Hello and welcome to this short talk through of a ritual for when you're ready to retire a tarot deck from reading.
You'll have your own reason for wanting to retire a deck but it may be that it's getting old and battered,
That you and the deck have outgrown each other,
Or that it just feels like the right time.
But I find it a nice way to acknowledge the role the deck has played in my life.
Keep the gifts the deck has given me,
Release what is not aligned and send energy out into the world as appropriate.
Step one is to sort out which cards to keep and which to throw away.
I love many decks but am yet to meet one that doesn't have at least one card that just doesn't resonate for me like all the others do.
As the deck is retired and you no longer need all 78 cards to read with,
This is your opportunity to release any cards that have never resonated and perhaps any that once held meaning and no longer do.
Remove these from the deck.
It's up to you how you dispose of them but I simply place them in the paper recycling,
Knowing that they will either be recycled into something useful or that perhaps somewhere between here and the recycling plant a stray gust of wind might deposit a certain card at the feet of someone who needs exactly that message.
The act of placing them in the recycling with this very specific intention is a magical act in itself,
An act of relinquishing the energetic connection with those cards and trusting that they will go on their journey in alignment with the universe.
This leaves you with the cards that you didn't want to throw away.
I like to sort them into three categories although you can of course adjust these to suit yourself and what seems right for you with this deck.
The first category are cards that you want to manifest or otherwise perform magic with.
Cards these energy you wish to continue to work with.
So once again go through the deck and choose the cards which you would like to intentionally retain the energy of in your life.
When you have these cards you may want to display them somewhere in your home,
Stick them into your journal,
Sleep with them under your pillow,
Carry them in your pocket or keep them with you in some other way so that their energy stays with you.
The next category are cards to offer to others.
Bring to mind the people in your life that you know,
Those you're close to or those that you're not.
Then once more sort through the deck mindfully and slowly allowing any cards to make themselves known to you as cards with a message for someone you know.
It may be that the card itself reminds you of someone or that it expresses something that you'd like them to know or represents a resource that you'd like them to have.
When you have selected these cards take time to send them to the people they're meant for with a brief note to let them know why you are sending them that card.
Finally,
You're left with the cards that still retain some meaning that you didn't want to throw away but that don't have a current purpose for you or another person.
I like to keep these together as a small deck.
You can use them for mini readings for yourself or others trusting that even in this partial deck the right message is there.
Or if you have retired several decks you can choose your favorite 78 cards to make a hybrid deck or even combine them to create a deck of more than 78 cards which you can then read with.
Trust the cards to tell you what to do with them.
I hope this talk-through was useful to you and has given you some ideas or even a complete blueprint for how you would like to retire your deck.
Thank you so much for sharing the time and the practice.
May you always receive what you need and for now I wish you a wonderful rest of your day.
