Crossover effect -- a good thing, I'm thinking

I did a 3-card draw with my Celtic Tarot this morning for the day, and I found myself doing something I seldom do with tarot: I looked at the first and second cards to see how they together make a new meaning. I almost always use positional spreads, and read cards as chunk-chunk-chunk of information and weave them into a story. But after only a week of pondering Lenormand cards, my first impulse was to look at the Star and 6 of Coins and wonder how they affect each other to create something that they couldn't mean apart from each other. I have to admit, I have never really done that.

Interestingly, my daily draw with Lenormand had the Stars card, and then my daily draw with tarot also had the Star card. I can't help but think it's a kind of little joke--because we're going to see a movie today about aliens. Ha ha!

I know it's not a good thing to try to read the Lenormand like tarot and vice versa, but surely card linking in tarot goes right back to Eteilla and is a true cartomantic skill. So this is all very exciting for me in my development as a reader.

'Balancing the Moment' with Cosmic Tarot

I first used this new-deck technique with Gaian Tarot, and as I just received my new Cosmic Tarot yesterday, it seemed like a good thing to try again! (I prefer this technique to 'new deck' interviews, as I never really felt a new deck was 'telling' me anything when I tried to talk to it about itself. I always found that technique a bit awkward).  

Step One. Separate the deck. Look through the deck and create two piles: Cards I like, Cards I dislike. 
Step Two. Reduce the piles. Study each pile carefully, and select 3-6 cards you like best of all, and 3-6 cards you most dislike. 
Step Three. Find the balance. Choose the card you like the most. Read it for its negative aspects and associations. Reflect upon how that applies in your life right now. Then choose the card you most dislike. Read it for its positive aspects and assocations. Reflect upon how that applies to your life right now.

Step One. 
On first sorting, there are only 15 cards in the 'Don't Like' pile. So I must really like this deck!  The cards I like either have an instantly obvious meaning to me, OR I just really like the art work, or both. The cards I dislike disturb or confuse me. (Example: Ten of Swords shows a bald male with glowing eyes, a beam of light emitting from his open mouth, being stabbed from all directions by little swords. Looks like a nightmare. I don't like nighmarish imagery.)

Steps Two & Three
Cards I like:

Cosmic Tarot US Games 1988

I find these cards very beautiful, particularly the High Priestess. She is my favourite card in this deck so far, and possibly my favourite High Priestess of all my decks. She seems to beckon me to join her in those deep waters, which are really my deep waters...She's gorgeous. The 9 of Cups is a lovely image, the colours are wonderfully warm, and the light and shadow playing the faces of the couple are doing good things to them. She is beautiful. There's something that feels sort of 'Deco' to me about the image. I find it really attractive. Finally, that pink flamingo is so eyecatching in The Star, and the diamond alice band she's wearing echoes the points of light all over the card. Wonderful image. 

What is the shadow meaning of my favourite card?  Well, the High Priestess reversed could be a lot like the Queen of Swords on a very bad day. Withdrawn, suffering from mood swings. If you talk to her you never know if she'll (curtly) answer you or just flat out snap your head off. She probably won't share anything that's not intended to cut. She uses her insight to sting and wound rather than to help. 

Cards I don't like:

Cosmic Tarot US Games 1988

I think the card I dislike most in the deck is Ten of Swords, but to be fair, I quite dislike all of these cards. That Devil card is just awful, I hate his face and nose ring, he just looks stupid. And the Fool is quite sinister looking, don't like his face, either. 

Ten of Swords reversed; it's not a card for which I've given much thought to shadow meaning. But if the 10 of Swords upright is genuine pain and anguish, maybe the 10 of Swords reversed is being a drama queen or an emotional hypochondriac. 

Huh! So is this a deck that will help me see when I need to get over myself?  Looks like it. :) And who doesn't need that message every now and then!

The First Operation

The first operation is a technique used in the Golden Dawn, the beginning of which involves a curious ritual which, I suppose, is to see whether the reader is in touch with the 'energies' of the querent enough to proceed with a reading. It's like a test of the water, perhaps? I was intrigued by this idea when I read about it recently, and so I made a quick study of the Golden Dawn method, which involves assigning the querent a significator and then shuffling the deck and dividing it into four piles, read from right to left, and assigned the names 'Yod - Heh - Voh - Heh', YWHW, or Jehovah. This Qabbalistic and ceremonial, as are all things Golden Dawn, and I found these didn't resonate with me. What you do is then search each pile to find the significator and use this to determine the nature of the question. If the querent affirms that you have correctly identified the nature of the question, you should do the reading. If not, the reading should end, to be attempted again another day.

I decided to adapt this technique to my own way of thinking, and instead of assigning the four piles as YWHW, to make them 'Fire - Water - Air - Earth'.  (I still lay them out right to left, as I'm left-handed and always cut a deck to the left.)  In my mind, they represent the progression of  'inception - feeling - thought - manifestation'.

Here's my version: