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(cw for food talk in “insight 2”)

While continuing work with Outrageous Openness, Feeding my Demons, and daily writing with the stoic journal and the tarot, I've had a series of insights about my nebulous “stuff”, the first of which I posted on mastodon. But they just kept coming, so I'm moving this here for safekeeping.

Insight 1: I've lived by the principle of aligning with the flow of life for a long time now, going as far as to name it the very core of magic. and I only just realized I've only applied that on a broad metaphysical level. Going with the flow of the “signs”, of the spirits that call, the practices that meet a need. I've never allowed myself to do that on the most mundane level, because that – in my mind – is governed by different principles entirely. But I'm beginning to see it's not. Why would it be? Just because we built society in such and such a way? The profane follows the sacred, the physical the meta-physical.

My best days, both happiest and most “productive” (defined as “I did things and was satisfied with them” – whether the things were obligations, chores, or leisure, personal pursuits), are the ones where I flow with my impulses and external opportunities. A time-table makes itself, based on my energy levels, external impulses, and what's available to me. Trouble starts when I try to introduce my opinions on how the world is supposed to work, or how one should be in the world – quick to swallow the frog, delay personal gratification, work when others are working, or chastise yourself if you're not. I might still get things done, but it's without joy or pleasure. I might not get things done, and all I've achieved is laying guilt on myself the whole day. Going lightly with the flow of what is is so easy and satisfying it feels like cheating. I haven't learned to trust it yet, but maybe that's the next step to try.

Insight 2: I used to think I'd just lay around all day, if given total free rein, but I've accidentally proven it untrue many times now. I just haven't had the courage to let those reins free on purpose. It's kind of like when I got more relaxed about food. I thought that if I wasn't vigilant, I'd just uncontrollably consume the “bad” food. But when I consciously removed chocolate and sweets from a “forbidden – but I still shamefully eat it” category, it became much more long-lived in our house. “Forbidden” is much more troublesome than “allowed”. I need to allow more, and trust myself more.

Insight 3: (from a modified journal prompt) Does my “should-ing” ever accomplish anything good? It does make things happen, but it's not the only way of getting things done (if that's even the goal). It's miserable. As that saying goes – if being hard on yourself worked it would have worked by now. I pulled the Ace and the Queen of Wands from the Thoth deck – “should-ing” shames me into action and somewhat unlocks my motivation, that's why I've been holding onto it so hard. I don't know of other ways of accessing that. Wanting was never allowed, my wants and needs ignored so I learned not to have those, or at least not act on them. I need to make my preferences, wants and needs important again, and rule them in a softer way, one that serves me.

I'm trying to apply this trust and honor myself more. It's slow going, but the shell is cracking.

I've used many words today, but I'm hoping I have enough left for an update because I've had a mini-breakthrough. Or maybe the beginnings of a huge breakthrough. Basically I've been torn between two approaches, two paths, as I couldn't really identify my “underlying problem”. Should I be working on self-compassion, self-love, undoing internalized ableism, or do I need to learn the skills to overcome my challenges and get in gear, see what I could accomplish if I had more focus and more tools to boost my executive functions? The loving side says “fuck capitalism and the cult of productivity”, the accomplishment side says “how convenient, what a great political excuse to not even try”.

I realized I wasn't asking myself the deciding question, I wasn't considering my values or goals. I think my primary goal is to be happy – as long as I'm not hurting anyone else in the process, and while I'm being present, of course. I am already quite happy in my “normal” life, at my regular operational level. I don't get a lot done, but I allow myself to explore and have fun, while tending to my responsibilities to the best of my current abilities. The only thing making me unhappy is that undermining voice of “but why wouldn't you want to do more?”

