Jude you're worse than me, I don't think I've got any clothes that are twenty years old - but that's because I use them till they're spiderweb-thin =:0
Well, tarot cards, Jude, are used differently by different people. Those who believe that the future may be foretold will probably use them for divination, but I don't believe that so I don't use them that way. The way I see it, the symbology of the cards is so powerful that every single card has something to say to every single person at every single point in time, but you heed different "messages" at different times. I think a fruitful way of looking at it is to simply see them as suggestions for conversational topics and see what evolves. The way I see it, the language of symbols helps bring that which is yet subconscious to a more conscious state where we can examine it, transform it and use it. Like when you can't stop thinking about a dream you've been having and suddenly it's clear to you what it "means" and you can somehow "use" that knowledge, benefit from it. Like the way you're always dreaming of your mother as a young woman...? (you've told us so on these threads) well that's a powerful symbol that could well be the motif for a tarot card if you made your own deck. I don't know what it "means" but if I did a reading for you and that card came up, we would talk about your mother, you as a child, you as a mother, your children as your children, your children as parents, we would talk about Time and so on, and sort of "decide" why that card came up today. In what way it's important to you at this point in time. I wouldn't tell you any answers (cos I wouldn't know any), I'd try to ask really good questions.
Regardless of what card came up we would be able to assign a personal meaning to it, cos all the cards are about things that are important to everyone. Having said that, the cards do often seem to reflect what's going on in somebo