Creating Your Own Book For Personal Study

Has anyone else created their own study book / guidebook to the cards?

I recently began my journey with Tarot studies and wanted to create my own comprehensive book of meanings. Here's how I've started on mine (which will be constantly growing):
I have a page for each card (two pages for each Major). On each page, I have gathered together definitions, interpretations, and symbolic meanings from multiple sources across the web. I've also put in sections on the suits as a whole, court and number meanings (across the suits), plus appendices on reversals, various spreads and how to read them, and quick keyword references for the cards.

Having just finished the "first edition." I printed all 130+ pages and popped them into a 3-ring binder. Because they are single-sided, I have plenty of space to write all over, as I discover personal meanings or simply want to make notes. I can highlight phrases or keywords that I find particularly powerful, and parenthesize those that don't seem to ring as true to me. (I've already found that the Etteilla interpretations speak to me the least of those I've included.)

To me, making my own handbook has multiple benefits:
- it allows me to gather wisdom from many sources and consolidate the parts that I connect with the most
- it forces me to connect deeply with the material, since I'm actually typing every word into a document, rather than just reading it on a page
- it's an ongoing process, as I will be continually updating and expanding
- I feel an intimate bond to the book itself, having put a great deal of time and energy into its creation

Has anyone else made something similar? Or thought about it? Any ideas of other sections/information that would be interesting to include?

Probably nearing the 600 page mark, double-sided, at this point.

When you get that bad, you may find that you have a few books there, so you might want to keep them organised--everything from symbolism to court reading techniques, spreads if you use them, dignities, meditations, contemplations, kabbala, fill-in-the-blanks-here, and break it into sections.

If you're anything like me--type it. I've got about 50 pages that are totally indecipherable. Fortunately I did put most of it on the computer, typed, pdf'd, printed, and it's in loose-leafs now, but there are still some hieroglyphics I can't crack (my handwriting's awful).

And you'll probably find that that's the book you keep going back to when you get stumped. And it will get bigger and bigger and bigger and...

mollymawk said:

Probably nearing the 600 page mark, double-sided, at this point.

When you get that bad, you may find that you have a few books there, so you might want to keep them organised--everything from symbolism to court reading techniques, spreads if you use them, dignities, meditations, contemplations, kabbala, fill-in-the-blanks-here, and break it into sections.

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Ooh...600 double-sided...that's impressive! I only hope I can reach that point one day.

And out of curiousity...what are dignities?

The short explanation for dignities is the way you assess the relative strength of a card in a spread. One of the most well-known systems goes by elements--air, fire, earth, and water, though there are other ways of doing it too.

In general:

Wands - Fire
Cups - Water
Disks - Earth
Swords - Air

So, depending on the positions, the question, etc., say if you got fire and water together it could be steam. Or it could be somebody throwing a bucket of water on your enthusiasm. Think in terms of how the elements interact, and that will show you dignities. The rules are not hard and fast.

Dignity

Mercurial said:

And out of curiousity...what are dignities?

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Just another thing to drive us all crazy! Here's a link that was recommended on an old thread discussing this:

http://www.tarotmoon.com/articles/Elemental_Dignities/elemental_dignities.html

I think Liz Hazel's book Tarot Decoded is still on sale over at Mondazzi's, too. I've just started reading it, but so far it's a very good explanation of dignities.

I can't vouch 100% for not having read all of it, but I have worked with Liz in the past, and she is very sharp on this stuff, as well as being an excellent writer. What I have read so far lays it out in a very logical way, so I don't think you'd go wrong picking that one up. She's not dogmatic about it, either. More like: This is how it works, and you get to decide which systems, if any, you want to use.

Elemental dignities are far less confusing than reversals once you get the hang of it, and in my experience, they show the relationship of the cards in a clearer way, and with more nuance. It's worth exploring if you haven't done already.

Think of what the elements do to each other. Think of the cards themselves, even just the pictures and elements without getting into the esoteric. And think what might happen when they come together. That's dignities.

mollymawk said:

Think of what the elements do to each other. Think of the cards themselves, even just the pictures and elements without getting into the esoteric. And think what might happen when they come together. That's dignities.

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Wow. How cool and intuitive! That's a such a concise and elegant explanation - you've really piqued my interest. I'm putting that book onto my shopping list, and the concept of dignities at the top of my list of tarot topics to delve into further. Plus, the link Debra gave above seems like a great place to start learning more right away (instant gratification is always fun).

Another tool to use

Several of us here on AT use a software product called TreeDBNotes. This s/w is like a word processor but with the addition of an "explorer-like" sidebar with topics/titles arranged (by you) into a hierarchal listing. You can create sections, chapters, background notes, symbol pages, resources and notes -- just about anything -- and can drag and rearrange the contents, or duplicate parts of them in other sections, as you need to.

The nice part is that anything you see on the Internet can be copied and pasted right into your document, later edited and placed where you need it. You can add in photos as well. There is a free, limited version available as well as the full program ($29.00 US). Dave