I just bought a Marseille deck and a Rid

Start with the Rider-Waite, keep the Marseille for speed later, and never lay both on the table for the same question.

The Marseille deck is mostly undecorated: pip cards are a suit sign and a number, and most trumps are a title on a banner rather than a scene. That makes it a fast deck once you already know your cards — and a poor first teacher. The Rider-Waite puts the meaning into the picture, so it's the one that trains your eye. (For your Marseille deck I'll work from suit, number and the French titles — that's the honest level to read it at, and it's plenty for a daily pull.)

The loop, one card at a time

1. Look. Write only what's in the frame: who is there, which hand holds what, how many objects lie on the ground. No meanings, nothing about the future.
2. Name the fact. Suit and number, or Major; upright or reversed. This line is checking, not interpreting.
3. Place it. The same card as guidance and the same card as obstacle read differently. That step is the actual skill.
4. One line you could act on today — something another person could watch you do.

Two decks, two jobs. And the part people get wrong: two decks never double-check a reading. If both agree, you haven't confirmed anything, you've read the same bias twice. One deck per sitting.

On reversals — Rider-Waite practice usually keeps them, the Marseille tradition generally doesn't. Tell me which you want and I'll draw that way from now on.

This turn's practice card — guidance seat: Two of Wands, upright

Look first: a figure with his back to you on a wall above the water, one hand on a rod, a small globe in the other, two wands planted in front of him, two coastlines off in the distance.

The fact: a minor, Wands (fire), upright.

The same card placed differently: as guidance it means planning before handling — choose the route before you walk it. As an obstacle it's the identical figure, still looking outward, never leaving the wall; surveying instead of choosing.

The judgment turns on what you do tonight. If you decide which deck does which job and write it on the box before touching either, this reads as a plan made ahead of the first step. If you shuffle both and compare their answers instead, the same card reads as standing between two roads and never stepping onto either.

Today's step: deal the 22 Trumps from each deck face up in two rows, side by side. Mark the trumps you could describe from the Rider-Waite row without looking at them, then mark the Marseille trumps that are only a name and a number. The gap between those two marks is your teaching plan — in ink on a table, not in your head.

Want me to keep a practice log of these pulls, so we can look back in a few weeks?