When I received The Wildwood Tarot I had a quick look through and quickly realised that these are very different to the Rider-Waite or Thoth frameworks I am used to. So before reviewing it I wanted to work with the deck to get to know it.

So I started drawing a card each day to reflect on. I did this at night, treating this deck more like an oracle deck, I didn’t want to assume that I knew what it was going to mean. I did of course make the correlation to the Rider-Waite counterpart, but that is something I do unconsciously now when faced with decks that are not aligned with that format.

I am glad I treated this deck more like an oracle because it is vastly different.

This is what I drew from the deck.

The First Day I pulled the Five of Arrows with the key word of Frustration on the card. The Second day I pulled Nine of Arrows with the key word of Dedication on the card. The third day I pulled The Seer (A Major Arcana Card) and the fourth day I pulled the Ten of Arrows with the key word of Instruction on the card.

At this point I stopped drawing each day. I was surrounded by Arrows. This makes sense with a lot of strategic things that I am putting in place at work but I kept on going back to the Rider-Waite meanings on the cards.

To read the Cards in The Wildwood the summary of the reading would be to focus and let go of your frustrations, stay the course, listen to your intuition and also go to those who are older and wiser for instruction and to also to share what I know.

If the same four cards were pulled form any of my Rider-Waite decks. The story would have read more along these lines. 5 of Swords – There is currently a falling out or disagreement happening and it can get nasty. 9 of Swords – Worry and bad dreams or being woken by anxiety or night terrors. The High Priestess – Listen to your intuition and seek the mysteries. 10 of Swords – What is happening is as bad as it is going to get, the cycle is complete and things will change.

So which do I listen too? The funny thing is that both of those stories actually hold meaning in different areas of my life. So maybe both.

It is an interesting lesson in recognizing just how much can change when you are using different decks.