The Vision Quest cards my friend gave me years ago are of a native design, and visually very beautiful. I still sometimes use them as a means to focus and "tell the story." They are not actually tarot cards. Most people read cards by memorizing the cards meaning. I do not work in that way.
I used this set at the very beginning more as a security blanket than anything else. After I had been doing sessions for a few months, and at that point had read over a hundred individuals, I had a phone call from a friend who said she had in her hands one of my "cards." I'd been doing a lot of promotion recently so I asked her where she had picked it up. No, she replied, one of your cards. Still confused I asked her to clarify. She had been gardening and discovered one of my cards from the set that I used under her own patio deck. It was a bit battered and bent but not too much the worse for wear. The traditional meaning of the card is that "you have everything you need within; you have no need for anything else." I realized I had for several months essentially not been playing with a full deck!!! I still have that card as a constant reminder that everything I need is within.
I find that especially first time clients are a little unnerved that I come out with all this stuff and sometimes the fact that there are cards on the table is reassuring for them. On subsequent sessions I may not even touch them. One summer I worked in a tea room reading tea leaves. I'm not sure the owner was terribly impressed that I would quite blithely admit to the customers afterwards when they asked if I had seen all that I said in the tea leaves, I replied: "Nope! All I see is a bunch of soggy tea leaves!"
At most these are simply things for me to focus on but to be perfectly honest they are just a pack of cardboard cards, soggy tea leaves, or even a soggy tea bag…"
© Shena Meadowcroft
