Tarot for Your Self: Introduction and Roses

Okay, so it’s time for the first post of working my way through Mary K. Greer‘s Tarot for Your Self. Yay!

The book begins with an introduction section and I thought it would be a good idea that we take a moment to touch upon that. I’ll start with chapter 1 tomorrow.

The major point of this book is to help you establish your own personal relationship with the tarot, as well as to work on developing an awareness of your intuition.

Mary goes on to explain how to use this book, i.e. it’s a workbook. There are exercises in it and you should do them all, in order. It doesn’t seem to be designed for flipping around, although I’m sure on re-reads you could do just that. So, as suggested, I’m going to work through this in chapter order, one exercise at a time.

And she doesn’t even wait for the first chapter to start up with the first exercise: Write down everything that enters your head about roses for a few minutes. Eh. I have to admit, I was on a bus commuting to the city when I read this. I didn’t have paper or a pen with me. Whoops. So the first thing I’ll point out with reading this, have something to write with! Whether you write in the book or on separate paper is up to you. But you need something to write with…and a tarot deck, of course! And like I mentioned in my initial post on Tarot Basics, I’ll be sticking with my Universal Waite Tarot Deck for these exercises.

Anyway, back to the rose exercise. I rambled a few things about it, first running through the various colors of roses and what they mean: red = passion, pink = love, yellow = friendship, white = purity. Then I shifted to random thoughts: petals, delicate, soft, thorns, pain, green, blossom, lush, pungent, inspiration, bud, and growth.

She also adds that you should look through your cards to see the way roses have been used in your deck. Then questions, do the thoughts you jotted down give you insights into why roses were used in certain cards? What do you think? See any of those roses differently now?