I think this is finally giving me a direction. I'm not going to be trying to get myself to a level of “higher functioning”. The only person putting that pressure on myself is me and my expectations of what it means to be a good person, a worthy person. Clearly I'm still harboring ableist beliefs – it's easier to direct compassion to other disabled people where I can't offer myself that same courtesy, and clearly there is still on some level a feeling of unworthiness, of feeling I need to prove myself to someone, even if it's only to myself. Self-love it is then.

I seem to have settled into the limbo nicely. The stress of not-doing or non-direction is mostly gone. I've seen an improvement in dealing with disappointments. I gained the confidence to quite in the moment and painlessly inform my family of my newest name change. I attribute this overall progress to:

• continuing the stoic journal and thinking on the prompts,
• daily review of my “Things That Work” index-card vision-board thing,
• doing a re-read of Tosha Silver's “Outrageous Openness”, I love that approach to spirituality and it's something I forget, to be honest. Maybe I should add it to those index cards...
• reading “Feeding Your Demons” by Tsultrim Allione and half-assedly practicing the technique outlined therein. I think I remember already having done some stuff based on the psychology of that a few years back, but I'm looking forward to giving the full thing a solid shot.

Of course doing anything of this sort, especially when it involves asking for guidance, produces synchronicities and bread crumbs to follow. There have been old but relevant videos from my favorite content creators popping up on youtube's very broken main page. Strangely apropos affirmations and conversations in my usual internet haunts. A fanfic I'm reading has a character going to therapy and practicing a technique I learned from Jonice Webb's “Running on Empty” – just a basic emotional check-in a few times a day. I don't really understand why, but when I first practiced it it led to a big leap forward in self-compassion, I think I should try again. Then again this is beginning to look like a lot of “shoulds” all over again. I'll see how it goes.

In the meantime, in between all the above, I'm still playing around with decks without much conviction. Spent the day just reading, without guilt that I should be doing something “better.” Started on our balcony garden with my partner – we planted tomato and strawberry seeds into the little seed trays. I can't be certain but I think I'm more accepting and open, if not yet significantly more present. Slowly but surely going deeper.

So I've been hanging out in this bit of a limbo. Not really wanting the thrill of checking off a goal without enjoying the process of the achievement itself. Not really enjoying anything, mostly due to aches and pains, partly due to the earlier realization that I'm slapping band-aids on something deeper that I don't know how to tackle or even identify to my satisfaction. I'm not drawn to my usual interests either. It happens sometimes. I've been flipping through tarot decks and tarot books without much conviction and decided to do a reading about this stalemate week. Inspired by a little passage from one of Rachel Pollack's books – she wrote how the wisdom is literally right there in the cards, you can just look and always learn something – I pulled out a deck I knew I could do that with – the Deviant Moon: based on the Waite-Smith system, with illustrations of people actually doing things, not just standing around being pretty. Nor fragmented collages, or abstracted pre-interpreted symbols, or just pips. People doing things. That's another thing I might add to my future buying guidelines for decks: diverse, non-gimmicky, people actually doing things. Not absolutely necessary but I don't have enough of those decks.

I've forgotten this basic way of reading that had been my default for years and years. Only just last year I started getting seriously into spreads. I never gave them much mind previously, they seemed limiting. Because the positions seemed to be so separated from each other and the issue, and the cards were disconnected from each other and couldn't talk to each other. The former issue is easily fixed by weaving the story together, either as it progresses or at the end, but the cards themselves being separate and arranged in strange shapes I couldn't get over. Well, having read spreads all year I got used to the disconnected nature of the cards and focused more on what I “know” the cards to mean, on their book meanings and keywords and such. I wanted to see what would happen if I intentionally allowed the cards to play with each other again, and wow did the illustrations cooperate with each other, bringing out interesting messages.

I asked about this prolonged pause and what to do about not feeling great on three levels – the very present moment, this transitional period in the context of the whole depth year, and that deeper, unidentified, more long-term issue.

• In the short term: instead of wallowing (the creature under the table of the 10 of Coins) make the executive decision (the Emperor squashing a small creature and looking off to the right) to play (the Page of Coins). The Page actually reminded me of Cinder from Marissa Meyer's books, so could also mean “just go read a book”.
• On the middle tier of depth year unease – the Sun illuminated the illusions stacked in the 7 of Cups, but the painter couldn't start painting what's real before the Temperance card brought them some water to rinse their brush. I'm in a brush-rinsing moment. No need to rush with the next move, or it'll still be “stained” by the wrong assumptions and false hopes. It could also be a literal nudge towards visual arts and original work.
• The deep one was the most complicated but had the best interactions between the cards. The creature in the 10 of Wands is hoarding all the energy and won't share. It's difficult and counterproductive. The Strength card has a figure locked in battle with the 10 of Wands creature, but nobody's really winning, it's pointless. The last card – the King of Pentacles – holds the real prize, and at first I thought he wrestled it from the creature's belly, but then I noticed his face is a combination of the heads of both creatures in the Strength card. The prize is not one winning or overpowering the other in an attempt to reclaim energy. The key is to combine, to be both, to aspire to wholeness without trying to distance myself from the “difficult” parts. I guess in this case the difficult parts are how much struggle is involved in getting my executive functions to work. I have a hard time not resenting myself for being so “lazy” and not being able to get “the basic minimum” done, even though there are literally no other requirements or responsibilities resting on me and I know many autistic people require help even in those so called “basics”. So the answer to the deepest layer would be working on self-compassion and internalized ableism, but... not sure how to do that. (Of course right after I wrote this I went on a search not of how to accept oneself, but how to improve executive function. Apparently CBT is good for that but can I even approach it from a loving place, rather than “I have to fix this, this is unacceptable”? And is it even “fixable” when you're autistic?)

Regardless of how applicable those messages are, they've calmed me down and gave me at least a vague sense of direction. And most importantly restored my playful, flexible way of reading the cards. I'm counting that as depth year win.

First month summary! Nothing new here, just collecting things for easier reference in the future.

I started the year with revving the engine and flooring it down the “I'm gonna make the most of what I've got” road. It was exciting and the achievements gave me a thrill each time I could close one project and progress to the next. Among those were:

• successfully reading more fiction
• successfully journaling twice a day, plus pulling a tarot card with each entry (I think it's the limited space in the daily stoic journal that allowed for that consistency)
• trying new knitting patterns
• trying yarns in colors I never would have picked for myself, but loved in the end
• trying some crafty journaling – love the effect but not the process, so probably won't be doing that too much in the end?
• trying to formalize how I read pip decks – I will definitely be returning to this more this year
• trying digital collage
• going nuts with traditional collage
• rearranged my tarot decks, packing away 2/3 of the collection
• deeper focus on the Tarot de Luz and the Margarete Petersen deck
• surprisingly took out Tarot of the Magical Forest for a series of self-care readings based on spreads I'm collecting from the internet (this is new for me, I generally don't work with spreads but I've been warming up to them the last half of last year. What next? Reversals? lol)
• archiving my art from the last two years

And after all that I arrived at the mental shift of just needing to be present. Recognizing projects are one way to not be wasteful but they can also be a way of escaping the here and now, just like mindless buying. They can still be a “look, a new shiny!” distraction. To go deep I need to go slow. To be a person who doesn't engage in retail therapy, I have to address the causes, not just the effects. There needs to be more self-acceptance and compassion in my life.

I'm curious to see where this goes next.

First let me summarize the observations I've been making on mastodon:

• whether my projects are about external artistic expression, or internal mind-shifting around self-care, they all feel like an attempt at making myself more acceptable, trying to prove my worth, even if it's to myself,
• with all this work I “have to” put into myself and into my life, it feels like I'm very much lacking and broken – which I'm not,
• what works best so far for motivation is asking myself a few times a day “is there anything I can make a little bit better?” (less pressure, plus caring for something is speaking my language)
• the above requires being aware and present, I'm using a timed chime to remind me and ground me.

This made it clear that apart from staying rooted in the present and gently engaging with it, I might need to find a similar hack for self-acceptance. I haven't found it yet, but this whole ordeal of “oh hell, what am I even doing, what even is this depth year?” inspired me to try a visualization/guided meditation thing where you find a message from your subconscious. I've been trying it for a while and after a few tweaks if finally worked. I suppose on some level that too is digging deeper.

Sparing you the process and skipping directly to the result – the message from my subconscious came in the form of a Peruvian clay ocarina, decorated to look like a scarab. Two messages there – scarab and ocarina.

Superficially, the scarab happened because I recently went back to playing Animal Crossing and saw the dung beetle for the first time this winter. Symbolically though, the scarab represents my very first tattoo. It was very important for me to get it as soon as possible at that time in my life – I was pushing through my third year of severe autistic burnout.

It seems appropriate that the scarab would come up at this moment, which feels like such a threshold. I've been trying to live a different life and confusedly going about it by acting out its external, superficial manifestations. Now I'm shifting to trying to find the inner core of that process which would some day naturally manifest in all those art projects, mindful spending, feeling materially satisfied etc.

My scarab tattoo was meant to represent Chepri. I'm no expert on Egyptian mythology and everything that follows is based on my teen-self's understanding, but back then he was a big symbol of hope for me. The god that pushes the sun up over the horizon, making a new day happen – which if I remember correctly wasn't a guarantee, but a daily miracle. Furthermore, it meant the re-creation of the world. Each night the world and the universe dissolved into chaos, and each morning Chepri re-created the world, making order rise up from that chaos.

For me, getting that tattoo was like clinging tightly to a talisman meant to assure order will rise from chaos, that things will make sense and fall into place again. I think the scarab symbol here is telling me that order will arise, it's just not that easy for a mere mortal to re-create themselves and their whole world in a few days or even weeks. I need to keep going.

The ocarina is something that came up in conversation with my partner a few weeks back, about practicing a musical instrument. I did once own a Peruvian ocarina, although it was more of a touristy trinket than an actual instrument, I think my mind only picked that for its shape and how it relates to the scarab. I do actually still own an inline Mountain Ocarina, which I stopped trying to play years ago due to how loud you have to get with it. The owner of the brand extolled the virtues of a small pendant ocarina – it's the best instrument to learn how to play because of its size and handiness. You can always have it with you, therefore multiplying your opportunities for practice. Any spare 10-15 minutes can be devoted to progress.

I think that last part is the message: I can practice my values and my chosen focus for the year at any moment. You can try and be present any time. You can try and accept yourself any time. You can try and improve something any time. It's also related to a thing from the Stoics – unsurprising, seeing as I'm doing the daily stoic journal – treating every moment as an opportunity to practice one of the four stoic virtues. So it all comes down to the small moments, the noticing of the Now as the only moment of power, of opportunity. “Opportunity” – how can I make the most of this? Not “chastisement” – why am I not doing x and y right now?

I don't know if I can clearly and easily implement these messages going forward, but I think they're a good sign of things falling into place, I'm gaining more understanding of what's happening, what's trying to happen, or is “supposed to” happen in those inner workings of mine. For now I'll keep trying to be in the here-and-now, and to gently improve things. Maybe I'll dig out that ocarina, too. Until things either change again, or it's time for another message from the subconscious.

As the month progresses and my body is doing strange uncomfortable things, my energy and attention has been turned away from projects, which in turn shone a spotlight on how much importance I was putting on the projects in the first place. I found myself joking here and there about how maybe next year should be self-care year, but I'm more and more convinced those ideas align with depth year principles pretty well.

