Why I Got Rid of Most of My Tarot Decks (GASP!!)

by - April 10, 2019



I think the last time I wrote about my tarot decks I said I had around 25.  Now that number has dwindled to around 10.  Crazy, right??

Why?

Well, for once, I have been trying to adopt a more minimalist lifestyle when it comes to my stuff.  Not that I am a minimalist by any means (if you could only see my attic! Haha!)  Rather, I am just trying to purge my excess so I can make room for what nurtures me.

I am an artist, a writer, a seamstress, a life coach, a bullet journaler, knitter/crocheter, clothes designer and upcycler, furniture upcycler, and a tarot reader.  And each of my talents require physical items in order to practice them properly, all of which used to overtake my house.  Before, my life was about excess.  For one, I used to have my own art studio, which was the biggest room in our house and it was filled to the brim with every type of art supply imaginable.  I am not just "an artist", I am a painter (both watercolor and acrylic), a miniaturist, art journaler, book-binder (I create art journals), and I do mixed media.  To top it all off, we moved from a small house to a huge house in 2010, so instead of getting rid of anything, my massive collection of supplies just grew.

Ever since I was a little, my motto was "the more, the better".  So my tarot collection grew out of control as well.  I would buy tarot decks on a whim, and a few years ago my neighbor's sister passed away and she gave me all of her sister's tarot decks, which is where most of my collection came from.  It was overwhelming to say the least.

In 2016, instead of creating New Year's resolutions, I started picking words to represent how I wanted my year to go.  I'd choose a word and then let that word guide me in every single choice I made.  My word that year was "simplicity".  I have a bit of ADHD (can you tell??) but this became the first time I made a plan for my year and stuck with it.

When 2017 came, I kept "simplicity" and added more words.  And since then, I keep the same words from the previous years and add more.  This year I chose the words creation, completion, and exploration.  This means I want to spend the year creating as much as possible, completing it all (and the stuff before it), and exploring new ideas (and keeping a journal of my findings).  But, ever since 2016, I've been on a journey of simplification for every aspect of my life.  For someone with ADHD, this has been a lifesaver.

Then last summer we decided to move (now, this is a long and terrible story, which I talk about here).  But before our "move", we decided that our huge house full of stuff was NOT going to come with us.  So we started to purge everything we owned.  We wanted a fresh start in a new place.  So I sold over half of my decks, and donated thousands of dollars of art supplies to a resale shop nearby.  Little by little, we donated, threw away and sold almost 80% of what we owned.

When we came back to town a month after this mess, we came back with nothing.  Not even a bed to sleep on and hardly any clothes.  We did find someone to rent us an apartment for nothing until we got on our feet, which was amazing (and we went from a 2,000 sqft house, to this 750 sqft apartment).  We lived that way for six months, though eventually my ex-husband gave us a couple beds and some couches, which we were very grateful for.  But during that time of living with nothing, we learned to live with the complete opposite of what we always had lived: from excess to minimalness (which actually was the name of the blog I tried to start before all this mess happened....when it did happen, the blog seemed like a lie, because we weren't choosing to be minimal, we were just coming out of homelessness, so I deleted it LOL).

But before we left, before we chose to even move, I had gotten rid most of my tarot decks.

Why?  

Well, it wasn't just about being more minimal.  I had gone through a metamorphosis with my tarot reading, going from traditional way of reading to the Soul Archaeology way and I found that a majority of these decks just did not fit with the way I read. 

And why keep something if it doesn't nurture you?  

That's the motto I live by now, that encompasses 2016's word "simplicity" with Marie Condo's motto of "Does it bring you joy?".  Tarot decks bring me joy.  Almost all of them do!  So when I tried to purge the in the past, I couldn't get rid of them because they all brought me joy!  But when I ask "Does it nurture me?", that was a different story.  I could not honestly say that my decks all nurtured me since I couldn't even use most of them.

So you can do that with your own items, ask "Does it bring me joy?" first.  If it's a yes, then ask "Does it nurture me?"  An item nurtures you because you can use it.  Tarot decks are pretty to look at and thumb through, but it you can't use them, they why keep them?  Let them bless someone else's life for a bit instead.  If an item is unusable like art, it nurtures you by giving you joy.  I keep clothing for too long because I feel like it brings me joy.  Then I will catch a glimpse of myself wearing it and see that it certainly doesn't nurture me LOL!  So, every so often, I will gather up my clothes, get out my full length mirror, and put on a fashion show for myself.  If I have items that can't be worn with anything else (like the right pants), then it's probably not nurturing me.  And out it goes to the resale shop!

I used to think I "collected" tarot decks.  Now I see that my "collections" are only me not wanting to let go of them for various reasons (I certainly had a hoarding mentality).  Having a lot of something doesn't make you better at it.  It just makes your house cluttered and messy.  That was hard lesson to learn for someone who's been like that her entire life.  And the only way I truly learned it was to almost lose everything I owned.  Learning to live with nothing led me to crave living with less.  

You can be amazing tarot reader (and with SA method, we all have the ability to be amazing at it) with only one deck.  If that deck nurtures the shit out of you?  Then unless you want more decks, there is no need to get any more (but then again, tell me one tarot reader who only has *ONE* deck?? LOL).

And it goes the other way too, you can have a billion decks and still not be very good at it.  This was the case with my neighbor's sister: she loved the idea of tarot reading, but never really got into it, she just collected decks (and wigs, and glasses, and everything else you can think of).  Being a collector makes you a collector (which isn't always a bad thing, it just depends on what you want out of life).  Being good at something you love doesn't mean having to own as many of those tools as possible (although, tell that to my paintbrush collection!! 😜).


Moving from excess to less isn't easy.  Check out the Minimalist's page on their "Packing Party" to learn how to do this in a drastic way (which what finally worked for me and I truly believe is the only way to work on us hoarding "collector" mentality people--not that all collectors are hoarders by any means, but those of us who are, we know who we are 😏 ).  But it can be done.  I am proof.  And if you're anything like me, then just know there IS a way to change.  It just takes some drastic measures LOL





So, are you like me and have a "collector"/hoarder mentality?  Have you ever pared down your house to the basics or gotten rid of a large amount of tarot supplies?  Let me know below how you did it and how it effected you.  




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