards, led by words and pure associations and what not. I don’t know anything about the Marseille tradition, other than the basics, that it is one of the oldest tarot traditions and that the pips are not illustrated.

I had already seen and played around with the deck but I let it go opting instead for the Crystal Tarot. Now when I opened this deck at home and shuffled the cards it was pure beauty, they felt perfect in my hands, supple and soft. There are several versions out there but most of them, from what I have seen, have a lot of white space and more defined faces. The deck I purchased has a sepia tint, the colors are a bit off and the faces are a bit haphazard, and I love it exactly like that. Truthfully, the white spaces in the other Marseille decks weren’t appealing to me, this one instantly attracted my eye because of its weird off coloring. And the backs are beautiful. To say the least, I am in love. I did a little interview spread I got from sevencardspread that has worked wonderfully for me in the past. Here it is:

You can see the off coloring in the pictures. I got 2 of cups, the high priestess, the emperor, 7 of cups, reversed king of swords, 5 of cups. Basically, this is one heck of an intuitive, and free-flowing deck. And I will be able to get exactly what I was looking for from it. The reading was so great, it just felt like something I needed. All about the inner world, the shadow world, intuition, emotions, the spirit.

I must admit I have been eyeing Tarot of the Holy Light for quite a few months now, a continental tradition style deck loaded with esoteric information, alchemy, kabalah, astrology and all the powers. It is a breathtaking deck, one I really, really think I want. But a part of me tells me that this is not something I need right now, more work. I have my studies, my rune work, my magical workings, my literature, my kabalistic studies and Norse mythology reading. Basically, I have enough to study right now, maybe by the end of this year, when things ease a bit I can really dig into that wonderful, breathtaking deck. In the meantime, this Marseille does not disappoint and I am very satisfied.

Here are a couple more pictures of the back and the box:

ps. I probably spelt kabalah wrong.