There is no official book, but you will need a tarot deck or access to images from a complete deck. You may use any tarot deck(s). In fact, the more variety in participants' decks, the better-- as it can be quite interesting to compare how asst. artists interpret each card.

While there are many divination decks of all sorts, it's key to note that this will be a tarot deck study... a tarot deck consists of the major (or spirit) arcana, and 4 more suits worth (often aligned with earth, air, fire and water) which can go by many names. An enormous list of tarot decks can be found at Tarot Passages, along with deck reviews

Of course, this is by no means a complete list, and often people make their own decks as well.

What is not a tarot deck? The Goddess Oracle, Barbara Walker's I ching of the Goddess.... You can find out more about non-tarot listings HERE and HERE.

Anyone interested in alternative decks is free to begin a separate study!

If you don't have a tarot deck at the moment, the entire Rider Waite deck is featured at the Learn the Tarot website and you can refer to those images for the study, or until you can obtain a deck.

This site also has lots of (traditional) meanings for each card, as interpreted by Joan Bunning. There is no formal structure to each week's study, but participation is expected! Participation can take place a number of ways. Some suggestions (but feel free to improvise):

* Take a few days to study or meditate with the card of the week. Journal your feelings, reactions and impressions of it. Then find a book, or web site or just the little booklet that probably came with the deck and compare their interpretations. What similarities did you find? What was different? Do agree with the "book" meaning for that card?

*Describe your card to the group. Do you like or dislike this particular card? Why? What would you change about it?

* Without thinking, write a list of words that pop into your mind about this card. Don't over analyze, just write them down as they come to mind. Leave the list for a day or two, then come back to it. Are some of the words surprising to you? Or are they all what you'd expect? Can you gain any new insights to the card, using some of the words?

*Meditate with your card.In your meditation, interact with the characters/objects in the card. Share any new insights you have, or any incidents, conversations, etc you had with anyone in the card.

* Do some research on anything/something you see in your card (ie, specific herbs, or featured goddess, or animal, etc). and share with the group.

Each Monday a new card will be "announced" as an event reminder from the Yahoo Groups calendar feature. You may begin posting about the week's card at any time after that, however please use "TCW" in the subject line. When the week is up, discussion on that card may continue, but the next card's discussion will also begin.

It is important to note, this is a study circle. There will be no spoon feeding of information each week and there are no formal teachers of TCW- it will be what each participant chooses to make of it. Of course, sharing of info around the circle (from books, the internet, your own personal writing etc.) is greatly encouraged, but remember to credit your source(s). There is a folder setup in the files section called Tarot, maybe we can all add sub folders to it, for tarot book reviews, tarot deck reviews, suggested web sites, etc. as the study progresses.

The study will go in deck order, starting with the major/spirit arcana. Toward the end of that section, we can do a poll for which minor arcana suit to move onto. Please note for the sake of convenience only: the card of the week will be announced using the Rider Waite equivalent. This by no means, implies you must a RW or RW clone styled deck. Another reason for this, is the above posted link does contain online images of the entire RW deck, helpful for those who do not own a deck (for whatever reason) but would like to participate in the study.