The Dark Mansion Tarot!

I don't know if I can adequately find the words to express and explain The Dark Mansion Tarot.  I also wholeheartedly realize these things are subjective.  So, do understand that I am a person who loves this art-style and vibrant color pallet.  I obviously got it because it is a Tarot deck, but I find myself at times solely zeroing in on the artistry aside from that.  Such clarity, such resolution, how in the world did they capture this quality of color on these cards?  It's far more than I imagined with watching people's YouTube reviews and social media image uploads.  It's like the wonder of the Yankee Candle company capturing the ocean in a scent, so utterly succinctly. 

My son is colorblind, and last year we got him Enchroma colorblind glasses for Christmas.  When he got them, we went straight to the movies to see "Spider-Man:  Into the Spider-Verse", because those reds in the movie he would see for the first time in such a way.  I thought about that when looking at this deck.  People getting Enchroma glasses should look at the deck without and without the glasses to see how incredibly they pop.

Sure the art-style is reminiscent of Tim Burton, but also the style you find in the Coraline cartoon, The Tale of Despereaux, and many others beyond and even before Burton that play with proportion in animation- there's a name for this and I can't seem to think of it.  Aside from style- the genre slides form Victorian to Steampunk, and Gothic.  A visual delight to be sure.

Whatever your optical magnetism, I hope you find it in your perfect Tarot deck.  This one is a surefire winner for anyone who adores the same kinds of things I do.  The quality is visual, physical, and mental/intuitive (as far as reading them goes).  I recommend them in SPADES.  #cartomancyreferenceonfleek

Impatience

Can I just reiterate how exited I am to get a The Dark Mansion Tarot???  I only have one other indie deck, and it was a gift from a friend- The Golden Thread (I love that one as well).

I just never thought I’d be able to get this.  I’m coming back to Tarot at a really tight financial time.  My husband gave me the money to order it for my birthday from his second job.  We really should not have done it.   But man... this is really one hell of a gift.  It’s pretty funny too because it’s not like I haven’t had gifts in my life that we’re far more valuable monetarily-speaking.   But independent decks don’t sell forever, and I’ve never had the absolute magnetism to any other deck as I have with this one.  I can tell even before it’s in my hands that I will regard it as one of my prized possessions.

And so I wait... it’s in the mail.  And mail from Poland is a bastard of an interval.

Gender balance in decks, for *me*.

I’ve never been into the goddess or angel decks- for these reasons... I really like decks to be balanced with both men and women- because the world has *both* men and women in it.  If the cards are to reflect things happening in our world, I want a deck to reflect the differences I deal with. 

I am a married woman with an adult son.  What’s happening in my personal world has more chances to deal with men than women - so I want to see both represented in my cards... getting the clearest picture is best for me.

This isn’t to say people can’t choose otherwise for whatever their needs may be.  And it’s also true I have a few animal decks where it’s ambiguous at times.  But I prefer ambiguous than a one-gendered deck.  It has nothing to do with me being adverse to female empowerment.  Of course I empower women and want to be empowered myself- but in the wide, wide world of life, we are all in this together, influencing and impacting everything that happens.  I want to keep my interpretations of the cards available to more than one thing.  Visuals go a long way with me being able to come to the best conclusions.  And if visuals weren’t important...we would have Tarot at all.  

Observation

What I want the most out of a journey with being a card reader- is growing in that gift.  I do find one of the biggest topics in many online social groups is the number of decks a person has.  More of a collection thing than a reader thing.  I may even seem a bit guilty as my first post here listed what I’d gotten so far.  I do want to be clear that collecting isn’t my goal or purpose.  I like getting new cards with the idea new visuals can spark more within me,  but that’s really it.  I have a list of things I want, sure... but I really want to talk about how those decks make me feel and what they conjure and bring to the surface.  I don’t want this to be about “shopping” and keeping up with who has what.  I want to go deep- not be shallow.  This isn’t to say all collectors are shallow... I am just not into some of the vibe I get.  I mean, Kelly from The Truth In Story has a big catalog of her own cards, but she truly assesses them beyond the surface on her YouTube channel.

Learning personalities in the Tarot community...

Over the summer when I decided to get back into Tarot after so long - I started googling for decks.  I found The Dark Mansion Tarot before I knew it was a big deal in the card community.  I had no idea how popular it was, although it didn’t surprise me.

After a couple months of binge-watching Tarot YouTubers, I learned which decks were the most commonly adored, which ones I wanted to own someday, and which ones I had no desire for.

