Trying Not to Choke on My Glee

Yesterday a deck arrived for me in the mail. It was probably one of the happiest moments I've had in quite a while, and I'm still feeling the glory. In past posts I've mentioned that my mother's Tarot reading was my initial connection to divination at a young age. Recently I acquired the Medicine Cards (Jamie Sams) which were another divination tool she owned and that I held very dear, which has been really nice to have in my hands again. Well her Tarot deck (she only ever had one until recently I gifted her two more!) is the Mythic Tarot (Juliet Sharman-Burke, Liz Greene, Tricia Newell), one of the early publications from the late-80s, early 90s. This was the deck that sort of birthed me into the concept of Tarot reading, and I used to love it when she'd pull her cards out and do readings, working her way through the Greek myths and tying stories together.

I've been wanting to add that deck to my collection for a while, but when the original version went out of print in the early 2000s, it became very expensive and thus fell out of my reach. A new edition, called the New Mythic Tarot (Juliet Sharman-Burke, Giovanni Caselli) was published with a redo of the original artwork, which seemed to earn a lot of disappointed complaints from lovers of the original Mythic Tarot who didn't see a need for the reworking. I wasn't entirely opposed to this new version, but it didn't really attract me either. If necessary, it would "do" but it wouldn't really be the same. So I never purchased it.

Mythic Tarot
Juliet Sharman-Burke, Tricia Newell, Liz Greene
Fireside, 1986

The other day on one of the Facebook Tarot forums, someone posted an announcement about the original Mythic available on eBay for an unbelievably low price (about the cost of three grande lattes at Starbucks), and I jumped all over it. I couldn't believe it. It was a new listing and no one had snatched it up yet! It was my first foray into eBay buying, and I did so with some anxiety, but I figured that the worst that would happen is I'd lose a few cups of coffee, which didn't seem like a major risk. When all was said and done I received a well-wrapped package in the mail yesterday containing a tattered original box, a complete set of cards in great condition, a hard-cover companion book (also in great condition) and a reading cloth (which I probably won't use, but still!).

I think words failed me, hence the title of this blog post. I knew I would be excited about this acquisition, I knew it was important to me to own my mother's deck, that it would be nurturing and comforting and "right." But I had no idea just how fulfilled and joyful I would feel to be able to flip through those images, read through the book, do my own first reading with it. I sent a text message to my mother letting her know what I'd managed to do, and her reply was "I am glad, and touched." I suppose she never thought much about how or why those cards would be so meaningful to me. Hey, I think that in the end, I didn't really realize it either!

So I am full of rapturous joy on the inside, though on the outside probably look very calm and a bit sleepy. This joy is like a feast.