The point of this year wasn't to complete as many projects as possible using things that I already had lying around. The point was to heal my relationship to stuff and the material world, the here-and-now. On a very simple level that does include rejection of mindless buying. On a slightly deeper level it does include learning to utilize and appreciate all the belongings I've amassed this far. But on a fundamental – you could say: deepest – level I cannot exclude my body from this endeavor. The body is central to the here-and-now experience and it might be the biggest invisible obstacle to connection with the material world I've carried with me all this time. It's not enough to engage in certain external activities. Inner work, shifting perceptions, practicing new thought patterns is also necessary.

I didn't want to include self-care in this year-long quest, because it's such a big, broad, important subject as to deserve its own year of focus. Because I feel I do much better when there's a single direction, and “projects” relating to art or tarot study seemed simple enough and exciting, whereas body-work seems much more daunting, fraught with traps of judgment. Start introducing outer health, inner self-compassion and suddenly the focus goes all over the place, I'm overwhelmed, I can't do it. The day grows full of things I should be doing, things I owe myself, before I even get to the mundane chore list. I'm not really sure how to go about it all, and trying to figure it all out feels like I'm overthinking things, while not really getting anywhere solid.

I'm not going to completely drop my project list, I want to continue. Maybe I can frame some of the body-stuff in terms of projects, too? Or have areas of focus for each week and see what I can do in each? Tarot/study, creating/expressing, health, self-love. I can assign a specific thing to focus on in each area each week, without keeping a hawk's eye on it daily. Maybe I can keep the week's focus list in the stoic journal, just to be reminded in the mornings what my options are, what I considered important enough to honestly try, even if just for a week? Without having it clutter my planner or my scrappy to-do list. I'm not sure, still figuring it out.

I have finished knitting the second tarot reading mat! It curls and I could have predicted and prevented that if I gave the original pattern even two minutes of thought, but more importantly – the color is great. I hated it in the ball, but love it as a backdrop for card reading, the cards really stand out against it very nicely. I might have enough of the yarn left to try a crochet version.

As per the deck purge update below, I have retired both Tarot de Luz and Tarot Z, so the projects related to them are also cancelled. That does not mean I'm bringing back the busy hands journal in place of the Tarot Z journal to keep up the craftiness, I'm not feeling like gluing stuff. I'm pulled toward drawing something, but haven't thought about it enough to get started.

Current ongoing projects:

• (baseline: twice a day journaling with tarot card),
• I'm compiling all the English translations of the Margarete Petersen booklet I can find (mine came misprinted, out of order, with sections missing or doubled). I'm almost done editing all I have. I want to continue by adding my own thoughts about each card, and assigning the self-care reading series to this deck,
• I'm halfway done getting my artwork off the iPad. Need to still move 2020 off, then I'll see about maybe organizing it into little (or big) .pdfs. Maybe I'll make them available somewhere. I don't know if I want to bother with printing properly laid out physical copies,
• crocheting that third mat.

Looks doable!

I don't know why it's taking me so long to write this post. I have two drafts of it already and the words aren't working, maybe I'm just tired. So here goes a less than perfect attempt -

I tried to identify what's most bugging me about the tarot decks that I own. Most aggravatingly: how many of them rely on gimmicks, instead of a solid structure, a foundation in any of the tarot systems. Most pervasively: how racist they are, all-white fantasy worlds, inaccurate to my surroundings and experiences, silently whispering about white supremacy and what's “normal” and “universal”. I'm also gravely disappointed at how cisheteronormative most major publishing houses make their decks, and how inaccessible indie decks with a more conscious and diverse approach are. It seems you have to be either located in the US, or be willing and able to spend four or five times as much on a deck to handle the shipping, customs, and other fees.

