My regular readers know that I'm given to rants about how acquiring things is not the same thing as practicing a serious Nature Religion.

You can buy every book that Lewellyn publishes (my bookshelves house more than a few). You can have Celtic-this and dragon-themed-that and unicorn-themed posters all over your house. You can cover your tables, walls, and yourself with cheap cotton Celtic-batik tablecloths (I've got a few!). You can wear high-Goth or expensive SteamPunk (OK, if I win the lottery, I am buying that hat). You can burn incense and sage from etsy 24/7. You can jingle when you walk from all the pentacles, LOTR-themed jewelry, and gypsy-hand amulets that you wear, but it doesn't make you a devotee of the Goddesses/Gods nor does it cause you to live in tune with Gaia.

And I work at practicing what I preach.

I own fewer than a dozen Tarot decks and I regularly talk myself out of buying yet another really neat one. I rely almost entirely on my Robin Wood, with some Tarot of the Crone, hand-made by Ellen Lorenzi-Prince, thrown in for mystery and the occasional Cheryl Richardson Self-Care Card pulled for an overall theme. On my iPhone, I have the Goddess Tarot app, and I find it uncannily accurate for one-card answers to questions. I have Joanna Colbert's Gain Tarot on order for this Autumn, and Joanna knows that if she ever decides to sell the painting for her Six of Water, I'm first in line. And, ok, someday I'm going to break down and buy myself the Peter-Max-inspired Aquarian Tarot, which I always buy as a gift for friends.

And, beyond that, there's only one other Tarot deck that I've seriously craved. Ever since my brilliant friend Stoat showed me his Greenwood Tarot deck, I've been seriously in lust. Supposedly based upon pre-Celtic, European themes, as well as the Wheel of the Year, it's been unavailable for some time (although occasionally one will show up on eBay for several hundred dollars and I'm not spending that kind of money for a deck of cards; my heart is happier with an almost-paid mortgage and some money in the bank).

Now, Mark Ryan, who worked on the Greenwood Tarot, has come out with the Wildwood Tarot, described as a "complete reconception and redesign" of the Greenwood Tarot. I got my copy last night, on the Full Moon.

My practice for getting acquainted with a new Tarot deck is to ground, center, call the Elements, and cast a circle. I smudge the cards and the LWB (Little White Book, although it's a largish dark-colored book in this case) and then I just spend time with them. I look them all over, in order, shuffled, and then, finally, with the LWB to help me learn the ones that are less-Rider-Waite based.

I'm in love.

Pictured above is my first reading with this deck.

What divination method do you use? Is there a new one you're thinking of trying? How do you handle your lust for "stuff"?