How I Tried to Use the Paulina Tarot and Almost Gave Up
Man, I remember seeing the Paulina deck pop up everywhere a few years back. Everyone was raving about how gorgeous the art was. And they were right. I pulled the trigger and bought it immediately, thinking this was going to be my new go-to. My main deck at the time was the standard Rider-Waite-Smith, the one with all the ugly primary colors, but hey, it worked. I needed something fancier, something that felt more magical, you know?
I ripped the plastic off when the package showed up. The cards felt thick, the colors were stunning—all those detailed, lush borders and the characters looking like they came straight out of a really expensive storybook. I shuffled them a few times, did a quick spread, and that’s when the trouble started. The energy was totally different. My usual decks felt like having a chat with an old, slightly grumpy friend. The Paulina felt like trying to talk to a gorgeous but very quiet stranger who spoke a different language.
I tried to force it. I opened the little white book that came with it. Useless. It just gave those standard, watered-down meanings that you can find anywhere. I looked at the Magician card—it’s busy, really busy. The RWS Magician is clear: table, tools, hand up, hand down. The Paulina version has so much going on, I couldn’t just see the meaning. I needed to read the meaning, and that defeats the purpose of intuitive Tarot, doesn’t it?
I kept hitting walls. I’d pull a card, recognize the RWS skeleton, but the Paulina imagery—the specific clothing, the detailed backgrounds, the animals—it just felt like noise. It didn’t resonate. It just sat there looking pretty and judging me from the shelf. I actually ended up sticking it in a drawer for maybe six months. I figured, okay, it’s not a beginner deck. It’s for people who are already fluent in Tarot and just want a beautiful variation. I moved on.
The Mess That Forced Me Back to the Deck
The whole reason I ended up digging the Paulina deck back out was honestly because of a massive personal crisis that hit me hard last winter. I won’t get into the nitty-gritty, but my entire life structure suddenly got blown apart. Job issues, relationship uncertainty—the whole deal. I needed advice, but every time I picked up my old, trusted RWS deck, the readings felt flat, almost mocking me. Like, “Yeah, things suck. You knew that.” I was desperate for a fresh perspective, a voice that hadn’t already absorbed all my previous anxiety.
I remembered the Paulina deck, sitting in the dark, silent and beautiful. I thought, what the hell. Maybe the very fact that it felt foreign and complicated was exactly what I needed. I needed to be forced to look harder.
So, I dragged it out and decided, screw the RWS system for now. I was going to connect with this deck purely on feelings and colors. This meant a complete overhaul of my practice.
My Practice Log: Connecting With Raw Imagery
I decided to stop reading books entirely. I committed to a daily single-card pull for three weeks straight, no matter what came up.
Here’s what I did:
- I chucked the little white book across the room. I wasn’t allowed to reference it or my main Tarot journal for three weeks.
- When a card came up—say, the Five of Pentacles—I ignored the traditional interpretation (loss, hardship).
- Instead, I grabbed a separate notebook and started logging specific details: What color is the sky? Is the figure looking up or down? What is the texture of the ground? Is the movement fast or slow?
With the Paulina Five of Pentacles, I saw this figure walking through what looked like a beautiful, but cold, snow-covered gothic street. The feeling wasn’t just “you are poor.” The feeling was “you are deliberately walking away from warmth, but doing it beautifully.” It was about choosing the hardship, or at least accepting it with a strange elegance. That interpretation, born purely from the art, finally clicked with my messy life situation.
I continued this brutalist approach. I looked at the Queens and Kings and stopped focusing on their element. I focused on their posture. Is the Queen of Swords looking bored? Is the King of Wands shouting? I started giving them personality traits based on the artist’s rendering, not on tradition.
Is It Good for New Readers? (My Takeaway)
After those three intense weeks, I realized something important. The Paulina Tarot is actually excellent for a specific type of new reader, but not the one who needs handholding or strict RWS definitions.
It’s perfect if you are new, but you are also someone who is willing to immediately burn the rulebook. If you are terrified of making up your own meaning, this deck will intimidate you and make you fail, just like it almost made me quit.
But if you are willing to sit down with the density and treat the cards like individual, beautiful little paintings that need to be interpreted purely based on mood and detail, then yes, it’s fantastic. The level of detail forces your intuition to work overtime. You can’t rely on simple symbols because there are too many of them, and that noise forces you to find the vibe of the card, which is the real key to reading Tarot anyway.
So, if you just bought it and feel overwhelmed, don’t worry. I pulled it out of the drawer, and now it sits right next to my desk. Just ignore the meanings for a month, journal the feelings, and watch how fast you connect. It’s a harsh teacher, but the best ones usually are.
