I was moving in to a new apartment. I was trying to clean out the closet. Up in the back of the top shelf I found this thing, I didn’t know what it was. It looked like the charred remains of what, I couldn’t tell. A stack of cards with pictures on them. I showed it to my roommate. She said, “That’s a Tarot deck. I wonder why someone burned it and hid it.”
 
I took out the card called Temperance and put it up on the refrigerator.
 
That was The Aquarian Tarot by David Palladini, published in 1970. He was only 24 years old when he created these seventy eight paintings. I’ve worn out four copies of that deck. It’s still the only one I use.
 
I love to see all the different decks people own. The art and craft of Tarot is wonderful. So many beautiful ways to show forth the traditional imagery. My Tarot-reading friends own drawers full of decks. I love looking at them. But I’m not a collector, myself. I’m only trying for the best reading I can give to the client. The number of different decks I might own doesn’t seem helpful to that purpose. The Aquarian has a lot of space in it where I can nerd out and “see” the pictures that aren’t there, and that’s what the client finds helpful from me.

I thought you might like to see where I work. The hand held camera creates a spooky appearance, doesn't it? In real life there is nothing spooky about this room. It's a nice little room off my kitchen, no doubt intended to be a pantry, and I have reclaimed it.

One time I spread out a reading for myself regarding a certain relationship issue. Just by the cards and their positions, and by looking for everything that was there, while I stood at the center of the room, I was able to see things I had never seen before. I saw all of it with perfect clarity. My questions, my answers, my next steps. It was like reading it all spelled out in neon light against the sky, so clear and plain and simple. There were my bullet points, step by step what to think and what to know and what to do, all right there on the table.

Then that person, the one I was asking about, came over to my house! and I had not closed the drape on my reading room. The cards were there for him to see. He would know what I knew! He went in the reading room. I saw him looking at the cards. He would know my question! He would know my plan! Omg omg my cover was blown. I looked anxiously at his face, and then realized, he is just looking at some cards on a table. He sees… cards. He doesn’t see anything. He doesn’t see a darn thing. He might as well be blind. He just sees cards.