• What: A brief general introduction to what tarot is
• Why: Why I got interested in tarot in general, and my tarot creation project is all about.
• How: Some nitty gritty about how I'm creating my deck.
• Where: Some resources for more information on tarot, where to buy decks, etc.

What
Tarot is a set of 78 cards consisting of the Major Arcana ("majors") and the Minor Arcana, or suit cards ("minors"). The minors are further divided into four suits, usually cups, pentacles, swords, and wands, although the exact suits vary somewhat in various decks (for example, "coins" or "disks" instead of pentacles, "batons" instead of wands, etc.). Each card in the deck has an interpretation associated with it. In the majors, these interpretations tend to be grand archetypal allusions, such as "fertility," "inner voice," or "perspective," while the minors tend to be about more everyday concepts, such as "apprenticeship" or "motherhood."

To use tarot cards, there is a "reader" (the person who "reads" the cards) and a "querent" (the person who has the question and has sought out the reader). The cards are layed out in a pattern called a "spread" and are interpreted by the reader. The reader understands the individual interpretations of the cards as well as how these interpretations might shift based on other cards that are drawn, the positions of the cards in the spread, and the question the querent asked.

Many view the tarot as a divination tool, believing that readers must be "psychic," a la "Miss Cleo." In fact, many people mistrust tarot as some kind of black magic tool. I think this is nonsense.

What the tarot really is, in my opinion, is a finely honed tool for connecting an individual to his or her unconscious spiritual self. It is an excellent meditation device that allows us to examine a problem or situation from a deeper, broader perspective than is usually possible. The cards represent universal human constants, and as such each of us can relate to every card. Some might argue that this somehow diminishes the tarot, arguing that the fact that any person can "read into" the cards they are somehow irrelevant or fraudulent. On the contrary, it is this very universal nature that makes the cards so powerful. The cards stimulate your unconscious, bringing to mind ideas, situations, people, problems, etc., that you might not have considered, or might have rather left hidden. By bringing these things to light, we are able to consider them consciously and thoughtfully, thereby giving ourselves a complete picture of the situation at hand.

You don't have to believe in mysticism to benefit from using tarot cards. In fact, one thing I particularly enjoy about tarot cards is that they "work" at whatever level you feel comfortable with. If you are a hard-core science type, that's fine--the tarot cards "work" for perfectly reasonable, scientifically defendable reasons. And if you're a hard-core mystical type, the cards will provide you with all the confirmation you need that the world works in mysterious ways. This works well for me, because my own beliefs tend to swing widely from one end to the other of this spectrum from day to day.

The ritual around the reading of the cards is important. It helps the reader and the querent to take the reading seriously, resulting in better readings. Part of this ritual is the belief that the cards are drawn for a reason. Whether you believe that the cards are truly random or are chosen based on mystical influences, it doesn't matter. For the space of the reading, buying into the process is important.

Why
I have wanted to learn the tarot for many years, ever since my brother game me the Rider-Waite deck about ten years ago. The ability to read the tarot seemed to me like an excellent social skill. A few years back I made a serious attempt at it, using a book on learning the tarot. My good friend Pam was interested also, and we were going to learn together. But the book I was using taught the tarot in the driest way, and it was too hard and boring to hold my attention for long, so I dropped it. In the meanwhile I read some online articles about creating your own deck, and it always intrigued me.

Lately, my interest has been growing, partly because I had done some collages and really enjoyed them, and partly because I wanted a tool I could use to explore my inner life. Pam was still game, and she is better at actually starting projects than I am. She made me put my time where my mouth is. And so we began!

We knew right away that this was a great project. The cards are so rich with meaning that the benifits of studying them occur right away, even if you only know a few cards. The process of creating a card--selecting a card, studying, searching for images, putting it all together--is deeply satisfying. It's a lot of fun, and we don't force ourselves to follow anyone's rules, so learning the cards doesn't become a chore. I learn faster than I ever did with the dry memorization method the book recommended.

I was right about reading as a good social skills--giving readings is an excellent way to have a deep, meaningful conversation with people. Indeed the conversations are so intimate and hard-hitting that I find I'm quite exhausted at the end of one. Reading for myself never fails to shed light on my situation and teaches me to take another perspective.

How
Once I have selected a card to work on, I cast about for as many interpretations of the card as I can find. I read about the card in my various books on tarot (including Tarot Plain and Simple, by Anthony Louis, which I love), and a wide variety of web sources, using Google. I keep reading until I feel like my understanding of the card has begun to crystalize. I may also look at a variety of artists' interpretation of the card, looking at the cards from decks I own and/or Google:Images. I don't do this all the time, though--I find that it makes me more likely to clone other decks than to find my own voice with the card.

I look for images in my collection of collage materials taken from books and magazines. I also do image searches with Google:Images. Some images are harder to find than others, and it's not always predictable which ones they are!

Once I have the central images, I begin putting them together in PhotoShop. Once I have a completed image, I print the card onto photographic cardstock with my inkjet printer (I have tried laser printing, but I have found that I prefer the way they look inkjet printed). I print the card back (shown at left) onto regular thickness photo paper. I glue the two sheets together with spray mount. The two layers make a pretty good thickness. Two layers of cardstock is a little too thick (and would make my completed deck too thick), two layers of regular paper is too thin, one of each is just right. I cut out the card and use a corner punch (like this one) to punch the corners, and voilà! A completed card!

Where
There is a veritable plethora of information about tarot online. One of my favorite sources is Aeclectic Tarot, where you can learn the basics of tarot, see images from literally hundreds of different tarot decks, chat with other tarot enthusiasts, and much more.

For general information about tarot, see Google[tarot], Google[tarot basics], Google[tarot interpretations], and so on. If you would like to learn to read tarot cards, based on my own experience I strongly recommend getting yourself a deck and a good book of interpretations (I recommend Tarot Plain and Simple, by Anthony Louis) and start giving readings as often as you can. I have found that flipping through the book doesn't detract from my readings, but if you would rather not use this approach there are decks, like this one, that are good for beginners because the meanings of the cards are printed right on the cards. You will learn the cards over time by looking them up repeatedly in readings. Be sure to buy a book that follows the same tradition as your deck--there are a couple of different flavors of tarot decks and you will make it hard on yourself if your deck and book conflict with each other! If you are at all inclined, I can also recommend creating your own deck--it's a lot of fun and you'll learn the cards, guaranteed!

You can purchase decks at your local new age gift shop. A good store will allow you to look through decks. I recommend buying a deck that has full illustrations for all of the cards; some decks have rather plain images for the minor arcana, which makes it difficult to remember the meaning of the cards. Amazon carries a lot of the decks published by the larger publishers (try Amazon[tarot deck]).