I can't do much about the lack of queerness in my collection without violating the basic tenet of my depth year project, but I can fix the other issues, and so I narrowed my options for this year down to the following eighteen positions:

Deep decks:

• The Voyager Tarot – a diverse collage deck from the 80s, I especially appreciate that it includes old folks. Good Marseille-adjacent system. There's a lot of study materials available but would require a purchase. Also it's the worst deck to handle – thick, stiff, and sticky.
• Margarete Petersen Tarot – beautiful culturally diverse abstract-leaning paintings. Solid numerology and elemental basis outlined in the booklet. A little flimsy-feeling with how huge the cards are.
• Thoth Tarot and the Thoth-based Urban Tarot – I think Thoth is one of the more accessible classic decks, there are many layers to study but it's fairly easy to start with Elemental Dignities and/or astrology. Plenty of readily available materials to study.

Classic decks (all of these are RWS-based and have potential):

• The Deviant Moon Tarot – one of the best RWS versions out there, uses less classical symbolism but infuses the images with enough of its own symbols. On the other hand – flimsy, and I'm not always in the mood for this particular weird dark aesthetic.
• Tarot of the Cat People – I love this fantasy world but the images aren't detailed or dynamic enough. Beautiful paintings where nobody is white, but a lot of them don't reflect the meaning the artist herself put in the booklet.
• The Crow Tarot – inoffensive RWS clone featuring crows. Beautiful vibrant colors, but the art style is a little cluttered. Also, having grown up with hooded crows, all-black crows feel Incorrect. But it feels very good in the hands (trimmed), papery and soft with a strong card-stock core.
• Tarot of the Magical Forest – cute creatures, nothing special but surprisingly readable. This has been a comfort deck over the years.
• The Uncommon Tarot – one I was very excited for, the only deck I have that acknowledges queerness and packs so much diversity into its images. The collage style is a bit chaotic, and the feel of the cards is unpleasantly plasticky, with the high gloss and the silver edges.
• White Numen Tarot – a great color palette and nice modern illustrative style. Not all cards make sense, but the biggest turn-off is everyone being young and sexy.

Gimmicky but I'm giving them a chance:

• Edmund Dulac Tarot – while it has the problem of most art decks out there – cards just don't line up with what they're supposed to mean – I love the style and it does speak to the imagination, if you're willing to read more intuitively.
• Tarot of Unknown Shadows – absolutely gorgeous but makes zero sense. The pips seem to be arranged with no intention or meaning behind them, the helpful background images are almost uniform across each suit, the booklet is nonsense. But it's so beautiful I'm determined to make something out of it.
• Tarot of the Origins – I love the concept of the early humans and their sibling species but the system didn't click for me. It's one of my older decks and I can't seem to get rid of it. I'm drawn to the line-work but repelled by the color choices. A year or two ago I trimmed off the borders and their numbers hoping I could work with it more as an oracle, no luck so far.
• Tarot de El Dios de los Tres – I'm not sure what's happening here, it's another chaotic deck from Fournier. I don't have enough knowledge to say whether its use of different cultures is respectful or appropriative. I haven't spent any time with it at all and so didn't feel I could just reject it out of hand.

Problematic faves:

• Ancient Italian Tarot – a reconstruction combining the various Italian Tradition decks. Unsurprisingly they weren't particularly diverse, but I wanted a classic pip deck to work with, and I find this prettier and easier to handle than the only Marseille deck I have.
• Polski Tarot – a surprisingly complex modern pip deck. Unsurprisingly for where it came from – it's all-white. I think the average Pole sees diversity only as something that happens on TV and doesn't have much to do with “real life”. (Hell, maybe it's different now with the border crisis, I don't know).
• Encore Tarot – this guy definitely should have known better so I'm very disappointed. At the same time I recognize this is one of the best/easiest readers I have. An artist who took the RWS tradition and didn't water it down and really did it justice, creating something elegant that feels timeless, a tarot-reader's deck. It is however painfully straight and white, even if there is some age variety and not everyone is hot. Why, my man? I know there were BIPOC in your other decks.
• Tattoo Tarot (Ink and Intuition) – borders on gimmicky, a pip deck with a beautiful bold style similar to a Marseille without following its layout, while the little hints in each card nod at RWS meanings. It also has the best “feel” of all my decks, the paper texture, the weight of the cards, the smooth matte finish, how it sounds when it's shuffled. Unfortunately, not only is everyone white, the young gentlemen in the Courts all look like fascists with their alt-right undercuts. This creator also should have known better.

