#deck interview

1. What is your most important characteristic?

The Hound & Pear - Loyalty and friendship.

2. What are your strengths as a deck?

The Hawk & Thistle - Graceful persistence, keen observance.

3. What are your limits as a deck?

The Raccoon & Sycamore - Too much curiosity can be harmful.

4. What are you here to teach me?

The Opossum & Peony - Bashfulness, "play possum" when appropriate.

5. How can I best learn and collaborate with you?

The Frog & Lotus - Metamorphosis, change is natural and you cannot control everything.

6. What is the potential outcome of our working relationship?

The Horse & Bluebell - Modest fortitude, focus on your process rather than the reward.

Me: How would you describe yourself, in one card?

The Wild Unknown deck:

Me: ...

Clearly, graphic design is my passion. This is more for my own reference than prettiness, anyway. This spread is a modified version of a spread I found online, many moons ago, and found extremely useful. The questions have stayed more or less the same, at least in vibe, but the placements of the cards have been altered to suit my own flow.

The questions are as follows;

“What can I learn from you?”

“Describe yourself.”

“Describe me.”

“How can we best work together?”

“What are your strengths?”

“What are your weaknesses?”

23|Jan|2023 Pics from my deck interview with the Cosma Visions Oracle last week. Pleeeease zoom in to see the gorgeous art on those cards. Despite being an oracle deck, its structure is very similar to traditional tarot, with a major arcana and four minor suits (plus a bonus fifth suit that reflects the traditional court cards). My favorite detail is that the minor arcana form a cohesive image and narrative when you lay them out in order. For obvious reasons, I was obsessed with this deck for like a year before finally getting it.

Tell me about yourself. What is your most important characteristic?

What are your strengths as a deck?

What are your limits as a deck?

What are you here to teach me?

How can I best learn and collaborate with you?

Hey witchy friends and divination enthusiasts! Since I recently made a post on some tips for choosing a Tarot deck, I thought I’d include a post about deck interviews too. If you’re unfamiliar with deck interviews or maybe you've just never done one yourself, these are some tips that explain a little bit about the process. You can find plenty of deck interview spreads online or on Instagram, but please feel free to make up your own!

For me, my set up is usually as follows:

Card 1: Who are you? or What is your personality?

Card 2: What do I need to know about you?

Card 3: What are your strengths? (You can draw multiple cards for this).

Card 4: What are your weaknesses? (You can also do multiples for this one).

Card 5: Who am I to you? or What is my personality to you?

Card 6: What are you here to teach me/help me with/etc.?

Card 7: How can I best work with you?

You’re welcome to use this if you’d like but it’s only one example! As always, do whatever feels best to you. You can make your deck interview as long or as short as you like or ask whatever questions you feel necessary.

A deck of tarot cards is a useful divination tool, but that doesn’t mean we have to be all stuff about it! Tools can have personality, and we can attach ourselves too them in meaningful ways. (Of course, you probably don’t have a special relationship with all of your tools magical or otherwise, but a tarot deck is a bit different from your microwave.) 

Once you’ve started to develop your tarot practice a bit, you will begin to find which routines work best for starting, building, and maintaining deck “relationships.” Until then, these methods can be a good jumping off point.

The Tried and True

These methods are ones you’ve probably seen floating around the internet or even heard mentioned by tarot-obsessed friends. That’s because they’re effective! But, don’t think that these are prescriptive. Since these are so basic, there is a lot of room to adapt them to what feels right for you. Use your intuition!

Sleeping with Your Deck Under Your Pillow

One of the reasons this is so popular is because it is a passive way to start working on that reader/deck relationship. Part of bonding with a tarot deck is getting your energy into the cards. Keeping them close to you for long periods of time, like when your asleep, is great for this.

Carrying Your Deck Around

Is there anything easier that putting something in your backpack or pocket? Like sleeping with your deck, keeping the cards on your person while you go about your day introduce the deck to your energy. The major difference here is that you are awake to take them out and interact with them.

Daily Readings

Your main goal is to get to a point where you and your deck have a nice back and forth and an easy reading relationship (unless your deck is a real spitfire, then things might be a bit more interesting), so doing light readings with a new deck is always useful. This gets your hands on the cards and, if you ask some simple questions, can give you a feel for how your deck likes to respond.

Deck Maintenance

I’ll talk more about deck maintenance in another post, but small tasks like cleansing and charging and otherwise maintaining your deck are a great way to strengthen your bond.

Shuffling

You might be thinking, “Hold on! I’m not ready to read yet!” Don’t worry. I’m not asking you to. One of my favorite methods of bonding with a deck (or even maintaining a bond with a deck I’ve had for a while) is shuffling. You don’t have to pull out and wild card tricks or high roller shuffling skills for this. Just passively shuffle the deck while you watch Netflix or read a book. This shuffling has no motive other than closeness. It’s like cuddling!

Deck “Interviews”

The name “Deck Interview” is a little misleading because by this point your deck already has the job, but that doesn’t mean you two don’t need to get to know each other. Using the questions below as a guide, shuffle and pull six cards from your deck. Read each card as the deck’s response to your question.

A general introduction

What are your strengths?

What are your limitations?

What can I learn from reading with you specifically?

What are some challenges of working with you?

Outcomes of this relationship

You can flip all of your cards, read, and be done with the interview if you’re trying to be quick, but I’ve had a lot of success flipping one card at a time and considering it as an expansive answer to the corresponding interview question. When I’m doing a deck interview, you’re likely to hear me say things like, “Oh, so that’s how it’s going to be?” or “Well, I look forward to seeing how that works out for us.” Have a conversation! You can even pull clarifying cards if you need to.

Fun Spreads

This was not something I did for bonding until I got my Mystic Monday deck. Not long after getting that deck, I sat down with a friend who had also recently gotten Mystic Monday, and we did “meme” spreads back and forth. My two favorites for this are “Expectation vs. Reality” (you provide the scenario and the deck responds) and “What ___ Thinks of You” (you know the old Facebook meme?) readings.

I’ve found that fun spreads and “meme” readings are similar to shuffling in that the typically don’t require a lot of energy while still getting you engaged with your deck. (They’re also good practice! See my “Practice Makes Perfect” post.) Plus, all of the joy and laughter that comes with these readings really sets a positive tone for your relationship.

Bonding with your deck is an ongoing process, and depending on how many of the above practices and exercises you do and how often, it can take time. You can sleep with your deck, but you really can’t bond with it over night. Don’t rush. You can still work with a deck as your bond strengthens (in fact, that will probably help). Just be patient and follow your intuition.