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Turns out I have more going on than I thought. I don't want to start anything new until I've finished something first. Obviously there's the Stoic Journal which is just a daily thing I don't expect to finish ahead of time, so it's kind of taking up a “slot”, when it comes to attention and energy to spare. (I'm not counting reading fiction or playing games as projects, this is only about Output and directing active energy into my passions.)

Tarot de Luz keyword journal

This one's slow going. As usual I was excited about the deck in theory, but once it arrived it quickly lost my attention. I was expecting it to be more pink and sparkly, based on everything I saw online. But I like the project itself, I've never attempted to standardize the way I read pip decks using keywords as a springboard. It's always numerology + suit, or corresponding Major Arcanum + suit, so this is in a way going farther, if not deeper. And this isn't even a learning challenge, it's just a bunch of little journaling prompts.

Luckily I'm halfway there, precisely 39 cards down. And the output is pretty, I'm making it into a little booklet in LyX. I'm even thinking that once I finish this, I might want to do it all over again with a different pip deck, maybe even another Fournier pip deck, like the Tarot del Fuego, see how different the meanings can get when accompanied by other images. See what my own associations with the keywords are at a different point in time.

I'm not sure what my obstacle is here, probably the project is not super accessible. I've already moved the file shortcuts to my laptop's desktop, I need to keep the deck somewhere within reach as well.

Tarot Z crafty study journal

Similarly to the above, the aesthetic held my attention for a few days, and then I kind of overdid the crafty aspect, put pressure on that, and forgot to actually study the deck. Doesn't help that I couldn't really get through its LWB (little white book). I practice reading with this deck often enough, just not entirely sure what I'd write down, how to make the best use of the physical journal I've built for it.

I can definitely see there are cards that don't really fit too neatly with the traditional RWS meanings, maybe I could take notes on how – if at all – these do fit, and what I see in that card instead. Maybe those other meanings would tie into some other tarot systems? I don't think they would, intentionally, they're not matching up because it's an art deck, but it could be a fun exercise. I could also maybe design a whole series of personal readings? Maybe around the theme of the pandemic, since we're talking zombie apocalypse? Hm...

Busy Hands Journal

My low- to no-effort collage book. I intentionally wanted to make something not too big, so that I can make quick progress and have the satisfaction of finishing it, but somehow it's still too big. There are 39 spreads to be filled, I've done 5 and the front cover. Admittedly it hasn't been that long, I might still easily do it. And depending on how fast it gets fat with all the layers of glue, gesso, papers, paint, and sealant I might have to remove some pages so the spine holds? We'll see.

Knitted Reading Cloth Nr 2

I've already done a simple red one which goes with many of my decks. I have been gifted yarn in two colors and the green is a really unfortunate shade I have no idea what to do with. I decided on another reading cloth for now – if a deck doesn't go with a red cloth, it would probably match a green one, right? (That remains to be seen, it is a really strange hue). I'm trying a new stitch this time, so that's definitely stepping out of the comfort zone. Hell, even knitting itself is more out there for me than crochet. I'm around 60% done maybe, so the end is in sight.

If it doesn't work as a reading cloth, well... the upside to yarn craft rectangles is that you can stitch them together and stuff them in a duvet cover – voila, a blanket, and nobody has to know your shame.

Pollack's “New Tarot Handbook”

I thought I'd refresh my RWS basics going through this book with a more classic RWS deck. I think I started with the Tarot of the Cat People (which was my first RWS and second deck ever, back in the 90s), but I'm getting frustrated at the art. This one has no excuse for the images not to match the meanings, it was painted specifically to be a tarot deck. I think the author/artist was more interested in the world-building, I hear there's a super exhaustive companion book that reads almost like a travel guide or long dry wikipedia article about the world she's created. So I switched, first to the White Numen tarot, then to the Deviant Moon, because that one's really well made, but again – it's such a quirky aesthetic I'm not always in the mood for it.

I suppose I can just keep swapping decks in and out in order to make it through the book, although originally it was meant to be a one-deck bonding exercise. Despite this being one of the pivotal motives for the depth year (yearning for a close relationship with a deck, like with any other thing you have only one of and appreciate all the more for it), it's also one of the effects I'm most doubtful about being able to achieve.