Cross My Palm With Silver Or Gold...And Then I Will Reveal Secrets That Are About To Unfold. . .
I participated in a "trade show" one year in Indianapolis, and the booth next to the one I was helping at was a metaphysical shop's (the owners' retired a couple of years after the show) display. The couple talked to me and the girl I was working with, just general-type stuff. The last day of the show, the man presented me a Scapini deck, a beautiful gold-gilt edged deck with medieval drawings on them, saying he felt I had something I didn't know about. I looked at him sort of funny but took the deck home anyway -- but the drawings, though beautiful, I couldn't interpret unless I looked the meanings up. So I set aside the idea ...
One day I was out at the east-side mall in Indianapolis, just browsing about after I was done shopping for what I needed. I went into a bookstore to see what (if anything) might catch my eye to read. They were in the midst of re-arranging their displays and I was joking with one of the sales clerks. They asked me to hand them items occasionally as we talked ... so it wasn't any surprise that I was asked to hand them some of the decks of cards they were setting for display. I handed them a few as we continued to chat, and then I was asked to hand them the Rider-Waite Universal decks ... and a warmth seemed to emanate from the cards as I touched them. I handed all the decks over to the clerk, but one. I went up to the register and paid for the deck then went home ... muttering to myself that it was a silly purchase since I already had a deck setting in a drawer.
I was also blessed that at about this same time I had developed a great friendship with someone else who, upon when I mentioned that I had bought a deck, also was curious about the Tarot and other forms of divination also. I had misplaced the pamphlet that comes packed with the deck, it sort of glossed over the meanings of the cards and explains the Celtic Cross spread, and had no books in my collection that went into great detail ...
So, hating to consider just shoving the deck into a drawer or something, she and I spent many a nite or afternoon at each other's kitchen tables "toying" with my deck as I taught myself. We would meet will the kids were asleep or her "better half" was either out or watching TV. *chuckle* So ... the interest I had was being sort of encouraged yet not fully encouraged. (On his behalf, I would like to say that this guy couldn't figure out how we were so "mesmerized" by this deck, he just wasn't into that area of interests.) We would sit and look thru the cards ... studying the images casually and each time pointing out to the other something new we found. *smiling reminiscently* Many a cup of coffee and cans of soda pops (as well as cigarettes and candy bars) were consumed during these sessions. She was taught at an early age how to read regular playing cards, whose existence was thought to be as a result of the Tarot's minor arcana -- sort of like a TV series spin-off, not the whole cast but some of the principal characters. She and I used the method that she was taught and employed it to the Tarot deck I had. 
My mother would sometimes catch us sitting at the kitchen table trying to do a reading, cluck her tongue at us and say something sounding like "foolish nonsense." She never cared to talk about the cards with me, but if a TV show would be divination oriented came on then she would call me to have me watch it. My children know I read the cards, they call my decks "Mommy's pretty picture cards" -- but no, I haven't tried to teach them to read them nor have any really expressed a desire to.
I have later been told that the manner I read the cards in is termed "intuitively". I have never sat down to memorize assigned card meanings or such. Instead I totally rely on the cards' images and symbology -- and interpret them "as I see it" at that time. *shrug* I take in all of the card as I look at it. . .the colors, the imagery, the feel, wether it is upright to viewing or reversed, etc. (Some don't read the cards reversed but will turn them upright then interpret them.)
To date I own about 35 decks, if you take in the Scapini deck that I never read with. I have the Rider-Waite deck still -- and added The Stairs of Gold (Tavaglione) deck, Robin Wood's deck, The Renaissance deck, and The Vision Tarot that I read with. The others primarily are for reference or that I liked the artwork on them. It depends on my mood what deck I will read with...*chuckle*...though I primarily seem to select the Renaissance or the Stairs of Gold more so. There are like 2 or 3 more decks I would like to add to my "collection". . .*shrug* I am fond of the artistry on the Solstice deck and a couple of others I found on Solandia's page.
Someone recently told me, according to my birth date, that my personality card out of the Tarot deck is "The Hermit" -- I guess this might be an apt card as I am known to sit, curled up with a book or exploring the web sites, alone at times searching for more knowledge, not only about the Tarot *but also* about life and people. *smile* And I do try to cast light onto what I don't know or the unknown. So. . .perhaps this card does reflect a bit about my personality indeed just by glancing at the picture casually -- except for the fact that I don't have a beard. *chuckle* (You can find out more about personality cards thru Mary K. Greer's Tarot series.)