You Bought a Deck…Now What?

Congratulations on your first tarot or oracle deck! This may be the beginning of an obsession, and for that I’m sorry not sorry! :) There is no reason why you can’t start pulling cards right away, but I like to take some time to cleanse and connect with my new decks first, so read on to learn more about my personal practice.

First, a note about rituals, tools, and setting up your space

I like to start any ritual with a grounding meditation. My favorite is a visualization of planting roots in the Earth, feeling the support of Mother Earth and allowing her to guide and protect my energy. That’s not totally necessary, but at a minimum, I’d encourage you to close your eyes and take three deep breaths, inhaling through your nose and exhaling through your mouth. It’s important to feel calm and open to receiving, not anxious or distracted. 

Also, the tools I describe below are totally optional. I work with sage and Palo Santo in a way that feels good to me, honoring the indigenous people and rituals of origination. I fully recognize that there is an element of cultural appropriation, and again, I do my best to honor and respect the origination of the rituals. That being said, the most important tool you have to use is your own energy. You don’t need crystals or herbs or any other physical tools. As long as your intention is to clear and connect with your deck, so it will be. :)

Cleansing/Charging the deck

The first thing I  do when I receive a new deck (after squealing with excitement as I unwrap it, of course) is to “cleanse” or “clear” the deck using sage or Palo Santo. I also like to use a piece of selenite to set the cards on as I go. 

Start by grounding and setting up your space for the ritual. Then light your sage or Palo Santo and one by one, go through the deck and wave a bit of the smoke over the cards. Make sure you touch each card, and restack them on the selenite piece if you’re using it. You don’t have to spend much time with each card, although you can note any that grab your attention as you go. 

Again, if you don’t have any of the tools or choose not to work with them, that’s totally fine. As you go through your deck, take time to focus your energy and connect with each card. You don’t need to study or memorize the cards, just take a few seconds to look at each one and notice what feelings or intuitive hits come up for you.

This ritual can also be performed any time you want to “charge” your deck. If you lose connection with it, or have let it sit too long, you can always come back and reconnect with it. You can also leave your deck on a selenite crystal under a full moon to give it an extra charge.

Introductory reading

After you’ve cleared the deck, it’s time to get to know your new friend! Give the cards a good shuffle, any way that feels good to you. You can shuffle them like a deck of cards, or spread them all out on a large surface and mix them around, or you can just cut and restack the deck a few times.

Next, it’s time to ask some questions! I like to treat this first reading kind of like an interview. Below are some questions you can ask, but feel free to ask any questions of your own! Ask the question, either out loud or in your mind, and then pull a card from the deck.

• What do you want me to know?

• What are your strengths?

• What are your weaknesses?

• How can you best support me?

• How can we work together?

You can ask as many questions as you’d like, and take your time with interpreting the answers. Most decks come with a guidebook and I find it extremely helpful to interpret the cards if I’m not getting an intuitive hit right away. Remember, this is your deck and your practice, so do what feels good to YOU.

In the next post, I’m going to introduce you to the spread that I created to work with both tarot and oracle cards. See you then!