The Fountain Tarot, The Wild Unknown, The Spiral Tarot, The Naked Heart Tarot- big deals among the masses... but not even a tinge of interest from me.  I feel like I should be ducking tomatoes, here.  And my beloved, coveted The Dark Mansion?  Lots of love out there- yet a couple of my favorite YouTubers were not too impressed with it.

I started to learn more about personalities and decks.  I wondered if readers size each other up based on the kinds of decks they use? Some do!  Some people even call into question the actual ability to read with decks they find to be “cutesy”.  I thought about the people who would question me and my Tarot journey in using the kinds of decks that attract me.  In the Tarot Nerds Facebook group- someone posted about people using cute decks as if they had a problem and couldn't be taken seriously.  Needless to say it started getting heated and the comments were disabled for review after a bit of back and forth and rising smoke.

Within every circle of life- as much as people seem to be cut from the same cloth, we all still have our own style and way of being.  While it may seem frustrating to some- I'm settling into it being fascinating.  I'm okay with being me!

My intro to The Hermit's Cave on Facebook on 9/10/19

Just a cut and paste of what I shared there- figured it was also a good way to introduce myself to this new blog...

My real name is Heidi, but I go by Panda Fortune on this profile (I’ll answer to either 😊). I am 45 years old and live in New Orleans. I started reading Tarot cards when I was a teenager. I had two decks- a standard RWS and The Gill Tarot, which at the time I just didn’t like (it didn’t look like Tarot to me in a world where different decks were judged that way). I only read for myself. But when I was about 25 years old, I packed up all of my supernatural type books and gadgets in a move and never unpacked them. I had nothing against these things, I guess I just wasn’t progressing with the cards as much as I’d wanted to. I relied on the books and didn’t give myself enough credit to work without them. And along with that, I never really gelled with standard RWS as much of a purist I purported to be.

Flash forward 20 years (the end of June 2019), I got this massive urge to unpack my things and start using cards again. I couldn’t find my RWS anywhere (still can’t), but I did find The Gill. As I explained I didn’t prefer that deck even back in 1990, the cards are still in order and have never been shuffled. The box has a couple little dings on it, but the cards inside are in mint condition. Looking at it and remembering that I just didn’t like it back then… I set out to get myself a new deck.

The first thing I did was look on Amazon, and I was floored by how many decks that are available today. When I was a teen, the only thing that you could ever find in a bookstore really was RWS. Other decks existed, but you had to look for them and go to specialty shops. Today, with the Internet and a *little* more of an acceptance of Tarot- we see everything available via major merchants. It’s really only been about 10 weeks, and I have 20 new Tarot decks and 4 Lenormand 😂. My husband just ordered the 2nd edition of The Dark Mansion for me! I’m just out of my mind excited to receive that one.

I started binge watching Tarot-specific YouTube channels and was quite frankly shocked there was such a large community out here just waiting for me to find them 🙂 I’m mostly upset that I waited so long to recapture this passion, and have missed out on the Idiosyncradeck! She says that will never be for sale again and I know I’ll probably never be able to afford one out there at this point. #crestfallen

In my YouTube binges I learned about Katey Flowers’ love for The Gill and realized for many years I have had a gem I’ve never given a chance to. People were looking for it when it was out of print and it’s been sitting in a box in my closet for years. I listened to what she had to say about the deck, as well as reading a review about them from Benebell Wen. I took a quick glance of the cards without yet shuffling them, and I am understanding more about what that deck has to offer. It’s still in order and unshuffled, but I do believe I will give some time to it.

This is what I’ve accumulated so far (several have been gifts):

1 Gill Tarot
2 Centennial - crappy print from China (eBay)
3 Universal Waite - tin
4 Radiant Rider Waite - tin
5 Biddy Everyday Tarot
6 Mystical Manga Tarot
7 Joie de Vivre
8 Tarot of Pagan Cats Mini
9 Santa Muerte
10 Ceccoli Mini
11 Harmonious Mini
12 Golden Thread
13 Spiritsong
14 Illuminated Playing Cards
15 The Dreaming Way Tarot
16 Universal Tarot Mini
17 Tarot of White Cats Mini
18 Chrysalis Tarot
19 Ostara Tarot
20 Panda Tarot
21 The Dark Mansion (shipping to me soon!)

Lenormand:
1 Gilded Reverie
2 The Dreaming Way
3 Under the Roses
4 Bluebird

I’m looking forward to interacting with you all and continuing to be amazed about the new world of Tarot via themes as well as diverse interpretations.