Creating a personal tarot vocabulary without losing the sense of your deck

When you learn tarot, you quickly gather words: “change,” “waiting,” “will,” “protection.” Some come from a manual; others were suggested by an image; others were born in a specific reading. If you mix them in a list without origins, you will end up thinking they all belong to the card equally. A useful personal vocabulary preserves where each term comes from and the circumstances in which it helped you. That way you can study without memorizing a closed definition or attributing symbols to a deck that it does not show.

The goal is not to create a dictionary longer than the books. It is to have a brief entry that lets you return to the card, ask a better question, and review an earlier interpretation. If you still work with isolated words, start by describing the card before interpreting it. That is the step that separates what is visible from what the word makes you imagine.

Three columns, three different origins

Divide a page into manual or deck tradition, visible detail, and personal association. In the first, note terms that appear in the guide to the edition you use, with page number if you have it. In the second, write observable elements: a gesture, the direction of a gaze, the arrangement of the suits, or a difference in color. In the third, keep what the card evokes in your own life or culture.

It is not enough to put the words in columns. Add a line of context: “This association appeared when I asked about a creative project” or “this explanation belongs to the book that accompanies my Marseille edition.” A word can be useful in one consultation and misleading in another. Context prevents a private note from becoming, months later, an assumed universal meaning.

If the manual describes an object that you do not find in your card, check edition and translation before copying it. Perhaps the text corresponds to another deck, perhaps your reproduction simplifies the drawing, or perhaps you are mixing a Rider-Waite-Smith description with a Marseille pip card. The comparison between Marseille and Rider-Waite-Smith shows why the visual system matters. Noting the source of a word is especially valuable when you study with several books at once.

An example entry with a pip card

Let us take as a fictitious exercise a consultation about how to organize a week's work. You draw the Two of Pentacles and decide to write an entry. In the manual column, you note, with your book reference, the theme that manual develops; we do not reproduce here a definition meant to apply to all editions. In the visible column, you describe exactly your card: are there only two suit symbols and an ornament, or a figure in a scene? In the personal column, you write: “It reminds me of alternating between two tasks without finishing either.”

The final phrase will not be “Two of Pentacles = multitasking.” It could be: “In this consultation about scheduling, my association with alternating tasks leads me to check whether I have set aside time to close one before opening another.” If the card in your edition has a composition that suggests balance, note how it influences this. If not, do not invent a visual detail to support your memory. Your association can still be valuable even if it is not drawn, as long as you declare it as such.

Now try another question with the same Two of Pentacles: “What should I clarify before accepting two commitments?” The word “alternating” can lead to a useful question about deadlines and priority, but perhaps “flexibility” or “coordination cost” is more precise. Keep both entries. The purpose of the vocabulary is to show variation, not to erase one reading so that the other seems definitive. The practice of one card in two questions goes deeper into that comparison.

Write verbs and questions alongside nouns

Lists of “love,” “success,” or “fear” are easy to remember and hard to apply. A verb describes a relationship: compare, postpone, ask for help, hold a boundary, review. A question forces you to pin down the context: “What am I comparing?” “What data is missing?” “Whose decision is this?” If a card evokes “protection” for you, ask yourself whether you mean protecting time, privacy, resources, or an expectation. Each variant would lead to a different conversation.

Do not turn that flexibility into a license to say anything. The chosen verb must have a bridge to the card and to the position in the spread. If the position was available resource, “review” could refer to the ability to check information. If it was obstacle, perhaps it points to an excess of review that paralyzes. The important thing is to be able to show why a phrase answers the question you wrote before drawing the card.

A good entry can end like this: “In the question about work, this card led me to compare two tasks. The visible detail I looked at was their relationship in my edition; the manual provided a convention; my personal memory made me think about deadlines. The action was to ask which one should be closed first.” That is four lines, not a treatise. Clarity comes from indicating origin and use.

How to prevent one system from invading another

Mark each entry with the exact deck and edition. If you study Marseille and Rider-Waite-Smith, keep two entries when the images differ significantly. You can write a comparison line at the end, but do not copy a scene from the Rider minor arcana onto a Marseille card that only shows suit symbols. Nor should you assume that all modern 78-card decks use the same order, name, or iconography. The guide to recognizing your deck's family offers checkpoints before consulting someone else's manual.

The numbering of Justice and Strength is a well-known reminder, but there are less visible differences: a color, a gesture, an added character, a printing simplification. If your interpretation depends on that detail, record in which reproduction you saw it. A photo or a bibliographic reference helps more than writing “in tarot there appears…” as if a single universal image existed.

If you read in a group, ask each person to name their edition before comparing meanings. Two companions can disagree because they saw different images, not because one “interprets badly.” The exercise consists of explaining the origin of each word, listening to what the other sees, and deciding whether both readings serve the question without forcing them to coincide.

Monthly review: keep, refine, or retire

Choose five entries per month. For each term, ask: Did I keep using it? Did it help me formulate an action? Did it come from a manual, from the image, or from an association of mine? Did I use it outside the context for which I noted it? Mark “keep,” “refine,” or “retire.” Do not erase the old note; add date and reason. That way you can see how your reading changed and detect when a word became a crutch.

For example, if you wrote “The Moon = deceit” and later discover that you applied that word to any uncertainty, refine it. Ask what you observed, what the person actually knew, and what alternatives there were. Perhaps “incomplete information” describes that consultation better; perhaps in another there is no reason to speak of concealment. Review protects the querent from absolute statements that your entry could never justify.

You do not need to complete all 78 cards before you start reading. Build vocabulary from concrete questions, return to the image, and keep the sources visible. A well-situated entry is worth more than ten without context. If you get stuck, check the interpretation with support, alternative, and limit; then decide which word deserves to enter your personal glossary.