I also have out the Alchemical Visions Tarot but solely for it's chunky jungian guidebook. I don't intend to work with these cards, at least not for readings, as they are almost A5 in size. I enjoy jungian methods of working with the self, but I'm still not sold on archetypes and other aspects of his philosophy. I'm curious to see if this book feels more like potent bullshit, or repulsive bullshit.

I think once the depth year is over and I re-introduce purchasing I'll be more selective in what enters my collection. It's better to have one thought out deck I know won't bug me and I'll use a lot, even if it's more expensive and a pain to acquire, than five shiny gimmicky decks that I'll use twice and decide weren't worth their already cheap price. I need to remember to bring my values to the forefront when considering a purchase, and not get distracted by a cool theme or gorgeous aesthetics slapped onto something empty or slightly rotten.

This happens with some regularity, but usually with less clarity. There comes a point where I'm dissatisfied with the selection of decks I have out for playing with and want to try something else, something new, something more interesting. This time I'm beginning to think some decks are frustrating less because they're complicated, and more because they're just not that deep.

I watch a lot of tarot videos on youtube. You might think it's counterproductive and sabotages the whole depth year concept, and you'd be partly right. There is always a risk of seeing a new shiny thing you want to try. Fortunately most of those are indie decks and therefore “safe” – too expensive and too difficult to obtain anyway. But in my experience the more I watch and the more I see everyone working with and gushing about the same handful of decks each year, the less excited I am about them. I think it's because over time I can bypass everyone's hype and figure out what I think for myself. And usually it's that actually these super popular decks don't do anything for me. I don't have to have them just because youtubers who make a living off this are excited.

Recently I've been catching up with video responses to the #only10decks hashtag, again seeing a lot of repeats, whether of classic or more modern decks. These videos got me thinking how unexcited about my own unintentional collection I am. There are definitely decks I wouldn't want to part with and I might even be able to select ten of them, but it would be based on aesthetics or rarity, not how meaningful and rich and deep my experiences with the cards are. And that led me to realizing more clearly than before what a difference a deep deck makes, and how many of mine are just... gimmicky.

Reading with a thoroughly thought out deck is like a bath for the soul – comfort, nuance, clarity, understanding, connection. Reading with gimmick decks feels like sliding on a frozen puddle. I like variety, I like fun, I like different aesthetics, and I fall for the gimmicks easily. They're not worthless, far from it. I don't regret having those decks and playing around with them. But I think there is an unintentional, invisible cost. The more I play around with the gimmicky decks, the more it clouds my perception of what tarot is and could be, making it seem like this is all there is. So when I reach for one of the few deeper decks I have it comes as a shock to the system, in a very pleasant way.

Why don't I stay with the deep decks, then? Because there's always a “but”. They do need to be studied. They aren't my aesthetic. They have a weird physical feeling because of their gilding, or glossy finish. And there are so many tempting options to try and find one that ticks all the boxes, instead of just “deep”. As you can imagine – they often tick all the other boxes and “deep” is forgotten.

With the depth year cardinal rule of not buying decks I'm finally removing the distraction of “maybe there's a better one”. Because there's clearly not many better ones in the pool that I already have. My question is – should I pull out the few deep decks I have and focus entirely on those? Supplemented with a few “comfort” readers, for quick and easy answers..? Would they be satisfying enough – if I really dug into them – to completely remove that uninspired boredom? Or is any sort of restriction counterproductive?

I think I want to give it a serious shot while remaining flexible, it is after all barely the middle of the first month. I'll keep a few of each type out and accessible, and try to focus on the richest ones, with brief forays into the fun zone when needed. I expect there will be an itemized update.