On a whim (I blame it on Nisaba at Aeclectic Tarot), I have purchased the somewhat hard-to-find deck, The Celtic Tarot (Element, 3rd Edition, 2002).It arrived today, which was a real surprise as I only just ordered it from ABE Books a couple of days a go. Kudos to them for getting it into the post so quickly. The set I bought includes a sturdy slip case, the deck in its own lightweight box, a softcover guidebook, and a hardcover 'journal', which is entirely blank. I don't know why I didn't realise this deck was coming to me secondhand, considering I paid much less for it than I found it on Amazon. So I was surprised when I opened it to find the edges of the card deck quite grubby, and the 9 of Wands is badly creased, almost like it had been folded over. I think it was most likely an attempted riffle shuffle gone wrong.
As I held the deck, I began to get three very strong impressions. One, this deck needs to be cleansed and consecrated to my own use. Two, there is a lot of pent up energy in this deck, which seems to be coming from its previous owner rather than the cards themselves. Three, the person who used these cards was deeply devoted to them.
Even though just handling the cards made my hands feel grotty, I decided to shuffle and do an impromptu reading on the previous owner. Who was she? (or he?) What did he use the cards for? Why did she get rid of the deck? And I drew: