Alright, so I decided to really dive into the Marseille Tarot. You hear things, you know? How it’s the “original” or whatever. I figured, why not give it a proper go. I’d been messing around with other decks, fancier ones with all the artwork spelled out for you, but something felt… off. Like getting predigested food.
Getting My Hands Dirty
First thing I did was get a deck. Not some expensive collector’s item, just a basic, sturdy one. When I opened it, I remember thinking, “Well, this is… stark.” The Majors were okay, kinda recognized those characters from history books or something. But the Minors? Man, those pip cards. Just rows of cups, coins, swords, and batons. No little scenes of people doing stuff. My first thought was, “How in the world am I supposed to get anything from this?” It felt like work, real work.
I spent a good few weeks just looking at them, shuffling them. I tried a few books, some old, some new. Most of them felt like they were just guessing or trying to make it fit into systems from other, newer decks. It was frustrating. I’d lay out a few cards and just… stare. Blank. Like trying to read a language I didn’t know, and the dictionary was written by a poet who was deliberately vague.
The Grind and a Glimmer
There were times I nearly chucked the whole lot in a drawer. I’d see folks online with their Rider-Waite-Smith decks, all those clear images, and think, “Why am I making this so hard on myself?” It’s like choosing to chop wood with a dull axe when there’s a chainsaw right there. But something kept pulling me back. Maybe it was stubbornness. Maybe I just hated the idea of being beaten by a stack of printed paper.
So, I changed tactics. I stopped trying to memorize meanings someone else wrote. Instead, I just started to really look at the cards themselves. I’d pick one, say the Four of Coins, and just stare at it. Notice the colors. The way the shapes were arranged. The number four – what did that feel like? Solid? Stable? A bit stuck, maybe? I did this for every single card. It was slow. Tedious, sometimes.
I remember one evening, I was just fiddling, not really trying to “read” anything important. I pulled three cards about some silly little daily question, something I’ve forgotten now. And looking at the pattern, the flow from one card to the next, the way the batons seemed to point, or the coins felt heavy or light – it just… clicked. Not in a “Eureka!” shout-out-loud way, but a quiet, “Huh. Okay. I think I see something.” It wasn’t a story, not like the illustrated decks. It was more like a feeling, a direction. A nudge.
How I Use It Now
That was the turning point. I realized the Marseille wasn’t about telling you a pre-written story. It was about giving you the raw ingredients. You had to do the cooking yourself. It forces you to use your own intuition, your own senses. Those stark pips? They became less of a wall and more of an open space, where my own mind could fill in the blanks, guided by the structure of the numbers and suits.
Now, it’s pretty much the main deck I reach for. It’s honest. It doesn’t try to pretty things up. If the message is blunt, the cards look blunt. There’s a kind of integrity to that, I think. I don’t do massive, complicated spreads much. Just a few cards, and I let them talk. Sometimes it’s clear, sometimes it’s still a bit of a head-scratcher, but it always feels… genuine. Like advice from an old, wise, slightly grumpy friend who doesn’t mince words.
It’s definitely not for everyone. If you want pretty pictures and instant answers, this probably ain’t it. But if you’re willing to sit with it, to wrestle with it a bit, there’s something really solid there. It’s a practice, you know? Not a party trick. And that’s what I’ve come to appreciate about it. It’s a tool that makes you work, and because of that, what you get out of it feels earned.
