How I Got The Idea

"Wow these cards are different!" she said as she slowly shuffled through the black and white cards.
"I've never seen Tarot cards like these before."
"No, I made them," I replied proudly and thought back to how I first got the idea...

I was sitting in one of my favourite cafés in Amsterdam; Gary’s Muffins, which actually sells a lot more bagels than muffins but grew from humble beginnings as a coffee and muffin place and to this day has kept the name. The business was started by a couple of American expats so you can get as many toppings as you want as well as great service which is rare in the Dutch cafe scene.

I’d been reading Tarot cards for a while and used to set myself up in the massive Vondelpark on a sunny day, sitting on a blanket under a shady tree on my favourite corner of the winding path. The park was the closest thing to a beach there, and girls used to lay around in bikinis, guys were walking their dogs, playing ball, jamming on guitars, people were smoking joints and generally having an awesome time.

When I read Tarot for people I always explain the meaning of the cards, as well as the position in the spread, like “this is the goal, the principle, the idea position, this is what you are headed towards, and here you have the Fool card. So you need to reclaim your trust and innocence but be careful that you are not being naive….” I mostly used the Osho Zen Tarot when reading for others - it is a fairly contemporary deck and I found the pictures were easy for people to understand. A client would ask me what was holding them back and then the Guilt card would come out, complete with a picture of a scary, crazy woman with black eyes and long fingers scratching at her own hair, racked with guilt. They got the message loud and clear.

I had thought a lot about writing my own Tarot deck and the idea returned to me that day over caramel latte. Writing came easily to me and it had long been my personal passion. Words flowed into my awareness during quiet moments, sentences and paragraphs arranged themselves in my mind as I lay in bed at night. I wanted to write a modern Tarot deck, one that everyone could understand, a Tarot deck that might intrigue those who ‘weren’t into that stuff’, might influence someone to look further, dig deeper to find answers...

I was pretty confident that writing the deck would be easy enough, but illustrating it was a different story. All the Tarot decks I knew had detailed, intricate illustrations, some even reproduced oil paintings and all were way beyond my level of skill at the time. I considered my options as I stirred my coffee. I thought about the cards I knew and loved, the Medicine Cards popped into my mind – totem animals from North America illustrated with a bright yellow lightning bolt on the back of the cards. The lightning bolt is also the Japanese Raku symbol used in the ancient healing art of Reiki. It means manifestation, connecting heaven and earth, bringing inspiration into form.

It was then that I saw them – black and white symbols, circles, spirals, interwoven patterns flashed through my inner vision. I had seen these before somewhere…yes, at my friend Jakob’s house. He was a graphic artist and designer and really into geometric shapes. He had been working on some black and white designs of crop circles, had a couple printed and hanging up on the wall.

“Black and white? Really?” I thought. I had never seen a black and white Tarot deck. Then a clear image came – a black card with a white symbol; a pentagram interwoven with triangles like a Celtic knot. I recognised the image instantly; it was Jakob’s art logo, his own symbol of creation. It was perfect.

I pushed my chair back and stood up, quickly gathered my things and hurried out the door. His apartment was a short bike ride away and I couldn’t wait to tell him about my great idea.

Tarot in Black & White: A Path to Personal Transformation

For questions and tips about reading Tarot ~ Ask The Hoo