Tarot

I used to have a temperamental relationship with tarot decks. My first was a hand-me-down from my mother, who was into tarot cards back in the early 2000s but never did much with hers. They were decidedly hideous, I could never get them to "work" and they turned me off to tarot for quite awhile. I still have a hard time with traditional tarot decks, or decks with the traditional art style. I sometimes wonder if that first horridly ugly deck turned me off to them forevermore.

My second deck was a (in retrospect, no less hideous) "dragon tarot" I found for $15 at a local Chapters. I found I had ultimately the same difficulty with it - I seemed to have no connection to the deck, and trying to do readings was an excercise in futility.

I tried again with the more well-known Dragon Tarot, which is still pretty damn ugly. (Noticing a trend?) and had only moderately more luck.

The first deck I had that I spent a goodly amount of money on, and finally felt that connection with, is the Shadowscapes tarot. I love the art style, and I find the artist sneaky - a lot of the traditional symbolism of tarot is there, but she's hidden it in metaphor and used different ways of including it. It seems finding a deck "pretty" in some way, connecting to it artistically, is important to me. The symbolism and "traditional" measure of a deck is no good if I don't enjoy looking at it.

I have a second deck I was gifted from The Honey Badger, which is the Pagan Cats Tarot. I adore it, though I don't use it as often.

Through an interesting twist of fate, my friend ordered a deck called The Wild Unknown Tarot and ended up having a second one sent due to a shipping kerfuffle. Rather than have them pay to send the other back, she sent the money for the second deck (from me) so I could keep it.

So now I have another new deck I can't wait to use. It's almost the opposite in a lot of ways, to the Shadowscapes deck. Shadowscapes has a lot going on -  bright colours, complex images with tons of hidden bits and pieces to find. This deck is black and white with pops of colour, and very simple by comparison. I can't wait to get a feel for it.

Do you use tarot decks? Do you prefer traditional ones, or nontraditional? Bright and wild or simple?